Taiwan Favored Over Japan in Olympics

IMHO, despite being a big fan of baseball in Taiwan, I'd have to say that Japan is still favored over Taiwan.

From a pitching perspective, Tsao is still recovering from shoulder problems and is doing rehab stints right now in AA with Tulsa. Kuo has been shut down and is on the DL right now. Wang, after a promising start, has been hit hard in AA with an ERA of over 4.50 right now.

I don't think too much can be expected of the younger pitchers like Chen, Lo, Huang, and Huang. While Chang may be a bright spot for Taiwan, I doubt he will face Japan since they are all pretty familiar with his pitching repetoire. Hsu, his teammate, has declined to play in the Olympics for Taiwan.

I would say that Taiwan has a good chance of medalling, but beating Cuba and Japan will be a formidable task.

Japan, even without a healthy Matsuzaka, still has much more depth and quality overall. Even if Peng and Chen C.F. hit the cover off the ball, can anyone else in the lineup produce? If someone else does step up offensively and the pitching is as good as advertised, then we might have a chance of beating Japan.

[Tony, I accidently inserted the contents of a different message here. My fault. Please repost.]

Tsao is back at 2A now and Cheng of the Jays is off to a hot start. Chen of the Mariners has also had a good start to his season and they will all be a good punch to this Taiwanese team. The holes in the Olympic qualifing are all fixed and they've got the best team since the last time they went to the Olympics when they won Silver.

There's a chance Taiwan could beat Japan. The Japanese national team may not take more than two players from each professional team, so they do not have a "dream team."

Well, the NPB has 12 teams, so 2 player from each would give them 24. And I bet there are some amatuer players in Japan that are pretty good and famous.