U.S. baseball team manager Davey Johnson didn’t take any Oriole magic with him to Beijing.
The former Baltimore skipper saw his team rally in the top of the ninth inning only to give away two runs in the bottom of the ninth to fall to South Korea, 8-7, in the team’s opening game on Wednesday morning at Wukesong Baseball Field.
“I thought once we came back,” Johnson told reporters, “I felt pretty good about our chances.”
Lee Jong-wook hit a sacrifice fly with one out to give South Korea the victory. Lee Taek-keun’s slide home easily beat the throw for the winning run, and he celebrated on his knees before being swarmed by his teammates in celebration. The South Koreans then tipped their caps to all the enthusiastic fans from their homeland, who had been standing and cheering for most of the game.
The Americans had seemed poised for the comeback victory after a home run by third baseman Mike Hessman and first baseman Matt Brown hit a go-ahead, two-run single with two outs in the ninth to give them a 7-6 lead.
“We’ve got a good lineup from top to bottom, and I’ve seen us hit for a week and a half to two weeks,” short stop Brian Barden, who had three of the U.S.’s 12 hits, told reporters. “There’s no doubt we’re going to go up there and put some solid at-bats together. We pushed towards coming back, and we did. It’s a sign of the kind of team we have.”
But South Korea rallied to put a runner on third with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Taek-keun followed with a grounder to second, but instead of throwing to first for the out, second baseman Jayson Nix threw home and was wide of the plate, allowing the run to score.
Closer Jeff Stevens (0-1) followed with an errant pick-off attempt when he miscommunicated with Brown, who wasn’t even looking for the ball. The error allowed Taek-keun to advance two bases to third. Jong-wook followed with his game-winning sac-fly to deep center field.
“We kept battling,” Johnson said. “We came back and got the big hit with two outs in the ninth inning. Unfortunately, we didn’t execute in the bottom of the ninth inning.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
