Taiwan upset the previously undefeated Samurai Japan team today in the finale of the 2024 Premier 12 tournament. Four Taiwanese pitchers combined to hold the volatile Japanese offense to no runs on just four hits while their offense scored four runs - three on a home run by tournament MVP Chen Chieh-hsien - on eleven hits. Taiwan takes the Gold, their highest finish in a major international tournament since their Silver Medal finish at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Three different teams have won each of the three Premier 12 tournaments now with South Korea winning in 2015, Japan in 2019 and now Taiwan in 2024.
The loss today ended Japan's 23 game winning streak in the top three international tournaments. This has constantly been reported as a 27 game winning streak but I think the extra four games are from last fall's Asian Professional Baseball Championship which, since it only involved four teams, really shouldn't count as a "major international tournament". To be honest, if you're going to count that then you really should count the Women's Baseball World Cup, the final round of which was last summer. Japan lost to the US in the last game of pool play before beating them again in the Gold Medal game, so the winning streak would have really been just nine games.
Two of the Taiwanese pitchers today had NPB experience. Winning pitcher Chang Yi relieved starter Lin Yu-min in the fifth inning and pitched three innings, striking out three while only giving up two hits. Chang spent seven years in Japan, playing under the name Yaku Cho. While he was born in Taiwan, he attended high school and college in Fukuoka which forced him to submit to the draft to enter professional baseball in Japan. He was the top pick of the Orix Buffaloes in the development player phase of the 2016 draft as an outfielder but he converted to pitching "unofficially" in 2018 before registering as a pitcher going into 2019. He was registered to the 70 man roster in early May of 2019 and made his ichi-gun debut a few weeks later. After the 2022 season, he moved to the Lions as compensation for Orix signing free agent Tomoya Mori and was released after an injury-filled 2023 season. He went into the CPBL draft last summer and was taken by the Fubon Guardians.
Chang was relieved by former Baystar and Marine Chen Kuan-yu. Chen pitched a perfect inning while striking out two batters. He attended high school and college in his home country so he was not subject to the NPB draft. He signed with the Baystars in 2011 although the team demoted him to the developmental roster the following year. He did not graduate from the ikusei ranks until 2014. DeNA released him after that year and he signed on with Lotte. He spent six years working out of the bullpen with Chiba before he decided to return to Taiwan due to family issues. He was the first pick of the Rakuten Monkeys in the 2021 CPBL draft.
Earlier today, Team USA defeated Venezuela in the Bronze Medal game with starting pitcher Casey Lawrence throwing six shutout innings, giving up just four hits while striking out seven. Lawrence had spent the 2019 season with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. He only got into one game with the top team but pitched in 21 games with the farm team.
Here are cards of all three pitchers:
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| 2017 BBM Rookie Edition #057 |
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| 2013 BBM Baystars #DB41 |
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| 2019 BBM 1st Version 171 |
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