Pounding out 16 hits off four different pitchers, the Los Angeles Dodgers easily defeated a Taiwan Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) All-Stars team 11-1 at the Kaohsiung County Baseball Stadium in the final game of their exhibition tour yesterday afternoon.
The sellout crowd of nearly 20,000 got their money’s worth after Saturday’s disappointing rainout in Taipei as their major league heroes showed off their lethal bats against the local boys in a lopsided victory to even the record for what ended up being a two-game series at one win apiece.
Manny Ramirez led the visitors by going an awesome three-for-four at the plate, while Jamey Loney added an RBI-triple and a pair of singles to account for nearly half of the Dodgers’ hits.
PHOTO: CNA
Tainan native Dodger infielder Hu Chin-lung also made his country proud by belting off three hits on the day, including a double to left-center in the top of the ninth that brought the crowd to its feet.
To top it all off was Trayvon Robinson’s two-run blast to dead-center off Taiwanese reliever Lin En-yu after Hu’s double in the ninth that was a perfect ending to the Dodgers’ visit.
The Dodgers drew first blood in the opening frame by plating three quick runs off CPBL All-Star starter Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen of the Uni-President Lions on the strength of a walk, a single and Loney’s triple.
The home hosts would answer in the bottom of the same inning when Chang Jien-ming led off the inning with a double down the third base line off Dodger starter Josh Towers and scored two batters later when Lin Yi-chuan grounded into a double-play.
While Towers quickly settled into the groove after a shaky first by retiring all but one of the next seven hitters he faced to earn the win, Pan continued to struggle as he allowed two more runs over the fifth of a total of nine hits to be tagged with the loss.
The three Taiwanese relievers did not fare any better after Pan was replaced, each surrendering a pair of runs to a potent Dodgers lineup.
Even though the outcome of the game did not favor the CPBL All-Stars after their 5-2 win over the Dodgers in Game One of the series on Friday, the exhibition series can be considered a success, despite Saturday’s rainout, as the passion for and knowledge of baseball demonstrated by the local fans has certainly impressed the visiting Major Leaguers.
“It was a good game for us … I really appreciate the passion and the energy that they [the fans] bring to the ballpark,” Dodgers coach Joe Torre said after the game.
The Dodgers left for the US directly from Kaohsiung after last night’s game to resume their spring training schedule in preparation for the upcoming regular season.
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