Taiwan had a rough start in the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) U16 Baseball World Championship on Friday, losing to host team Mexico 8-6.
In the prelimnary round, Taiwan is in the same group as Mexico, the US, Brazil and Australia.
The top four teams in the group will advance to the next round.
Pitcher Chang Chia-wei took the mound for Taiwan, but had a rocky start in the team’s first game of the tournament.
Chang pitched 2-1/3 innings and yielded six hits, while allowing six runs.
By the bottom of the third, Mexico had a 6-1 lead.
After Chang Yu-cheng scored for Taiwan with a three-base hit in the sixth, the hosts extended their lead to 8-2 before the Taiwanese lineup could hit a double in the seventh to score again.
Starting from the eighth, Taiwan showed determination to attempt a come-from-behind win, but to no avail. Chang took third base after a hit and two Mexico errors, including a wild pitch.
Taiwan narrowed the gap to 8-6 in that inning with three more hits to record three more runs.
Taiwan got on base in the last inning thanks to yet another error by Mexico, but they did not score again.
Taiwan have had a string of outstanding showings at IBAF tournaments since last year. They took the IBAF World Junior Championship (U18) in August last year — their first in 27 years — as well as the federation’s inaugural U12 Baseball World Championship last month.
Eleven11 teams are competing at the 15th IBAF U16 tournament, which is being held in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico.
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