(Story Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen & WBSC)
   Kingdom Team ends up short vs. USA and is eliminated for medal-round!
Nederlands
 TAOYUAN (Taiwan) -
The team of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on Monday-afternoon (November 16) lost 6-1 vs. USA in the Quarter Final of the Premier12.
With that, the team is eliminated for the medal round, which begins next Thursday in Tokyo.
With the win, the USA reached the top-4 and will travel to Japan.
Now that the tournament is over for the Kingdom Team, it earned 250,000 dollar, while the USA is still in the race for the 1 million dollar that goes with the gold medal.
The Orange offense was limited to only four basehits, while four very costly errors gave the USA three runs in the fifth inning.
At the same time, Mexico accounted for a major upset by eliminating unbeaten Canada.
The winner of Pool A led 4-1, but then Mexico (which finished in fourth place in Pool B) rallied for three runs in the eighth inning to win 4-3!
With that, Mexico will go to Japan, while Canada returns home!
In the semi-final, Mexico, which is ranked 12th, now will meet the USA.
The game was one of two played today at Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium in Taoyuan, which is located in the northwestern of Taiwan, neighboring New Taipei City.
It is the stadium of the Lamigo Monkeys, who last month won the Taiwan Series to become the champion of the professional big league in Taiwan.
Later today, Japan will play here against Puerto Rico.
In that game, Dutch umpire Winfried Berkvens will be in leftfield.
It was the first game, the Orange played here during the event, as it played four of its five games in Taichung, while the fifth was being played in Douliu City.
Team USA played three of its five games in the preliminary round in Taoyuan.
They played the other two games at Tianmu Baseball Stadium in Taipei.
...Due to a fire, Tianmu Stadium is not be used today...
(© Photo courtesy of WBSC) |
Initially, Tianmu Baseball Stadium also was scheduled to host one of the four Quarter Final-games today.
However, on Saturday, there had been a fire in the stadium and it was decided not to use the stadium for today's games.
The game scheduled to be played in Taipei was moved to Taichung.
It is not known which game was originally scheduled to be played in Tianmu Stadium.
With that, two games also will be played at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium in Taichung.
In the afternoon, Canada met Mexico here and in the evening, Cuba is playing against South Korea.
In this last game, Dutch scorer Linda Steijger is the Play-by-Play scorer.
All remaining games are now officiated by a 6-man umpiring crew, as two outfield-umpires have been added.
Today's crew at the Orange vs. USA game was led by Japanese Home Plate Umpire Kazuyuki Shirai, who probably has one of the loudest and in any case most peculiar 'strike'-calls in history.
In the preliminary round, the Kingdom Team of the Netherlands began the event on Monday with a 7-4 win vs. Chinese Taipei, then lost 6-5 to Cuba on Wednesday, followed by a huge 16-1 win vs. Italy on Thursday.
On Saturday, the Orange won 11-7 vs. Puerto Rico.
The team closed the preliminary round on Sunday with a 3-1 loss vs. Canada, resulting in a third place finish in Pool A.
(November 16)
Initially, two former Major League-pitchers were named to start this game, Jair Jurrjens for the Netherlands Kingdom Team and Zack Segovia for the USA.
However, last night, the father of Jair Jurrjens passed away.
Of course, the pitcher didn't travel with the team to Taoyuan for today's game, but will return to Curaçao to be with his family.
Just before the team left for Taiwan on October 30, Andruw Jones also had to return home, as his father unexpectedly had passed away.
On Saturday, Dwayne Kemp also received sad news, as his grandfather had passed away, which is the father of former National Team-player Adonis Kemp.
Before the start of the game, there was a moment of silence to remember Maximiliano Kemp and Carl Jurrjens.
Righthander Tom Stuifbergen started instead for the Kingdom Team.
He pitched in relief in the opening game against Chinese Taipei, but had to leave the game with an ankle-injury.
Initially, that appeared to be severe, but luckily that wasn't the case.
Since his appearance on Monday, Stuifbergen was treated by the medical staff and has recovered enough to make the start today.
32-year old righthander Zach Segovia pitched in nine Major League-games.
In 2007, he started one game for Philadelphia Phillies and then was the losing pitcher, giving up eight hits and five earned runs in five innings vs. Florida Marlins.
He then pitched in eight games (all in relief) for Washington Nationals in 2009 and was 1-0.
Segovia plays professionally since 2002 and has pitched at all levels since then.
He is a 'journey man', as he also pitched in the Winter Leagues in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico and Taiwan.
This season Segovia pitched in Double-A and Triple-A teams of the San Diego Padres, but was released in June.
Both Stuifbergen and Segovia did fine and didn't gave away much.
But Stuifbergen did better.
He retired the side in the first inning.
In the second at bat, Matt McBride led off with a grounder to short stop Carlton Daal, who bobbled the ball, then threw it to first baseman Andruw Jones, who then dropped the ball while uplifting his glove.
