   Roger Bernadina hits 100th basehit!
Nederlands
 WASHINGTON, DC (USA) -
More Dutch Major League-success!
On Thursday, outfielder Greg Halman became the seventh Dutch-born and/or raised player to reach the Major League, last month righthanded pitcher Rick van den Hurk returned to the big league. But how about the third Dutch-raised player currently in the Major League, outfielder Roger Bernadina? On the same day Halman made his big league-debut, the 26-year old Bernadina hit his eleventh homerun of the season playing at home for the Washington Nationals against the Houston Astros.
For Roger, the homerun was his 99th basehit of the season.
In the second inning, he already had singled. Bernadina was 2-for-3 in this game, scored once, walked once and had two RBI's.
The next day, so on Friday-evening, Roger initially went 0-for-3 against the Atlanta Braves, but then reached first base on a bunt-single in the eighth inning to reach the 100-mark!
...Roger Bernadina...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
Roger Bernadina, who played in leftfield in Thursday's game, hit his 2-run homerun with two outs in the sixth inning off Nelson Figueroa. When the inning started, the Nationals trailed 2-1. With one out, Adam Kennedy walked and Ian Desmond singled, then both scored on a double by Michael Morse to put the Nationals ahead. Next, Bernadina homered to make it 5-2 in Washington's favor. The Nationals went on to win the game 7-2. Morse had homered in the second inning to tie the score. In the seventh, Danny Espinosa hit a 2-run homerun that lifted the lead to 7-2.
Bernadina, who was born in Willemstad (Curaçao), is having a fine year with the Nationals. Almost from the beginning of the season, he is a member of the Major League-squad.
Friday's game was his 126th this season.
Through that game, the lefthanded hitter is 100-for-391, which gives him a .256 batting average.
Bernadina has scored 50 runs so far, is credited with 47 runs batted in and hit 18 doubles, three triples and 11 homeruns.
Besides that, he also stole 16 bases.
In Friday's game against the Braves, Roger went grounded out twice, struckout once and had a sacrifice fly in the first seven innings.
In the bottom of the eighth, Billy Wagner became the new pitcher for Atlanta and started by walking Danny Espinosa.
Next, Roger bunted the ball towards Wagner, which became his 100th basehit.
Wagner threw the ball passed first base, enabling Espinosa to score and giving Bernadina two extra bases.
Adam Dunn hit two homeruns for Washington, which won 8-3 vs. Atlanta, which is in the race for the National League Wild Card.
On November 3, 2001 Roger was signed by the Montreal Expos and he made his professional debut a year later, playing for the Gulf Coast Expos, the Rookie League-team of the Expos. The next year, he promoted to Single-A where he played for three seasons. After having played the 2006 season in Single-A Advanced, things went quick for Bernadina in the following years.
In both 2007 and 2008, he split the season between Double-A and Triple-A. But there was more. On June 28, 2008, Bernadina was recalled to the Major League-team, while he played for the Double-A team in Harrisburg. The next day, he made his debut, playing for the Washington Nationals against the Baltimore Orioles, and hit a single in his first Major League at bat off pitcher Jeremy Guthrie. Oh, by the way, on June 27 of this year, so two years later, Roger faced Guthrie again and this time homered. After having appeared in 10 games, Bernadina returned to the Minor League, but was added again to the roster in September, playing in 16 more big league-games. In the 2008 season, Bernadina led all Washington's minor league-players with a .336 batting average, 151 basehits and 78 runs and was in second place with 41 stolen bases. A year earlier, he led the entire organisation with 40 stolen bases.
2009 was a season not to look back to. Roger started the season in the Triple-A team in Syracuse and was recalled on April 15. Three days later, in his third game for the Nationals, Bernadina made a spectacular catch in centerfield on a line drive by Dan Uggla in the eighth inning, but fractured his right ankle. He underwent surgery the same night, but his season was over. In late August, Bernadina started his recovery and played in two games for the Rookie League-team and five for the Triple-A team.
