Youth Park/Taipei City. Korea picked up its fourth win in the fifth game at the II 12U Baseball World Cup, shutting down Russia 16-0 on Monday afternoon at Youth Park. The Asian squad scored five runs in the second and five in the fifth to blow the game wide open. On defense they were nearly perfect, retiring 14 of the 15 Russian batters.
Only an error at second base on groundball by Artem Logunov in the bottom of the fourth led to the lone base runner in the game. However he was quickly erased from the bases moments later when Andrey Shtykher grounded into a double play. Otherwise pitchers Jun Ho Kim, Dong Wook Kwon, Tae Ho Eom and Ho Jun Kwon were flawless, striking out seven in the process.
At the plate Seong Min Kim and Sang June Moon led the Korean offense with seven runs combined. Sang Won Lee and Byeong Hwi Kim had two RBI apiece.
Nikita Sokolov and Aleksandr Velichko shared the time on the mound for Russia. But both outings were hurt by a couple of mishaps in the defense. Sokolov ended up with the loss, conceding six hits, ten runs (4 ER) and five walks in three innings.
Thanks to the rest day, Korea now will be off for two days before concluding the first round with a duel against the United States. Russia is going to take on the USA on Wednesday and Hong Kong on Thursday.
