Baseball: Japan wins Asia pro championship opener vs Taiwan

Shota Morishita broke a scoreless deadlock with a seventh-inning home run as Japan beat Taiwan 4-0 Thursday on the opening day of the Asia Professional Baseball Championship.

The Hanshin Tigers rookie homered to left off Taiwan’s starting pitcher Gu Lin Ruei-yang, who retired the first 16 batters and worked 6-2/3 innings of one-run ball at Tokyo Dome.

Three-time World Baseball Classic champion Japan, playing its first official game under new manager Hirokazu Ibata, broke the game open with a three-run ninth.

The host country finished with 10 hits, five of them in the ninth. Yuji Akahoshi threw...