Taiwan Series in English: CPBL Baseball Vocabulary, Scores and Ballpark Conversation

“That walk-off hit last night was incredible!” Do you know how to share a moment like that with friends in English?

You don't need to memorise the whole rulebook to learn baseball English. Start with the CPBL games you already follow: learn to introduce the Taiwan Series, describe the score and pick up a few lines you'll actually use at the ballpark, and your love of the game becomes a way into speaking English.

This guide covers the Taiwan Series in English, baseball vocabulary, player positions, how to say the score and a game-day dialogue, so you don't just find a translation but also see how each word fits into a sentence.

What you'll learn: the Taiwan Series / CPBL in English | baseball English quick reference | batting and pitching words | fielding positions | score, innings and the count | walk-offs, comebacks and clinching the title | ballpark and cheering English | a practice dialogue | FAQ.

台灣大賽 is the Taiwan Series in English; 中華職棒 is the Chinese Professional Baseball League, abbreviated CPBL. The CPBL's English website uses Taiwan Series and Playoff Series to distinguish the championship series from the playoff round. (Source: CPBL English website)

League and event names follow the CPBL English website; the other terms are standard English.

Introduce the CPBL and the Taiwan Series in 3 sentences

CPBL stands for Chinese Professional Baseball League.
Use the full name once; after that, CPBL on its own is fine.

The Taiwan Series is the CPBL championship series.
A one-line answer when someone asks what the Taiwan Series is.

Do you want to watch the Taiwan Series with me?

When you're chatting with friends who don't know Taiwanese baseball, start with Taiwan's professional baseball league and then add the official name. That makes it easier for them to tell which league you mean.

Is the Taiwan Series the same as the World Series?

No. Don't turn the Taiwan Series into the World Series. Use Taiwan Series for the CPBL event; the World Series (世界大賽 in Mandarin) usually refers to MLB's championship. Both are championship series, but they are different events with different names.

What is 七戰四勝制 in English?

七戰四勝制 is a best-of-seven series. It generally means the series runs to at most seven games, and the first team to win four takes it.

It's a best-of-seven series.

The CPBL English website lists the Taiwan Series as best-of-seven. In some qualifying scenarios, the team with the better regular-season record starts with one win, so not every team begins from zero. Check the CPBL's official announcement for each season's format. (Source: CPBL English website)

Need one word fast? These 15 common terms give you the answer at a glance; for usage and example sentences, see the matching sections below.

Event names follow the CPBL English website; for common baseball terms, see the official MLB glossary.

All the example sentences below were written for teaching. Start with the ten words you see most often; there's no need to memorise everything at once.

Batting and getting on base: home run, hit, walk

For common batting terms and abbreviations, see the official MLB glossary; the example sentences are our own.

Tip: a hit doesn't only mean a home run. Singles, doubles, triples and home runs are all hits. If you want to stress that the ball went out of the park, hit a home run is more precise than got a hit.

Pitching and outs: strikeout, strike, ball

Strikeouts are commonly recorded as SO or K (see the official MLB glossary); MLB rules are not necessarily the same as the CPBL's rules for a given season.

Watch the word form: strikeout is a noun, strike out is a phrasal verb, and its past tense is struck out.

• When the pitcher gets the strikeout: The pitcher struck out the batter.
• When the batter is the one who goes down: The batter struck out.

Common pitch types in English

That slider was nasty!
In other words, that slider was really hard to hit.

If you only know nasty as “unpleasant”, this can be confusing: here it's fan slang praising a pitch for being tough to hit, not a comment on the pitcher's character.

The designated hitter is a batting role, not a fielding position. Also, 1B, 2B and 3B stand for positions on a fielding lineup, but in batting stats they can mean singles, doubles and triples, so check the context of the table.

A few more words that come up when talking about players:

• batter / hitter (打者): the player taking a turn at the plate.
• baserunner / runner (跑者): a player on base.
• starting pitcher / starter (先發投手): the pitcher who starts the game.
• relief pitcher / reliever (後援投手): a pitcher who comes in after the starter.
• closer (終結者): usually the reliever who protects a lead late in the game.
• umpire (裁判): the baseball official who makes the calls.

Who's the starting pitcher tonight?

He's my favorite shortstop.

In baseball you score runs, not points, and the game is played in innings. Mandarin uses the same word, 分, for both, which is why learners often say “points”. Get these two words right first and your descriptions will sound far less like a word-for-word translation.

“It's 3–2, and we're up by one”

We're leading three to two.
Give the leading team's score first.

We're up by one run.
Up by means ahead by.

We're down by two runs.
Down by means behind by.

The score is tied at two.
In other words, it's 2–2.

To say your team scored three runs, use We scored three runs.; to ask about the score, What's the score? sounds perfectly natural.

“Bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded”

It's the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and the bases loaded.

The count is three balls and two strikes.
This is also called a full count.

