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Chinese Taipei’s Wu makes series’ history

3 min read
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Chinese Taipei pitcher Sin-Jie Wu trotted out to the mound for the final inning, knowing a perfect game was on the line.

But Wu had no idea that history was also at stake.

None of what Wu knew, or didn’t, made any difference as he fanned two hitters and got the other to fly out to finish the first complete perfect game in Pony League World Series history as Chinese Taipei defeated Youngstown in a winners’ bracket game, 4-0, Tuesday morning at Lew Hays Pony Field.

“I was just trying not to lose the game,” Wu laughed. “I didn’t expect that.”

Reinaldo Duran of Caracas, Venezuela, threw seven perfect innings in 1969 against Carnarvon, British Columbia, Canada. Venezuela won the game 1-0 but Duran was lifted before throwing a complete game.

“(Sin-Jie) was very focused during the game,” said Chinese Taipei manager Chiu Shih-Teng. “I didn’t even know he had a perfect game until the end.”

Wu was extremely efficient for Taipei, using a fastball and slider to throw 42 of his 57 pitches for strikes. He allowed only two balls to leave the infield, induced five groundouts and struck out nine.

“I’m just so thankful for my parents, teammates and coaches,” Wu said.

Chinese Taipei, which is from New Taipei City, gave Wu run support in the middle innings. Chen Cheng-Yi, who reached on an error to begin the inning, scored on a groundout to shortstop by Wang Zhi-Xiang to take a 1-0 lead in the second inning. In the third, Gao Wei-Guang recorded the first hit of the game with a run-scoring single to right field, and Tien Tzu-Chieh hit an infield single that ricocheted off Youngstown pitcher Colten Shaffer to extend the lead to 3-0.

Chen Chiu-Tang extended the lead to 4-0 with a sacrifice fly to center field in the fourth inning to score Wu, who was hit by a pitch.

Two of the four runs safely reached base early in the inning on errors. Wu scored after being hit by a pitch. Three runs were unearned against Youngstown pitcher Colten Shaffer, who gave up only two hits through five innings.

The loss dropped Youngstown to an elimination game in the afternoon, where it was eliminated by the Dominican Republic.

“At this level of competition, walks, hit-batsmen and errors will all come back to haunt you,” said Youngstown manager Doug Widrig. “It’s part of the game. Hats off to (Wu). He had a lot of velocity and pinpoint control. Our team can hit. A pitcher that does that to us is very talented.”

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