Team Taiwan's winless streak against the US, Japan, and South Korea continued at the 2nd World University Baseball Championship in Tainan last week.
Taiwan has not beaten any of those three opponents dating back to the days when the tournament was still named the World University Games in 1993.
After going 3-3 in the preliminary round in the seven-team round robin, Team Taiwan qualified for the fourth-and-final spot in the semifinal round on Saturday, where it took on the top-seeded US that blew through the preliminary round with a perfect 6-0 mark.
US 5, Taiwan 2
The game had the hosting Taiwan taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the third on run-scoring doubles by center fielder Chung Cheng-yo and designated hitter Lin Jin-pin off American starter Ricky Romero.
Team US cut the lead in half in the bottom of the fourth on shortstop Troy Tulowitzki's two-out RBI triple that scored teammate Taylor Teagarden all the way from first.
Back-to-back singles American sluggers Travis Buck and Alex Gordon would chase reliever Tseng Song-wei for Taiwan, still hanging on to a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth. In came fastball specialist Lee Guo-ching, who didn't fare any better as he surrendered another single to load the bases for designated hitter Jeff Clement, who then blew the game wide open with a towering homer into the right-center seats for a grand slam.
The final of 5-2, in favor of the US dropped Taiwan out of title contention and into Sunday's battle for third place against South Korea ,who were shut-out by Japan in the other semifinal game 5-0.
South Korea 3, Taiwan 1
South Korea immediately came on strong in Sunday's contest as it grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning on consecutive singles off starter Tsai Ying-fong, who had not allowed a run in eight innings of play.
It would take Team Taiwan six innings before it evened things up at 1-1 on Lin jin-pin's sacrifice fly that scored right fielder Yang Yao-hsun, who led off the inning with a triple.
The South Koreans mounted a two-run rally in the next inning to reclaim the lead after Choi Hoon-rak's double that brought in a pair of runs.
Choi, a senior out of Dankuk University in Seoul, has already committed to the Kia Tigers of the Korean Professional Baseball League.
Lack of timely hitting would ultimately cost Taiwan the game as it failed to score with runners on second and third and no outs in the bottom of the eighth. Taiwan actually out-hit South Korea by a 6-4 margin.
"Lack of big-game experience really hurt us today," manager Kung Jung-tang said after the game.
"Our hitters were mostly silenced, something that I did not expect, especially after we lost the tough one [1-0] in the preliminary round to this very same team."
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