In preparation for the upcoming Asia Professional Baseball Championship, the CPBL U-24 team will play 3 exhibition games against NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines from 10th to 12th of November 2017.
MLB Taiwan tour cancelled. NPB invited instead
With the cancellation of the 2017 MLB All-Star Taiwan tour, CPBL was able to invite NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines to Taiwan with only a third of the original allocated funding. The 3-game exhibition series will be held in Taoyuan stadium.
According to Chiba Lotte team president 山室晉 (Shinya Yamamuro), the team will named its new manager in October, and this exhibition series in Taiwan will be his first test as the skipper.
“It’s good to bring the team back to Taiwan once again. The city of Taoyuan and Monkeys fans has left us with a strong impression after our 2014 trip. 鈴木大地 (Daichi Suzuki) will lead the 2017 Lotte team, and despite this being an exhibition series, we will do our very best and have the win them all mentality going into this” Said Chiba Lotte team president Shinya Yamamuro at the press conference.
Exhibition Series format
During the press conference, CPBL commissioner 吳志揚 (Wu Chih-Yang) mentioned the exhibition series will use the official NPB ball and will have the WBSC’s extra inning tiebreaker rule, where in the extra inning starts with runners on first and second with no outs when each team comes to the plate.
Not the first time Chiba Lotte Marines in Taiwan
This is not the first time Chiba Lotte Marines working with CPBL. As there has been a lot of exchange between Lamigo Monkeys and Chiba Lotte Marines since 2014.
Apart from the annual exhibition games during spring training, Lamigo Monkeys have been sending their prospects to Chiba Lotte fall camp in Japan the last couple seasons. Below is the 2014 Power Series event highlight.
Further Reading:
- 2017 Power Series (Spring Training) Lamigo Monkeys roster.
- 2016 Power Series Highlight 1
- 2016 Power Series Highlight 2
- 2014 Power Series Highlight
- Our potential pitcher list for Team Taiwan, Japan and Korea.
- Our Team Taiwan final 25-man roster predictions.
- Team Korea roster announcement.
- Team Taiwan to face NPB Chiba Lotte Marines for 3 practice games.
