(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
   Team Europe ends up short against Korean squad
Nederlands
 TAICHUNG (Taiwan) -
Team Europe ended up short on Monday (December 7), losing 8-4 to the professional KBO Team from South Korea in its ninth game of the Asia Winter Baseball League.
The first two games between the two teams ended in a tie.
Earlier in the day, league-leader Taiwan Beer CPBL Team lost 8-7 to the NPO Team from Japan.
With this result, the Chinese Taipei National Training Team, which had no game scheduled for today, is now the new league-leader.
Dutch pitcher Lars Huijer had a fine start for the European squad, but hereafter, relievers, were unable to silence the Korean offense.
Team Europe had a strong finish.
It scored twice in the ninth inning, had two runners on base two outs, but a strikeout then ended the game.
In the opening at bat, European starter Lars Huijer gave up a lead-off double to Byun-Gok Bae on his third delivery.
But hereafter, he retired the next three batters, including one strikeout.
In the bottom of the first inning, Team Europe opened the score off of veteran pitcher Sun-Gki Min.
The 26-year old lefthander pitches for NC Dinos, with whom he reached the Play-Offs this season in the KBO League, the highest professional league in South Korea.
He gave up a lead-off single to Urving Kemp, then Maik Ehmcke also connected for a single.
The two advanced on a wild pitch, then Kemp scored the first run on a single by Federico Giordani.
Despite his hard collission the day before while running towards second base in the eighth inning, Kemp was back in the line-up today.
With two outs, Chris Howard walked.
The German was the first baseman today instead of Kevin Weijgertse, who got a day off.
A flyout ended the at bat, but Europe had taken an 1-0 lead.
Huijer retired the side in the second inning, then got two more outs (including his third strikeout) in the third.
After giving up the lead-off double to Byun-Gok Bae in the first inning, the Dutch righthander retired eight batters in a row.
Huijer then faced Bae again with two outs in the third and this time, he singled.
Moments later, Bae stole second base, then scored the tying run when Sun-Gkon Lee followed with a double.
In the bottom of the third inning, lead-off hitter Maik Ehmcke was hit by a pitch, advanced on a sacrifice bunt and a grounder, but stranded on third base.
In the top of the fourth, Huijer gave up an one-out single, but then third baseman Rashid Gerard caught a pop-fly and made a great play on a hard grounder to end the inning.
In the bottom of the fourth, Gerard walked with two outs, but then was forced out.
In the fifth, the first two Korean batters reached base off of Huijer.
Sa-Hoon Kim reached on a throwing error and Youn-Joon Cho singled.
Hereafter, Huijer faced Byun-Gok Bae for the third time.
He was successful in his first two at bats, but this time Huijer struck him out.
Another strikeout followed, but then the bases got loaded when Huijer walked Hyun Jung.
However, the three Korean runners stranded when next batter Chi-Hong An went after the first pitch he saw and grounded into a force out.
In the bottom of the fifth, Team Europe got its first batter on base when Urving Kemp led off with a walk, the fourth issued by Sun-Gki Min
But moments later, Min picked-off Kemp on first base.
With two outs, Federico Giordani reached second base on a throwing error, but he stranded as a strikeout ended the at bat.
In the top of the sixth, Lars Huijer stayed behind in the dug-out.
He had pitched five fine innings.
And despite allowing several batters to reach base, he gave up only one run and struckout five batters, while walking only one.
Huijer was relieved by Milvio Andreozzi.
The Italian righthander made his fifth appearance of the season and began with a walk for Seung-Yeol Yoon.
In his previous four appearances, Andreozzi had walked a total of seven batters in five innings.
A following throwing error resulted in runners on first and third base, then a double by Bon-Ki Shin gave the KBO Team a 2-1 lead.
Hereafter, Owen Ozanich took over the European pitching.
The French righthander had struckout eight batters, walked only two and had given up five basehits in the 8 1/3 inning he pitched in his first three appearances on the mound.
