Mistakes sank Taiwan in Taipei yesterday as South Korea triumphed in their opening game of the super round at the WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup, with the hosts losing 6-2.
Taiwan competed throughout, but costly lapses — especially in the top of the second inning — meant they were always chasing.
In that inning, a fly-ball to shallow left field was put down as the rain fell at the Tianmu Baseball Stadium in Shilin District with South Korea already one down.
Photo: CNA
That allowed Yoon Dong-hee to reach second.
A walk and a hit by pitch filled the bases before Son Seong-bin singled to center field, bringing Yoon home.
The errors continued as Kim Han-byul’s bunt was knocked away by Taiwan pitcher Wang Yan-cheng, allowing two runners to reach home, still with only one out.
A sacrifice hit by Yang Seung-hyeok scored Son to make it four in the inning, a hurdle too high for Taiwan.
The hosts cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the second, with Yang Jyun-siang reaching home on a wild pitch and Lin Yueh-ku’s single into left field allowing Chen Sheng-ping to score, but South Korea added a run in the fourth inning to make it 5-2.
Taiwan had their best shot at closing the gap in the fifth inning with Wang Teng-yu up.
With one man out and two men on base — Lin after a double to right field and Tseng Chen-tso on a walk — Wang Teng-yu had a 3-0 count facing Lee Ki-sun.
The bespectacled South Korean lefty kept his cool, getting a fastball through for the first strike, then turning to his curveball. Wang Teng-yu was caught looking at two of them to strike out, drawing gasps of dismay from the Chinese-language commentators on ELTA Sports’ YouTube livestream coverage of the game.
Li I-wei was caught in the outfield for the third out, ending the threat.
South Korea added another run in the sixth to complete the scoring.
In other super round games, Japan beat Australia 2-1 and Mexico downed Colombia 4-3, with both games in Tianmu, the WBSC’s Web site showed.
In the placement round games, which were played in Yunlin County, Venezuela blanked the Netherlands 3-0, Cuba beat Germany 3-2 and Puerto Rico trounced South Africa 10-0.
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