Chang Jien-ming's three-run home run off Chinese starter Chen Kuen capped off a four-run fifth for the Sinon Bulls (representing Taiwan), as they beat the Chinese Profes-sional All-Stars 6-0 in first-round action of the 2005 Konami Cup Asia Series yesterday afternoon.
The four-nation competition at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, hosting this year's top professional baseball teams from South Korea (Samsung Lions), Taiwan (Bulls), Japan (Lotte Marines) and China's Chinese Professional All-Stars (CPAS), marked the first time in history that all the Asian professional baseball leagues gathered together in one competition to battle for bragging rights to the title "Rulers of the East."
The game began with the CPAS' Chen Kuen retiring all but one of the first nine Bulls he faced through three scoreless innings, mostly because of the Bulls' unfamiliarity with the righty from the Beijing Tigers.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
But that would quickly change in the Bulls' second run through the batting order. Chang Jien-ming led off the fourth with a lining single to left, followed by another base hit by cleanup man Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan to put runners at the corners with no outs.
Rookie first baseman Hsu Guo-long got the Bulls on the board with a 1-0 lead on the next play with a groundout to short. But that would be the sum of the offense that the Bulls could muster in the inning, as veteran infielder Huang Chung-yi hit into a double play to end the Sinon scoring threat.
Designated hitter Chen Tsung-fu made it 2-0 in favor of the Bulls in the top of the fifth when his RBI single to the left knocked in leftfielder Luo Song-yong, who had star-ted the inning with a clean single up the middle.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
After shortstop Chang Jia-hao reached on a walk and rightfielder Yu Shien-ming flied out to deep center, Chang Jien-ming simply crushed a pitch from Chen Kuen over the left-field fence for a three-run blast to put the Taiwanese up 5-0.
Huang Chung-yi's one-run single in the eighth concluded all the scoring for the Bulls as they cruised to a series-opening shutout win.
On the mound for the Bulls in an outstanding performance was ace righty Lenin Picota, whose seven innings of four-hit ball with six strikeouts not only kept the CPAS off the board, but also res-ted the Sinon bullpen for the upcoming contests against the Japanese and the South Koreans.
Setup man Kuo Yong-chih allowed an infield hit in the eighth before closer Jorge Cortez tossed a scoreless ninth to keep the shutout intact, giving Picota the win for the game.
Chen Kuen was tagged with the loss for allowing five of the six Bulls' runs on six hits in his first international game against a professional team.
Next up for the Bulls are the tough Lotte Marines from Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), Japan's premier professional baseball league.
The two squads will face off at 5pm this afternoon in a key contest from which the winners will most definitely make it into Sunday's championship game.
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