World Baseball Classic WBC Pool A: Korea – China 14-0 (7)
CHN 000 000 0 0 2 2 KOR 200 255 X 14 10 0
Korea got back on track on Sunday defeating China 14-0 in seven innings. They will follow Japan into round two of the World Baseball Classic and will face them again on Monday at the Tokyo Dome to determine the number one seed from Pool A. China got eliminated from the competition.
After getting crushed by Japan on Saturday, Korea tried to erase these memories 24 hours later. The first two batters of the Olympic champion Jong Wook Lee and Keun-Woo Jeong reached on walks to lead off the game, scoring on a RBI single by Hyun-Soo Kim and Tae Kyun Kim. They doubled the advantage on Bum Ho Lee’s two-run homerun to left field in fourth, before blowing the game wide open with five-run innings in the fifth and sixth.
China never got things going offensively throughout the seven innings. Additionally their pitching and defense revealed major struggles for the first time in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. They made some mistakes on routine plays, which blew up the score in the end. Shortstop and now national Baseball hero Raymond Chang of the Pittsburgh Pirates had another hit on Sunday, bringing his total to five in the tournament, finishing with a .455 batting average.
Suk-Min Yoon (W 1-0) cruised through six innings, allowing just two hits, while striking out four. 51 of his 69 pitches were strikes. Taehyon Chong and Chang Yong Lim closed it out in the seventh. Guoqiang Sun (L 0-1) gave up three hits, four runs and three base on balls to take the loss.