The Canadian men's baseball team busted out for five runs in the seventh inning Friday and fought off a resilient Mexican squad to pull out a 15-10 tournament-opening win at the Olympic qualifier in Taichung, Taiwan.

With a 6-0 lead in the third, Canada appeared to be on its way to a one-sided victory, but Mexico erased the deficit with eight runs.

Members of Canada's national men's baseball team congratulate each other after beating Mexico.
(Associated Press)

"That's international baseball because you never know," Canadian manager Terry Puhl said in a news release. "Mexico has a lot of experienced hitters and they got back into the game. They just kept coming at us every inning and that's a trademark of this ball club."

The teams combined for 25 runs and 36 hits as they compete with six other countries for three berths at the Beijing Games (Aug. 8-24). The tourney runs through March 15 in Taipei.

"That's a big win for us right off the bat," said Canadian second baseman Stubby Clapp of Windsor, Ont. "It wasn't pretty, but we hung in there and kept swinging the bats and our pitchers kept going out there, attacking the strike zone and they did a great job."

Both Canada and Mexico are not fielding their best teams as some players are vying for a spot with teams at Major League Baseball spring training in Florida and Arizona.

Baseball Canada lobbied last fall to have the tournament rescheduled, but was rebuffed by the International Baseball Federation.

Pitchers cemented win

Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, Germany, South Africa and Spain are the other nations seeking an Olympic berth. China, the United States, Cuba and the Netherlands have already qualified.

Pitchers Steve Green and T.J. Burton cemented the Canadian win on Friday, combining to shut out Mexico over the final 2 2/3 innings.

Canada jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a pair of hits by Mike Saunders and Matt Rogelstad. Another run in the second and three more in the third frame gave the red and white a seemingly comfortable advantage.

But Carlos Valencia helped vault Mexico into the lead in the bottom of the inning with a two-run home run before the Canadians plated three runs in the fourth to move ahead 9-8.

In Canada's five-run seventh inning, Adam Stern and Jimmy VanOstrand drove in two runs apiece on a double and triple respectively.

"It's a good start for us to beat a team like Mexico," said Rogelstad, who went 3-for-4 with three runs scored. "We came out ready to play. We got some runs early in the game and we were able to keep that going."

Canada's next game is Saturday against South Africa.