The Korean baseball team achieved a thrilling come-from-behind victory against the Dominican Republic in the 2024 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier 12, maintaining a glimmer of hope of advancing to the Super Round (semi-finals).
The national team achieved a come-from-behind victory of 9-6 against the Dominican Republic in the 4th match of Group B of the group stage held at Tianmu Stadium in Taipei, Taiwan on the 16th.
The Korean national team, which started the game with Lim Chan-gyu (32, LG) as the starting pitcher and the second pitcher, continued to have a difficult game in the early and middle innings, allowing a heavy hit to Dominican Republic leadoff hitter Cespedes from the top of the first inning.
From the second inning, they started giving up points. Lim Chan-gyu allowed a heavy hit to leadoff hitter Alcantara, then allowed bases loaded with no outs with consecutive walks to the next hitter, and in the following at-bat, a runner on third base came all the way home, giving up the first run.
Lim Chan-gyu allowed a double and a home run in succession in the 4th inning and had to leave the mound with 3 earned runs. So Hyun-jun (23, KT), who took the mound next, also gave up one additional point.
Korea gave up 1 point each in the 5th and 6th innings, and was dragged down to 0-6 until midway through the game. On the other hand, the Korean batters’ bats were not able to demonstrate their skills.
However, as the game continued into the second half, Korea’s offensive power began to revive.
Due to the Dominican Republic’s mistakes and timely hits from Moon Bo-kyung (24, LG) and Park Dong-won (34, LG), Korea quickly gained 4 points.
And in ‘Episode 8 of the Promise’, everything turned upside down.
When Na Seung-yeop (22, Lotte), who was the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the 8th inning, got on base with a single, the Dominican Republic replaced the pitcher with Castillo.
And the Korean national team began to focus on Castillo.
Moon Bo-kyung and Park Dong-won hit singles in the 6th and 8th inning with 1 out and 1st and 3rd bases, and captain Song Seong-moon (28, Kiwoom), Park Seong-han (26, SSG), and Choi Won-jun (27, KIA) came to bat. By hitting a timely hit, he quickly scored 3 points and succeeded in turning the score around to 8-6.
In addition, Hong Chang-ki (31, LG)’s fly ball was turned into a hit due to a judgment error by the Dominican Republic’s center fielder, increasing Korea’s lead to 3 points at 9-6.
With this victory, Korea recorded 2 wins and 2 losses in Group B. The next game is against Australia on Monday the 18th.
However, the results of other games that took place on the same day are likely to be somewhat detrimental to Korea’s advancement to the super round.
In the match between Japan and Taiwan that took place on the same day, Japan defeated Taiwan 3-1, effectively confirming its advancement to the super round.
In the same Group B match between Australia and Cuba, Cuba beat Australia 4-3.
Accordingly, Japan ranked 1st with 3 wins, and Taiwan ranked 2nd with 2 wins and 1 loss, making them most likely to advance to the super round. Korea ranks third.
Korea must expect Taiwan, which plays against Australia on the 17th, to lose to Australia.
Reporter Wonju Lee takeoff@donga.com
Source: www.donga.com
