Taiwan bounced back nicely from their opening loss to South Korea on Saturday to dominate Pakistan 11-1 in Game 2 of the Asian Games baseball preliminaries in Guangzhou yesterday, evening their record at 1-1 through two days of play.
Chen Yung-chi homered and tripled to lead a Taiwanese lineup that teed off against the Pakistan pitching with a dozen hits to plate eleven runs over eight innings. The 10-run lead for Taiwan after eight innings then triggered the mercy rule that cut the game short.
“Well, I guess I was seeing the ball pretty well today,” Chen said after the game, his two extra-base hits accounting for two of the 11 runs in the game.
Also starring for Taiwan were Hu Chin-lung and Chen Chun-hsiu, who belted a pair of hits apiece and scored four times to make their county proud.
Defensively against an overwhelmed Pakistan lineup, the skipper sent right-hander Hsiao I-chieh to the mound to start the first ever baseball contest between the two nations and the fireballer, who currently pitches for the Hanshin Tigers in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), was equal to the task by one-hitting the opposing batters over four shutout innings, before being relieved by the bullpen.
After seven scoreless frames, Pakistan finally got on the board in the top of the eighth against the Taiwan pitching, courtesy of an infield single by Pakistan’s Zafar Iqbal off reliever Chen Hung-wen to lead off the eighth and a pair of sacrifice bunts that led to a run to break up the shutout bid, but Taiwan would return the favor by scoring a pair in the bottom of the same inning to gain the 10-run lead necessary to enact the mercy rule.
Pan Wei-lun was credited with the win for his two innings of scoreless relief, while the loss went to Pakistan starter Muhammad Asif.
Next up for Taiwan are a weak Hong Kong, who have dropped both of their games against Pakistan and South Korea. The game is scheduled to start today at 12 noon.
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