But now, he was greeted with a 2-run single by Sa-Hoon Kim that made it 4-1 in favor of the Koreans and broke open the game.
After a flyout accounted for the first out in the inning, Ozanich gave up an RBI-single to Byun-Gok Bae (his third basehit in the game) that lifted the lead to 5-1.
Bae also is a regular player of the South Korean National Team.
A strikeout and pop-out followed, but the KBO Team had taken a commanding lead.
In the bottom of the sixth, the coaches of the KBO Team also went to the bullpen.
First, Sun-Gki Min returned to the mound.
He began with a strikeout, then hit Mattia Mercuri with a pitch.
After a force play-grounder by Daniel Fernandes, a pitching change followed.
Righthander Jue-Un Song took over, but was greeted with a runscoring double by Rashid Gerard down the leftfield-line.
The ball turned to foul territory just after passing the outside-part of third base.
In his previous four appearances, Song had given up ten basehits (two homeruns) in 4 1/3 inning.
Song closed the inning with a strikeout, but Europe had narrowed the deficit to 5-2.
Spaniard Javier Sanchez became the fourth European pitcher in the top of the seventh inning and he got the bases loaded quickly.
The righthander first gave up singles to Chi-Hong An and Seung-Yeol Yoon.
The bases got loaded when a sacrifice bunt-attempt by Kyun-Grok Lee ended in a bunt-single.
The KBO Team then got the run back when Bon-Ki Shin followed with a sacrifice fly.
| Standings |
| # | Team | G | W | L | T |
| 1 | Chinese Taipei Training Team | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| 2 | Taiwan Beer CPBL Team | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | KBO Team | 7 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | NPB Team | 8 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| 5 | Team Europe | 9 | 1 | 6 | 2 |
Another European pitching change followed in the top of the eighth inning when Robin Schel took the mound.
The Dutch lefthander walked productive lead-off hitter Byun-Gok Bae on four pitches, but followed with a strikeout.
Bae then advanced to third base on a grounder and a wild pitch.
Next batter Chi-Hong An walked and a run was then scored on a following single by Seung-Yeol Yoon.
The player of the Hanwha Eagles in the KBO League 3-for-4 with a walk and scored once.
Another run was added when Kyun-Grok Lee also singled to increase the Korean lead to 8-2.
With runners on second and third base, Schel closed with a strikeout.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Team Europe Manager Gilberto Gerali went to his bench and inserted three new players.
Alberto Mineo led off with a single, then was replaced by pinch-runner Sam Buelens.
With one out, pinch-hitter Sebastiano Poma walked, then was replaced by pinch-runner Luca Martone.
But the two pinch-runners stranded when a strikeout and groundout followed.
Matz Schutte pitched the ninth inning for Team Europe.
He gave up a lead-off single, but retired the next two batters (one strikeout).
Schutte then followed with a walk, but a grounder then ended the inning.
Team Europe then had a good finish, scoring twice.
Min-Jae Shan took over the Korean pitching.
With one out, he gave up a single to Urving Kemp, who then advanced on a wild pitch.
He then moved to third base when Maik Emcke also singled and the bases got loaded when Federico Giordani walked.
An European run was then scored when Alessandro Deotto singled.
He had just entered the game in the top of the ninth as catcher and this was hit first hit of the season (he was 0-for-6).
Deotto was the fourth consecutive batter to reach base and that led to a pitching change, as Hyun-Woo Kim took over.
The righthander pitches for Samsung Lions, the former team of Dutch pitcher Rick van den Hurk.
With the bases loaded, a run was then scored on a sacrifice fly by Chris Howard that made it an 8-4 score.
With runners on first and second base, the game ended when Kim struckout Luca Martone.
The European Team plays has the day off on Tuesday (December 8) and plays its next game on Wednesday (December 9), starting at 6 PM local time (11 AM Dutch time).
The team then meets the Japanese NPO Team.
(December 7)
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