In the bottom of the 1^st, Chinese Taipei led off with a double and that runner ended up scoring for them to take a 1 - 0 lead.

 

They extended this to 3 - 0 in the 3^rd on the back of three hits which scored two runs.

 

In the top of the 4^th, McDonald led off with a single and was driven in by a Battaglia home run over deep centre field and the scoreline was now 3 - 2.

 

Then in the top of the 5^th, Cone and Campbell hit safely, Younis walked and we had loaded bases with one out. McDonald brought in Cone and then Battaglia smashed his second home run of the game WAAAY over left field to bring in another three runs and we had now taken the lead 6 – 3.

 

Lodge was replaced on the mound by Warner at the start of the 6^th and he had done a fine job throwing five really solid innings and giving up just the two earned runs. But in the 6^th innings, two walks, three hits and a couple of costly errors saw Chinese Taipei score five runs and regain the lead 8 – 6. Warner was replaced by Bakker on the mound and he did a good job to shut down the innings.

 

Then in the 7^th, the Taiwanese scored another five runs on four hits. McDonald took over from Bakker on the mound to complete the innings.

In the top of the 8^th we started our own fightback scoring five runs when Matavesi walked, White doubled, Cone doubled and then Younis, McDonald, Battaglia and Parish all hit consecutive singles. The scoreline was now 13 - 11.

 

In the top of the 9^th we had an excellent chance to tie the game up with runners on 1^st and 2^nd with one out, but we failed to score and so the final score was 13 - 11 against us.

 

This was a game that really was ours for the taking when we led 6 - 3 going into the 6^th but some poor defensive options, shaky defence and pitching let Chinese Taipei right back into the game. Indeed they scored 10 runs in two innings to go from 6 - 3 down to 13 – 6 up and to our boys’ great credit we showed tremendous ticker to get back to 13 – 11 and even had further scoring opportunities in the final innings.

 

Again, we didn’t execute fully and again, we gave our opponents some additional extra bats with poor defence. At this level, against the top teams in the world you just simply can’t afford to do it because they will take full advantage.

 

But there some real positives to come out of the game. Battaglia had the game of his life, going 4 for 4 with 2 home runs and 6 RBIs. Cone, White, McDonald and Parish also all hit well and we had some real quality at bats under pressure late in the game.

 

As I said, we showed great character to fight back but we really should have been able to close the game out with a three run lead late in the game.

 

We have now been beaten by two runs in both games against teams that are right up there with the best in this competition. We have no game tomorrow and our final two pool games are against France then Italy so we are still in solid shape to make it into the quarter finals.