WBSC Premier12 Final: Chinese Taipei stuns Japan, wins gold medal

Chinese Taipei pulled off an upset against the heavily-favored Samurai Japan in the gold medal final

The final day of the WBSC Premier12 featured a repeat of the last day of the super round, with the United States and Venezuela matching up for the bronze medal and Chinese Taipei and Japan capping the tournament with a gold medal game. For those following the exploits of Drake Baldwin, it was an uneventful day, as he did not appear for the United States.

UNITED STATES 6 — 1 VENEZUELA

box score | replay

PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Casey Lawrence, USA: 6 IP, 0 R, 7 K
Carson Williams, USA: 2-4, 2 2B, 3 RBI
Chandler Simpson, USA: 2-4, 2B, RBI

The United States and Venezuela faced off twice earlier in this tournament, splitting those two games with both being close battles that came down to the final innings. For Venezuela they started this tournament on a torrid run, winning five of their first six games, but after a disappointing loss where they let a lead slip away against Japan they struggled over their final two games. The United States has been on an up-and-down ride throughout the tournament, dependent on a bullpen that has been shaky and an inconsistent offense to come together for them to scrape together wins. The solution to the United States’s bullpen woes were simple though. Just get longer starts. Casey Lawrence was the man who was up to that task, putting up the longest outing from any pitcher this tournament as he completely took Venezuela’s offense out of this game.

Lawrence found himself opposed by Mario Sanchez for Venezuela, and Sanchez chose a poor time to struggle to find any sort of control of his pitches. Sanchez threw barely half of his pitches for strikes, and the four walks he allowed helped the United States to jump out to an early lead. Sanchez had a shaky first inning, allowing a two-out double to Carson Williams then issuing a walk to Ryan Ward, but the United States would run themselves out of the inning when Ward was caught stealing on the back end of a double steal attempt, ending a potential early rally. Sanchez seemed to settle in when he went through the US lineup 1-2-3 in the second inning, but then the control issuing truly started to mount. Sanchez allowed walks to the first two batters of the inning, then after recording the first out allowed another walk to load the bases for the middle of the United States lineup. Carson Williams had a chance to do significant damage, but only chased home a single run on a sacrifice fly to center field. Venezuela went to Oddanier Mosqueda to try to keep the game in control, but Mosqueda struggled. He walked Ryan Ward, the matchup he was really brought in to face, then hit Colby Thomas with a pitch to force home the second run of the inning. Mosqueda would get out of it with no further damage, but Venezuela put themselves down 2-0 without the United States even managing a hit in the inning.

On the other side there was no question Casey Lawrence was in control of things, as Venezuela just could not string any sort of hits together. Lawrence had command of his pitches and did a terrific job of working ahead of hitters, and he carved through the Venezuelan lineup. Though Venezuela did scatter three hits across the first four innings of the game none would come in the same inning, and thanks to a second inning double play and a pick off to end the fourth, Lawrence had faced just one batter over the minimum through four innings. Lawrence continued to gather momentum as the game wore on, striking out a couple of batters in a clean fifth inning and finishing off his second time through the Venezuela lineup with two quick outs in the sixth. Alexi Amarista managed a base hit on his third look at Lawrence, but a Diego Castillo ground out ended the inning and the United States took a solid lead into the late innings of the game.

Nivaldo Rodriguez managed to control the tides a bit when he came in out of the bullpen, throwing strikes and slowing down the United States offense that struggled to handle Rodriguez’s slow curveball and ability to change speeds. Rodriguez followed up the messy fourth inning by going 1-2-3 in the fourth inning, though he did get into trouble in the fifth inning. Chandler Simpson smacked a line drive up the middle and towards the right center field gap, and though it would be cut off rather quickly, Simpson’s speed made all of the difference as he was able to skid into second base with a double. Simpson slid into third barely past the tag after a Matt Shaw fly out, but Rodriguez came through when called on, striking out consecutive hitters to end the inning. The United States would finally get to Rodriguez in the sixth inning though, extending their lead. Termarr Johnson started trouble by leading off the inning with a single, and Rodriguez struggled as he worried about Johnson over at first base. Johnson would steal second, and Rodriguez then hit Luke Ritter with a pitch. Chris Okey then followed with a single to load the bases with one out, but it seemed like Rodriguez could get things under control when he struck out Justin Crawford. Rodriguez got a slow chopper from Simpson, but the speed of the batted ball ended up playing against Venezuela. Even with Castillo making an impressive barehand catch off of the bounce, Johnson had gotten too far down the line for there to be any play at home, and Simpson was simply too fast and beat the throw down the line. Rodriguez was replaced by Jose Alvarez, who did little to help his team’s cause when he uncorked a wild pitch that chased home Ritter and allowed the United States to come out of the inning having doubled their lead to 4-0.

The American lineup wouldn’t stop piling on, and once again it was the mistakes of Venezuela’s own pitching staff that crushed them. Alfredo Zarraga got the ball for the eighth inning, and the first thing he did was issue a walk to Ritter. Zarraga was able to get two quick outs from the bottom two spots in the order, but Simpson and the top of the United States lineup was quick to make him pay for control issues. Simpson worked a two-out walk, followed by a four-pitch walk to Matt Shaw, bringing up Carson Williams with the bases loaded and a chance to blow the game wide open. Williams did exactly that. Zarraga worked ahead 1-2 in the count, but in trying to finish off Williams with the same slider he got a whiff on for strike two missed badly up in the zone. Williams smashed one up the middle for a base hit, scoring two runs and extending the United States lead to a point that Venezuela wasn’t going to come back from. They did have somewhat of a chance though, at least to get back into it, in the eighth inning off of Anthony Gose. Gose got through a scoreless eventh inning, but started out the eighth with a walk and then allowed a double to Carlos Perez Jr. to put a couple of runners in scoring position for the top of the lineup. Alexi Amarista put a charge into one to left-center field, but he didn’t get enough of it and Justin Crawford was able to track it down on the run. Hernan Perez scored on the sacrifice fly, but Venezuela couldn’t get multiple runs in the one inning they had an opportunity to. Dan Altavilla notched a strikeout to end the eighth inning, then struck out two batters in a perfect ninth inning to close out the game for the United States and earn them the bronze medal.

