Seoul (Korea). Not even 24 hours after coming back against Canada, Chinese Taipei celebrated another walk-off win at the XXV IBAF 18U Baseball World Championship. They beat Panama 4-3 on a sac fly by Tzu Wei Lin in the bottom of the ninth inning. The team from Central America had just tied the game in the top of the eighth. Chinese Taipei improved to 3-1, while Panama dropped to 2-2.
After both teams exchanged runs in the first, Panama took a 2-1 lead in the top of the second. Rodrigo Orozco drove in Ariel Serrano with a RBI fielder’s choice to get them in front. Chinese Taipei answered in the third with two runs thanks to RBI singles by Tzu Wei Lin and Chih Chieh Su to turn the score around.
Nothing changed until the eighth, when Panama was able to tie the game. Edmundo Sosa tripled to lead off the frame and crossed the plate shortly after a long fly ball by Jean Carlos Ho, setting up another dramatic finish.
The first two batters for Chinese Taipei reached in the bottom half of the ninth. After Cheng Tang Wang popped up to third on the sac bunt try, a wild pitch moved the runners over anyway. An intentional walk loaded the bases. Following a pitching change Tzu Wei Lin drove a long fly ball to right-center field. The throw to home was late, bringing Chia Wei Yang over the plate for the winning run.
At the end of the first inning the game had been delayed for 30 minutes because of lengthy discussions. The frame had ended with a double play. Chih Chieh Su had hit into a flyout with runners on the corners. The runner from third, Yu Pin Sen, scored on the sac fly, while Tsung Hsien Lee, the runner on first, didn’t make it back in time to beat the throw from left field, getting doubled off. Panama argued that the run shouldn’t count, but eventually a protest was averted as the decision on the field was correct due to rule 4.09 of the official baseball rules “scoring a run”.
