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BEIJING - It was rather fitting that Canada's final loss of the Olympic baseball tournament was a one-run defeat.

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The Canadian Press

TOO LATE: Chinese Taipei's Chih-Hsien Chiang beats the throw to third baseman Scott Thorman from Cambridge, Ont., during preliminary baseball action at the Beijing Olympics in Beijing, China on Wednesday. Chinese Taipei defeated Canada 6-5 in 12 Innings. Team Canada finished 2-5 overall.

It was the story of the tournament.

The team capped a disappointing preliminary round with a 6-5, 12-inning loss to Taiwan at the Wukesong Baseball Field on Wednesday. Canada finished 2-5 with all five defeats of the one-run variety. The team was out of medal contention early but could just as easily have been 7-0.

Bigger things were expected after Canada just missed the podium at the 2004 Games in Athens.

In what was a problem throughout the tournament, Canada had trouble taking advantage of its scoring opportunities. In the bottom of the 11th, Canada had the bases loaded with one out but couldn't push a run across.

Taiwan took the lead in the 12th with a run off loser Chris Reitsma of Calgary. In the bottom half of the inning, Canada had two runners on but Chih-Chia Chang struck out the lone batter he faced, Chris Robinson of Dorchester, Ont., to end it.

"Five of those in a row - I've never experienced that before," said Steve Green of Greenfield Park, Que., who pitched four innings of one-hit relief. "It's frustrating."

Things looked good for Canada at the start of the tournament after a 10-0 rout of host China. However, four straight one-run losses followed before a 4-0 win over the Netherlands when it was essentially too late to make the semifinals.

Canada's offence was supposed to be its big strength here but it turned out to be one of its biggest weaknesses. The pitching including Moncton lefthander Rheal Cormier in the bullepen was steady - it was untimely errors and a lack of clutch hitting that seemed to do this team in.

"You lose five ball games by one run and you're in every one of them," said national teams director Greg Hamilton. "It's not like you had to score five to catch up or to get back into the game or something like that. They were truly one-run games from start to finish, so what do you say?"

The finale felt like a road game for Canada with the majority of the 1,530 in attendance cheering for Taiwan.

The game took three hours 47 minutes to play on a warm, muggy evening.

Questions will now likely be raised about whether Scott Richmond of Langley, B.C., would have made a difference. He was expected to soak up a lot of innings but was called up by the Toronto Blue Jays shortly before the tournament and has since been sent back down to triple-A.

"I'm happy for Scott, he got an opportunity to go to the big leagues," Hamilton said. "He would have felt awful bad if the sole reason for not calling him up was to let him go to the Olympics. He may never have got (another) opportunity with the way things worked out with the big-league club. The deck got shuffled, people got healthy and obviously he got sent back down.

"So it's kind of hard to say that you're upset for his opportunity. Obviously it's a loss for us but I'm not upset for his opportunity."

It was likely Stubby Clapp's final appearance as a player with the Canadian team. The 35-year-old from Windsor, Ont., put his job as hitting coach for the Houston Astros' single-A affiliate in Lexington on hold to play for Canada.

He said it's hard to leave the field.

"It's not fun. I wish I could play forever - but you can't," Clapp said as his voice crackled and tears formed in his eyes. Clapp first came to national prominence in 1999, when his bloop fly ball in the 11th inning brought home the winning run in a walkoff 7-6 victory over the United States at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg.