by A.P. Beauregard, www.namur-angels.be
In the Opening Weekend of the 2010 season in the Belgian First Division, the Namur Angels traveled to Merchtem to take on the Cats. Game one, Saturday April 10th , featured a matchup of two foreign pitchers; Japanese right-hander Shouta Ichinoseki of Namur vs. American southpaw Reid Jackson of Merchtem. Namur took the early advantage by plating two runs in the top of the second on the strength of a leadoff single by shortstop Theodore de Bellefroid and a sacrifice fly off the bat of left-fielder Adrien Geuquet.
Down 3-0 in the bottom half of the fifth, Merchtem evened the score on five consecutive singles, all with two outs nonetheless, finally getting to Ichinoseki who had been all but unhittable to this point of the game. Both pitchers battled on in stellar debuts’ until the deciding run came in the top half of the seventh. Cats’ catcher K. Van Droogenbroeck worked a leadoff walk, got to second on a sacrifice bunt by Ethan Guevin, and stole third on his way home for the deciding run in a game that would end Merchtem 4-Namur 3.
Reid Jackson picked up the complete game win striking out twelve along the way, while Ichinoseki was the hard-luck loser; pitching well over seven innings and 119 pitches of baseball.
For the home Cats Guevin led the way with a 2-3 performance at the plate, followed by right fielder Jan Cassiman’s 2-4. Along with his tremendous effort on the mound, Jackson helped his own cause by going 2-4 at the plate.
For the visiting Angels, de Bellefroid hit 2-4 followed by teammates Ronny Heymans, Matthieu Deltombe, and Nicolas Migeot who each chipped in a hit apiece. Migeot was also very impressive on the mound in relief of Ichinoseki, turning in a 1-2-3 eighth inning including a strikeout.
On Sunday April 12th the two game series between the Angels and Cats was renewed in Namur and the home team would prevail in a seven-inning shortened game by the score of 13-2. Trailing 1-0 in the top half of the second, Merchtem put runners on first and second with no one out. On the ensuing pitch, however, Namur catcher Gracjan Kraszewski was able to pick off the Cats’ runner on second base and the rest was left to the brilliant pitching of Angels left-handed starter Harold Gerard. Over five innings of work Gerard allowed zero runs, struck out five, and yielded only two hits in picking up his first victory of the year.
Offensively, it was the long ball that powered the Angels to victory in this game as homeruns by Jerome Sana and Remi Gillet accounted for almost half of the scoring output. Sana’s fourth inning grand slam was the highlight of an eight-run inning that pushed the Angels’ advantage to 10-0, and Gillet’s pinch-hit two-run homer over the left-field wall in the bottom of the seventh gave the home team the ten-run mark necessary to call the game after seven innings.
Following Sana and Gillet’s homeruns, Namur was led at the plate by Adrien Guequet’s 2-2 performance (including reaching base safely all 4 times, 2 hits/2 BB), and by Ludovic Guequet and Nicolas Migeot who also contributed base hits. Pitching the sixth and seventh innings in relief of Gerard, Namur right-hander Cedric Desmedt collected four strikeouts.
For Merchtem, right-hander Tom Herinckx took the loss, while the club was paced offensively by Herinckx and Reid Jackson, both of whom had singles.
{mrb-result:2010-04-10|2010-04-11|BE}
{mrb-standing:belgium-2010}
Photo: © Namur Angels