|
I taped it last night and watched it this morning, and it was a surprisingly good game. I thought Tapei would get crushed but they were in there the whole time.
Beloved former Met Jae Wong Seo started for South Korea and looked good, although his control wasn't where it should be yet. His changeup was nasty, and while they didn't have a speed gun, his fastball looked pretty good--I'd say he was between 86 & 90 most of the game. He worked his splitter in there a bit too and that looked decent as well. All in all, he pitched 3 2/3 innings (61 pitches), allowing 2 hits, walking 2 and striking out 3. Byung Hyung Kim relieved and his stuff was as filthy as ever, although his velocity has definitely dropped off since his AZ days.
South Korean Sung Heong Hong hit a sharp grounder over the third base line in the fourth past a diving third baseman to score Jong Bong Lee from second. Lee whacked the hell out of a 2-1 pitch in the following inning to score Jin Man Park from second, giving South Korea a 2-0 lead.
In the bottom of the sixth, Taiwan rallied, putting runners on the corners with two outs, but recentely excommunicated Met Dae-Sung Koo came in to strike out pinch hitter Lung-Yi Huang. Koo looked pretty filthy with that tailing fastball and was hitting his spots.
Chan Ho Park followed Koo and was pretty dominant until the ninth, where he gave up two hits, putting runners on the corners, again with two outs. Pinch hitter Chih-Yao Chan hit a sharp grounder up the middle, but the shortstop, Park (don't know his first name), made a nice, diving play to snag the ball and flip it to the secondbaseman to end the game.
In all, the defense was superb, but all of the infielders slung the ball, Matsui-style--their arms all looked very weak. Most of the batters were slap-style, relying on their speed to get on base and South Korea bunted the hell out of the ball. Drove me a little crazy, but I was almost used to it by the end of the game.
The Taiwanese starter, En-Yu Lin was very, very solid. He struck out four and gave up 1 run on three hits in 3 2/3 innings--no walks. Hee Sop Choi his a long double off him, but that was the only really hard-hit ball he allowed. He had a pretty nice fastball and maybe a sinker? Something that wasn't too hard but broke straight down--like a little 12-6 curve, maybe?
Pretty enjoyable baseball!
| 
