Mister Baseball

by www.namur-angels.be

The Namur Angels fell from first place at the hands of the defending Belgian Champion Merksem Royal Greys. The Angel offense which had been so electric in rushing to a 4-0 record to kick off the championship qualifying round was silent. In Namur on Saturday, the Greys benefitted from a pair of home runs and solid starting pitching from Tennessean Daniel Howard to win 5-0; while on Sunday their offense carried the day in a 13-3 drubbing with an assist from Namur pitching which gave up eleven free passes.

Saturday’s game in Namur shaped up as a pitching duel between Howard and his compatriot Caleb Calarco. Howard benefitted from an efficient use of his pitches to keep his pitch count low, while Calarco managed to settle down after walking three batters in the first inning. Calarco picked off a runner and struck a batter out to leave the bases loaded in the first inning and largely managed to keep the Greys in check until the sixth inning when he hit the leadoff batter and then was victimized by the extremely short right field fence down the line at Namur when Kim Wybo poked a lazy fly near the foul pole for a two run homer.

Calarco was replaced by Eric Hufnagel in the eighth inning, and after making quick work of the Greys in his first inning he encountered trouble in the ninth, yielding a single to center field and a double that just hopped over third base and down the line. Bryon Bell followed with a three run home run to right-center to cap the scoring at 5-0.

Namur struggled to get its offense in gear against Howard, but threatened several times nonetheless. In the second Howard reached back to get a strikeout and strand a pair of Angels in scoring position, while the same situation repeated itself in the fourth, ending with another K. In the sixth inning the Angels put two runners on with none out and had a golden opportunity to tie the game, but a double play grounder killed the momentum, and Howard yet again recorded a key strikeout to leave an Angel on third. Howard finished with ten strikeouts, many at crucial junctures and managed to pitch into three momentum crushing double plays.

Namur finished with only three hits on the day, recorded by Ronny Heymans, Nicolas Migeot, and Morgan Brown. Jerome Sana worked a pair of walks.

On Sunday, Namur fell behind early and could never answer the bell as Merksem continued to add to their lead over the course of the afternoon. For the second day in a row Namur pitching yielded three walks in the first inning, though this time Merksem capitalized by adding on three singles and racing to a 3-0 lead. It could have been worse had the inning not ended with a double play by Namur. With the bases loaded and Merksem threatening to blow the game open, a potential sacrifice fly was lifted to Philip Van Woensel in center who connected with Calarco, now playing first base, in the relay spot and then Heymans behind the plate to slap the tag on the Greys’ runner trying to score and thus end the inning and strand several more runners.

Namur managed a small response in the top of the second as Heymans led off with a walk and moved around on a couple groundouts before scoring on a single by Xavier Pierreux. But the Greys continued to add to their lead in the second after two outs were recorded courtesy of two more walks, two doubles, and a homerun from Gert Rosiers before the Angels finally got the third out.

Again Namur tried to recover by plating two in the third as Calarco came home on a Juny Gressman double and Heymans delivered again with an RBI single. Yet, for the third inning in a row the Greys hung a three on the scoreboard in the bottom half. The bottom of the order led off with a single and then consecutive hit batters flipped the order and another walk forced in a run. A fielder’s choice groundout eliminated a runner at the plate, and a hotly debated call at first negated the 5-2-3 double play. Another RBI walk was followed by a sacrifice fly and a 9-3 Merksem lead after three. Namur would scarcely threaten the rest of the way, while Merksem was kept off the board until plating two each in the sixth and seventh innings.

Namur managed to double their hit output from Saturday but still only recorded six hits, collected by Calarco, Brown, Gressman, Heymans, Pierreux, and Cedric Nauts. Merksem countered with 14 hits, including six for extra bases to accompany the nine walks and two hit batsmen handed out by the Angels.

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