Unable to solve Japanese reliever Iwami Yuki's repertoire of pitches, Team Taiwan was held hitless over the last 4-1/3 innings in its 6-3 defeat by Japan on Saturday in Tienmu.
The highly anticipated contest between Asia's top two baseball powerhouses in the 2004 XXI AAA World Junior Baseball Championship lived up to its billing through the first seven innings, with Japan hanging on to its 4-3 lead.
It was not until the bottom of the eighth that the all-star cast from Koshiyen, Japan's premier high school league, added two insurance runs to pull away with the victory.
The game started with Team Japan drawing first blood in the bottom of the first on cleanup hitter Ugumori Atsushi's RBI single to left after the leadoff man reached on a walk issued by Taiwanese starter Lee Cheng-chang (
Team Taiwan fought back with three straight runs in the second on four singles off Japanese starter Darvish Yu.
That would be all the offense that the Taiwanese lineup managed to produce as Darvish settled in and retired the next seven batters.
Team Japan's offense found its groove against Lee Cheng-chang and loaded the bases with one out in the fourth before first baseman Matsushima Yuya's two-run liner up the middle knotted things up at 3-3.
Another run would cross the plate in the fifth to give Japan a 4-3 lead on right fielder Sato Syunji's sacrifice fly to deep left against Taiwanese reliever Chiu Tzu-kai (
The run came as a result of an erroneous throw by Chiu in a failed attempt for a double play. Instead of having the bases empty with two outs, Chiu was left in a no-out, with runners-at-the-corner jam.
"The sequence in the fifth inning really took the wind out of our sails, because we were never able to come back from that play the rest of the way," Skipper Lee Du-hung (
He was referring to a devastating error by Chiu that led to Japan's go-ahead run.
Taiwan 8, Netherlands 0
The loss to Japan made Team Taiwan's 8-0 opening triumph over the Netherlands on Friday night a distant memory.
Right fielder Chu Yuan-chin's (
That was more than ample for Taiwanese righty Lin Po-yo (
Offensively for Taiwan, Chu Yuan-chin and Yang Shien-shien (
Yang's bases-clearing double in the bottom of the eighth directed a five-run spurt that ultimately put the game out of reach for the Dutch.
"The added jitters from being in an international tournament in front of a home crowd really hurt us on offense early on, but our hitters were able to adjust to their pitchers as the game went on, which led to the big inning in the eighth," Lee said in the post-game interview.
Taiwan versus Germany
Next up for Team Taiwan will be the squad from Germany that will meet the hosts at Taipei County Stadium tomorrow night.
With the last-minute withdrawal by Team Venezuela because of financial constraints, Taiwan improves to a 2-1 record in Group B's preliminary round.
Team Taiwan faces Team US in Tienmu on Wednesday night.
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