Canada out of medal contention in baseball

Canada's baseball team had its Olympic medal hopes quashed Tuesday, despite a  4-0 victory over the Netherlands in Beijing.

The United States doubled Chinese Taipai 4-2 later in the day to give them four wins to Canada's two with only one round-robin game remaining for both squads.

With the top four teams advancing to the medal round, the Canadians can do no better than their current fifth-place standing.

Vancouver's starter Brooks McNiven allowed only one hit and no walks during six outstanding innings of pitching Tuesday. Rheal Cormier of Moncton, N.B., Ottawa's T.J. Burton and Toronto's Jonathan Lockwood each pitched one scoreless inning in relief to finish off a two-hitter.

Calgary's Emerson Frostad went 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI to jumpstart Canada's stagnant offence. Veteran Stubby Clapp of Windsor, Ont., added two hits.

Canada  was shut out 1-0 by Japan in the previous game. 

"We put together a more complete ball game today with outstanding pitching," Canadian manager Terry Puhl said. "We had a little more showing from our hitters and scored some runs early. You have to score some runs in international baseball, and that is something that we struggled with."

Once thought of as a medal contender, Canada's struggles in this tournament can be attributed to its sputtering bats. The Canadians have suffered one-run losses to defending Olympic champion Cuba, Japan, the U.S. and South Korea.

Pitcher Shairon Martis was tagged with the loss for the Netherlands, surrendering three runs, four hits and three walks over six innings.

Matt Rogelstad, who registered an RBI, said Canada will put out a good effort against Chinese Taipei even if the team gets eliminated from the medal round. 

"We're still going to go out there and take care of business," Rogelstad said. "We want to go out and prove that we are one of the top teams here, even though the standings may not be indicative of that, but we still want to go out and play for the country and make Canada proud."  

U.S. bound for medal round

Dexter Fowler's double in the sixth inning scored Lou Marson with the winning run as the United States clinched a spot in the medal round with a 4-2 win over Chinese Taipai.

Fowler missed hitting for the cycle by a home run

John Gall snapped a 1-1 tie with a solo home run to lead off the sixth for the Americans, who upped their record to 4-2.

Chih-Sheng Lin went deep in the top of the seventh inning to cut the U.S. lead to 3-2, but the Americans added another run in the eighth on a Jason Donald single to hand Chinese Taipai its sixth loss in seven outings.

"We always seem to make it a little too interesting," said winning U.S. pitcher Brandon Knight. "There's a little sense of relief [to be in the medal round]. I'm not going to lie and say we didn't expect that. It was a goal."

South Korea upsets defending champs

South Korea pulled the biggest upset of the baseball Olympic tournament, with a 7-4 victory over defending champion Cuba.

Ko Young-min hit a go-ahead two-run single in the fourth to put South Korea ahead for good.

The victory moves South Korea to 6-0, while Cuba falls to 5-1.

Japan's Hideaki Wakui 2-hits China

Japan earned its second straight win and fourth of the Beijing tournament with a 10-0 dismantling of host China in seven innings as the mercy rule was put into effect.

Starting pitcher Hideaki Wakui was masterful, tossing a complete game two-hitter, and designated hitter Tsuyoshi Nishioka paced the offence with a 3-for-3 performance, including a two-run home run in a six-run sixth inning.

Japan (4-2) touched Chinese starter Nan Wang for four runs (all earned) in two-plus innings of work and sits third in the eight-team tourney.

Hiroyuki Nakajima and Atsunori Inaba drove in two runs apiece.