Note the order: Mandarin says 兩好三壞 (two strikes, three balls), but in English the count usually gives balls first, then strikes. Rather than just saying the numbers, beginners are better off saying balls and strikes out loud.

再見安打: walk-off hit

再見安打 is a walk-off hit, and 再見全壘打 is a walk-off home run. Under MLB's definition, a walk-off is when the home team takes the lead in the bottom of the ninth or in extra innings and the game ends on the spot. The Mandarin term literally means “goodbye hit”, but the English term has nothing to do with goodbye, and not every last hit of a game counts as a walk-off. (Source: MLB: Walk-off)

He hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth.

What a walk-off home run!

逆轉勝: come-from-behind win

A comeback victory is a come-from-behind win, or you can say a team came from behind to win.

They came from behind to win the game.

If they've only levelled the score and haven't won yet, say They tied the game. Don't jump ahead to won.

封王 / winning the title: win / clinch the championship

They won the Taiwan Series.

They clinched the championship.
The title is now certain.

clinch stresses that the title has been secured, not that it's merely likely. While the series is still going, you can say They're one win away from the championship.

Inviting a friend and finding your seats

• Do you want to go to a CPBL game this weekend?
• Which team do you support?
• I'm rooting for the home team.
• Where are our seats?
• Let's sit near the cheering section.
• Is this seat taken?

Describing the cheering at Taiwanese ballparks

There's no single English word for 應援, the organised cheering at Taiwanese ballparks. Depending on the situation, use cheering, chants, cheering section or cheer on the team; that's clearer than forcing one word to cover everything.

Fans chant and cheer to support their team.

Each player has a different cheer song.

The second sentence is a scenario example for describing how a particular team cheers. Whether every player really has their own song depends on the team and what happens at the ballpark, so adjust it to what you see rather than treating it as a rule for every team.

Big moments: what sounds natural to shout?

“好球” depends on the situation. For the umpire's call, the word is strike; to praise the pitcher, say Nice pitch!; to praise the defence, say Nice play!. Translated word for word, 好球 comes out as “good ball”, which English-speaking fans don't say, so learners should avoid using it as an all-purpose shout.

The dialogue below is fictional and written for practice; it is not a record of a real game.

Alex: What's the Taiwan Series?

You: It's the CPBL championship series. Want to watch a game with me?

Alex: Sure! Which team are you rooting for?

You: I'm rooting for the home team tonight.

Alex: What's the score?

You: It's tied at three. It's the bottom of the ninth, with a runner on second.

Alex: That was a great hit!

You: The runner scored! It's a walk-off hit! What a game!

You don't need to memorise it word for word. Swap in the team you support, the score and the inning, and you can use the dialogue for any game.

You can read baseball English, but can you actually talk about it?

Knowing the words is one thing; describing the score or a player's performance on the spot, or chatting with friends in English, is another.

Ambitious Learner's one-on-one online English lessons plan scenario-based practice around your level and what you need English for. Bring “I want to talk about baseball in English” to your needs discussion and work out the right practice direction with an advisor.

👉 Add our official LINE and practise saying baseball English out loud

Want to practise on your own? Role-play a baseball conversation with AI

You can also take today's words, such as Taiwan Series, home run, strikeout and walk-off hit, into a role-play with an AI. For example, paste this in:

Please play a friend from another country who is watching a CPBL game with me. Ask me in English about the score, which team I'm rooting for and what just happened. Ask only one question at a time, wait for my answer before continuing, and briefly correct my English. Label all scores and plays as fictional practice, and don't make up real game results.

Try answering first, read the corrections, then say the same sentence again. For more ideas, see Practising English with ChatGPT.

Learning English doesn't have to start with a textbook. You already care about the starting pitchers, the score, the cheer songs and the result, and all of these make great material for practising how to express yourself.

Next time you watch the CPBL or the Taiwan Series, try three small tasks:

1. Say the current score in English: We're leading three to two.
2. Describe a highlight in English: What a catch!
3. Introduce the series in English: The Taiwan Series is the CPBL championship series.

If you want to go from understanding the words to actually saying them in conversation, you can also bring familiar topics such as baseball, travel or work into your English practice.

Want to practise talking about the things you love in English? Tell Ambitious Learner (AL) your English level and the situations where you want to use English, and we'll work out the right practice direction together.

👉 Add AL's official LINE to discuss my English learning goals

Want to keep using English in everyday life? Pick a topic that interests you from AL's learning resources and practise the same way: look up the words → say one sentence → role-play a conversation.

• Everyday English Conversation: Practical Tips for Speaking Fluently
• Practicing English with ChatGPT: Use an AI English Partner to Boost Your Speaking and Exam Skills

• CPBL English website: Current Season Structures: the league's English name and the Taiwan Series and Playoff Series formats.
• Official MLB baseball glossary: batting, pitching and stat abbreviations and terms. Used here for English learning; it does not mean MLB rules are the same as CPBL rules.
• MLB: Walk-off: the definition of a walk-off.