Well, Friday 8/15 marks a low point in the history of the NT. Taiwan lost to China in extra innings, wasting a strong performance from SP Wei-Lun Pan (6.1 shutout innings, 4 H, 8 K's). Taiwan squandered a 2-0 lead in the 8th inning and a 7-3 lead in the 12th inning. China rallied for 5 unanswered runs in the bottom of the 12th against Bulls starter Chien-Fu Yang to pull off the upset.
One of the few bright spots for the team offensively was Mariners farmhand Kuo-Hui Lo. He hit the team's first HR of the tourney and was 2-2 with 4 walks and 2 RBI's. 3B Chih-Wei Shih collected 3 hits in 4 AB's.
On paper, this was a game that Taiwan was favored in (and was a must-win game for the team if it had any medal aspirations) - it will now face an uphill battle to finish in the top 4 (very unlikely) as the 4 remaining games are against powerhouses - Cuba, South Korea, the US, and Canada.
GW run scored by China in the 12th (Throw coming from RF Chien-Ming Chang - who was charged with the error - 2B Chih-Hsien Chiang was involved in the play as well - getting in the path of the throw):
Box/Recap
*Updated
PONY:
At least there was some good news on the day; Taiwan beat Puerto Rico 5-4 on Friday to move on to the championship game tomorrow in the Pony League World Series.
WJPA's recap:
"Chinese Taipei Rallies Past Gurabo, Makes Final
Chiang Lee Wei tossed a complete game four-hitter, leading Chinese Taipei to a 5-4 win over Gurabo, PR and a berth in Saturday's PONY League World Series championship game against Long Beach, CA.
Gurabo started quickly, leading 2-0 after four batters. Daniel Flores walked to open the game. After a wild pitch, Chrisian E. Rivera singled. A double steal brought Flores home. After a fielder's choice, Richard Gonzalez grounded out to short, scoring Rivera.
Hsu Hao Feng singled to open the first for Chinese Taipei and moved to second on a groundout. Chu Li Jen singled to left, scoring Hsu.
After one out in the second, Lin Yu Chih doubled. After an error put Wang Chao Min on first, both runners moved up on an errant pickoff throw. Pinch-hitter Tseng Hsin Hao tied the game with sacrifice fly to right.
The Caribbean champions went back in front when Gonzalez stroked a two-run homerun to right, scoring Flores ahead of him. But Gurabo would only get two more hits the rest of the night. In fact, Chiang would get nine strikeouts from that point on.
Meanwhile, Chu kept up the scoring, lining a solo homerun to rightcenter in the fourth. With two on and two out in the fifth, Chu singled to score Hsu, tying the game. Chiang followed with a mis-handled grounder to short, allowing Liu Chia Kai to score the game-winning run.
Chiang struck out a series-high 14 batters, walking five and allowing just four hits to earn his second win of the season. Chiang will also receive the New ERA pitching award, locking up the lowest ERA of Series pitchers with at least 8 innings of work.
Chu finished the game with three hits and three runs batted in. Gonzalez drove in three for Gurabo.
New ERA TitleChiang Lee Wei, Chinese Taipei
Individual Home Run Derby
1. Chu Li Jen, Chinese Taipei"
MILB:
R - The Red Sox won game 1 of a DH 1-0. CH Huang was 1-2 with a double and drove in the game's only run. CC Chen was 0-2. Box
R - The Tigers won 4-3 in game 2 of a DH. CT Tang was 0-4 with a RBI and an error. Box
The Tigers lost game 1 3-2. CT Tang was 2-3 with a double and 2 RBI's. Box
R - The GCL Indians lost 6-5 in 11. CH Chen was 0-2 with 3 BB's. Box
A ss - Williamsport won 5-4. YF Lin threw 1 scoreless inning. Box
A - Lansing lost 4-3. Although CH Cheng took the loss, he was impressive - giving up 1 run over 6 innings. Box
AAA - Vegas is down 9-3 in the 8th. CL Hu is 1-3 with a RBI. Box
*Updated
5 comments:
I don't understand why Pan Wei-lun started against China. Isn't he our best pitcher. At first I thought he was going to pitch against Japan, but when he didn't I thought the coach was saving him for cuba. Now who's going to start tomorrow??
This national team just wasn't very good. Everyone knew this when they lost in the CPBL team.
Could Taiwans' baseball schedule have anything to do with the loss? Looking on from here in Toronto, Canada I found it odd that Taiwan played Japan at 7 a.m. (western time) and then played China at 10:30 p.m. Apparently, the Taiwan team only had 4 hours of sleep after eating dinner and laundry before they played China. I wouldn't be surprise if China worked out the schedule that way on purpose.
Jeanne
Agree to Jeanne...but apparently those morons at Taiwan Olympic committee thought it was OK. OK my XXX. They even sided with Beijin and tried to convince the baseball fans that it's not a big deal. They should kneel in front of Taiwanese baseball fans and apologize for their naive stupidity. So want to kick their XXX. But...I guess it's just a game after all.
I stayed up late here in the east coast to watching the game online and was SO disappointed when the winning run came across the home plate.
Afterward I read about the loss on the Taiwanese news web sites. I came across articles talking about the purposeful scheduling that gave our team less than 5 hours of sleep going into the game, how Taiwanese pitchers had smaller strike zones than the Chinese pitchers, and even how the ball park messes up the players.
The fact is that Taiwan went into the bottom of the 12th inning with a commanding 4-run and lead a 2-run lead with 2 outs and a 1-2 count. So we shouldn't dig up all these lame excuses but just to admit that Yang Chien-Fu wasn't able to finish the Chinese NT given a 4-run cushion.
This is a make or break moment for the Taiwanese NT. It's an embarrassing loss to the Chinese NT, but it still only count as one loss. With 4 very tough match ups coming their way, this could be the best thing ever happened to the our boys in Beijing. It's a wake up call, and hopefully the loss is so embarrassing that it ignites a fire from within them.
I'm watching our boys fighting hard against the Cuban NT as I post my 2 cents. Lee Chen-Chang is pitching well as he has now worked 6 shutout innings. Our boys are hitting the Cuban pitches but some of them are just not falling. Lo Kuo-Hui almost hit it out of the park in his first 2 AB's... they're playing hard.
This is still a quality baseball team (not many teams can go toe-to-toe with the Cubans for 7 innings). Despite of what happens I'm still proud of them as long as they refuse to give up and continue to fight hard.
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