[SPOTV News = Reporter Park Seunghwan] It’s an outrageous claim. Taiwanese media have accused South Korea’s win of being match-fixing.
Taiwan’s NOWnews reported on the 9th that “Korea deliberately held back in the top of the 9th, beat Australia 7-2, and advanced to the quarterfinals.”
On the 8th, Korea fell to Taiwan 4-5 in extra innings, putting its chances of reaching the last eight in jeopardy. The path wasn’t closed, but it was narrow: to advance on the 9th, Korea needed to beat Australia by at least five runs while allowing no more than two — meaning only a 5-0, 6-1, or 7-2 result would do.
They delivered. In the top of the 2nd, Moon Bo-kyung launched a two-run homer to seize momentum. In the 3rd, Lee Jung-hoo and Moon produced RBIs to push the lead, and Moon added another key hit in the 5th to make it 5-0. If the game had ended there, Korea would have locked up a quarterfinal spot.
Australia, however, fought back. In the bottom of the 5th, Robbie Glendinning hit a solo homer off So Hyeong-jun to cut the lead. Korea responded in the 6th when Kim Do-young’s RBI restored the five-run cushion. Late in the game, there was another scare when Kim Taek-yeon allowed a run in the bottom of the 8th.
Still, it wasn’t over until the final out. In the top of the 9th, Korea got a 1st-and-3rd opportunity after a defensive error by Jared Dale (KIA Tigers). Ahn Hyun-min then exchanged his out for a run, satisfying the 7-2 requirement. Korea retired the side in the bottom of the 9th and clinched a spot in the quarterfinals for the first time in 17 years.
Despite that performance, some Taiwanese outlets have persisted with the match-fixing narrative. NOWnews repeated its claim on the 10th, asserting Korea intentionally held back in the top of the 9th to finish 7-2 and advance.
On the 10th, NOWnews ran a headline asking, “Did Moon Bo-kyung deliberately manipulate the score to eliminate Taiwan?” The outlet said some fans swarmed Moon’s social media after the game, accusing his 9th-inning strikeout of being an intentional act to knock Taiwan out.
NOWnews noted that Moon struck out looking with two outs and a runner on first. Some fans then flooded the internet with abuse, calling it “an intentional strikeout” and “unsportsmanlike,” arguing Korea kept the margin at five runs specifically to eliminate Taiwan.
The claim doesn’t hold up. With Korea up 7-2 in the top of the 9th and two outs with a runner on first, even if Moon had driven in another run Korea still only needed to prevent any runs in the bottom of the 9th to advance — there was no logical reason for him to strike out intentionally. After failing to secure a lucky route into the quarterfinals, some Taiwanese fans and media appear to have latched onto an unfounded, illogical narrative.
