Tigers rookie Hao-Yu Lee had himself a night on Monday: The rookie second baseman went 3-for-3 with two walks -- reaching base all five times -- and driving in two runs in the Tigers' 8-5 win against the Pirates. Along the way, Lee put himself in the record books: The New Taipei, Taiwan native's five times on base broke Yu Chang and Tzu-Wei Lin's single-game record of four times on base for a Taiwanese player.
Lee also set the single-season hits record for a Taiwanese player. His first inning RBI single gave him 55 hits, one more than Chang's single-season mark of 54, which he set with Cleveland in 2021.
Lee has a chance of breaking a few more of Chang's records. Chang, who won Pool A MVP at the 2023 World Baseball Classic and played pivotal roles for the team at the 2025 Qualifiers and in the Tokyo pool this past spring, has the single-season marks for a Taiwanese player in home runs (9), RBIs (39) and runs (32) -- all marks that Lee could pass with a strong finish to the season. Entering Tuesday's action, Lee has six home runs, 30 RBIs and 21 runs.
While Taiwanese pitchers have historically found more big league success than their offensive counterparts -- Chien-Ming Wang finished second in Cy Young Award voting in 2006, Hung-Chih Kuo went to the 2010 All-Star Game and Wei-Yin Chen won 59 games over the course of an 8-year big leaguer career, with multiple young Taiwanese arms signing deals this year -- this is a sign of Taiwan's continued baseball development.
Chinese Taipei's baseball team won its first senior-level tournament at the 2024 Premier12 and defeated Korea for the first time at the World Baseball Classic in a 10-inning thriller in March. Lee was expected to be a member of that team, but had to pull out late because of an oblique injury.