With an expected sellout crowd looking to cheer on the home team, the Lamigo Monkeys are to host the Chinatrust Brothers in Game 1 of this year’s Taiwan Series at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium this afternoon.
A well-rested Primates squad, headed by skipper Hung Yi-chung, will be looking to claim their second title in three years after dominating the rest of the league in a strong first half that netted them a 39-2-19 record and a league-best 66-3-51 record for the entire season to earn home-field advantage against the second-half champs.
“Even though I’ll be playing in my fifth [Taiwan Series], I am just as nervous and anxious as anyone,” Hung said at yesterday’s pre-game press conference in Taipei.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
He is entering his fifth Taiwan Series as a manager after winning in two of his previous four attempts.
While the Primates might have the edge in terms of head-to-head competition against the Brothers, who lost 17 of their 20 first-half matches, the men in the golden uniforms have risen to the challenge lately, holding a slight 10-1-9 record versus the Monkeys in the second half to make it a much closer title series than the statistics might suggest.
“There is no doubt that [the Chinatrust Brothers] were a much different and better team in the second half,” Hung said last week after the Brothers secured the second-half title on the final day of the regular season.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
And with a trio of starters led by 11-game winner and the league’s ERA leader Cheng Kai-wen and including lefty Chris Cody, winner of a complete-game shutout over the Uni-President Lions in their regular season finale, the Brothers starting rotation could pose a serious test for Hung’s lineup, who are known more for their offensive production rather than their pitching.
Even though the Monkeys will get their chance to swing the bat, with sluggers Lin “Chubby Kid” Hung-yu and Lin Chih-sheng looking to drive in some runs, the surprise factor might be the Chinatrust offense, who feature Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min and Chang Cheng-wei, with the former expected to deliver clutch hits with his big-game experience and the latter looking to get on base from his leadoff spot to make use of his speed around the bases.
Also, the relief pitching should favor the Primates, whose bullpen is second-to-none with Chen Yu-hsun’s league-best 30 holds leading the way and ace closer Miguel Mejia on mop-up duty with 35 saves to his credit. Mejia will be out to show his former club how poor a decision it was not to extend his contract after spending a mediocre season with the Brothers in a starter’s role.
To counter the Monkeys’ bullpen, the Brothers will likely rely on their starters to go at least six innings to minimize their exposure in relief pitching, while looking to blow it open against the Lamigo starters early to lessen the burden on their bullpen.
“We’ll be okay if each and every one of us do our job,” Brothers manager Hsieh Chang-han said at the press conference.
He is to send Cody to the mound to take on the Monkeys’ Mitch Talbot in a showdown between a pair of hired guns in the all-important opener, where the winners have gone on to take the series in nine of the past 10 Fall Classics.
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