Taiwan’s national baseball team finalized a 36-player training roster that it would draw on to compete in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) qualifying round in Taipei later this month and began training for the event on Monday.
Of the 36 players, there are 19 pitchers, four catchers, eight infielders, including Taiwan’s star of the 2023 WBC Yu Chang, and five outfielders, while nine of the players compete abroad.
However, only two of the players — catcher Lin Chia-cheng and outfielder Chen Chieh-hsien, were on the team who won the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier12 championship in November last year.
Photo: CNA
The roster has to be whittled down to 28 for the Feb. 21 to 25 qualifying round at the Taipei Dome, but regardless of who plays, Taiwan would be heavily favored to advance to next year’s WBC finals.
To advance, Taiwan would have to take one of the top two places in a qualifying group that also includes Nicaragua, Spain and South Africa.
Neither Spain nor South Africa made it to the 2023 WBC finals, and a win by either nation over Taiwan, on a high after their Premier12 win and currently ranked world No. 3 by the WBSC, would be considered a massive upset.
The top 16 of the 20 teams in the 2023 WBC finals automatically qualified for next year’s edition of the top global baseball tournament that usually draws many of the game’s top stars.
Taiwan have to qualify because they finished last in their 2023 WBC group by virtue of tiebreakers after all five teams had a 2-2 record.
Of the nine players on the training roster who play overseas, eight are pitchers, including Zhuang Chen Zhong-ao, Sun Yi-lei, Lin Sheng-en and Sha Tzu-chen, while Cheng Tsung-che is an infielder.
Lin Sheng-en, 19, who plays in the Cincinnati Reds organization, was the only overseas player who reported for Monday’s training session, while the others are expected to report in between Monday and Friday next week, team manager Tseng Hao-jiu said.
Lin Chia-cheng, 27, is currently a free agent and in the US trying to negotiate a new contract and might not be available for the WBC qualifiers, CPBL president Tsai Chi-chang said.
Yu Chang was not able to play in the Premier12 tournament due to injury, but he said he is in good physical condition and would be ready for the games later this month.
Taiwan are to train for the WBC qualifiers at the Taipei Dome until Thursday next week and then at the Tianmu Baseball Stadium from Friday next week to Feb. 17.
Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chia-hung on Sunday topped the men’s horizontal bar event at the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) World Cup in Osijek, Croatia, scoring 15.233 to take his third title this season. Tang delivered an outstanding performance in the final, earning a difficulty score of 6.500 and an execution score of 8.633 with a 0.1 stick bonus. His closest competitor was Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan, who finished second with 14.933 points. It was Tang’s third gold medal in the FIG World Cup series this year, following his horizontal bar wins in Azerbaijan on March 8, and in Turkey on March
This year’s Taiwan Athletics Open, which offers Taiwanese athletes an opportunity to compete against their international peers, would be held under a new name after its organizers had earlier announced the event’s cancelation. In a statement issued yesterday, the Chinese Taipei Athletics Association said the competition would still take place on June 6-7 at Banciao Stadium, but under the name “New Taipei City Athletics Open 2026.” The event was given a new name to emphasize its local identity and conform with the international practice of naming World Athletics Tour events after cities, the association said. It said it would soon
Taiwan’s Lee Hao-yu on Friday went 0-for-3 in his MLB debut for the Detroit Tigers against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, becoming the 19th Taiwan-born player to reach the big leagues. The Tigers ultimately lost 1-0 in 10 innings, ending their six-game winning streak. The 23-year-old started at third base and batted eighth for Detroit. He was promoted from Triple-A Toledo ahead of the four-game series against the Red Sox at the latter’s home stadium, replacing injured utility player Zach McKinstry. “Being right-handed, and given our schedule, I think six of the next 12 games are going to
Denmark’s double Olympic badminton champion Viktor Axelsen, long a rival of Taiwan’s former world No. 2 Chou Tien-chen, yesterday announced his retirement at age 32, saying back problems meant he could no longer “compete and train at the highest level.” Axelsen, who won gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and again in Paris in 2024, had back surgery in April last year and said he had not overcome his physical issues. “Accepting this situation has been incredibly difficult,” he said in a statement. “But I have now reached a point where my body won’t allow me to continue.” Axelsen retires as one
RSS