News
2013-07-25

12U BWC: Japans needs Walk-Off Single to keep clean Slate
Japan wins against Mexico 5-4 to finish first round with 6-0 record

Tien-Mou/Taipei City. Japan remains its keep slate at the II 12U Baseball World Cup with a 5-4 victory over Mexico in their final first round match on Thursday afternoon at Tien-Mou Stadium in Taipei City. However Japan needed a two-out walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the sixth to keep Mexico out of victory lane. Both teams already were qualified for the quarterfinals.

In the beginning it looked like a lopsided win for Japan. Daichi Aoki and Tomoharu Moriya hit back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the first to give them a 4-0 lead. Afterwards though Japan’s offense was shut down and weren’t able to do anything against Mexican pitching. This allowed Mexico to get back into the game. A wild pitch in the third and an error in the fourth helped them to cut the deficit to 2-4. In the sixth Hector Vargas tied the game with a two-out, two-run double.

In the bottom half of the sixth, Japan led off with Tomoki Ouchi, who reached on an error at short. A sac bunt not only moved him to second but all the way to third. Following a strikeout for the second out Koyo Mizushima ended the game hitting a 1-2 pitch off Kevin Garcia through the middle for a walk-off single.

On Friday Mexico will face Venezuela in the quarterfinals. Japan will square off with Panama in the afternoon. Both games will be played at Tien-Mou Stadium.

Japan  ab   r   h rbi  bb  so  po   a lob 
MIZUSHIMA Koyo cf 
IKEDA Kohei 1b 
   OBA Shogo 1b 
   KIKUTA Hirokazu ph/1b 
UEDA Taiyo 2b 
AOKI Daichi c 
MORIYA Tomoharu ss 
NINOMIYA Kosuke lf 
TAKAMIZU Hidemasa rf 
   SUZUKI Ryusei rf 
   OUCHI Tomoki ph 
NAKAJIMA Hiromu 3b 
   SAWAMURA Shota ph 
YAGIHASHI Sora p 
   SATO Ichiro p 
   ISHII Yuki ph 
Totals 23 18 10 


Score by Innings R H E
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Mexico.............. 001 102 - 4 10 4
Japan............... 400 001 - 5 8 1
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Note: 2 outs, 1 runner LOB when the game ended.



E - BALLESTEROS 2(2); CASTILLO(2); VARGAS(1); NINOMIYA(1). DP - JPN 2. LOB -
MEX 6; JPN 6. 2B - ZAZUETA(2); VARGAS(1). HR - AOKI(2); MORIYA(1). SH -
SAWAMURA(2). SB - NINOMIYA(7). CS - NAKAJIMA(1).



Japan  ip er bb so wp bk hbp ibb ab bf fo go np 
YAGIHASHI Sora   2.2 12 13 38 
SATO Ichiro W  3.1 14 15 44