Asia Pro Baseball Championship: NPB star player Dai-Kang Yang (Yoh) headlines young Chinese Taipei roster

TAIPEI – Rolling out a new Chinese Taipei brand identity and uniform, the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) “Taiwan Dog” squad will make its debut at the inaugural WBSC-sanctioned Asia Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) Presented by ENEOS.

The Chinese Taipei U-24 25-man roster will be captained by Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Taiwanese star player Dai-Kang Yang of the Yomiuri Giants. Kang, 30 years of age, is one of the three overage players whom CPBL selected to reinforce the team against higher ranked Japan (world No. 1) and Korea (No. 3). Yang was a key member of the Chinese Taipei National Team at the 2015 WBSC Premier12 and 2013 World Baseball Classic.

In addition to Yang, pitchers Kuan-Yu Chen of NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines and Yu-Hsun Chen of CPBL’s Lamigo Monkeys were also selected as overage players.

Po-Jung Wang of the Lamigo Monkeys will be a dangerous weapon on offense for Chinese Taipei.  Wang was named 2017 CPBL Most Valuable Player, as he led in an unprecedented seven batting categories.

“We have a young team, so we need an experienced player [like Yang] to lead,” said Chinese Taipei manager I-Chung Hong, who is also the Lamigo Monkeys’ skipper. “I hope these young players will benefit from this experience, so they won’t back down during international games like this.”

Chinese Taipei will play three exhibition games with NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines at Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium before arriving in Tokyo on 14 November.

WBSC will live-stream all APBC games at www.youtube.com/wbsc (subject to geo-blocking), while fans in Taiwan will be able to watch on FTV, Elta TV and CPBLTV.

• Thu, 16 Nov: KOR v JPN at 7:00p
• Fri, 17 Nov: TPE v KOR at 7:00p
• Sat, 18 Nov: JPN v TPE at 6:30p
• Sun, 19 Nov: FINAL: 1° v 2°  at 6:00p