The Brewster

2047 Rookie ball : Chinese Taipei Baseball Team



After finishing 10 games above .500 in their inaugural season and missing out on the post season by a single game, the Chinese Taipei went one better in 2047, they finished 20 games over .500 and became the first ever team in the Riyadh organisation to secure a post season berth. Almost all of the stars of their 2046 team had made the step up to South Guam, but they had still found enough promising youngsters in the draft and free agency to at least make this level seem easy. Maybe not many were looking like future UMEBAers, but enough to excite the lower reaches of our farm system.

June turned out to be a mediocre start as just one win in the final seven games in the month made a good month into a 13-13 .500 month. Taipei only went to extra innings four times this year and three (2-1) were in June. July started poorly too, 2-5 in the opening week, leaving them on a 3-11 streak. The penny suddenly dropped then, and Taipei only lost four more times in the month on the way to a 19-9 July record. A 14-4 win over Taiwan was their most runs scored so far in 2047 and had been closely preceded by two 13-run games against Changchun. Taipei blasted through August, the final month of the campaign, only losing two of the month’s 14 games. The final series of the season, at home to Shenyang, saw them reach the season’s highest score as they ran in 22 runs during the second game. In the whole three-game series Taipei outscored the Water Pigs 40-6.

Finishing second in the league, five games behind Hongkong, who had been 2046’s losing Championship finalists, Taipei would compete in the Championship Series against those Bombardiers, the first side at any level of the Riyadh organisation to reach the post season. We managed to win the opening two games in Hongkong but were unlucky to win only one of the three games that followed in Taipei. Leading 3-2 in the best of seven series Taipei headed for Hong Kong again with hopes of a Championship ring. Unfortunately, the Bombardiers won game 6 to force a Game 7, winner takes all, match-up. Things looked rough for Taipei as they were 1-9 down after four innings, We fought back and by the mid-seventh had pulled it back to 8-9. Taipei got a runner on in both the eighth & ninth innings, but just couldn’t get anything else done. They had taken Hong Kong to seven games and finally had fallen a run short.

21-yr-old Kenko Rin, a minor league free agent in his second season in Taipei, played in 58 games and scored 37 times, walked 42 times and only struckout 37 times. 21-yr-old DH Narihira Yamamoto hit 18 homers and drove in 51 runs and led the team with 113 total bases. The team’s 2047 #1 pick, 19-yr-old Jouo Rovanpera started slowly, but leant some defence at Second ,he still isn’t really an outstanding 2B or SS at this stage. . He did manage to hit 10 homers and build his average up from below .200 to nearly .240. He will finish the year in South Guam along with several of his rookie teammates.

2046’s #1 pick, 18-yr-old Steven Anderton, had a good sophomore season in Taipei, posting a 4-1 record from 12 starts with a 2.54 ERA, he too will spend the end of 2047 trying to crack A Ball. 21-yr-old minor league free agent Fletcher Buffy kept his WHIP below 1.00 and limited the opponents to hitting virtually nothing against him as he posted a 5-3 record in his 12 starts. Vatican City boy, Alba Gallino, now eighteen had headed for South Guam, but struggled there and eventually was sent back to Taipei. There he picked up again, posting a 3-1 record with a 0.95 ERA in four starts before heading back to South Guam after the rookie playoff games.