Canada crushes China in baseball opener

China was shown no mercy — well, one inning's worth — by Team Canada in its historic first foray into Olympic baseball.

Chris Begg and two relievers combined on an eight-hitter as Team Canada crushed China 10-0 in eight innings in the preliminary round of men's baseball at the Summer Games in Beijing on Wednesday.

Begg, a right-hander from Uxbridge, Ont., scattered six hits over 6 2/3 innings and struck out nine batters, including the side in the bottom of the fifth.

"The strikeouts, generally that is not my game," he said. "I tend to try to place my pitches and get them to put the ball in play."

"He is one of our best pitchers, in terms of knowing how to pitch," Canadian manager Terry Puhl said. "If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here.

"He has had some shoulder injuries. But the man knows how to pitch."

Ottawa's Tim Burton and Rheal Cormier, a former major leaguer from Moncton, N.B., mopped up in relief before the mercy rule went into effect.

"I'm going to be going to him a lot," Puhl said of Cormier.

Scott Thorman of Cambridge, Ont., homered and drove in three runs, Adam Stern of London, Ont., had two runs batted in, and Victoria's Michael Saunders capped the scoring with a solo home run. 

Winnipeg's Stubby Clapp, Nick Weglarz of Stevensville, Ont., and Jimmy Van Ostrand of Richmond, B.C., had the other RBIs.

"We have good hitters," Puhl said. "If they continue to have quality at-bats, we're going to score some runs."

Chinese starter Bu Tao was tagged with the loss, permitting seven runs — two unearned — on five hits in 4 1/3 innings.

Towering home run

Bu equalled Begg pitch for pitch through three scoreless innings before finally flinching in top of the fourth inning, yielding singles to Clapp and Saunders to put runners aboard for Thorman, Canada's hulking clean-up hitter.

Thorman launched a towering home run over the wall in right field to make it 3-0.

"For three innings, it was nail-biting time," he said. "We had one hit through three innings.

"In a situation like this, the first runs mean so much and we were fortunate to get rolling. Until that point, we were taking nothing for granted and nothing lightly."

Canada scored twice off reliever Liu Kai in the fifth inning, the first run crossing the plate on a wild pitch and the second on Weglarz's bases-loaded walk.

Canada went ahead 6-0 in the seventh inning, and piled up four more runs in the eighth.

Chris Robinson was hit by a pitch, took second base on an errant pickoff attempt, and Garcia walked to bring up Stern, who delivered both runners with a soft triple that bounced beyond the reach of centre-fielder Sun Lingfeng.

Clapp later cashed Stern with a sacrifice fly and Saunders ripped a solo homer to right off reliever Li Weiliang to complete the scoring.

"Today was not a good day for us," Chinese manager Jim Lefebvre said. "We're a much better team than we showed."

Canada, which went 6-1 in Olympic qualifying, is determined to improve on its fourth-place finish at the 2004 Athens Games, when it lost 11-2 to Japan in the bronze-medal game.

The five players retained from that squad — Begg, Clapp, Mike Johnson, Ryan Radmanovich and Stern — know the supreme test will be Thursday's preliminary game showdown with three-time defending champion Cuba (5:49 a.m. ET, CBC Sports.ca).

As much as China was excited by the prospect of competing in baseball for the first time at Beijing, the sport won't be retained at the 2012 London Olympics.

South Koreans earn upset win

South Korea rallied for two runs in the ninth inning to earn a stunning 8-7 win over the United States on Wednesday.

The Americans trailed 6-4 in the ninth, but came back to take a one-run lead after third baseman Mike Hessman hit a solo home run and first baseman Matt Brown added a two-run single.

But the Koreans tied the game and then plated the winner on a sacrifice fly to complete the upset.

American relief pitcher Jeff Stevens served up a leadoff double to Jeong Keunwoo, who advanced to third on a ground out from fellow pinch hitter Kim Hyunsoo.

Lee Taekkeun — the third pinch hitter of the inning for Korea — hit a grounder to second that sent Jeong from third. He beat the throw home with a slide to tie the game at 7-7.

After Lee Taekkeun reached third on an errant pick-off attempt, Lee Jongwook brought him in for the winning run with a sacrifice fly to centre field.

The U.S. moves on to face the Netherlands on Thursday, when South Korea takes on China.

In other baseball action on Wednesday, it was the three-time Olympic champions from Cuba outlasting Japan 4-2 in a potential preview of the gold-medal game.

Alfredo Despaigne went 3-for-4 with three RBIs, and Norge Luis Vera pitched six solid innings to carry Cuba past Japan 4-2 in a rematch of the finals from the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006.