by Pim van Nes
Florida weather in Familie Stadium on Sunday, when baseball fans in Rotterdam welcomed the return of national team manager Rod Delmonico, who attended the Hoofdklasse game between DOOR Neptunus and Mr. Cocker HCAW. A dream ago Delmonico was the architect of the passionate Netherlands team appearing as the international Cinderella of the second World Baseball Classic. Together with his NT pitching coach Jim Stoeckel and director Robert Eenhoorn, Delmonico saw his first Hoofdklasse game turning out into a young pitcher’s clash between Joey Eijpe for HCAW and Kevin Heijstek for Neptunus, celebrating his 21st anniversary. The latter was close to four perfect innings, when Jason Rees reached base on a two-out single for visiting HCAW.
Heijstek’s opponent on the mound Joey Eijpe had kept the rivals in their home game scoreless during two innings, when Eugene Kingsale opened the score with a double in the third inning, a wild pitch and the only defensive error by Mr. Cocker HCAW: 1-0. Jason Rees’ first single in the fourth was the start of a rally with Randy Daal, Quensley Bazoer and Sytse Visbeen following his example and bringing Rees and Daal to home plate: 1-2. Eijpe was replaced on the mound after six-plus innings, when his team had extended the lead to 1-3 in the top of the seventh. Neptunus first reliever Jurjen van Zijl conceded three singles to Adrian Anthony, Marco Pluijmers and Bart Gabriels for that one run. Nevertheless Van Zijl became the winning pitcher, thanks to three RBI by Benjamin Dille with a sacrifice fly and Raily Legito with a double on second HCAW reliever Kevin Roovers in the bottom of the seventh.
Corendon Kinheim won its first two games in the new season after being defeated three times by national champion L&D Amsterdam. Two shut-out victories over the MediaMonks RCH (11-0 and 3-0) brought some comfort for the Final Four qualifier. The other Final Four qualifier Amsterdam had to struggle twice in extra innings versus Sparta/Feyenoord to a 3-2 win in Amsterdam and 4-7 in Rotterdam. Three teams are still unbeaten in the new Hoofdklasse season: Amsterdam after five games, Neptunus and Konica Minolta Pioniers after four games. The Pioniers beat ADO twice last weekend: 5-2 in Hoofddorp and 14-2 in The Hague. On Thursday, Saturday and Sunday the Netherlands will enjoy the first three-game weekend with most attractive meetings between Pioniers and Neptunus for the top seed and between HCAW and Kinheim, each with two wins in hands.
{mrb-result:2009-04-16|2009-04-19|NL}
Box scores to last weekend’s games will be available on KNBSB-Stats.nl
{mrb-standing:netherlands-2009}
Pim van Nes
Baseball writer for
www.honkbalsite.com
www.sporttribune.nl
www.baseball.it