Taiwan's baseball fans have little time to catch their breath from the nation's team winning silver at the Asian Games in South Korea, with the CPBL Championship Series getting underway in Tienmu this evening.
The Brother Elephants will take on the Chinatrust Whales in the first of the seven-game series starting at 5.05pm in Tienmu Stadium.
The Elephants won both half-season titles this year, giving them an automatic one-game head start in the series. The Whales won the right to take on the Elephants by getting the second highest winning percentage during the season.
At a press conference yesterday, both teams expressed confidence in winning.
"The ultimate goal for us is to win three titles this year: the first-half, the second-half and the championship," said Hsiao Ren-wen (
The Elephants won the title last year by defeating the President Lions 4-3, making them the second club in CPBL history to collect four championship rings in 13 years of professional baseball in Taiwan.
But the Whales dis-missed the Elephants' dominance throughout this season.
"Winning the half-season title or not is irrelevant to us at this moment," said Whales pitcher Sung Chao-chee (
Sung collected 16 wins with 183 strikeouts and has the lowest ERA at 2.13. He tops all three pitching categories in the league. Sung was also on the roster of the Chinese Taipei team that won silver at the Asian Games this week.
Elephants manager Lin Yee-tseng (林易增) and Whales manager Lin Chung-chiu (林仲秋) were also at the press conference yesterday to announce their starting line-ups.
Japanese pitchers will start for both teams tonight, with Nakagomi Shin (15-9, ERA 3.26) of the Elephants facing Nakayama Hiroaki (12-10 ERA 2.80) for the Whales.
Jonathan Hurst (16-8, ERA 2.65) of the Elephants will face Kao Chien-san (
Tonight's game will be the first playoff game held in the 10,000-seat Tienmu Stadium, which opened to professional baseball on May 11.
Tickets are sold out for Game 1, but there are still tickets available for Game 2 in Hsinchuang Stadium, Taipei County.
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