Press Release Hungarian Baseball and Softball Federation, www.baseball.hu
Game One of the Hungarian Championship Series – Földessy homers, Sleepwalkers beat Zalabai in series opener
Szentendre/Budapest-
Every streak comes to an end sooner or later, but it happened at the worst moment for Zsolt Zalabai, who finished the regular season with a 7-0 record.
Miklós Földessy hit a three-run homer, Péter Gyurcsek pitched seven innings effectively and the Szentendre Sleepwalkers beat Zalabai and the Óbuda Brick Factory 8-4 in the series opener.
Sleepwalkers came out swinging in the first inning, Balázs Németh and Imre Illés hit singles then Földessy connected for a homerun, that just skipped off the top of the left-field fence.
Sleepwalkers added a run in top of fourth when Dániel Erdélyi doubled down the right field line scoring Balázs Halmos. But this was answered in the bottom of the inning by Obuda, as Zsolt Zalabai scored on a sac fly by Norbert Goor.
In the fifth the Sleepwalkers scored another two runs with help of shaky Óbuda defense. To make things even, with runner on first base Sleepwalkers centerfielder Miklós Frank dove for a ball (needlessly) but could not make the catch. So that hit by speedy shortstop Peter Luptak turned into a two-run inside-the-park homerun instead of a single.
In the seventh inning Brick Factory threatened but Gyurcsek pitched out of a bases-loaded jam giving up just one run. And again in the top of the eighth, Szentendre padded its lead with a two-out rally. Zalabai got two quick outs to start the inning but then gave up a single to Balazs Nemeth and issued back to back walks the next two batters. This time with the bases loaded Foldessy delivered again and hit a two-run single to shallow left field.
Seasoned veteran Attila Várkonyi relieved Gyurcsek in the eighth inning and secured the win for Sleepwalkers.
Last weekend in the Hungarian Cup final Óbuda won with 10-run mercy rule over Szentendre, but we saw a different Sleepwalkers team on the field this Saturday. One week after Cup finals this result is little bit surprising but in case the Sleepwalkers can maintain this level of play it will make the series quite interesting. Sunday’s game was postponed to 13.00 due to current rain but hopefully we don’t have to wait another week to see these teams play another great game.