“GÜT” ENOUGH – AUSTRALIA BEATS GERMANY 4-1

The heavily favoured Aussies were not at their best against their fledgling European counterparts, but did just enough to come away with the all-important first win.

South Australian Paul Mildren started on the mound and earned the win for the Aussies less than 48 hours after arriving in Taiwan - direct from spring training in the United States.

Mildren, who was making his first appearance for Australia in over 16 months, was applauded for his performance by Head Coach John Deeble shortly after the game.

“I thought we pitched pretty well today and there were a lot of positives with our defence,” Deeble said.

“I would have liked it if we had swung the bats a little better, but all in all it was good to come away with a win.”

The Australians faced an early scare in the bottom half of the first when German catcher Kai Gronauer belted a two-out double off the leftfield wall driving in Dominik Wulf - posting the Germans a surprise 1-0 lead.

But Australia bounced back quickly when Brendan Kingman grounded a single up the middle, scoring Brett Roneberg from third Base with two-out in the top of the second inning.

The offence continued to roll over the next two frames as Glenn Williams, Luke Hughes and Paul Weichard all came up with run-scoring hits to pad the lead out to a 4-1 advantage.

That would be all the run support Mildren would require, as the left hander finished the evening firing five innings, allowing just four hits and striking out seven.

Mildren then handed the reigns to West Australian Scott Mitchinson, who closed out the final four innings to earn the save without allowing a run.

The teams were split in their two meetings last November during the 2007 World Cup, and a win against Korea here would place the Australians in prime position for one of the three Olympic berths up for grabs in the 8-nation tournament.

The Game against Korea is scheduled to start at 9:30pm AEDT with LIVE updates available throughout the game at www.baseball.com.au