Korea Defeats Taiwan in World Baseball Classic

South Korea has gotten off to a strong start in the World Baseball Classic:

Jae-Weong Seo pitched two-hit ball and Chan Ho Park worked three effective innings for a save to lead South Korea past Taiwan 2-0 on Friday in the opener of the inaugural World Baseball Classic.

The 16-nation tournament started at 11:30 a.m. local time and was played before a sparse crowd of 5,193 at Tokyo Dome. Japan was scheduled to play its first game later Friday against China.

Seo started and struck out three in 3 2-3 innings. The Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander threw 61 pitches — under tournament rules, starting pitchers are limited to 65 pitches in the first round.

“I felt good starting,” Seo said. “I didn’t worry about the pitch count. I knew we have a lot of good pitchers on our team and as long as I did my job we would be fine.”