S. Korea defeats Taiwan to reach final vs. Japan at regional baseball tournament

South Korea defeated Taiwan 6-4 for its first win at an ongoing regional baseball tournament in Tokyo on Saturday, setting up a date with Japan in the championship final set for Sunday night.

South Korea launched three solo home runs in the teams’ third game of the Asia Professional Baseball Championship (APBC) at Tokyo Dome, including a tiebreaking shot by Kim Do-yeong in the bottom of the fifth inning.

South Korea had earlier lost to Australia 8-7 and then to Japan 9-5. With Japan’s 16-1 rout of Australia earlier Saturday, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia all finished the round-robin phase with a 1-2 record, while Japan topped everyone at 3-0.

And South Korea came out on top in a tiebreaking formula called Team Quality Balance (TQB), which is the sum of runs scored divided by the number of offensive innings, minus the number of runs allowed divided by the number of defensive innings.

This is the third edition of the APBC and also the third straight final pitting South Korea against Japan, with the latter having won the two earlier finals.

The APBC is for players aged 24 years and younger or those with no more than three years of professional experience. Teams can each take up to three players who are between 24 and 29 years old.

Against Taiwan, South Korea put up a three-spot in the bottom third off starter Hsu Siang-Sheng.

Park Jae-hyun led off the inning with a solo home run. Then Hsu hit three batters to load the bases, and Kim Whee-jip’s single doubled the South Korean lead to 2-0.

Two batters later, An Jae-seok singled home another run for a 3-0 lead, though Kim was tagged out at home to end the rally.

Taiwan used some big swings to tie the game in the top fifth.

First, it was Zeng Sheng-An taking starter Lee Ro-un deep to right field for a solo home run. Chang Hsiang then worked a 10-pitch walk, and two batters later, Chang Jen-Wei smoked a two-run home run to pull Taiwan even at 3-3.

Kim Do-yeong, who led the Korea Baseball Organization with 45 homers this year, had the answer for South Korea in the bottom fifth, as he launched an opposite-field solo shot to right field against new pitcher Chen Mu-Heng.

Park increased that lead to 5-3 with a two-out double in the bottom sixth, after Cho Hyeong-woo doubled off the center field wall.

Taiwan got back to within one in the top seventh when Zeng blasted his second solo home run of the game, but South Korea responded with a solo shot of its own, off the bat of Moon Jeong-bin.