(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
  Team Europe closes Asian season with loss after 5-0 lead
Nederlands
 TAICHUNG (Taiwan) -
Team Europe closed its participation in the Asia Winter Baseball League on Wednesday-evening (December 16) with a 7-5 loss against the professional Taiwan Beer CPBL Team.
The European squad again played a fine game, as it had done in the past few days.
The team led 5-0 after five innings, thanks to good pitching by starter Owen Ozanich and good hitting.
Unfortunately, Ozanich saw his win disappear, as the bullpen gave up seven hits and six runs in the final two innings.
The team ended the season with a 1-11 record and played three games that ended in a tie.
Earlier in the day, the Japanese NPB Team won 6-4 vs. the Chinese Taipei National Training Team.
Before today, the two teams shared first place, but with this win, the NPB Team now in the lone league-leader.
The third season of the Asia Winter Baseball League ends on Thursday, to be followed by the Play-Offs on Friday and Saturday.
The championship-final will be played on Sunday.
(December 16)
As it had in the past few days, Team Europe again had a good start of the game on a chily (12 degrees Celsius) and very windy evening in Taichung.
French righthander Owen Ozanich started and is one of the more successful pitchers in the European pitching-staff.
In the 14 1/3 inning he had pitched before today, Ozanich had struckout 13 batters and walked only four batters.
In the first at bat, he gave up an one-out single, but two grounders followed.
In the bottom of the first inning, Ozanich was supported with two runs.
Righthander Chia-Yu Chien started for the CPBL Team.
He had given up only one basehit in 5 1/3 innig in the five previous outings he had.
In the first European at bat, he gave up four consecutive basehits.
With two outs, Kevin Weijgertse singled, then scored when Alberto Mineo drove the ball into deep rightfield.
The ball ended up in the rightfield-stands for a 2-run homerun to give Europe and early lead.
This was Mineo's first homerun of the season.
Hereafter, Daniel Fernandes and Alessandro Deotto also singled.
For Fernandes, this was only his second basehit of the season.
But the two stranded, as Chien closed with a strikeout.
After Ozanich had retired the side in the top of the second inning, Team Europe got its lead-off hitter on base when Freddy Noguera walked.
Moments later, he stole second base, but as it appeared he was tagged on his lower leg before touching the base, the CPBL-coaches asked for a challenge.
The Home Plate Umpire went inside, had a brief review of the video-replays, concluded that the glove with the ball indeed was between the leg and the base, so when he came back, he called Noguera out, overruling the call on the field.
With two outs, Urving Kemp walked and stole second base.
Kemp overslid the base and it appeared that he was tagged on his hand before re-touching the base.
This time, no challenge folowed and the inning continued.
On the next pitch, Kemp scored as Sebastiano Poma hit the ball through the middle.
While it appeared that the short stop couldn't have a play, it was ruled an error, instead on a single.
But Team Europe was now leading 3-0.
Ozanich again retired the side in the third inning, but the first out came after it appeared that the lead-off hitter had reached base.
Yu-Ta Tsai hit the ball towards the third base-line.
Ozanich picked up and threw the ball to first base where it hit the runner and ended up in foul territory.
Tsai advanced to second base, but at that time, the 1B Umpire already had ruled him out for running on the inside part of the basepath.
With that, it became runner's interference.
In the bottom of the third inning, an European runner stranded on third base.
Off of new pitcher Wei-Chen Pan, with one out, Daniel Fernandes (fielder's choice) was on first base, then advanced on a wild pitch and a groundout.
Hereafter, Premek Chroust drilled the ball into deep rightfield.
However, the ball was caught just before the fence.
The Taiwanese opponent reached base again in the top of the fourth.
After he had given up an one-out single in the first inning, Owen Ozanich had retired ten batters in a row, including two in this at bat.
But with two outs, he now gave up two singles.
With runners on first and second base, the inning ended when leftfielder Urving Kemp made a great (running) diving catch on a drive by Kuo-Kin Lo.
In the bottom of the fourth, Kemp singled with two outs, but stranded on first base.
Ozanich returned to the mound in the fifth, struckout the first two batters he faced and retired the side for the third time.
In five innings, Ozanich had now struckout four batters.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, with one out, Alberto Mineo and Daniel Fernandes both singled.
Before today, Fernandes was 1-for-27, but now he was 2-for-3.
Hereafter, Kevin Weijgertse also singled to bring in Mineo and when an outfield-error followed, Fernandes also was able to score, giving Team Europe a 5-0 lead!
That led to a pitching change, as Kuan-Ru Chen took over.
Next batter Premek Chroust again had no luck.
Was his drive in the third inning caught just in front of the fence, this time, his line drive was caught by the first baseman.
A nice catch on foul territory on a fly by Freddy Noguera ended the at bat.
However, the Europeans appeared to have a comfortable 5-0 lead.
The team outhit the Taiwanese opponent 8-3.
