(Asiad) S. Korea clobbers Thailand to reach next phase in baseball

NAGOYA, Japan, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) -- The four-time defending champion South Korea ran its baseball winning streak to three games at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Wednesday, with a comfortable, 18-1 victory over Thailand.

Park Jae-hyun and Park Jun-soon each smoked a grand slam in Group B action at Okazaki Chuo Sogo Park Baseball Stadium in Okazaki, some 50 kilometers southeast of the main host city Nagoya, Japan, though South Korea gave up a run for the first time in the tournament.

By winning all three games in the group phase, South Korea booked a spot in the Super Round, where it will face the top two qualifiers out of Group A for a chance to compete for a medal.

Super Round games will be played Friday and Saturday, followed by the gold medal game Sunday at Toyohashi Municipal Baseball Stadium in Toyohashi, some 85 km southeast of Nagoya.

South Korea scored three times in the bottom of the first inning on a sacrifice fly by Roh Si-hwan and a two-run home run by Moon Bo-gyeong.

Park Jae-hyun's grand slam pushed the South Korean lead to 7-0 in the second inning. South Korea tacked on three more runs in the third.

The onslaught continued with an eight-run fourth inning, highlighted by Park Jun-soon's grand slam.

Thailand got a run in the top of the fifth but the game ended on a mercy rule. In this tournament, games are declared over if a team leads by at least 15 runs after five innings or 10 runs after seven innings.

Starter Oh Won-seok tossed four scoreless frames and struck out seven.