First Perfect Game in CPBL History: Ryan Verdugo
27 up, 27 down and a walk-off home run, the Uni-Lions’ LHP Ryan Verdugo has become the first pitcher to throw a perfect game in 29 years of the CPBL history.
Verdugo cruised through nine innings efficiently with only 92 pitches and a 67% strike rate against the Brothers’ lineup. Out of the total 27 outs, there were 8 strikeouts, 8 fly-outs and 11 ground-outs.
“That was a team win, everyone made plays and Kuo came up big in the end with a walk-off home run,” said Ryan Verdugo in the post-game interview.
You can not write a better script than this. #UniLions' Ryan Verdugo pitched 9 perfect innings and his teammates 郭阜林 (Kuo Fu-Lin) finished the game with a walk-off home run. Final score, Uni-Lions 1 : Brothers 0.
Verdugo's final line: 9IP, 0ER, 0H, 0BB, 8K, 92 pitches. #CPBL pic.twitter.com/0PvKnmW2vb
— CPBL STATS (@GOCPBL) October 7, 2018
Walk-Off Home Run to Secured the Perfect Game
In a hitter’s league like the CPBL, usually, this should be more than enough to win the game. However, the score was still 0-0 when Verdugo retired the final hitter in the top of the ninth, and it will be up to the Uni-Lions’ lineup to save the day.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Uni-Lions’ 郭阜林 (Kuo Fu-Lin) wasted no time, as he ripped a hanging breaking pitch over the centre field wall and secured the perfect game for Ryan Verdugo.
“I wanted to drive the ball to the outfield,” said Kuo Fu-Lin, who hit the walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth. “Verdugo pitched so well tonight, and we must back him up as teammates.”
It is worth noting that this is Kuo’s first career walk-off home run in the CPBL. More importantly, Ryan Verdugo’s perfect game tonight could be the first “Walk-Off Perfect Game” in the world.
“Verdugo has done well tonight. It’s the perfect ending for our final home game at the Tainan Stadium,” said the Uni-Lions’ manager Huang Kan-Lin. “This is going boost the team’s confidence going into the playoffs.”
Starting from October 19, the Uni-Lions will take on the Fubon Guardians for a best-of-five series. The winner will advance to the Taiwan Series and face the Lamigo Monkeys on October 27.
One thing that I enjoy about following baseball is that while so many games are played every year, year after year, which are in one sense all basically very similar, something new and unexpected does happen every season, at least if someone is paying enough attention to keep track and let the world know when something has happened that has never happened before.
I collected MLB baseball cards as a kid (do they sell CPBL baseball cards in Taiwan? There are certainly NPB baseball cards). I always enjoyed getting the half dozen or so cards each season which told you what new record had been set. Sometimes the record set or broken was a bit underwhelming, but they were still always interesting.
This is why I love baseball, full of surprises. A league that rare get a no-hitter and suddenly we have 2 no-no and 1 perfect game. And it is one of those “Walk-Off Perfect Game”.
Yeah, they do have CPBL baseball cards in Taiwan, started in CPBL year 2 or 3 I believe. I used to collect them when I was a kid maybe 20 or so years ago. I sort of started again this year, I bought 10 packs earlier this year just for fun.
https://imgur.com/1Qo7tzv Here is a Mike Loree one I got from the 2017 (2016) batch. The CPBL cards are always 1 year behind, why? I am not sure, but it is always been like that.
Chris, one of the contributor on this blog got some decent collections of the vintage CPBL cards, maybe I will get him to send me some photos and will do a post about it.
One thing to be said for a 4-team is that it’s a lot easier to collect the baseball cards. When I was collecting MLB cards as a kid, the annual sets got up to 700 to 800 cards. It was nearly impossible to collect an entire set by buying individual packs. By about 1980 it was fairly easy to buy the entire set at one time, but that kind of killed the fun of buying packs and seeing what you got.
Haha, I’m not at that level of “collecting”. Just buy a few packs a year and hoping I get some cool looking cards out of it. Very casual about it. I kind of wish I still have it, not sure where I put them.
There are two type of kids. Kids who put their cards in a binder and take good care of them, or kids like me who cut up baseball cards, put them inside their pencil case or swipe it on friends butt crack when the opportunity arises.
I didn’t start taking care of my cards until I reached the age of about 12 and stopped collecting in any serious way a few years later. After that I would just buy packs some years when I felt like buying a few or a few dozen. I still have the cards, however, and I’m hoping that one day they will help me put my daughter through college starting about 13 years from now.
The Miami Marlins dropped RHP Tyler Cloyd off their 40-man roster, which probably means he’ll be a free agent soon. Cloyd pitched in the KBO in 2015, and he’ll be 32 next season. He looks a lot like a pitcher who could be pitching in the CPBL in 2019.
I bookmarked that article of yours “Go east not so young man” the other day. Would be interesting to see if any of them end up landing a contract in Asia. Also, with the new KBO “new foreign players salary cap” would be interesting to see what happen.