2014 Asian Games

The 2014 Asian Games were the sixth Asian Games to feature baseball. They were held in Incheon, South Korea. The same eight nations participated as in the 2010 Asian Games. All games were held at Munhak Baseball Stadium or Mokdong Baseball Stadium.

Countries sent different levels of talent. The host South Koreans closed down the Korea Baseball Organization to send a team of their top pros, while Japan relied on players from the industrial leagues and Taiwan used minor leaguers from the US or semipro and amateur players from Taiwan.

Also, see 2014 Asian Games (Rosters)

Games

September 22

•  Chinese Taipei 12,  Hong Kong 0. Kuan-Yu Chen, Kuo-Hua Lo, Yi-Hsiang Lin and Kai-Wen Cheng combine on a two-hitter, fanning 12 in a 7-inning mercy rule win. LF Chih-Hsien Chiang scores three runs. Wing-Sing Li took the loss while only 2B Hing-Long Yip and backup 1B Kei-Man Fong get hits for Hong Kong.
•  Japan 11,  People's Republic of China 0. Katsutoshi Satake, Tsukasa Komatsu, Tetsu Yokota and Takuaki Iguchi team on a five-hit whitewash. 3B Yuichi Tabata has 3 runs, CF Takuya Fujishima goes 3 for 3, LF Akira Matsumoto drives in four and RF Toshiyuki Hayashi drives in 3. Xin Li gives up 6 runs in 1 2/3 IP for the loss.
•  South Korea 15,  Thailand 0. South Korea only needed four and a half innings to rout Thailand. Kwang-hyun Kim, Won-sang Yoo, Tae-yang Lee and Jae-hak Lee combined on the two-hitter (3B Alexander Clark and 2B Adichat Wongvichit connecting safely) while RF Byung-hun Min scores three and CF Sung-bum Na goes 3 for 4 with two runs and three RBI. Wissaroot Sihamat gives up 8 runs in 2/3 of an inning for the defeat.

September 23

•  People's Republic of China 15,  Mongolia 0. Xiang Zhang, Ziliang Li, Song Ran, Yu Liu, Jianzeng Sun and Qingyuan Meng combine on a no-hitter, with the only walk coming from starter Zhang in a mercy rule rout. LF Shunyi Yang drives in 4, 3B Xiaolei Du scores four and SS Yi Lu has 3 runs and 3 RBI. Munkhbat Dashzeveg (10 BB, 5 H, 8 R in 3 IP) is the losing hurler.
•  Japan 9,  Pakistan 1. Pakistan gets a first-inning lead when C Umair Imdad Bhatti drives in CF Muhammad Sumair Zawar against Reo Moriyasu. Japan rallies for the expected win, but it is the first game that does not involve a mercy rule, going the full 9. Tariq Nadeem takes the defeat. 12 Japanese players get hits and 12 Japanese players have either a run or RBI in a balanced show. Moriyasu, Koshiro Imamura, Takuaki Iguchi and Ryota Sekiya strike out 17 and the latter three toss five hitless innings of relief after Moriyasu gives up four hits in four.
•  Chinese Taipei 13,  Thailand 1. CF Pin-Chieh Chen raps three hits while LF Chih-Hsien Chiang drives in three in an easy win. Chun-Lin Kuo, Chia-Hao Sung and Kuo-Hua Lo fan 11 and allow three hits in seven innings. Phanuwat Sukmuang gives up 11 hits and 12 runs in one inning for the loss. DH Nirun Jaroenkitsiriwong drives in CF Jack Daru with the Thai run.

September 24

•  Thailand 13,  Hong Kong 7. In the closest game yet, Thailand rallies from a 5-1 deficit to win. CF Joe Daru has 3 runs and 3 RBI while DH Teerasak Kongsabai has 3 hits and 3 RBI. Phanuwat Sukmuang and Chanatip Thongbai toss 3 1/3 shutout innings of relief while Siraphop Nadee got the win. Yu-Chung Leung is the losing hurler; Hong Kong's top hitters were SS Kin-Chung Tsang (3 H, 2 R, 2 RBI) and RF Tsun-Wai Yung (3 RBI).
•  South Korea 10,  Chinese Taipei 0. The Korean powerhouse keeps on rolling, crushing Cubs farmhand Yao-Lin Wang for five runs while he retires no one; only Kuan-Yu Chen (0 R, 5 K in 4 1/3 IP) stops their hitters. Meanwhile, Hyeon-jong Yang, Woo-chan Cha, Hyun-hee Han and Ji-man An team up on a six-hit, no-walk, 11-K shutout. LF Hyun-soo Kim goes 3 for 5 with two runs and two RBI and SS Jung-ho Kang drives in three.
•  Pakistan 25,  Mongolia 0. Mongolia is no-hit for the second straight day, as Adil Sardar fans eight in a two-walk gem. Pakistan needs only four innings to score their 25 runs, with CF Muhammad Sumair Zawar scoring five times, DH Nasir Nadeem Butt having 3 runs and 3 RBI and 1B Khurram Raza Khan going 4 for 4 with 3 runs and 4 RBI. Pakistan has 16 hits and 13 walks.

