EDA Rhinos slugger Lin Yi-chuan set a new Taiwanese professional baseball record over the weekend, reaching the 1,000-hit mark in the fewest games and with the fewest appearances at the plate.
Lin hit a single in the sixth inning to become the fastest player to get 1,000 hits during his side’s encounter with the Chinatrust Brothers at his home park in Kaohsiung on Saturday night.
It took him 744 games and 3,168 at-bats to accomplish the feat, which broke the previous fastest marks of 837 games by Lin Chih-sheng of the Lamigo Monkeys and 3,469 at-bats by Peng Cheng-min of the Chinatrust Brothers.
The left-handed Lin Yi-chuan, dubbed “One Punch” by fans, also goes into the record books as the 16th CPBL player to join the 1,000-hit club.
The EDA Rhinos rely on first baseman Lin to fire up their offense, as he not only hits the best average, but is also a home run threat.
Lin Yi-chuan’s next goal is trying to top the 100-homer hurdle this year, since he has accumulated 92 career round-trippers so far, 15 of them this season.
Breaking into CPBL with the Sinon Bulls in 2009, Lin Yi-chuan quickly made a big impact by winning both the Rookie of the Year and the league’s Most Valuable Player awards, after 169 hits, 113 RBIs, 18 home runs and a .348 batting average.
Through the past six seasons he has always surpassed the 100-hit mark and has been among the leaders in RBIs, home runs and batting average.
His wife and family members were on hand to witness the accomplishment on Saturday, but the Rhinos could not cap the achievement with a win as they were blanked 4-0 by the Brothers.
“It’s a great feeling to set a new league hits record, but unfortunately our team still lost tonight. I cannot relax and must stay focused to get winning results, because our team has the goal of taking the second-half title,” Lin Yi-chuan said after the game.
In Friday’s contest, the Brothers edged the Rhinos 6-5 at Kaohsiung’s Cheng Ching Lake Baseball Stadium.
Their game on Sunday was washed out by rain and has been rescheduled to a later date.
The Brothers’ streak of hitting home runs was stopped at 15 games on Thursday last week.
In the other CPBL matchup over the weekend, the slumping Uni-President Lions finally woke up from their malaise when they swept the series against the Lamigo Monkeys.
The Monkeys could not contain the roaring Lions, as they prevailed 8-7 and 8-5 on Friday and Saturday respectively.
The series finale saw the Lions batters knock around the Monkeys’ pitchers for 20 hits, coasting to a 16-4 triumph at the Tianmu Baseball Stadium in Taipei on Sunday.
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