Young Taiwanese star makes leap to majors. (Baseball).

With its history of dominance on the Little League field, you might expect Taiwan to have fielded more major leaguers. But last Friday, Rockies righthander Chin-hui Tsao became only the second Taiwanese player to play in a big-league game and the first to pitch. Dodgers outfielder Chin-Feng Chen debuted last September, also at Coors Field.

Tsao, 22, was called up from Class AA Tulsa on July 22 after Denny Neagle went on the 15-day disabled list because of an elbow injury.

Tsao threw 100 pitches and left the game after 6 1/3 innings. He allowed three runs and eight hits, struck out five and walked one in the 7-3 victory against the Brewers. He rebounded nicely after allowing a leadoff home run to Eric Young on his second big-league pitch.

"The thing we will have to monitor is his usage because he already has pitched more innings than he has in the past--but we're not going to handle him with kid gloves," manager Clint Hurdle says.

Hurdle says he wasn't concerned about Tsao making the jump from Class AA to the big leagues. "We like to have our pitchers pitch in (Colorado) Springs (the club's Class AAA affiliate) with the altitude, but this guy's pitched through a lot of other things ...