It didn’t take long.
Two weeks after his call up to the Boston Red Sox from the minor leagues, Tzu-Wei Lin is already being compared to his namesake to that other guy-Jeremy lin.
“Tzu-Wei Lin, Linnie, Linsanity? Boston Red Sox rookie getting job done no matter what name or nickname you call him,” the headline screamed in Mass Live.
“I think Tzu-Wei has been a pleasant surprise given the way he’s driven the baseball with the fair consistency he’s shown,” Red Sox Manager John Farrell said Monday to Mass Live.
Since joining the Sox from Double A Portland, the Taiwanese ball player has gone 9-for-25 (.360) with two triples, two RBIs, three walks and a .429 on-base percentage.
After laboring five years in the Red Sox farm system, Lin got the call up-leapfrogging Triple A and straight to the big club.
“I got the phone call from Carlos Febles (Portland’s manager),” Lin said to the Boston Globe. “[It was] after I got back to my place and he told me that I was coming to Boston instead of Pawtucket. I couldn’t believe that [had] happened.”
Lin was a career .241 hitter in the minor leagues, numbers that don’t usually get you a call up to the big leagues. The Sox, however, took notice of him this season when he batted .302 with a career-high five home runs. This followed a strong spring training season which apparently the Sox didn’t forget.
“I’ve tried to be comfortable and shorten my swing path,” Lin said. “[I’m] trying to finish every swing, be more aggressive, and see the pitches better.”
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