Australia got the World Baseball Classic underway with a 3-0 win over a Taiwan team cheered on by thousands of passionate fans in Tokyo in Thursday’s opening game.
Home runs from Robbie Perkins and Major League Baseball prospect Travis Bazzana got the 20-team international tournament started with a bang in front of a crowd of over 40,000 at the Tokyo Dome.
The overwhelming majority were supporting Taiwan, and Australia manager Dave Nilsson said it was “good we scored first to kind of limit the noise a little bit”.
“I thought it was a good baseball day all round and we came out on the right side of it,” he said.
Pool C also includes defending champions Japan as well as South Korea and the Czech Republic, with all games being played in Tokyo.
The Czech Republic were due to play South Korea later Thursday.
Pool-stage games at the tournament are also being played in Puerto Rico and mainland United States, before the action moves to Miami and Houston from the quarter-finals onwards.
Japan, led by Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, do not begin their campaign until they play Taiwan on Friday but there was still plenty of interest in Tokyo.
Thousands of blue-clad Taiwan fans packed out the stands, singing songs, blowing whistles and playing trumpets in support of their team.
“I appreciate that the fans were cheering us, and a lot of them flew here to Tokyo,” said Taiwan manager Tseng Hao-jiu.
“The result was something we deserved and I am responsible for the loss.”
The Taiwan fans almost lifted the roof off the stadium when US-born Stuart Fairchild hit a long shot that went just outside the foul pole in Taiwan’s first at-bat.
Australia took the wind out of their sails when Perkins hit the first home run of the tournament, scoring two runs off Taiwan reliever Chen Po-yu in the fifth inning.
There was more bad news for Taiwan when captain Chen Chieh-hsien was forced out of the game in the sixth inning when he was hit on the hand by a pitch.
Australia increased their lead when Bazzana hit a solo home run in the seventh inning.
Taiwan had a chance to take the lead with two runners on base in the ninth inning but Australia relief pitcher Jon Kennedy snuffed out the danger.
“Definitely would have preferred a nice, easy inning instead of having to go down to the wire,” said Nilsson.
“But he kept his calm, and that’s why we kept him in there.”
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