However, McBride was called out by Japanese umpire Kota Kawaguchi, as it was ruled that the ball was dropped on the transfer.
But on the TV-replays, it wasn't clear whether or not that was the case and besides that, McBride might also simply haven beaten the throw.
Anyhow, he was out, but Stuifbergen then gave up a 2-out single to Brett Phillips, but closed with a strikeout, as he did in the previous at bat.
In the third, Dan Rohlfing led off for the USA with a single, but was caught stealing, then two outs followed.
...Tom Stuifbergen did well tonight...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Segovia also retired the side in the first inning and did the same in the second.
The Orange squad then opened the score in the third at bat.
Kalian Sams led off with a single and advanced on following grounders by Hainley Statia and Carlton Daal.
Next batter Randolph Oduber then struckout, but the third strike ended in a wild pitch and that enabled Sams to score the first run.
In the fourth inning, Orange Manager Hensley Meulens was forced to make two unplanned changes.
In the top of the at bat, Andruw Jones singled, but then Curt Smith grounded into a double play.
Next batter Shawn Zarraga then sustained a wrist-injury on his right arm while making a swing and had to leave the game.
Dashenko Ricardo took over as pinch-hitter with an 1-1 count and flied out.
Ricardo then took over the catching and caught Stuifbergen, who was his teammate this season at Corendon Kinheim in the Dutch big league.
However, that battery didn't last long.
Stuifbergen got two quick outs, then gave up a single to Matt McBride.
After running the count to 3-0 on next batter Dan Black, Stuifbergen was visited by Meulens and Athletic Trainer Rob Tamminga.
That meant that Stuifbergen might have been bothered by his ankle-injury.
He continued pitching, walked Black, but then was relieved after all by Jim Ploeger, who closed with a strikeout.
After Segovia retired the side again in the top of the fifth, Team USA took over the lead in the bottom half in a disastrous half for the Orange, thanks to four errors.
Ploeger returned to the mound and lead-off hitter Tyler Pastornicky appeared to flyout to leftfield.
But there, leftfielder Curt Smith dropped the ball, as he maybe lost it temporarily due to the sun, which also might be a bit of influence on the next plays.
Pastornicky ended up on second base with an error and also led to a pitching change.
Orlando Yntema took over, but committed three (!) throwing errors.
Dan Rohlfing bunted, Yntema fielded it quickly, but then threw the ball past third base into leftfield, enabling Pastornicky to score the tying run.
Hereafter, Yntema made another throwing error on a sacrifice bunt by Elliot Soto, which led to the next run and a runner on third base, as the ball ended up in rightfield.
Soto then scored on a single by Jacob May to make it 3-1.
Hereafter, Yntema made the next throwing error on a sacrifice bunt by Adam Frazier, which resulted in runners on second and third base.
Before today, the team had made only one error in the entire tournament, but now, four were made on five batters!
Two outs followed, then the bases got loaded on a walk, but USA left three runners behind.
In the sixth inning, new pitcher Brooks Pounders retired the side.
In the bottom of the sixth, Tyler Pastornicky led off with a single, but a doubled play followed.
In the seventh inning, Dashenko Ricardo reached on an infield-hit with two outs, but stranded.
In the bottom of the seventh, the USA took more distance.
Berry van Driel took over the pitching, but hit lead-off hitter Jacob May, then gave up an RBI-double to Adam Frazier, as May scored all the way from first base/
Van Driel was relieved by Loek van Mil.
With one out, a sacrifice fly by Matt McBride followed that led to the next run and lifted the USA-lead to 5-1.
In the top of the eighth inning, the Orange got its first runner in scoring position since the third inning.
Hainley Statia led off with a walk, but was forced out on a grounder by Carlton Daal.
The latter then stole second base with two outs to get into scoring position, but was left behind.
The USA added another run in the bottom of the 8th off of Van Mil.
Brett Phillips led off with a triple, then scored on a sacrifice fly by Tyler Pastornicky.
Pounders continued his dominance as reliever, retired the side in the ninth, gave up inly one hit in four innings and secured the win for the USA.
And with that, the Kingdom Team was eliminated, while the USA travels to Japan tomorrow for the semi-final.
The starting players, their replacements, positions and hitting in this game were:
1 - Randolph Oduber (CF, 0-for-4)
2 - Yurendell de Caster (3B, 1-for-4)
3 - Wladimir Balentien (DH, 0-for-4)
4 - Andruw Jones (1B, 1-for-4)
5 - Curt Smith (LF, 0-for-4)
6 - Shawn Zarraga (C, 0-for-1), replaced by Dashenko Ricardo (PH-C, 1-for-2)
7 - Kalian Sams (RF, 1-for-3)
8 - Hainley Statia (2B, 0-for-2)
9 - Carlton Daal (SS, 0-for-3)
Pitchers - Tom Stuifbergen, Jim Ploeger, Orlando Yntema, Berry van Driel, Loek van Mil.
|
