Cleanup hitter Chen Chin-feng's (
Both teams came into the match looking for the decisive second victory of the three-game tournament that would guarantee the winner a trip to Athens for the 2004 Olympic games. As expected, Japan walked away with the win.
Taiwan just came off of a dramatic 5-4 come-from-behind victory in 10 innings against South Korea the night before.
PHOTO: AFP
The game with Japan began with the Japanese taking a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second on first baseman Ogasawa Michihiro's sharp grounder up the middle off Taiwanese starter Hsu Ming-jeh (
The hosts then pounded out two more runs against Hsu before he was pulled from the game in the bottom of the third inning.
Reliever Pan Wei-luen (
While the Taiwan pitching staff struggled against the Japanese hitters, starting pitcher Matsuzaka Daisuki he struck out a total of 12 batters in seven innings of play.
Besides yielding two harmless singles and a double, two of which were to Chen Chin-feng, Matsuzaka was nearly flawless.
The star of Taiwan's victory over South Korea, Chen Chih-yuan (陳致遠), whose game-tying single in the bottom of the ninth breathed life into Taiwan, was silenced by Matsuzaka as he stuck out in all four of his plate appearances.
"We knew this guy [Matsuzaka] was going to be tough, but no one expected him to be as dominant as he was tonight," Taiwan Manager Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明) said after the game.
"The gap between what we had expected and what actually happened was simply too great."
If Taiwan can beat a much weaker Chinese team today, and Japan, as expected, beats South Korea in the night game, Taiwan should wind up with a second-placed finish, which would qualify them for a berth in the Olympics.
"We should just forget about this one [loss to Japan] and concentrate on the game against China, because that's the only game that we can do something about," Hsu Sheng-ming said.
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