By Jason Pan, in Chinese Taipei
The Lamigo Monkeys captured the 2012 CPBL championship title, after they edged the Uni-President Lions 3-2 at their home ballpark in Game 5 of Taiwan Series.
With dominant pitching and batters coming through with key hits, the Taoyuan City-based Lamigo team overpowered the Tainan City-based Lions with 4 wins against only one loss through five contests in the best-of-seven Taiwan Series.
Lamigo’s American closer Paul Phillips was outstanding through the series, as he came in late situations to preserve the win. He tied CPBL championship finals record with 3 saves in the series.
Clean-up man and shortstop Lin Chih-Sheng (“Big Brother”) for Lamigo Monkeys got the nod for the Series MVP Award, with his 3 homers and 7 RBIs through 5 games.
In Game 5 on Thursday, Lamigo right-hander pitcher Tseng Chao-Hao tossed 6 innings, yielding 2 runs on 4 hits, to pick up the title-clinching victory.
His teammates scored one run in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th frames, while the relieving staff shut down the Lions attack after their two runs in the 1st inning.
In Game 4 on Wednesday, it was a two-run margin, with the Monkeys exploding for 5 runs in the decisive 5th inning for the 7-5 triumph.
In Game 3 on Tuesday, the Uni-President Lions got their only victory behind a sterling effort by Pan Wei-Lun (“Du Du”), who was recovering from an injury and rested for most of this year.
He gave the Uni-President team a chance to win, gave up only 2 runs through 6 innings against the power-hitter line-up of the Lamigo Monkeys. The Lions had their offense going with 11 hits, on way to subdue the Monkeys 9-3.
For the series starting games in the previous weekend, the Lamigo batters got timely hits to beat up on the Lions with a pair of victories, 4-1 in Game 1 and 6-4 in Game 2.
Winning the championship crown for 2012, Lamigo Monkeys as the top team of CPBL earn the berth to the Asia Series – to host by KBO and Busan City of South Korea.
Lamigo team will face off against the titlist teams from Korea, Japan, Australia, and China to determine the baseball club champions of the Asia Pacific Region.
