Taiwan’s Chang Chao-hung (張趙紘) yesterday homered twice as they trounced Puerto Rico 16-2 to remain undefeated in the opening round of the U-18 Baseball World Cup in Taichung.
Taiwan ended their Group A run with a perfect 5-0 record and head into today’s Super Round with a 2-0 lead.
Yesterday’s game was one of three Group A makeup games at the rain-logged Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium. The other two were again delayed due to rain and are to be made up today on a busy opener of the Super Round, in which Taiwan are to face Group B No. 1 the US in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of the World Baseball Softball Confederation via CNA
In Taichung, Taiwan batters took advantage of the instability of Puerto Rico starter Alexis Martinez, scoring five runs in the opening inning on four walks, two errors and two balks with only one single hit.
Taiwan’s lead grew to 14-0 after they batted 13 times in the bottom of the second inning on a combined seven hits, two of which were homers by second baseman Chang.
Chang opened his assault with a two-run homer against Carlos Yazmin, in Taiwan’s first home run of the World Baseball Softball Confederation tournament.
Late in the inning, after Yazmin was replaced by Henry Clausell, Chang hit a three-run homer.
Taiwan added another run in the third, and center fielder Ko Ching-hsien (柯敬賢) hit a solo home run in the fourth.
Puerto Rico, who were aiming to knock Taiwan off the top of the Group A leaderboard, scored two runs in the top of the fifth inning, but it was not enough to avoid the mercy rule, which stipulates that a game is over if one team is ahead by 15 runs after five innings.
Puerto Rico and South Korea are vying for the Group A No. 2 spot today in their makeup game, which South Korea were leading 5-1 in the second inning yesterday. The winner would later face world No. 1 Japan, who were edged by the US in the group stage, or the Netherlands.
The top two finishers of the Super Round meet in the final on Sunday.
Taiwan won the U-18 Baseball World Cup championships in 1983, 2010 and 2019. Last year, they were runners-up in Florida, losing to the US, who won their 10th championship.
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