The Zurich Challengers handed the Zurich Barracudas their first two losses of the 2013 season in the Swiss Nationalliga A. The two teams played a pair of night games on Tuesday and Wednesday. Both times the Challengers prevailed. Check out the game reports from the Challengers:
Zurich Challengers – Zurich Barracudas 10-3
The Challengers handed their crosstown rivals Zurich Barracudas their first loss of the season as they rode Tobias Siegrist’s complete game performance in a 10-3 win. Siegrist gave up three runs – one of them unearned – on three hits, one base-on-balls and three hit-by-pitches, while also striking out nine en route to his second win of the season.
Siegrist’s perfomance was backed by Robert Sedin, Francisco Colindres and Siegrist himself who all had three hits apiece. Eidrys Reyes added a game-high three RBIs with two hits, and Sedin also collected three RBIs.
With the Challengers up 1-0 against Beni Montag through 3 1/2 innings, the Cudas loaded the bases in the bottom of the fourth on an error, a hit-by-pitch and a single. Rookie Nelson Santana then hit a liner to left field that was misjudged by Colindres, enabling Santana to reach third with a bases-clearing triple. But sure enough, that was all the Barracudas could muster that night against Siegrist.
After that, the only Barracudas that reached were Rüesch on a single in the fifth inning, Alejandro Lopez and Marc Shnider on hit-by-pitches in the sixth and seventh inning, and an error by left fielder Patrick Maier off of Schnider’s pop fly down the line.
Meanwhile, the Challengers offense clicked and scored 10 runs off Montag and relievers Nderim Coma and Rüesch. Right after that three-run triple in the bottom of the fourth, the Challengers came back and scored three runs on their own in the fifth inning on Thomas Blank’s perfectly executed squeeze bunt, followed by Reyes’ two-run double to left center field.
That was all for Montag, as Coma took the mound to start the sixth. Colindres tagged him for a run on an RBI-single to extend the Challengers’ lead to 5-3, but Coma escaped further damage by getting Sedin to hit into an inning-ending 6-3 double play. Challengers got to Coma in a big way and blew the game wide open in the eighth inning. Colindres had an RBI-double, Sedin followed with a two-run single, and both Siegrist and Reyes delivered RBI-singles to up the score to 10-3.
“There was just once a moment when I thought about getting to the bullpen” said coach Chris Palatinus of Siegrist’s performance. That was in the seventh inning when he kept throwing his changeup for strikes and kept the Barracudas’ off balance. “I thought his velocity dropped but that was nothing but a misinterpretation on my part.” Palatinus continued.
Zurich Challengers – Zurich Barracudas 5-3
One wild inning by Alex Tufts was all it took the Challengers to take Wednesday’s night game versus their crosstown rivals Zurich Barracudas. Tufts hit three batters, walked two and gave up a two-run single that gave Rob Sedin and his team a 3-run lead even before he took the mound for the first time. Sedin went on to complete the game in a 5-3 victory for his second win of the season, allowing three runs – two of them unearned – on 10 hits and three walks while also striking out 10.
The Barracudas collected six singles through the first six innings but failed to capitalize as they went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position. The Challengers, in the meantime, put on two more runs in the top of the fifth inning on Eidrys Reyes’ 6-4 fielder’s choice with the bases loaded that scored Francisco Colindres from third and Sedin who raced home all the way from second.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Barracudas loaded the bases on two singles and a walk with one out. Jack Thompson hit a line drive sacrifice fly to center fielder Jesus Martinez who couldn’t make the catch, leaving the bases loaded with still one out and a run in. Nderim Coma followed with a towering fly ball to center that Martinez was able to field cleanly for the second out, but another run scored. Tufts followed with an RBI-double that cut the Challengers’ lead to 5-3, but Sedin got Alejandro Lopez to strike out to escape the jam.
The Challengers managed to put a runner at second with no outs in the top of the eighth, but reliever Thompson retired the next three batters on two ground outs and a fly out. After a 1-2-3 bottom of the eighth, Sedin came back out to pitch the ninth. After a quick strikeout of Marc Schnider, Andri Rüesch reached on a walk and Thompson’s bunt single brought the winning run to the plate with just one out. Sedin regrouped and struck out Coma and Marcel Ochsner to finish the game.