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Back on Friday, China and Korea played six innings of scoreless ball before rain stopped their game. The game was suspended and resumed Sunday.
And there wasn't much scoring in part two of the game. The two teams remained scoreless until the 11th inning when the crazy Olympic tiebreaker rule came into play.
China was up first with runners on first and second and manager Jim Lefebvre ordered a sacrifice to move the runners over. Fei Feng was up next for China and flied out to center that should have been deep enough to score the runner on third, Lingfen Sun. But Sun didn't tag up after the catch and instead was doubled off to end the inning.
In the bottom of the 11th, Seungyuop Lee hit a one-out single to score Jongwook Lee for the game-winning run.
Korea is now tied with Cuba atop the standings at 4-0. Japan and the USA are 2-2. Canada, the Netherlands, China, and Taiwan are 1-3.
The top four teams advance. Korea and Cuba will likely both advance (one of them has to). Japan plays Canada, China, and the USA. The USA will play China and Taiwan in addition to Japan.
Of the 1-3 teams, Canada is the only one with a good shot of making it into the top four. Canada would need to win its final three games, against Japan, the Netherlands, and Taiwan to move on.
China and the Netherlands likely don't have the talent to win three in a row. Taiwan has to bounce back from its shocking loss to China and then a 1-0 loss to Cuba. The Taiwanese player who flunked a drug test said he was taking fertility drugs.
The first tiebreaker for seeding is head-to-head record and the second is average number of runs given up per inning played on defense.
i guess it is, in fact, performance enhancing... though i'm wary of how that might play out on the field...
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