CHINESE TAIPEI 6 — 9 JAPAN

box score | replay

PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Chieh-Hsien Chen, TPE: 3-5, HR, 3 RBI
Chia-Cheng Lin, TPE: 1-4, HR
Yu-Min Lin, TPE: 4 IP, 0 R, 3 K

So it all came down to the two powerhouses, who came into this tournament ranked number 1 and 2 in the world. It was going to be an uphill battle for Chinese Taipei against Samurai Japan. Japan had already beaten Taiwan twice in the tournament, was on a 28 game winning streak in international play, and started this tournament 8-0 with an average margin of victory of 4.25 runs. Taiwan sent out Yu-Min Lin to make the start for their side, and Japan started Shosei Togo, and early on it seemed this game may come down to whoever could actually score.

Togo started out this game in complete control, striking out four batters across two scoreless innings despite a two-out double in the first inning from Chieh-Hsien Chen. Togo had everything working early, a terrifying start for Taiwan, and they could not get anything started early in innings against Togo. Once more in the third inning Togo quickly retired the first two batters, so when he allowed a walk then a base hit to Li Lin all that was needed was a ground out to end the inning and escape unharmed. Again in the fourth Taiwan had a two out single to work with, but Togo struck out Tung-Hua Yueh to easily skate around any trouble.

Taiwan would need everything they could get out of Yu-Min Lin, and he delivered on the big stage. Lin retired the first six Japanese hitters in order to fly through two perfect innings, only having that streak broken by a Sosuke Genda infield single to lead off in the third inning. This, and a one out walk, posed a bit of trouble, but a key strikeout of Masayuki Kuwahara and a fly out from Kaito Kozono allowed him to work around the only trouble he faced in the game. He may have created some danger when he walked Ryosuke Tatsumi to lead off the fourth against the mighty middle of Japan’s lineup, but he went through Shota Morishita, Ryoya Kurihara, and Shugo Maki in order to keep Tatsumi at first and put up yet another zero to match Togo.

Taiwan needed to do damage in a hurry, and they needed to get it early against Togo. And in the fifth inning, Togo finally cracked. Togo seemed to be tiring, missing a slider badly up and arm side to Chia-Cheng Lin, and Lin took advantage. When Togo missed over the plate with a fastball Lin jumped on it and crushed it into the right center field gap, carrying it over the wall for a solo home run to put Taiwan on top. Togo would continue to miss with his pitches throughout this fifth inning and Taiwan smelled blood, knowing they would need to put distance between themselves and Japan to feel any sort of security. The top of Taiwan’s order was ready for their third look at Togo, and Chen-Wei Chen notched a one out single to keep the line moving. Togo then allowed a walk to Li Lin, and who else was it but Chieh-Hsien Chen in a huge spot for Taiwan. Taiwan’s captain put up an incredible at bat against Togo, working ahead 3-1 then fighting off solid pitches before getting the one he wanted. Chen got a fastball on the inner corner of the plate and he was waiting on it, turning and crushing a moonshot to right field that carried for ages and caused the crowd and dugout to go ballistic when it landed in the stands for a three-run home run. Suddenly, Taiwan had opened up the biggest lead anyone had against Japan in the tournament at 4-0, and now their bullpen had to be up to the task of protecting the game.

On the other side Japan’s bullpen was absurd. Chihiro Sumida was every bit on his game with five strikeouts in two innings, and the duo of Shoma Fujihira and Taisei Ota each pitched scoreless innings to finish the tournament with a 0.00 ERA. Taiwan needed five scoreless innings from their relievers to close out the tournament with a gold medal, and Yi Chang gave them an incredible lift. Japan wasn’t done fighting, getting two two-out singles off of Chang in the bottom of the fifth inning, but Chang made the pitches he needed to. Chang retired Kozono on a ground out, ending the threat for Japan and getting Taiwan a critical shut down inning. Chang was even better as the game continued, setting down the side in order in the sixth and seventh inning and totalling three strikeouts to finish out three scoreless innings of relief. Kuan-Yu Chen kept his fantastic tournament going by shutting down Japan in the eighth inning, a 1-2-3 frame with two strikeouts to turn the ball over to Kai-Wei Lin to close the game.

It got a bit tight in the ninth inning, perhaps. Ryosuke Tatsumi led off with a sharp base hit, and memories of Japan’s many comeback wins over the years were still on the mind. Shota Morishita bounced a tough chopper up the middle, but Tung-Hua Yueh nabbed it and flipped to second just ahead of Tatsumi to record the first out. Ryoya Kurihara ran the count full with one out, and he smoked a ball down the right field line. However Yu-Hsien Chu, brought into the game as a defensive substitution, was right there on it. He nabbed the hot shot from Kurihara and stepped on first base, ending the game with a double play to give Taiwan the gold medal and snap Japan’s incredible winning streak.