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Taiwan flounder against Nicaragua

Catcher Cheng Chi-hung of Taiwan, right, is too late to prevent Nicaraguan Eduardo Romero from scoring during their Baseball World Cup match in Almere, the Netherlands, on Monday. PHOTO: EPA

Five first-inning runs by the Nicaraguan offense on Monday put Team Taiwan in a hole that it could not climb out of as it dropped an 11-4 decision at Almere in the Netherlands in this year's Baseball World Cup competition.

The loss virtually eliminated Taiwan from advancing into the second round of action with a sixth-place finish as it stared at a 3-4 record and an expected loss against the US yesterday to round out the eight-game preliminaries.

Following the team's shocking 3-2 loss at the hands of the Colombians in Eindhoven last Friday, Taiwan basically needed to run the table in its remaining contests against Australia, Nicaragua and the US in order to have an outside chance of making it into the second round.

And its hope to advance was actually kept alive by Taiwan's impressive 11-4 win over the Australians at Rotterdam on Saturday before things turned sour against Nicaragua on Monday.

Team Nicaragua 11, Team Taiwan 4

Taiwanese starter Cheng Chi-hung was chased after allowing the first five Nicaraguan hitters to reach base on four straight singles and a double before reliever Huang Yi-che took over the mound and limited the damage in the first inning at five runs.

Pitcher Huang Yi-che of Team Taiwan in action during the Baseball World Cup match against Nicaragua on Monday in Almere, the Netherlands. PHOTO: EPA

Although Taiwan would answer with a pair of runs in the second inning off Nicaraguan starter Cairo Murillo to make it 5-2, the bullpen's inability to hold off a powerful attack by Nicaragua that rang up three more runs each in the fourth and fifth inning made it too difficult for the Taiwanese offense to catch up.

Collecting hits off the Nicaraguan pitching staff was not a problem for Taiwan, as it ripped a total of 10 hits off three different Nicaraguan pitchers.

But failure to come up with the clutch hits with men in scoring position (stranding a total of eight with four in scoring position) ultimately left Taiwan floundering in the end.

Cheng was tagged with the loss for yielding the first-inning runs to Nicaragua while Murillo picked up the win for tossing seven innings of three-run ball.

He allowed eight hits and a walk and fanned four in a solid, but not dominating effort.

Team Taiwan 11, Team Australia 4

Starter Chiang Chien-ming was brilliant in Taiwan's 11-4 win over Australia on Saturday with his first complete-game performance of the tournament.

The normal closer for Team Taiwan more than lived up to the challenge in a must-win game by allowing four runs -- only two earned -- on five hits.

Taiwan took a 5-2 lead after the fifth inning and never looked back as it erupted for six more runs in the sixth and seventh to win by a comfortable margin.

Offensively for Taiwan, six different hitters had multiple hits in the 18-hit slugfest, led by outfielder Kuo Chun-yu's 4-for-5 effort.
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