Japan’s NPB West lift winter baseball trophy in Taichung

By Jason Pan / Staff reporter





In the final of the Asia Winter Baseball League, NPB West won an all-Japanese showdown against NPB East 6-1 to claim the title at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium yesterday.

Shota Suzuki of the Chunichi Dragons was outstanding in his starting assignment, pitching five scoreless innings and pocketing the win as NPB West lifted the trophy.

In the battle for third place, Taiwan’s National Trainees scored one run in the eighth inning to edge South Korea 7-6 in yesterday’s afternoon encounter.

The Trainees used 10 pitchers to just barely contain the explosive South Korea offense as the visitors hit two homers to go 5-2 ahead after two innings.

Slowly chipping away at the lead, the Trainees cranked out 12 hits, while South Korea had seven, as the hosts eventually prevailed.

Team captain Chen Chung-yu said his players were happy to finish with a victory and take third place.

“It made up for yesterday’s semi-final loss to Japan’s NPB West. The mood was very low, because they came back to take the win from us, so today I encouraged the players to put in all their effort and to fight hard from beginning to end,” Chen said. “We have improved by competing against these strong foreign teams, especially their long-ball power. We saw from today and yesterday, the Japanese and Koreans both hit a couple of home runs. We should learn from their power hitting, because they made it look so easy.”

In the semi-finals on Saturday, right-hander Yuri Furukawa pitched a gem for the NPB East as they beat South Korea 4-1.

Furukawa went eight innings to give up only one run on four hits, while striking out eight.

South Korea led 1-0 before NPB East second baseman Yasuhiro Yamamoto ripped a triple to drive in two runners in a three-run rally in the fifth frame. The Japanese side added one insurance run late on.

The other semi-final was a slugfest between the Trainees and Japan’s NPB West, as the batters feasted on poor pitching and the two sides combined for 23 runs and 30 hits.

The Trainees led 10-8 heading into bottom of the eighth, but the experienced Japanese players stormed back to tag Taiwanese reliever Lu Yen-ching for two big home runs in a dramatic comeback win.

Outfielder Masataka Yoshida first slammed a three-run dinger, then two batters later Kazuhiro Koyama hit an inside-the-ballpark home run to claim a 13-10 victory.

In the playoff for fifth place, starter Hong Hsin-chi tossed five scoreless innings to lead CPBL Select in a 13-0 blowout of Europe United.

Hong, a rookie pitcher for the Uni-President Lions, got the win for the shutout, as his teammates scored four runs through the opening three frames, then added another five runs in the fifth to go 9-0 ahead.

Thereafter, five relievers closed the door on Europe United, who had seven hits, but also committed four errors in the loss.

Outfielder Chan Tzu-hsien of the Brothers Baseball Club had three hits and drove in three RBIs.

“Through the winter league play, I have worked on my pitching and made adjustments,” Hong said. “My fastball and curveball were quite effective today. So it was a good performance for the coaches to see that I am ready for professional league games.”