Taiwan continued their dominance in this year’s World Port Baseball Tournament with victories over Cuba and Curacao at the Familiestadion in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on Monday to improve to a 4-0 record.
In the day game of the day-night doubleheader, Taiwan humbled defending champions Cuba 3-1 thanks to a brilliant effort by starter Chen Kuan-ju, who went the distance for his team in a two-hit gem to deal the Cuba their second defeat of the tournament.
Other than a leadoff single to Cuba’s Rusney Castillo that led to the lone run in the game for Cuba, the southpaw out of Fu Jen Catholic University was virtually unhittable as he baffled the opposing hitters by changing his speed, with his sliders and changeups working flawlessly to complement his fastball.
“The offspeed pitches really worked well for me today,” Chen said after the game.
Offensively for Taiwan, Lin Han’s three-for-five hitting with an RBI led an attack that rang up nine hits against two hurlers. After being shut down by Cuba starter Yosvani Torres through the fourth, the Taiwanese bats finally came alive in the fifth with a run on three hits off Torres to tie the game at 1-1, before they skidded ahead in the seventh with another run on three more hits to take the lead for good.
“Talk about not having beaten the Netherlands for some time last Friday, I can’t remember ever beating Cuba,” Taiwan head coach Chen Wei-cheng said after the big win.
Curacao 1, Taiwan 7
In the night game of the doubleheader, Taiwan also found themselves trailing 0-1 after six innings of play, before erupting for seven unanswered runs to prevail in a 7-1 triumph.
Taiwan had several opportunities to score through the sixth, but failed to convert on each with runners being gunned down at the plate on two different occasions.
The poor luck finally ended when back-to-back hits by Huang Yi-kuen and Chen Wei-chih helped drive in the tying run in the seventh inning to set up a late-game scoring binge that sealed the win.
Lin Chen-hua entered the game one out into the seventh and he was credited with the win for his 2-2/3 innings of shutout relief, while the loss went to Curacao’s Caroll Servania.
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