Taiwan's team came into the World Baseball Classic's Asia Round at Tōkyō Dome 東京ドーム with lowered expectations in the aftermath of its poor performance at last year's Beijing Olympics, and in the first game at least, it lived up (or should that be down?) to them. From the Daily Yomiuri ザ・デイリー読売:
"South Korea made the Taiwan players and coaches hide their eyes in the first inning on Friday with a grand slam from Lee Jin Young in a six-run rally that the reigning Olympic champion rode to a 9-0 victory in front of 12,704 at Tōkyō Dome. Korea took advantage of some first-inning wildness by Taiwan starter Lee Chen-chang, who handed out three free passes, a hit batter and a single before Lee Jin Young's slam to deep right capped the rally in the second game of the Tōkyō Round"
And the Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ:
"South Korea didn't have to work too hard to notch its first win of the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Taiwan's starting pitcher took care of a lot of the heavy lifting himself. South Korea had twice as many runs as hits in the first, including Lee Jin Young's towering grand slam, as they cruised in to 9-0 rout of Taiwan on Friday night in front 18,704 fans Tōkyō Dome. 'The reason for the victory is the Taiwan pitchers gave us a lot of opportunities and our hitters turned those into runs,' South Korea manager Kim In Sik said. The Koreans also turned a WBC-record five double plays in the victory."
The MLB.com website has a preview of Taiwan's do-or-die game against China:
"China will meet Chinese Taipei 中華台北 in Game 3 of the 2009 World Baseball Classic Pool A, Asia Round, in a day game at Tōkyō Dome on Saturday. Both clubs lost their opening games in the tournament, and the loser of this game will be eliminated. The winner will stay alive and play again on Sunday against the loser of Saturday night's Game 4 between Japan and Korea. China is hoping for a repeat of its 8-7 victory over Chinese Taipei in the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008, while Chinese Taipei will be trying to duplicate the results of the 2006 World Baseball Classic, when it defeated China 12-2."
If Taiwan loses this one, it might be time to throw its hands up in the air in surrender, become a Special Administrative Region a la Hong Kong or Macau and give up any dreams of being a sovereign state.
Oh, wait, that's already happening, isn't it?
No comments:
Post a Comment