Extra-innings loss to Chinese Taipei seals Team Canada's fate

B6

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BEIJING - There would be no story book ending for Canada in baseball at the 2008 Olympic Summer Games.

Enlarge Photo

The Canadian Press

Canada's Stubby Clapp hits a home run in the seventh inning yesterday to tie the game against Chinese Taipei in Beijing.

Canada came back to force extra-innings, but they could not hold off Chinese Taipei as the Canadians would suffer yet another one-run loss in their final preliminary game, 6-5 in 12 innings.

New rules installed by the IBAF for the Olympics state that after the 10th inning, the offensive team would put runners on first and second in order to try and speed up the finish. So with the game tied at 5-5 in the top of the 12th inning, with runners on first and second to start the frame, Chih-Hsien Chiang drove in the go-ahead run off of Chris Reitsma of Calgary to give Taipei a 6-5 lead.

With Matt Rogelstad of New Westminster, B.C. on second and Scott Thorman of Cambridge, Ont., on first to start the bottom of the 12th for Canada, Fu-Te Ni and Chih-Chia Chang combined to strikeout the side and preserve the win for Taipei.

"Well, it certainly isn't what we baseball people are trained to compete in, but it is what it is," said Olympic manager Terry Puhl of the new extra-inning format. "Do I like it? No. Nor would I like it even if we win."

Taipei got on the board first in the top of the first inning on a sacrifice fly from Kuo-Hui Lo to give his team the early 1-0 lead.

Canada responded in the bottom half of the inning on a pair of RBI singles from Nick Weglarz and Thorman to give the Canadians a 2-1 advantage.

That lead was short lived as Taipei would score four runs in the top of the second inning on the strength of two home runs, a leadoff solo-shot from Chih-Sheng Lin and a two-run blast from Chun-Chang Yeh to give Taipei a 5-2 lead.

But Canada would start chipping away at that lead in the bottom of the second when Adam Stern led off the inning with a single and would come in to score on a pair of throwing errors on a sacrifice bunt from Emmanuel Garcia and cut the lead to two.

Stern and Garcia would pair up again in the fourth inning when Stern hit a triple, followed by an RBI ground out by Garcia to bring the Canadians within one.

The Canadians would complete the comeback in the seventh inning when Stubby Clapp hit a solo-home run, his first of the tournament, to tie the game 5-5.

"We played a good game and we battled back," says Stern, who was 2-for-5 with a triple and two runs scored.

"It was awesome to see Stubby hit a bomb and in the end we played good baseball to win."

"The whole at-bat I was trying to hit the ball hard, maybe get a double, but I just got lucky and got on top of it and away she went," says Clapp of his home run.