[Asian Games] Sighs of relief after baseball gold medal

It was as ugly as a game of this magnitude can get, but South Korea will gladly take its 6-3 victory over Chinese Taipei for the gold medal at the ongoing Asian Games here.

South Korea went down earlier and clawed back into the game in unsightly fashion. In the eighth, the tying run that made it 3-3 came on a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch. The go-ahead run later in the same inning was scored on a grounder to second.

Only Hwang Jae-gyun’s clean single to right, scoring two runs that dealt one final blow to Chinese Taipei, gave the game a measure of respectability.

South Korean manager Ryu Joong-il breathed a sigh of relief afterward.

“We’ve won the Asian Games gold medal, and this sure feels good,” Ryu said.

“I am really happy to have delivered the news of the gold medal to our fans.”

South Korea failed to bring anyone home after loading the bases with no out in the first inning.

Chinese Taipei made the host pay by getting the first run of the game in the bottom of the first, and the two sides traded leads before Chinese Taipei took a 3-2 lead.

The game could have turned even uglier for South Korea in the seventh inning. With a 3-2 advantage, Chinese Taipei put runners at the corners with nobody out.

Ryu summoned relief pitcher An Ji-man to clean up the mess.

The right-hander retired the next three batters in order to escape the inning unscathed, and then sat down three more batters in a row in the bottom of the eighth, after South Korea put up four runs in the top of the frame.

Ryu said the momentum swung in his team’s favor after the scoreless seventh.

“The key to our victory was to get out of that seventh inning jam without giving up a run,” the manager said. (Yonhap)