Cuba or Chinese Taipei?
It was too close to call as to which team would earn a ticket into Sunday's World Baseball Challenge championship game, with the teams tied 6-6 and going to extra innings when the Citizen press deadline arrived Friday night.
In a classic playoff matchup witnessed by a crowd of about 1,500, the top two teams in this week's round-robin tournament met on the field at Citizen Field, and only one of those teams went back to their hotel rooms happy.
Cuba had reason to smile early. They jumped on starter Yu Hsun Chen to grab a 3-0 lead in the first inning. With two out, Jose Dariel Abreu singled in Frederick Cepeda, who got on with a walk, advancing Alfredo Despaigne to second base. Chen then walked Youlieski Gourriel to load the bases for Rudy Reyes, who came through with a double off the centrefield wall to score two more runs.
Chinese Taipei answered with two in the second inning and tied it at 3 in the top of the third. Li Kin Huang led off the second with a home run and Wei Ting Lin got on with a single and stole second, then scored from third when a pitch from Cuban starter Miguel Gonzalez got away from catcher Ariel Pestano. Then in the third, Yu Tsung Han brought in the third run with a hit to right field to score Lin Han, who reached base on an error to shortstop Alexander Ayala. That ended the night for Gonzalez, who handed the ball to Alberto Soto.
Ayala picked up his second error of the game in the fourth inning when he got fooled on a short hopper off the bat of Po Ting Hsiao. Han ran in from third base to put Chinese Taipei ahead 4-3.
Despaigne, a solid candidate for the tournament MVP award, wiped out that lead with one swing of the bat in the fifth inning, a three-run shot with lead-off hitter Yoelvis Leyva and Hector Olivera already aboard.
But in the seventh, Wei Ting Lin delivered a clutch hit into short centrefield with bases juiced to score Kuan Wei Yang and Chih Pei Huang to tie it 6-6.
The winner advances to Sunday's 3 p.m. championship game, while the loser plays in the semifinal tonight at 7 against the winner of today's 11 a.m. playoff between Canada and Toshiba-Japan. Today at 3 p.m., the Bahamas will take on the Beijing Tigers to determine fifth place.
