The San Diego Padres club on Thursday announced that it had signed 18-year-old Taiwanese right-hander Su Lan-hong.
Su has been assigned to the Padres Brown, the team’s affiliate in the Dominican Summer League, and is to wear the No. 11 jersey — the same number as Padres star pitcher Yu Darvish, who Taiwanese media have reported is Su’s idol.
Photographs released by the Padres on Thursday showed Su being welcomed into the organization by Darvish and team general manager A.J. Preller at Petco Park in San Diego, California.
Photo courtesy of Flight International Co
Su was signed under the team’s international bonus pool program and is set to begin his climb through the Padres’ system next year.
“We’re excited to add Su to the organization and look forward to helping him achieve his dream of becoming a major-league pitcher,” Padres scouting director Chris Kemp said in a statement. “Scouting him over the years has been a team effort, but recent looks from Po-hsuan Keng [former Taiwan player Keng Po-hsuan], Trevor Schumm [a scout] and Dave Post [Padres official] cemented our belief in Su as both a pitcher and teammate.”
Su’s signing marks the first time the southern California-based club has added a Taiwanese player to its roster since the signing of Sung Wen-hua in 2016.
Standing 1.88m tall, Su graduated from Kaohsiung Municipal Sanmin Senior High School.
He served as the closer for Taiwan’s U-18 national team at the World Cup in Okinawa, Japan, last month, posting a 2.46 ERA while holding opponents to a .192 batting average. He struck out 14 batters and walked three over 7-1/3 innings.
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