(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
  Team Europe suffers second consecutive shutout
Nederlands
 TAICHUNG (Taiwan) -
Team Europe was left scoreless for the second day in a row, as the team lost 8-0 on Sunday (December 6) to the professional Taiwan Beer CPBL Team, the leader in the Asia Winter Baseball League.
On Saturday, the European squad was shutout 9-0 by the Chinese Taipei National Training Team.
For the Europeans, this was their eighth game of the season.
With that, the team is halfway, as all five reams play 16 games in the regular season.
Thereafter, a Play-Off round follows to determine the champion.
Jung-Yu Su threw seven strong innings for the Taiwanese team.
He struckout eight batters and was named the MVP of the game.
The CPBL team scored three runs in the first inning with two outs, then led 6-0 in the fourth inning.
Earlier in the day, the Chinese Taipei National Training Team won 4-2 vs. the Japanese NPB Team.
On a windy and chilly evening (16 degrees Celsius), the two teams met in an almost empty Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium.
Despite the fact that talented young professional players from the CPBL (the Taiwanese Major League) got into action, only some hundred spectators showed up.
But while the game was in progress, some more fans showed up, doubling the attendance.
That it was a crispy evening was shown by the players and coaches, who wore warm jackets and hoodies, some Taiwanese coaches even wore gloves.
The umpires also wore jackets, the 1B Umpire even wore a warm turtle-neck.
In the first two innings of the game, both starting pitchers struckout three batters.
But it has to be noted that the Home Plate Umpire had a low strikezone, resulting in some wondering faces of the batters.
The CPBL Team opened the score with three runs in the first at bat.
Initially, it appeared that European starter Gianny Fracciolla recovered fine after issuing a lead-off walk to Hsuan-Tsung Fang.
The Italian lefthander then struckout the next two batters, while Fang stole second base.
However, he then ran into problems after all.
Chi-Wei Ling-Wang singled to bring in Fang, then Kai-Wen Cheng homered to give the Taiwanese squad a 3-0 lead.
Team Europe got two baserunners with two outs in its first at bat.
Kevin Weijgertse and Alberto Mineo then singled, but a called strikeout ended the inning, leaving the two behind.
For Weijgertse, the leading European hitter, this was his 13th basehit in eight games.
In the second inning, Fracciolla was supported with a double play and he then retired the side in the third at bat.
But he then got three baserunners again in the fourth and they all would score.
He first gave up a lead-off single to Kai-Wen Cheng, then walked Wei-Ta Su.
The two advanced on a sacrifice bunt and a run was scored when Ming-Chieh Lin followed with a single.
That marked the end for Fracciolla, who was relieved by Diego Fabiani, who made his fourth appearance of the season.
The Italian righthander was greeted with a runscoring single by Kuo-Hao Wu, then a sacrifice fly by Hsuan-Tsung Fang lifted the score to 6-0.
A walk followed, but a strikeout then ended the at bat.
In the meantime, starter Jung-Yu Su pitched very well for the CPBL Team.
After giving up the two singles in the first inning, the righthander, who turned 19 on October 30, retired the next 14 batters in a row, including eight strikeouts.
There was a remarkable fact about the pitching of Su, as he probably was wearing a cap that was too big for him.
In each of the first three innings, the cap flew off of his head on the ground after almost each delivery, while he took it off himself after completing a batter.
That changed in the fourth, maybe after advice from his coaches or the umpires.
Su probably had changed caps, as it now stayed on his head after each delivery.
However, each time when he ended an inning, he took it off immediately again himself.
After five complete innings, it is custom in Taiwan that the field is prepared again.
This also was done during the Premier12.
The dirt in the infield is wiped, a new batter's box is placed, the foul-lines is renewed.
And sometimes, a game is played with members of the audience.
That also happened tonight, but this time, it was a pretty long interruption.
Several spectators (some very young) had to throw a ball into a cage.
Normally, there are some 2 1/2 minutes between innings.
But in this interruption, there were almost eight (!) minutes between the final out of the bottom of the fifth inning and the first batter to step into the batter's box in the top of the sixth inning.
When the sixth inning began, Maickel Rietel had taken de mound for the European squad.
The Dutch righthander had started two earlier games and now made his first relief-appearance.
And he did fine, as he retired the side, highlighted by a nice defensive play by Czech third baseman Premek Chroust.
Jung-Yu Su returned to the mound in the bottom of the sixth.
He retired his 14th consecutive batter since the first inning, but then gave up a single to Urving Kemp.
