U.S. Baseball moves into FISA gold medal game
San Diego State's Stephen Strasburg struck out nine batters over seven innings and Kyle Gibson and Kendal Volz combined to complete the shutout as the USA Baseball national team defeated the Chinese-Taipei national team 3-0 earlier today in FISU World Championship play.
The semifinals win at Metsky Stadium in Brno, Czech Republic, qualified the U.S. for Sunday's gold-medal contest against the winner of tonight's game between Korea and Japan.
The U.S. team improved to 23-0 during its ongoing tour. Strasburg, a right-hander, is on the roster for the Beijing Games-bound U.S. Olympics team.
Strasberg let Chih-Hsiang Lin single to lead off the game, but retired the next eight batters in succession. Chih-Hsiang led off the sixth with a double but was left stranded at third when the inning ended.
Team USA took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second after Matt den Dekker beat out a potential double-play ball, allowing Micah Gibbs to score from third. Gibbs added an RBI ground-out in the sixth. A pair of doubles with two out in the seventh by Josh Fellhauer and Blake Davis pushed the U.S. lead to 3-0.
The win was the 10th victory in a row for the U.S. over Taipei, and the fifth shutout in 23 games for U.S. pitchers.
-- Greg Johnson
Photo: Stephen Strasburg pitching against Chinese-Taipei on July 12 while on his way to a 5-2 victory. Credit: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen AFP/Getty Images
