Taiwan’s men’s national baseball team has clinched a spot in the next round of the U-23 Baseball World Cup, along with Mexico and Cuba after Cuba beat the Dominican Republic on Tuesday afternoon.

Cuban left-hander Naykel Cruz shut down the Dominican batters, and his team scored six runs on ten hits in a convincing 6-2 victory in Ciudad Obregon in Mexico that ensured Taiwan would advance to the tournament’s super round.

With the victory, Cuba finished Group A play tied with Mexico atop the group with a 4-1 record, while Taiwan secured the final qualifying spot at 3-2. The Dominican Republic finished fourth at 2-3.

Had the Dominican Republic won, it would have been tied with Cuba and Taiwan at 3-2 in group play, with two of the three teams advancing to the Super Round based on a run differential formula.

In the end, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela and Taiwan will open the Super Round in Hermosillo, Mexico, on Wednesday. Taiwan will start at a disadvantage, with its losses to Mexico and Cuba in group play carried over to this round.

The top two teams in the final standings will advance to the World Championship Game on Saturday.

In the opening round, Team Taiwan, competing under the name of Chinese Taipei, started with easy victories against Germany and the Czech Republic 7-0 and 4-1, respectively.

It then lost to Cuba 2-1 and to hosts Mexico 3-0, setting up an all-important game Monday against the Dominican Republic that would help decide whether Taiwan moved on to the next round.

In that game, Taiwanese starter Wang Chi-ting (???) struck out eight batters in four innings and teamed up with reliever Pan Wen-hui (???) for a 5-0 victory, keeping Taiwan’s Super Round ambitions alive.

The U-23 Baseball World Cup is a biennial, professional-level, national team baseball world championship, featuring players aged between 21 to 23 (though the age limit has been increased to 24 this year as the tournament was not played in 2020 due to COVID-19.)

The U-23 Baseball World Cup is the third-most-important international baseball tournament in terms of distribution of world ranking points, following the Premier12 and the World Baseball Classic.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel