S Korea knocks Taiwan off perch

It was a good fight, but South Korea was too strong yesterday and knocked Taiwan off its perch with a 4-3 victory to become Asia's No. 1 baseball nation.

Taiwan had held the honor after coming in third to Cuba and the US last November when it hosted the Baseball World Cup, but South Korea had home-park advantage in Busan last night and added more gold to its Asian Games coffers.

Sajik Baseball Stadium -- home of the Lotte Giants -- was surprisingly only half full, though there was a vocal contingent of Taiwanese fans lodged behind the TV cameras who made their presence known throughout the game.

Taiwan Coach Yang Shien-ming (楊賢銘) told the Taipei Times after the game he was not too disappointed at losing to South Korea because few people had expected more of his team.

"Before we came we knew that they [South Korea] would be put-ting out the strongest team they could, but actually we had a good chance of beating them," Yang said.

"I was surprised at the strength of [winning pitcher] Lim Chang-yong. He's pretty good stuff and an excellent pitcher who did well against us."

Lim responded by saying, "Taiwan was very strong. I knew they were good because we have played them before but I think they surprised us a little. They were even better than we thought."

The game began with a duel between Taiwan's ace Tsai Chung-nan (蔡仲南) and his opposing pitcher, Park Myung-hwan, but Hong Sung-heon of South Korea was the early difference between the two sides and got the hit that led to South Korea's first run.

It was achieved with some controversy, however, as Hong's hit to left field looked to have been returned to the catcher in time to prevent the Korean runner from getting home. But the plate umpire called it safe and South Korea went one up in the bottom of the second.

Taiwan briefly silenced the home crowd in the third, however, replying with two runs from a fielding mistake to right field and a drive to center that saw home Hong I-chung (洪一中) and Chen Chih-yuan (陳致遠).

In the fourth, Hong hit deep into right field and was then sent home by Kim Jong-kook's line drive down the left. The Korean cheerleading team went into overdrive and Tsai was mistakenly pulled from the lineup and replaced on the mound by lefty Kuo Hong-chih (郭泓志).

Kuo immediately fell apart and ended up walking the Korean batter to give up a third run. Coach Yang immediately took him out and the ball was handed to Lin Yueh-ping (林岳平).

But the nightmare fourth inning was still not over and a dropped flyball and a catcher's mistake handed South Korea its fourth run to lead 4-2 going into the fifth.

Both sides cancelled each other out in the following innings and there was no score until the eighth, when Korean lefty Song Jin-woo took over from winning pitcher Lim Chang-yong and Wang Chuan-chia (王傳家) was driven home by a hit to right-center field from Hsieh Chia-shian (謝佳賢).

Song took his revenge on first baseman Tsai Feng-an (蔡豐安), hitting Tsai hard on the leg but giving up a walk. With runners on first and second, Hong stepped up to the plate but tamely knocked the ball back to the pitcher to end Taiwan's eighth inning and leave the score finely balanced at 4-3 in South Korea's favor.

"Peace, Korea" rang out round the stadium, but Taiwan dismissed South Korea easily in the bottom of the eighth to set up a final inning finale.