Taking advantage of a wild Bahamian pitching staff that issued 14 walks in the game, Taiwan easily skidded past the Bahamas in seven innings as the mercy rule came into effect in a 16-1 demolition in the opener of this year’s World Baseball Challenge at Citizen Field Park in Prince George, Canada, on Saturday evening.
Starter Lai Po-kai tossed five strong innings of one-run ball to earn the win for Taiwan, giving the national team nine wins in their last 10 outings in international competition (including the nine games played at the World Port Baseball Tournament in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in which Taiwan won the gold.)
Other than a two-hit fourth that led to the Bahamas’ lone run of the game, Lai was virtually unhittable, with an assortment of pitches that baffled the opposition.
“I didn’t expect [the Bahamas] to have this much trouble on the mound,” Taiwan skipper Chen Wei-cheng said after the game.
His sharp-eyed lineup drew a total of 14 walks off the Bahamas to go along with the 10 hits they collected to plate 16 runs in the contest.
Doing the damage at the plate for Taiwan were Huang Yi-kun and Hsiao Po-ting, whose pair of hits apiece drove in five runs for their team to earn them a joint Most Valuable Player honor. The bashing tandem batted for a combined 19 for 51 in the eight games played in the preliminaries at the World Port Baseball Tournament.
Next up for Taiwan will be a tough national squad from Cuba, who won their opener against Japan 4-3 straight after Taiwan’s match on Saturday.
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