PH U15 baseball team suffers second Super Round loss to Chinese Taipei in Asian championship

Coming off a defeat against Japan on Thursday, the Philippine U15 baseball team continued to struggle in the Super Round of the U15 Asian Baseball Championship, falling to host nation Chinese Taipei, 10-0, in Tainan, Taiwan on August 21.

The Dreamers now hold a 2-2 win-loss card in group B,  while the Chinese Taipei needed only six innings to clinch the lopsided win and hold firm to the second place in Group A with a 3-1 card.

Despite putting two quick outs in the opening inning, the Philippines came up short as Yi-en Wen tripled and later scored on Yi-Che Tseng’s groundout, giving the hosts the early lead.

Defensive lapses continued to haunt the Filipinos in the second inning, allowing Taipei to connect together four timely runs courtesy of Rui-Xin Chen, Hsing-Fu Yeh, Jun-Yan Sun, and Shao-Chieh Ko and extend the deficit to 5-0.

Two more runs slipped away from the Filipino’s hands in the third inning when Chen and Yeh again crossed home plate following a fielding error on Chuang Tzu-Chun’s grounder.

With the Dreamers continuing to dwindle, Taipei took an advantage as Jin-Cheng Jiang reached and later punched on Chen’s single to right center, 8-0.

Jacob Marudo, lifting Philippines’ hopes, tried to find a breakthrough with a single up the middle but came up short and closed out the fifth inning scoreless.

Despite Ezekiel Manaig reaching second base from a wild pitch to give Dreamers a last chance in the sixth inning, Taipei held firm with Bon-You Chen and Yeh delivering the final two runs to seal the all-favored finish.

Still clinging to their championship round hopes, the Philippines will face South Korea next in the single round-robin tournament on August 22.