On April 3 of this year, two days before the start of the season, Bernadina was sent to the Syracuse Chiefs A(AAA) together with Cuban pitcher Livan Hernandez. On April 11, the two were recalled and Roger played on April 14 against the Philadelphia Phillies, going 0-for-1. The next day, he returned to Syracuse. On April 28, Bernadina again was recalled. The same day, he went 2-for-3 and scored a run against the Chicago Cubs and from then on, he became the regular leftfielder for the Nationals, playing in 125 games so far this season.
May 12 was a big day for Bernadina. Playing against the New York Mets in New York, Bernadina hit his first Major League-homerun. In the fourth inning, with two outs and facing Mike Pelfrey, Bernadina's solo-homerun broke a 2-2 tie and gave Washington the lead. However, the Mets came back and went on to tie the score, 4-4. In the top of the ninth inning, again with two outs, Bernadina homered again! This time, it was a 2-run shot of closer Francisco Rodriguez, which gave Washington a 6-4 lead and the win. In the fifth, he also made a great diving catch, preventing the Mets from scoring a run.
Roger hit his next homerun a month later, on June 13, and went on to add six more in the weeks thereafter. However, all these eight homeruns were hit on the road! But then, on August 26, Roger hit his first homerun at home. Opponent St. Louis Cardinals rallied for four runs in the top of the ninth inning to take a 10-8 lead. But in the bottom of the ninth inning, with one out, Roger hit a 2-run homerun to tie the score and force extra innings. Washington went on to win the game 11-10 in 13 innings.
Two days later, August 28, against the St. Louis Cardinals, Roger hit his tenth homerun of the season off Mike MacDougal, who was his teammate at Syracuse when the season began. But during the season, MacDougal was released and then signed a contract with the Cardinals.
...Roger Bernadina connects during the European Championship...
...of 2007 in Barcelona (Spain)...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
Bernadina made his debut in the Dutch National Baseball Team on February 3, 2004 against an All Star Team from his native Curaçao during a trip of the Dutch squad to this Antillian island. Bernadina, who played in two games back then, also was on the provisional roster for the World Baseball Classic in 2006, but then wasn't available for the team due to Spring Training. On September 4, 2007, Bernadina made his official international debut in the national team in an exhibition game against Spain (which is the same game in which Greg Halman made his Dutch Team-debut). He then participated with the Dutch squad in the following European Championship/Olympic Qualifier in Barcelona and later in the year traveled with the national team to Taiwan for the World Championship. In total, Bernadina played in 18 official international games for the Orange. In 2008, he wasn't available for the Olympic Games in Beijing (China).
Besides Bernadina, there are currently three other Curaçao-born players active in the Major League, being outfielder Andruw Jones (Chicago White Sox), pitcher Kenley Jansen (Los Angeles Dodgers) and pitcher Jair Jurrjens (Atlanta Braves). The latter is bothered by a sore knee at the moment and his status is day-to-day.
(September 24)
| Roger Bernadina's Major League-homeruns |
|
| # | date | pitcher | team | inning, runs |
|
| 1 | May 12 | Mike Pelfrey | New York Mets | 4th, solo |
| 2 | May 12 | Francisco Rodriguez | New York Mets | 9th, 2-run |
| 3 | June 13 | Tony Sipp | Cleveland Indians | 8th, 2-run |
| 4 | June 16 | Justin Verlander | Detroit Tigers | 2nd, solo |
| 5 | June 27 | Jeremy Guthrie | Baltimore Orioles | 4th, 2-run |
| 6 | July 22 | Bill Bray | Cincinnati Reds | 7th, solo |
| 7 | August 5 | Sam Demel | Arizona Diamondbacks | 7th, solo |
| 8 | August 21 | Chad Durbin | Philadelphia Phillies | 9th, 3-run |
| 9 | August 26 | Ryan Franklin | St. Louis Cardinals | 9th, 2-run |
| 10 | August 28 | Mike MacDougal | St. Louis Cardinals | 8th, 2-run |
| 11 | September 23 | Nelson Figueroa | Houston Astros | 6th, 2-run |
|
