Taiwan continued their success in the second round of the 2010 Intercontinental Cup Baseball Championship in Taichung last night, beating Italy 6-2 to remain unbeaten at 2-0 in the second round of play.
Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen (Uni-President Lions) allowed a pair of unearned runs on five scattered singles while fanning eight and walking none over seven innings to pick up the emotional win for the hosts, avenging a tough loss to the same Italian squad four years ago in the last Intercontinental Cup.
He delivered what he had promised prior to the game when he vowed to bring home the win and make his countrymen proud.
“This one is long due,” Pan said after the game, referring to avenging the loss against the Italians.
He also showed off his tremendous reflexes by catching a comebacker with runners on first and second and one out for an inning-ending double play in the seventh.
Three first-inning runs, highlighted by Kuo Yen-wen’s RBI double set the tone early in the game for Taiwan.
Even though an error by Pan in the top of the second led to a pair of unearned runs for Italy that made it 3-2, the Taiwanese bats were able to reclaim the three-run cushion in the bottom of the same inning when they led off the inning with a single and scored two batters later on a wild throw to first by reliever Luca Panerati before Luo Guo-hui drove home the second run of the inning on a clean double off Panerati.
After a scoreless third and fourth, Taiwan struck again in the fifth thanks to speed on the base paths with Liu Fu-hao stealing third to put himself in position for Hsiao Bo-ting’s sacrifice fly that put the home side 6-2 ahead.
That was more than sufficient for Pan as he cruised through the seventh without allowing another run before Lin Yi-hao tossed two innings of scoreless relief to preserve the win.
Italy made things interesting in the ninth by loading up the bases against a wild Lin Yi-hao who allowed a single and a walk on top of a potentially costly error by the rightfielder on a routine fly.
However, Lin was able to keep his poise and induce a fly to left for the game-clinching out.
Next up for Taiwan is a must-win game against the undefeated Netherlands at 12:30pm with the winners earning the right to play Cuba in the title showdown.
The losers will have to settle for a chance to close out the tournament with a third-place finish.
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