Only Neptunus escape from 4th clean sweep in Dutch Hoofdklasse

by Pim van Nes

Yesterday, almost simultaneously with two pitchers wins by Netherlands starters in Major League games (Jair Jurrjens for Atlanta Braves 5-3 vs. San Diego Padres and Sidney Ponson for Texas Rangers 10-1 vs. Seattle Mariners), two more Hoofdklasse clubs completed their games scheduled for last weekend with a clean sweep. Until the fifth inning of DOOR Neptunus’ game three it looked like all four last ranked clubs in present standing were being swept by their opponents, but after having been defeated by Sparta/Feyenoord twice and trailing 0-1 in its second home game, the score was tied 1-1 on the way for a positive nine innings result: 4-1. However, the consequence of those earlier losses is that Europe’s multi champion is ranked fifth in the eight teams competition in the Netherlands after nine games played by each club.

Yesterday defending national champion Corendon Kinheim played its road game versus MediaMonks RCH, rained out last Thursday. On Saturday Kinheim reached an easy 10-0 home victory, but on Sunday in Heemstade versus the local Racing Club the resistance was tough: 7-3 only for Kinheim. Yesterday Kinheim took an immediate 4-0 lead, but RCH came back in the score three times, keeping the gap rather close during the game. After a curfew ruling eight innings game, the score was stopped at 12-5 as final result, eliminating the ninth inning for a fourth reply by the home team.

For the same rainy reason in The Hague, ADO hosted Mr Cocker HCAW last night. Like Kinheim it took an early lead 1-0, but the visitors scored four runs in the fifth and three in the ninth for the third victory (7-1) in the last weekend’s series. Two clean sweeps on Tuesday totalized the number of sweeps in the weekend series to three.

Last Sunday already, the first clean sweep was for L&D Amsterdam, defeated three times by Hoofdklasse leader Minolta Pioniers. Before last Thursday Amsterdam was runner-up in the standings with only one loss in six games played, but the offensive spirit of Pioniers turned out overwhelming in each of the three games between the then top clubs.

Now Amsterdam is ranked lowest among six winning teams in the eight clubs competition. Losing teams so far are ADO and RCH with 0-9, but all other teams have a positive score with at least 5-4. This score applies for Sparta/Feyenoord, Neptunus and Amsterdam. The first club mentioned has a positive (2-1) score versus Neptunus, which maintains a tied score with Amsterdam (1-1). In fact the two victories by Sparta/Feyenoord over reputed Neptunus were the big shocks of the Hoofdklasse weekend. The close wins (3-2 at Neptunus and 5-3 at Sparta/Feyenoord) were reached with homegrown young starting pitchers Tim Roodenburg (19 years, allowing just one hit in seven innings) and lefty Herman Gaarman (22, relieved in the fourth when leading 2-1 in game two). In each of the two games Venezuelan closer Aristides Almenar saved the lead in a perfect manner eliminating all remaining Neptunus batters.

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Thursday, May 01 2008

Only Neptunus escape from 4th clean sweep in Dutch Hoofdklasse