Taiwan followed their big win against Cuba on Thursday with a narrow 3-2 victory over Germany on Friday in the final game of the preliminaries of this year’s World Port Baseball Tournament in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to close out the round with a tournament-leading 7-1 record.
Taiwan had already cemented a spot in the final, so with the outcome of the game meaningless to Taiwan, skipper Chen Wei-cheng opted to make it a group effort at the mound, using six different hurlers to take on the German lineup that actually led Taiwan briefly in their opening match of the tournament on June 23, before falling short by two run in Taiwan’s 5-3 victory.
The decision by Chen proved effective over the first seven innings as the fresh arms of Taiwan kept the German bats at bay, pitching seven shutout frames as Taiwan clang onto a 3-0 advantage.
However, trouble struck in the eighth inning against the fifth Taiwan pitcher used in the game, Lin Po-yu, who recorded two quick outs, before serving up a two-run double to make it a one-run game.
Fortunately for Taiwan, that was as close as Germany got as Lin worked out of a jam without further damage, before Lin Chen-hua tossed a perfect ninth to preserve the narrow win.
Picking up the win was Cheng Wen-hao, who chipped in two innings of scoreless relief, while the loss went to German starter Tim Henkenjohann.
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