Erupting for 16 runs on 17 hits, Taiwan crushed South Africa in a 16-1 decision in Taichung last night to take the opener with relative ease.
Lefty Lin Ying-jeh pitched five innings of shutout ball on a pair of hits before surrendering the only South African run in the game on three hits en route to his first win of the competition. The former Macoto Cobras standout who opted to for a career in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB) after a terrific 2004 campaign returned to his homeland and led his team to a big win.
Offensively for the hosts, cleanup man Chen Chin-fong brought the crowd to its feet with a three-run homer in the opening frame to before fellow slugger Hsieh Jia-shien followed with a two-run blast of his own to put Taiwan ahead 5-0 after one inning of play.
Team Taiwan would strike again with a pair of runs in the fifth after three quiet innings, this time on a run-scoring single to the opposite field by Chang Tai-shan and an RBI groundout by Luo Guo-hui to lead it 7-0.
Liao Ying-jeh's one-run single after Lin Chih-sheng led off the inning with a rare triple quickly made it 8-0 in favor of Taiwan before the home team opened fire on its South African counterpart by racking up eight runs the decisive seventh to trigger the no-mercy rule that promptly ended the contest after seven innings of play.
In yesterday's other games it was:
* Italy 11, Spain 1
* USA 7, Panama 0
* South Korea 4, Venezuela 0
* Canada 18, Thailand 0
* Cuba 7, Germany 3
* Japan 15, Mexico 3
* Australia 4, Netherlands 3
Today's games
12pm:
* Italy v USA (Taichung)
* Spain v South Africa (Intercontinental, Taichung)
* South Korea v Thailand (Tianmu, Taipei City)
* Australia v Venezuela (Sinjhuang, Taipei County)
6pm:
* TAIWAN v Japan (Intercontinental)
* Panama v Mexico (Taichung)
* Netherlands v Germany (Tianmu)
* Cuba v Canada (Sinjhuang)
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