Wen-Hsiung Hsu

Wen-Hsiung Hsu (許文雄)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 232 lb.

• High School Gao-Yuan Commercial Industrial Vocational School

• Born December 15, 1978 in Kaohsiung County Taiwan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Wen-Hsiung Hsu pitched in the CPBL and the TML for 9 seasons.

Hsu began his professional career with the 2001 Kaoping Fala, going 4-4 with a save and a 4.28 ERA. In 2002, he went 6-7 with a save and a 2.78 ERA. He was third in the Taiwan Major League in ERA, trailing Chin-Chih Huang and Koshi Muto. With the TML merging with the Chinese Professional Baseball League in 2003, Hsu went 5-11 with a save and a 3.74 ERA for First Financial Holdings Agan. In 2004, he was 1-7 with a 5.24 ERA after moving to the La New Bears. The next season, Hsu improved to 4-5 with 6 saves and a 2.56 ERA. He was named the starter of the final game of the 2006 Asia Series, and he pitched 6 shutout innings. The Bears still lost to the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters with a 1-0 score and won Silver.

The Kaohsiung native made his Taiwan national team debut in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. he did not do well, allowing four runs in 1/3 of an inning. He entered in the 5th against the Japanese national team, replacing Ying-Feng Tsai with a 5-1 deficit. He struck out Akinori Iwamura but then things went south. Michihiro Ogasawara tripled and Tomoya Satozaki singled him in. Munenori Kawasaki walked as did Ichiro Suzuki. Sung-Wei Tseng relieved and allowed two inherited runs to score, leaving Hsu with a 108.00 ERA for the event.

In the 2006, Wen-Hsiung was 2-4 with 3 saves and a 2.94 ERA for the Bears. The next season, Hsu was 5-4 with a 4.11 ERA. He saved game six of the 2007 Taiwan Series. He has a 3.20 ERA after 16 games in 2008 and was put on Taiwan's roster for the 2008 Olympics despite his poor international showing before that. Hsu was 0-1 with a 3.60 ERA in Beijing. Against Japan, he allowed a solo homer to Shinnosuke Abe and nothing further in five innings in a no-decision. He also went 4 scoreless against Team USA before extra-base hits by Dexter Fowler, Brian Barden and John Gall led to a couple runs. He was 10-4 with a 2.89 ERA in 2008, ranking 5th in ERA (.58 behind Yu-Cheng Liao), 7th in strikeouts (37 behind Fu-Te Ni) and 5th in wins (10 behind Mike Johnson). However, Hsu slumped to 8-11 with a 5.20 ERA in 2009, and he was involved in a game-fixing scandal. The league then banned him for life.

Overall, Hsu was 45-57 with a 3.68 ERA, struck out 666 and pitched 916 innings in 9 seasons in the CPBL and TML.

Hsu throws a slider, changeup, curveball and fastball (timed at 92 mph).

Sources

• CPBL Player Page
• Baseball Wiki (in Chinese)
• CBS Sportsline play-by-play for Hsu's 2006 WBC appearance
• 2008 Olympics