Taiwan came up short against defending champions South Korea, losing 6-3 in the baseball gold medal game at the Asian Games at the Munhak Baseball Stadium in Incheon, South Korea, last night to settle for silver.
Winners against Japan in the semi-finals the day before, the Islanders entered the contest with one thing on their mind — to avenge the embarrassing 10-0 shutout loss to the hosts in the preliminaries earlier in the week.
And for over seven innings of the game, it appeared as if Taiwan might have just have what it would take to pull off the upset win against the favorites, winners in three of the last four gold-medal games.
Photo: Reuters
That turned out not be the case as the diehard hosts rallied from a run down in the eighth with four unanswered runs off the Taiwanese bullpen in the inning to deny the visitors their second gold medal of the event since the inclusion of baseball in the Asian Games in 1994.
Contrary to what the final score would suggest, Taiwan actually took a quick 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, when Chen Ping-chieh led off the game with a rare triple off South Korean starter Kim Kwang-hyun and scored on Lin Han’s RBI groundout on the ensuing play.
That 1-0 lead lasted until the top of the fifth, when South Korea finally broke through against the solid pitching of starter Kuo Chun-lin with a pair of runs on the merit of Son Ah-seop’s RBI single and a run-scoring wild pitch by Taiwanese reliever Chen Kuan-yu that made it 2-1.
The Taiwanese would not go away quietly as they promptly rose to the occasion by plating two in the bottom of the sixth off Kim with an RBI single by Lin and a sacrifice fly by Kuo Yen-wen to reclaim a 3-2 advantage.
After squandering a golden scoring opportunity in the seventh in which Taiwan managed to place a runner at the corners with no out, but in the end, failed to score at all, the momentum of the game gradually shifted toward South Korea.
That set up what ended up being the game-turning eighth as the hosts connected for three hits and drew a bases-loaded walk off the Taiwanese bullpen to skid ahead for good.
Earning the big win for South Korea was reliever An Jiman, who entered in the seventh with two on and kept Taiwan off the board with two spectacular innings of perfect relief, while the loss was charged against Taiwan’s Chen Kuan-yu for losing the lead in the eighth.
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