Taiwan tops Italy 1-0 at Baseball World Cup

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and runners on first and second base, Lin Chih-sheng’s base hit sent Yeh Chun-chang home for the winning run, much to the delight of the home crowd.

Another Lin — Taiwan starting pitcher Lin En-yu — had 13 strikeouts in the shutout. The 26-year-old right-hander, who plays for a Japanese professional team, the Rakuten Golden Eagles, produced one of the best performances in his national team career.

Lin Chih-sheng produced his third game-winning hit this past year in major tournaments. He had a game-winning home run in the game versus South Korea’s Samsung Lions in the 2006 Konami Cup. Less than four weeks later, Lin’s game-winning hit helped Taiwan beat Japan in the gold medal game in the Doha Asian Games.

Both teams had trouble getting on base, let alone a run in the first eight innings. Italian starter James Fiore, who briefly played in Taiwan in July, had seven strikeouts in seven innings of work. Taiwan had six hits in the game while Italy had four.

The game was scheduled to be played Nov. 6, the opening day of the tournament, but was rained out. It was the only game Monday. The preliminary round games resume Tuesday in Taichung and Taipei.

As each team has two games left to play in the preliminary round, Taiwan was in a comfortable position to advance to the quarterfinal round after crucial victories over Italy and Japan, which tied with Panama at 3-2.

The sixteen teams participating in the tournament are divided into two preliminary groups in the biennial tournament, which runs through to Nov. 18, with games being played in four baseball stadiums in Taipei and Taichung. The top four teams in Group A and Group B will advance to the quarterfinal round.

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