Taiwan scored a 11-7 victory over Italy in their World Baseball Classic (WBC) Pool A battle last night.
The hosts got on the scoreboard first at the Taichung Intercontinental Stadium when former Boston Red Sox player Lin Tzu-wei (林子偉) belted a solo homer off Italy starting pitcher Ryan Castellani over the right-field wall in the opening frame.
In the top of the second, Italy got consecutive hits against Taiwan starter Chiang Shao-ching (江少慶) to put men at the corners.
Photo: CNA
Italy put on a squeeze bunt by Nicky Lopez, pushing home the runner from third base and the next batter, Ben DeLuzio, ripped one to deep left field for an RBI triple, putting Italy ahead 2-1.
Taiwan replied with an RBI single by Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲).
Pitch count limits forced both teams to replace their starters in the third, with Chiang giving way to lefty Wang Wei-chung (王維中) and Castellani replaced by former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Joe Biagini.
Photo: EPA
Taiwan's batters turned on the heat, getting four hits off Biagini to chalk up two more runs and adding another against Stephen Woods Jr to make it 5-2 in the bottom of the third frame.
However, Wang also ran into trouble, with Italy rallying on RBI hits by Lopez, Miles Mastrobuoni and Sal Frelik to grab a 6-5 lead.
Italy's standout player Lopez got his third RBI of the game against Taiwan's fourth pitcher, Chen Yu-hsun (陳禹勳), padding their lead at 7-5 in the fifth inning.
Yu Chang (張育成) smashed a two-run homer in the sixth inning to make it 7-7 and Taiwan went ahead for good in the eighth after pinch-hitter Fan Kuo-cheng (范國宸) slapped a bouncer for an infield single, sending a runner home from third base.
The hosts cranked up the firepower for some late-innings heroics. Taiwan had two runners on through a walk and a single in the eighth when catcher Giljegiljaw Kungkuan drilled a shot over the center-field wall for a three-run homer, sparking celebrations in the packed stands.
Closer Sung Chia-hao (宋家豪), a member of Japan's Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, got two ground-outs before Italy's Brett Sullivan got on base with a single.
However, Sung struck out Robel Garcia for the final out to preserve the 11-7 lead and nailed down a hard-fought win.
In the earlier Pool A game at the Taichung Stadium, Cuba routed Panama 13-4.
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS