The Honkbalweek Haarlem continued on Thursday with the first day of the playoffs. Japan and the Netherlands won in the double elimination openers. Both teams will meet on Friday evening with the winner advancing to the championship game on Sunday.
Chinese Taipei 100 000 000 1 4 1 Japan 000 001 01X 2 5 0
Japan won a nail-biter 2-1 against Chinese Taipei in the afternoon game on Thursday at Pim Mulier Stadium. A RBI single in the bottom of the eighth broke a 1-1 tie and gave Japan the victory. Yuya Yanagi struck out three in two perfect innings for the win. En Sih Huang took the loss. Starters Ichiro Tamura and Yen Ching Lu had issued one run each in five respective seven innings.
Australia 000 000 000 0 7 1 Netherlands 023 103 00X 9 15 0
The Netherlands shut out Australia 9-0 in the evening game on Thursday. The Dutch team took a quick 5-0 lead after three frames and cruised to an easy victory in a meeting of the top two teams from the preliminary phase. Dashenko Ricardo set the tone with a home run and three RBI. Remco Draijer and Gilmer Lampe scored twice. Diegomar Markwell won the pitchers’s duel against former Neptunus hurler Dushan Ruzic, who lasted just one-plus innings in his second appearance in the tournament. Prior to the game at Pim Mulier Stadium the fans in the stands applauded U18 European Champion Netherlands including manager Eric de Bruin and who got congratulated by KNBSB managing director Bart Volkerijk and Honkbalweek Haarlem president Frits Mulder.
Photo by Robert Bos