Unbeaten Taiwan extended their win streak to six straight in the IBAF Under-21 Baseball World Cup tournament with a 9-3 triumph over Australia in the Super Round Robin at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium last night to take a giant step toward qualifying for Sunday’s title game.
Starter Sung Chia-hao was on his “A” game from the get-go, pitching six innings of no-hit ball to lead the way for the hosts. Other than a pair of singles that he surrendered in the seventh to lose the no-hitter bid, the right-hander from National Taiwan Sport University did not allow an Australia runner to reach second through the first six innings of play.
“We knew [the Australia hitters] were aggressive at the plate, so I used a lot of breaking balls early to get ahead in the count, which set up the fastball to finished them off,” Sung said after the game.
Photo: Liao Yau-tung, Taipei Times
The Taiwanese staff ace made a genius out of skipper Kuo-Lee Chien-fu, who could very well send Sung to the mound once more should his team reach Sunday’s title game.
“[Sung] really pitched well for us tonight and that made the difference in the game,” Kuo-Lee said after the game.
With a stingy Sung doing his part on the mound, the Taiwan bats also went to work early against Aussie starter Sam Gibbons, who fell behind by two quick runs in the bottom of the second by giving up consecutive RBI singles to Taiwan’s Lee Tsung-hsien and Tsao Yu-ning.
The 2-0 lead quickly doubled in the following frame as the Taiwan hitters struck again when Chen Chieh-hsien connected on a two-out single to drive in the runners on second and third.
Taiwan held it 5-0 through the seventh before Australia strung together four hits to score three off relievers Chang Kai-lun and Peng Shih-ying to make a game of it.
Fortunately for the Islanders, the offense managed to answer with four timely runs in the eighth to put the game away.
Next up for the home squad will be Nicaragua at the Intercontinental this evening, with the opening pitch scheduled for 6:30pm.
In yesterday’s other games, Japan beat Czech Republic 15-0, while South Korea led Nicaragua 9-2 as of press time.
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