After a flyout, Kevin Weijgertse popped the ball up into short rightfield.
There, both rightfielder Kai-Wen Chen and second baseman Kuo-Hao Wu appeared to have a chance of catching the ball.
But as they neared each other and probably to avoid a collission, no catch was made and the ball not only dropped onto the ground, it also went by the rightfielder.
And so, Weijgertse was credited with a double and Team Europe now not only had its first runner on third base, it also had two runners in scoring position for the first time in the game.
However, they were left behind when next batter Alberto Mineo grounded out.
In the top of the seventh, Leonel Cespedes became the new pitcher for Team Europe.
The Frenchman also had a good outing, as he also retired the side, like Rietel did the inning before.
| Standings |
| # | Team | G | W | L | T |
| 1 | CPBL Team | 7 | 4 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Chinese Taipei Training Team | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| 3 | KBO Team | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | NPB Team | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| 5 | Team Europe | 8 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
In the games so far played by the two Taiwanese teams, most pitchers were changed after two or three, or sometimes four innings.
Tonight, Su came back to pitch the seventh inning for the CPBL Team.
In the previous six innings, the righthander had retired the lead-off batter, four of them with a strikeout.
But in the seventh, he gave up a lead-off single to Mattia Mercuri on his first delivery.
Mercuri was forced out on a grounder by Chris Howard, but then Su had to give up another single.
This time to Daniel Fernandes and that was his first basehit of the season, as he was 0-for-13 before.
Su avoided giving up runs, as Belgian Sam Buelens grounded into an inning-ending double play that was started by the pitcher himself on a comeback-grounder.
Buelens is one of six active professionals in the European squad.
This year, the 19-year old outfielder made his professional debut and played in 42 games for the DSL Blue Jays, the Rookie League-team of the Toronto Blue Jays in the Dominican Summer League.
Buelens batted .232 (23-for-90), scored 20 runs and batted in ten.
With one out in the top of the eighth inning, playing in centerfield, Buelens made a diving attempt to catch a line drive hit by Wei-Ta Su.
While the short stop and second baseman, who had ran backwards, were standing by, the ball went by Buelens and Su extended his basehit into a double.
In the meantime, rightfielder Daniel Fernandes had picked up the ball and threw it towards second base, but out of reach of first baseman Kevin Weijgertse, who covered the play there.
The ball jumped up in front off the base and then hit the leftside of the face of the sliding Su, who sustained a cut in his chin and left the game.
Coincidentally, it was Su, who had hit a line drive off of the head of European reliever Filippo Crepaldi last week.
Crepaldi is still recovering in a local hospital, not from his head-injury, but from an ankle-injury, he sustained while falling down after being hit.
It is expected that he will be released from the hospital in a few days.
Su was replaced by pinch-runner Tao-Jung Tseng, who scored moments later on a following single by pinch-hitter Yu-Hsien Chu.
Ming-Chieh Lin followed with a triple and that gave the CPBL Team an 8-0 lead.
In the bottom of the eighth, Wen-Chi Yeh took over the pitching for Jung-Yu Su, who had struckout eight and walked no batters, while giving up six hits in the seven innings he had pitched.
Did Su had problems with his cap in the first three innings, Yeh took the mound with a thick, shawl-like collar around his neck.
With one out in the eighth, Urving Kemp singled.
Moments later, he collided with second baseman Kuo-Hao Wu on a force play-grounder by pinch-hitter Rashid Gerard.
Wu fielded the ball on what also was the running lane of Kemp, who then ran into the second baseman, resulting in a hard collission and both falling down to the ground.
Wu left the game.
Shortly before the collission, Wu had tagged Kemp on his leg, but the ball then dropped out of his glove when hitting the ground after the collission.
The 2B Umpire gave the safe-signal, pointing to the ball on the ground.
Maik Ehmcke was sent to second base to take over for Kemp as a pinch-runner.
But when the game resumed after the two players were treated, Kemp was ruled out after all and Ehmcke returned to the dug-out.
A flyout ended the at bat.
In the top of the ninth, Ehmcke took over in leftfield for Kemp and Croatian Kruno Gojkovic pitched for Team Europe.
He walked two batters with two outs, but closed with a strikeout.
In the bottom of the ninth, the European offense was retired in order by new pitcher Chia-Yu Chien to end the game.
The European Team plays is next game on Monday (December 7), starting at 6 PM local time (11 AM Dutch time).
The team then meets the KBO Team from South Korea.
(December 6)
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