The Blu Girls are apparently developing a taste for abbreviated afternoons.
For the second straight game, the Philippines ended an Asian Games softball assignment early, overwhelming Singapore, 10-0, on Wednesday to trigger the mercy rule and keep its semifinal chase moving.
After beating Thailand, 7-0, in five innings, the Blu Girls needed only four innings against another Southeast Asian opponent to make the scoreboard surrender.
The Philippines erupted for six runs in the opening inning, added a run in the second, then put the game beyond Singapore’s reach with three more in the third. It finished with 12 hits, including four doubles and two home runs.
Left fielder Mylia Isabel Perez provided the early fireworks with a two-run homer in the first inning. Shortstop Nicole Adra Hammoude followed with another two-run blast in the third, while second baseman Skylynne Kopia Ellazar collected three hits and scored twice. Ma. Antonette Gabriel added two hits, including a double.
Singapore managed only one hit and was held scoreless throughout, leaving the Blu Girls to spend the fourth inning doing something they had become rather good at lately: waiting for the game to end.
The mercy rule ends games when the lead reaches 15 runs after three innings, 10 after four, or seven after five or six. The Philippines had already reached the required 10-run margin after four.
More important than the early exit, however, was the position it created.
The victory lifted the Philippines to 3-2–currently 4th place behind spotless Japan and China, and 4-1 Taiwan– in the eight-team, single-round-robin tournament. The top four advance to the semifinals.
China awaits Thursday, followed by Hong Kong, which has only scored a win in 5 outings, on Friday.
Three games ago, the Philippines was trying to stop its Asian Games campaign from slipping away. Now it has three chances to turn that recovery into a semifinal ticket.
The bats are certainly making the argument.
