Canada's baseball hopes all but gone

The medal hopes of the Canadian men's baseball team all but ended on Monday with a fourth straight one-run loss at the Beijing Olympics.

Atsunori Inaba's solo shot in the fifth inning lifted Japan (3-2) to a 1-0 victory over Canada (1-4).

The Canadians must now defeat the Netherlands and Chinese Taipei in their remaining two games, but they also need help from other teams.

"All we can do now is go back and see how it all plays out," said Canada's manager, Terry Puhl. "We'll come out [Tuesday] and compete and play the way Team Canada is supposed to play."

Starter Chris Begg of Uxbridge, Ont., pitched a strong game, with Inaba's home run being his only mistake.

Canada continues to sputter offensively, managing only two hits, by Emmanuel Garcia and Mike Saunders.

"We just need to create some offence," said Puhl. "Whatever you need to do to get more opportunities to score is what we need."

Japanese starter Yoshihisa Naruse went seven outstanding innings as he struck out 10 Canadian batters and allowed only two hits.

Kyuji Fujikawa followed with a perfect eighth before Koji Uehara closed things out in the ninth by shutting down Adam Stern, Stubby Clapp and Garcia.

Canada has also endured one-run losses to defending Olympic champion Cuba, the U.S. and South Korea.

In other baseball action, South Korea moved atop the standings with a 9-8 win over Chinese Taipei. The South Koreans have a surprising 5-0 mark.

Cuba 14, Netherlands 3

The Cubans scored five runs in the fifth inning and four more in the sixth to erase a 2-1 deficit and coast to a 14-3 win.

Alexei Bell and Alfredo Despaigne combined for seven hits and six runs batted in for Cuba, which regained its lead atop the standings with a 5-0 record.

Each of the Cuban players recorded at least one hit in a 16-hit attack against the Netherlands (1-4), which has been outscored 36-9 in Beijing.

Jonder Martinez (1-0) picked up the win in relief, allowing one run on four hits while striking out six. Juancarlos Sulbaran of the Netherlands yielded five runs (two earned) and walked three in 4 2/3 innings in losing his first game of the tournament.

United States 9, China 1

Centre-fielder Nate Schierholtz went 2-for-3 and drove in three runs to help the Americans even their record at 2-2, good enough for fourth place in the standings. The top four teams advance to this week's medal round.

Taylor Teagarden added two RBIs, with John Gall, Terry Tiffee and Matt Brown also knocking in runs in support of starting pitcher Jake Arrieta, who is 1-0 after blanking the Chinese over six innings with seven strikeouts.

Yang Yang accounted for the lone run for China (1-3) with a solo home run off Blaine Neal in the top of the ninth inning.