Around the Curve | Lifelong Passion For Baseball Drives Cheng On Path Through Altoona

Baseball has always long been the passion for Curve infielder Tsung-Che Cheng. Growing up in his native Taiwan, however, he initially ran into some resistance in his home.

“When I was in elementary school, I always wanted to play baseball, but my school didn’t have a team,” Cheng said ahead of the Saturday game of Altoona’s series at Akron in mid-May. “My parents would always say, play with your friends at the park and study instead. They felt like the path to professional baseball was so far away, and that I was just a kid that wanted to play a game.”

It’s understandable, just being good enough to play baseball at this level of this minor leagues in a massive accomplishment and requires intense skill, drive and individual development as a player. And it typically starts at a young age.

“When I was in elementary school I would still play baseball everyday. I would throw the ball at the wall like a pitcher. Then catch it like a catcher or throw groundballs to myself like an infielder,”

“I broke a lot of TV’s and a window,” Cheng said with a laugh. “One time I swung a bat missed the ball and I hit my mother in her head. She was very angry and threw all my equipment away.”

It was probably only a matter of time until he needed new equipment anyway, once Cheng reached middle school-age, he had a few choices of middle schools to attend, and he made sure to pick one with a baseball team.

From there, Cheng became as focused as he could on the game he loved, but he never really had a single favorite player growing up.

“It’s always changing. It was Bryce Harper, then Francisco Lindor, then Javier Baez and now it’s Shohei Ohtani,” Cheng said.

After making his way to Double-A in late-June last season, Cheng took a few weeks to get up to speed, but ended up being one of the Curve’s most reliable hitters down the stretch of the season where he had the longest on-base streak by an Eastern League Player; reaching in 17 straight games in late-July into early-August. Known as “Z” around the clubhouse, Cheng finished the 2023 season fourth among Pirates minor leaguers in runs scored (80), he also was tied-for-fourth in doubles (23), first in 3B (10), tied-for-seventh in stolen bases (26), and ninth in Batting Average (min. 250 PA) with a .278 mark. His 10 3B were tied-for-third-most among all minor league players.

All that set up Cheng for his 2024 season which began with having his name added to the Pirates 40-man roster in November and continued with an invite to Major League spring training.

“When I was in big league camp, I kinda feel like I did when I first came to America,” Cheng said. “Everything is new and I didn’t think that much, just come to the ballpark and play. Because of my four years’ experience in minor leagues, I knew how to focus and get ready to play.”

And while the 2024 season hasn’t exactly gotten off to a flying start for Cheng, like many members of the Curve, he has shown recent signs of his bat perking up. He batted just .159 in April, but has upped his average to .259 in the month of May in 17 games he’s also knocked his first two home runs of the season and ranks sixth in the Eastern League leaders in walks entering play on May 23 with 22.

A special thank-you to team translator Hagan Tan for his assistance in conducting this interview.

\**This story was printed in Volume 25 Issue 4 of the Curve Chronicle for the May 28-June 2 homestand.**