Taiwan last night bolstered their confidence with a 4-2 victory over Cuba at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium to split their warm-up series at one win each, before heading to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in South Korea.
Manager Kuo Tai-yuan adjusted the batting order, inserting several veterans to replace younger players from Monday’s lineup.
He penciled in 31-year-old Chang Cheng-wei — a seven-year Brothers Baseball Club veteran — as starting rightfielder and called up 36-year-old All-Star catcher Cheng Ta-hung — who has 12 years of Taiwanese professional baseball experience with the then-Sinon Bulls and the Brothers — to sit behind the home plate instead of Lin Kun-sheng.
Kuo gave the starting pitching assignment to 34-year-old Pan Wei-lun, who has been a mainstay on the Uni-President Lions rotation over the past 14 years.
However, Cuba rattled Pan from the opening frame, when first baseman Guillermo Aviles and catcher Osvaldo Vazquez hit consecutive RBI singles.
In the third inning, Pan was replaced by lefty pitcher Ni Fu-te, who played for the then-Chinatrust Whales, as well as the Detroit Tigers in 2009 and 2010. Helped by a solid defense, Ni handcuffed the Cuban hitters with his unorthodox delivery and tossed three scoreless innings, yielding only one hit to go with three strikeouts.
Cuba starter Vladimir Banos shut down Taiwan’s offense early on, only getting into trouble in the sixth inning, when, with two men on bases, former Los Angeles Dodger Hu Chin-lung drove in two runs on a double to level the score.
Banos was pulled for Leandro Martinez to defuse the situation, but third baseman Chiang Chih-hsieng hit a sacrifice fly to push Hu home for the go-ahead run.
The Fubon Guardians’ Lin Yi-chuan added an insurance run for Taiwan in the eighth inning, hitting an RBI single against Cuba’s fourth pitcher, Miguel Lahera, to score a runner from third base.
Taiwan are to get one day of rest before flying to South Korea tomorrow.
Cuba are to play one more warm-up game, against the Brothers, today at 6:30pm, also in Taichung.
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
Marc Marquez continued his winning streak as he cruised to victory in the Hungarian GP sprint by two seconds on Saturday night to pad his championship lead. It was a seventh straight Sprint victory for the Spaniard, who has also won the last six longer Sunday grand prix races on his factory Ducati. Fabio Di Giannantonio, an Italian with the VR46 Ducati satellite team was a distant second at Balaton Park, followed by his team-mate and compatriot Franco Morbidelli third. Marquez, a six-time world champion, started the race from pole position. “I felt someone really close on the first corner, from there I
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Russian Diana Shnaider continued her impressive winning streak in tour-level finals at the Monterrey Open on Saturday, beating compatriot Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in the WTA 500 event’s final. Shnaider had little trouble in the opening set but struggled in a topsy-turvy second, as Alexandrova clinched the set’s fifth and decisive break at 5-4 to force a decider. Third-seed Shnaider carved out an advantage early on in the third set when she broke Alexandrova in the first game and held serve to go 2-0 up, an advantage she would not relinquish. World No. 12 Shnaider is now unbeaten in her last five
RSS