Uni-President Lions 300 000 100 4 9 1 Rakuten Golden Eagles 010 000 000 1 4 1
The Uni-President Lions and the Canberra Cavalry will meet in the final of the 2013 Asia Series “International Tournament of Champions“ at Intercontinental Stadium in Taichung, Taiwan on Wednesday. The game will be streamed live on YouTube. Uni-President stunned top favorite Golden Eagles 4-1 behind a complete game effort by former Major Leaguer Nelson Figueroa.
In a matchup of the champions from Chinese Professional Baseball League and Nippon Professional Baseball, the Lions got off to a great start. They took a quick 3-0 lead in the first and never looked back. Figueroa allowed just four hits in nine scoreless innings. Only S. Masuda was able to score against him, when R. Hijirisawa drove him in in the second. However this was the only time they would come through. In the end the runs for C.H. Lin, F.H. Liu, W.H. Pan and K.C. Kao made the difference.
Rakuten’s starting pitcher S. Miyagawa allowed five hits and three runs in one-plus innings, as H. Katayama replaced him in the second.
The Canberra Cavalry had defeated the Samsung Lions in the first semi-final of the Asia Series 2013 on Monday. Fortitudo Bologna, as the first ever European participant in the event, and the EDA Rhinos were eliminated during the preliminary phase.