Team Taiwan capitalized on four costly errors by the Brother Elephants with eight runs during the fifth and sixth inning to win its first game in the exhibition round for the 2008 IBAF Final Olympic Qualification Tournament by a 9-5 margin in Douliou on Tuesday night.
The offense continued to struggle with just seven hits in its second contest of the six-game warm-up series against the clubs in the Chinese Professional Baseball League following Monday's 2-2 tie against the dmedia T-Rex, in which the national team managed to plate a pair of runs on five hits, with the heart of the order batting a combined 0-for-9.
If it had not been for the four errors by the Elephants defense, which led to seven unearned runs, Team Taiwan would have easily lost the game by at least two runs.
PHOTO: CHAN CHAO-YANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Other than Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min's (Elephants) two-run double and Lin Yi-chuen's RBI single, the heart of the order still had trouble at the plate by hitting 2-for-11 with Chen Chin-fong (La New Bears) remaining hitless in eight at-bats over the first two games.
"Maybe he [Chen] is trying to save the best for the real games," Taiwan head coach and Bears manager Hong Yi-chung joked after the game.
He knows that the offense must get on track soon if Taiwan are to have a realistic chance in topping formidable opponents such as Canada, Australia, Mexico and South Korea in the upcoming competition.
The contest began with the Elephants drawing first blood in the top of the third on Chen Rei-cheng's RBI groundout and Chen "Golden Warrior" Chih-yuan's one-run single off Team Taiwan starter Lee Wei-hua for a quick 2-0 lead.
The national team answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the same inning on Chang Jien-ming's (Sinon Bulls) single up the middle off Elephants starter Liao Yu-cheng to make it 2-1, only to see Lee give it right back in the top of the fourth on an RBI single by Liu Geng-hsin after Wang Jin-yong led off the inning with a clean single to left.
The score remained at 3-1 in favor of the Elephants until the eight-run spree by Team Taiwan during the fifth and sixth to put the score at 9-3.
The Elephants rang up two more runs off Team Taiwan reliever Huang Chih-long in the seventh to make it 9-5. But that was as close as they got as Huang's bullpen mates Lee Chui-guan and Huang Jung-chung (Bears) tossed a scoreless eighth and ninth respectively to make good on the win.
Picking up the win for Team Taiwan was right-hander Lin Keh-chien, whose two innings of scoreless relief provided his team with some much needed stability right after starter Lee had given up three runs over the first four innings to fall behind by two.
As for the Elephants, the cold Douliou weather might have contributed to their rusty look on defense as the four errors led to the seven unearned runs that proved too much for the offense to overcome.
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