Tien-Mou/Taipei City. Chinese Taipei defeated Brazil 10-0 in the evening game on Thursday at Tien-Mou Stadium. The defending champion took an early lead and sent the fans home early with a five-run fifth to close it out with the ten-run mercy rule.
Prior to the night game the opening ceremony for the II 12U Baseball World Cup took place at Tien-Mou Stadium. Besides a traditional entertainment show with all 14 participating teams and the players oath, the tournament officially got opened through Mr. Jiang-Yi Hua (Premier, Republic of China), Lung-Bin Hau (City Mayor), Tom C.H. Peng (President Baseball Federation of Asia and the LOC) and Michael Schmidt (IBAF Executive Director).
When the ceremony was finished Team CT had the better start, taking a quick 3-0 lead in the opening frame thanks to a sac fly by Po-Chun Chen, a RBI single by Chun-Hao Ma and a wild pitch. Two frames later they extended the lead to five runs on Po-Chun Chen’s RBI double and Ching-Chieh Chen’s RBI single. Following a scoreless fourth, Ching-Hieh Chen and Sheng-Hong Wu highlighted a game-ending five-run fifth with two-run hits.
Brazil wasn’t able to answer, having their best scoring chance in the first, when Victor Mascai doubled with two outs and moved to third on a wild pitch. But a fly out ended the threat. They had two more base runners; one reached on a muffed throw in the second and the other on a walk in the fifth.
Otherwise pitchers Ching-Chieh Chen and Sheng-Yao Chao had everything under control for the hosts, keeping the board clean, while striking out six. Brazil sent Eric Taniguchi, Lucas Massukado and Lucas Sakamoto took the mound for Brazil with Taniguchi getting charged with the loss. He issued four hits, five runs (3 ER) and a walk in 2 1/3 innings.
On Friday Chinese Taipei will take on the reigning European Champion Czech Republic in the evening game at Tien-Mou Stadium. Brazil will square off with Mexico at the same stadium in the morning.
