South Korea’s baseball team kept its golden hopes alive with a win in a fateful series against Japan.
Ryu Joong-il’s men earned a 2-0 victory over Japan in the Baseball Super Round of the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games at the Shaoxing Baseball and Softball Center on Friday.
South Korea, which lost 0-4 to Chinese Taipei in the preliminary round, improved to 1-1 and kept its hopes of advancing to the gold medal game alive.
It was the second loss for Japan, who suffered a shock 0-1 defeat to China in qualifying. In this tournament, qualification results carry over into the Super Round. Korea is competing against Taiwan, China, and Japan in the Super Round.
Park Se-woong, or “Senior Glasses,” was the star of the show.
At 27 years old, Park is the oldest member of the national team, and he pitched a perfect game.
He faced runners on first and third in the top of the first inning, but he stood firm and finished with a no-hitter. 온라인카지노
Park finished the day with six innings, nine strikeouts, two hits, and no walks. The offense was the driving force behind South Korea’s victory despite a somewhat sluggish batting lineup.
The batting lineup, which was silent in the previous game against Chinese Taipei, didn’t let up today.
They were held without a hit until the third inning by Japan’s starter Shuichiro Kaga, who was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) in Japanese social baseball.
Shuichiro KAYO plays for Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan.
It was a frustrating offensive performance, given the nature of Japanese baseball, where even unemployed teams have quality players.
Golden opportunities were missed. Korea got its first hit in the bottom of the fourth inning when Choi Ji-hoon reached on an infield single and advanced to first base.
Yoon Dong-hee followed with a long shot to right, putting runners on first and third with no outs.
Then Noh Si-hwan, who leads the KBO in home runs this season (31), came to the plate.
But that was it. Noh struck out, and Yoon Dong-hee was thrown out trying to steal.
With two outs, South Korea had the misfortune of having Moon Bo-kyung hit a hard straight line drive that was caught by the pitcher. It was a bit of an unfortunate play with the bases loaded.
With the memories of the loss to Taiwan still fresh in their minds, they finally broke through, and it was captain Kim Hye-sung who did it.
She led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a cool double, which was followed by a sacrifice bunt from Choi Ji-hoon.
Yoon Dong-hee drew a walk to put runners on first and third, and Noh Si-hwan’s sacrifice bunt ended the 0-0 streak.
South Korea added a run in the bottom of the eighth inning when Noh singled with runners on first and second.
Both of Korea’s runs on the day came from Noh’s fingertips.
Facing defeat, Japan fought back with runners on first and third in the ninth.
However, Park Young-hyun, who started the game in the eighth inning, struck out the next two runners to end the game.
Korea will face China on June 6 at 1 p.m. KST.
This is a must-win game for Korea, as the first and second place finishers in the Super Round advance to the gold medal game.