Defensively, the CPBL Tead had committed three errors, while Europe played errorless in the first five innings.
But that all would change in the remainder of the game.
After five complete innings, the game was interrupted again for the traditional 'refreshing' of the infield.
This time, the interruption lasted 7 1/2 minutes.
Diego Fabiani took over the European pitching and his first delivery ended in a double by Yao-Hsun Yang.
He then advanced on a grounder and scored the first CPBL-run on a sacrifice fly by Chia-Jung Liang.
Fabiani closed the inning with a strikeout, but the Taiwanese had started their comeback in the game.
For Team Europe, Sebastiano Poma singled with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning, but was forced out.
But the Europeans now outhit the CPBL Team, 9-4.
In the top of the seventh inning, Leonel Cespedes became the new pitcher for Team Europe.
The French righthander got two quick outs, then appeared to have an one-two-three inning when Yu-Hsien Chu hit a hard grounder.
The ball bounced up in front of Chris Howard, who had become the new first baseman in the sixth.
Howard then made a throwing error, enabling Chu to reach, but a following grounder ended the at bat after all.
In the bottom of the seventh, Alberto Mineo almost led off with an infield-hit.
The Italian professional player hit the ball hard down the third base-line, where 3rd baseman Chia-Jung Liang fielded the ball behind third base and threw it to first base.
There, a very close play followed, but the 1B Umpire made the correct call, as the ball arrived at first base a milli-second before Mineo touched it.
After another groundout, a pitching change followed, then a strikeout ended the at bat.
Despite trailing 5-1 after seven innings, the CPBL Team turned the game its way in the eighth at bat.
In the top of the eighth inning, Matz Schutte became the fourth European pitcher.
The Dutch professional gave up a lead-off single to Chang-Yung Fang, who then scored all the way from first base on a double by following batter Yao-Hsun Yang.
Third baseman Rashid Gerard barely missed catching the line drive hit by Yang.
Hereafter, Kuo-Hao Wu walked with ball-four ending in a wild pitch and thus runners on first and third base.
It marked the end the for Schutte, as the righthander was relieved by Gianny Fracchiolla.
The Italian lefthander was greeted with a runscoring single by Chia-Jung Liang, which also kept runners on first and third base.
Another RBI-single followed, this time by Wei-Ta Su, which narrowed the Taiwanese deficit to only 5-4.
The two baserunners advanced on a passed ball, then the bases got loaded when Fracchiolla walked Kai-Wen Cheng.
The next delivery then ended in a wild pitch, which tied the score and made it a new ball game!
A following sacrifice fly by Kuo-Lin Lo completed the comeback, as with this, the CPBL Team took a 6-5 lead.
That led to another pitching change, as Milvio Andreozzi was brought in as reliever.
The Italian righthander struckout the two batters he faced, but the game had completely turned around.
Now suddenly trailing 6-5, Team Europe attempted a comeback of its own in the bottom of the eighth inning.
With two outs, Mattia Mercuri doubled, but stranded on second base.
| Standings |
| # | Team | G | W | L | T |
| 1 | NPB Team | 15 | 9 | 4 | 2 |
| 2 | Chinese Taipei Training Team | 14 | 8 | 5 | 1 |
| 3 | KBO Team | 14 | 6 | 4 | 4 |
| 4 | Taiwan Beer CPBL Team | 14 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| 5 | Team Europe | 15 | 1 | 11 | 3 |
After Team Europe had left a runner in scoring position in the eighth, the CPBL Team added a run in its ninth.
Chang-Yung Fang led off with a single, which led to a pitching change.
Lefthander Robin Schel took over from Andreozzi, but he also had to allow several batters to reach base.
First, he saw Fang move to third base when next batter Yao-Hsun Yang reached on an error and then score on a following sacrifice fly by Kuo-Hao Wu.
Hereafter, pinch-hitter Wei-Ting Lin popped the ball into short centerfield for a single, landing between three players.
The two runners moved when the ball slipped out of the hand of Schel on his first delivery to the next batter, resulting in the ball ending up on the grass and going into foul territory for a wild pitch.
A walk then loaded the bases, but an infield-fly and flyout ended the inning, but it was now 7-5 in favor of the CPBL Team.
In the bottom of the ninth, Europe got its first two batters on base and so, a possible tie was in the making.
Sebastiano Poma led off with a single.
After a pitching change, Chris Howard also singled.
Unfortunately, a hard grounder by Alberto Mineo then ended in a double play, but brought Poma to third base.
A grounder then ended the inning, the game and the Asian season for Team Europe.
The last two innings saw multiple changes by both Managers and there were six runs scored.
All for the Taiwanese team, meaning the European squad was left empty-handed again after a good start.
This time, the team led 5-0 after five innings, but again the bullpen gave up too much runs, walked too much batters and gave up too much basehits.
Only three Taiwanese players reached base off of starter Owen Ozanich in the first five innings.
In the final four at bats, 12 batters reached off of five of the six relievers.
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