Taiwan won its first major senior international baseball tournament Sunday as Chen Chieh-hsien helped four pitchers preserve a shutout, and belted a three-run homer to earn Premier12 MVP honors in a 4-0 gold medal game victory over Japan.

Japan’s senior national team had not lost in a major international tournament since a second-round defeat to the United States in the 2019 Premier12.

With the game scoreless in the bottom of the fourth, Shota Morishita lined a pitch to the gap in left with one out and a runner on first, but Chen, the Uni-President Lions’ 30-year-old center fielder hauled it in to prevent the hosts from taking the lead against Lin Yu-min.

Lin had been scheduled to pitch Saturday’s super round finale when it appeared Taiwan might need to beat Japan to advance to the final. When Taiwan clinched a spot in the gold medal game before Saturday’s game started, Lin was pulled and Taiwan was fined $3,000.

It turned out to be a small price to pay for victory. The Arizona Diamondbacks farmhand threw four shutout innings thanks to Chen and left with a 4-0 lead.

Shosei Togo, pitching in his Yomiuri Giants’ home park, missed a flat fastball to catcher Lin Chia-cheng, who opened the scoring with a leadoff homer. With two on, Chen blasted a low pitch well back in the right-field stands to make it 4-0.

Japan then got a taste of the excellent bullpen work it had been shutting down opponents with from the start of the tournament. A pair of former NPB pitchers, Chang Yi (Orix and Seibu) and Chen Kuan-yu (DeNA and Lotte) got it to the ninth inning, when Lin Kai-wei worked the ninth.

Ryoya Kurihara gave Japan an instant of hope when he hit a one-out bullet with Morishita on first in the ninth, but his liner was caught, Morishita was doubled off, and Taiwan’s party on the Tokyo Dome infield began.

Congratulations Taiwan.