Australia have stunned world No.2 Taiwan, opening their tough World Baseball Classic campaign with a 3-0 win.
Major League Baseball No.1 draft pick Travis Bazzana hit a solo home run and Robbie Perkins opened the scoring with a two-run homer.
Alexander Wells, Jack O'Loughlin and Jon Kennedy pitched three innings apiece as they shut out Taiwan, giving up just three hits for the game.
It is a massive result for Australia, who need to finish as one of the top-two teams in Group C to progress to the quarter-finals.
Australia, ranked 11th, also have world No.1 and defending champions Japan, plus No.4 South Korea in the group. Their next opponents are Czechia, who are ranked 15th.
But Perkins said the win came as no surprise to Australia.
"I don't know why people keep thinking these are upsets," he said.
"We beat Korea last time, and we beat (Taiwan) today. I think we're there with the best in the world on any given day.
"I think we need to start acknowledging we can give it to them."
In front of a near-capacity crowd at the Tokyo Dome on Thursday, Wells gave Australia a dream start.
The left hander, a former major leaguer for the Baltimore Orioles, struck out six - including the last five hitters he faced - and went hitless in the first three innings.
Then Perkins put Australia on the board with his two-run shot in the fifth and Bazzana, who also had a single, scored their third run with his homer in the seventh.
Bazzana made history two years ago as the first Australian to be taken with the top pick in the major league draft. The second base is expected to make his MLB debut this season with Cleveland.
"If you think of the two things I thought about most growing up it was, like, playing in the WBC and being in the Tokyo Dome cause we'd always come here - and playing the World Series and MLB. It's special," Bazzana said.
While his World Series dream is yet to come, he credited Perkins for getting Australia in front and removing some pressure.
"It makes slowing down the environment a touch easier when you have two runs already," Bazzana said. "I was feeling good in the box and got a good pitch to hit."
Third base Curtis Mead, another MLB player at the Chicago White Sox, joined Bazzana in picking up two hits.
O'Loughlin, the latest Australian to make his major league debut two years ago for the Oakland As, took over from Wells for three innings and was credited with the win.
Kennedy pitched the last three innings for the save.
Right-hander Jo-Hsi Hsu threw four scoreless innings for Taiwan before Perkins went deep off right-hander Po-Yu Chen (0-1).