September 25

•  Japan 21,  Mongolia 0. Mongolia got their only hits of the 2014 Asian Games, by P Munkhbat Dashzeveg off Takayuki Kato and by C Unubold Oyunbaatar off Koshiro Imamura. Kato and Imamura combined for 9 whiffs and no walks. Dashzeveg went all five innings (18 H, 21 R, 14 ER, 5 BB). DH Ryota Ito (4 for 4, 5 RBI), 1B Shun Ishikawa (3 H, 4 RBI) and C Takeshi Kunimoto (3 H, 3 RBI) led the Japanese offense.
•  People's Republic of China 6,  Pakistan 0. In a battle for the last semifinal slot, China wins a full-length game. Haifan Yang (6 IP, W) and Ziliang Li (3 IP, Sv) combine on a four-hit, no-walk, 12-K effort. Tariq Nadeem takes the defeat. 2B Wei Tang and SS Yi Lu each rap two hits for China, 3B Zubair Nawaz two for Pakistan.
•  South Korea 12,  Hong Kong 0. South Korea needs 7 innings to dispose of Hong Kong. 3B Jae-kyun Hwang goes 2 for 2 with 2 runs and 3 RBI, while Seong-moo Hong, Jung-keun Bong, Chang-yong Lim and Won-sang Yoo combine on a one-walk, two-hit effort. Hong Kong's pitchers fan 15 Korean batters to 9 Ks by Korean hurlers, but Hong Kong walks 9 to Korea's one. Ka-Ho Sam Leung takes the loss. The lone Hong Kong hits come from DH Ho-Lam Lo and 3B Ho-Yin Leung.

September 27

•  Chinese Taipei 10,  Japan 4. Japan had won its first three games by a 42-1 margin but fell big-time in the semifinals. 2B Yen-Wen Kuo hit a 3-run homer and LF Chih-Hsien Chiang had three hits for Taiwan. Taiwan's starter Chih-Wei Hu struggled (3 R in 2 1/3 IP) but Kai-Wen Cheng, a veteran of Nippon Pro Baseball, excelled in relief (1 R in 6 1/3 IP). Japan's first three pitchers all failed: Tetsu Yokota (5 UER in 1 2/3 IP), Tsukasa Komatsu (4 R in 1/3 IP) and Takuaki Iguchi (1 R in 1/3 IP) allowed all 10 runs in the second and third.
•  South Korea 7,  People's Republic of China 2. The hosts had also cruised through round one (37-0) but also ran into problems. In the first, Chinese LF Shunyi Yang threw out LF Hyun-soo Kim at home. In the second, RF Byung-hun Min doubled in CF Sung-bum Na against Xin Li but 3B Jae-kyun Hwang was trapped between third and home for another out on the bases. China tied it in the third when CF Xiao Cui doubled in SS Yi Lu against Jae-hak Lee.

In the bottom of the third, SS Jung-ho Kang took Jiping Qi deep for a 2-1 lead. China tied it in the 4th when Shunyi Yang doubled in C Wei Wang. After Jae-hak Lee left, Tae-yang Lee provided superb relief (5 K, 1 H, 0 BB in 4 IP) and Hyun-hee Han closed it up (0 H, 0 BB, 2 K in 1 IP). Meanwhile, Korea's offense continued to peck away. In the 5th, 1B Byung-ho Park singled off Qi, stole second and took third on a wild pitch. Na singled him in, then also stole and an error on the play by veteran C Wang let him race home for a 4-2 lead.

In the 6th, Xia Luo walked DH Ah-seop Son and Hyun-soo Kim and two-time KBO MVP Byung-ho Park drilled one over the left-center fence for a 7-2 score. Na had 3 hits and Hwang went 4 for 4 to support Park's 2 runs and 3 RBI.

September 28

•  Japan 10,  People's Republic of China 0. Japan cruises in the Bronze Medal game, as Ryota Sekiya allows two hits in six shutout innings and Tsukasa Komatsu and Katsutoshi Satake combine on a hitless, scoreless 7th. Haifan Yang, who had starred against Pakistan, takes the loss with 3 runs and 6 hits in 4 IP. RF Toshiyuki Hayashi drives in 3, SS Issei Endo scores three runs and LF Akira Matsumoto has 3 hits for Japan. C Wei Wang and 3B Weiqiang Meng get the lone Chinese hits.
•  South Korea 6,  Chinese Taipei 3. Taiwan came close to an upset of the hosts before falling in the Gold Medal game. In the first, CF Ping-Chieh Chen led off with a triple off Kwang-hyun Kim and 3B Han Lin grounded him in. Chun-Lin Kuo blanked the Korean stars for four innings. In the 5th, though, he faded, allowing a RBI single to DH Ah-seop Son; reliever Kuan-Yu Chen's wild pitch let in another run to make it 2-1. In the 6th, Taiwan went back ahead when Han Lin singled in C Kun-Sheng Lin and SS Yen-Wen Kuo hit a sacrifice fly to score Ping-Chieh Chen; it was now 3-2 Taiwan.

Taiwan got men on the corners to open the 7th off Hyeon-jong Yang but Ji-man An relieved and escaped the jam. In the 8th, Korea rallied off Kuan-Yu Chen and Chia-Jen Lo on a bases-loaded walk to SS Jung-ho Kang, a RBI by CF Sung-bum Na and a two-run hit by 3B Jae-kyun Hwang. CF Byung-hun Min had two hits and two runs for the champs. Ji-man An got the win with 3 K in two hitless, walkless frames and former big leaguers Chang-yong Lim and Jung-keun Bong wrapped it up.

2014 Asian Games official site