(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Jan Kruijdenberg)
 Bologna opens Italian Series with win
Nederlands
 BOLOGNA (Italy) -
UnipolSai Fortitudo Bologna has opened the best-of-seven Italian Baseball Series on Thursday-evening (August 11) with a 6-2 victory against Pirati dei Rimini.
The Italian Championship Series continues on Friday in Bologna.
The next three games then will be played on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Rimini.
An eventual sixth and seventh game will be played in the weekend of August 20 and 21 in Bologna.
...Ricardo Hernández Sánchez...
...pitching for Pioniers...
(© Photo: Jan Kruijdenberg) |
It marks the third consecutive year that Bologna and Rimini meet each other in the Championship-final.
Last year, Rimini swept Bologna in four games.
In 2014, all seven games were needed to come to a decision.
Bologna then won the title by winning the series 4-3.
For Rimini, this is the fifth consecutive year that it plays in the Italian Series.
At Stadio Gianni Falchi in Bologna, the home team opened the score in the bottom of the third inning in front of 1,350 spectators.
With one out, Marco Sabbatini and Juan Carlos Infante both singled off of starter Ricardo Hernández Sánchez.
Hereafter, Ronny Cedeno also singled to bring in the first run.
Last season, Hernández pitched in the Dutch big league for Vaessen Pioniers.
The Venezuelan lefthander then was 8-3 with a 2.29 ERA and led the league with 86 1/3 inning and 96 strikeouts.
In 2014, Hernández was 9-4 for Pioniers and also led the league in strikeouts (83).
Hernández pitched earlier in Italy in 2012 for Nettuno.
The following year, he pitched for Barcelona in Spain, before coming to the Netherlands.
As Hernández also has a Spanish passport, he played in several tournaments for the National Team of Spain, including the 2013 World Baseball Classic and the European Championship in 2012 and 2014.
Before coming to Europe, Hernández played professionally in Venezuela and in the organisations of the Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers.
Rimini came alongside in the top of the fifth inning off of starter Mattew Zielinski.
With two outs and Lorenzo Di Fabio (fielder's choice) on first base, Stefano Desimoni walked and Ennio Retrosi followed with a single to make it 1-1.
Bologna reacted with a 5-run rally in the bottom of the fifth.
Sabbatini led off with a single and moved on a sacrifice bunt.
Cedeno was then walked intentionally to set up a force play, but veteran Claudio Liverziani then followed with a single to load the bases.
Osman Marval then also singled to give Bologna a 2-1 lead and that also led to a pitching change.
Hernández was relieved by Carlos Teran, but he ran into problems immediately.
With the bases still loaded, he walked Alex Sambucci, then gave up a runscoring single to Alessandro Vaglio.
A strikeout followed, but hereafter, Alessandro Grimaudo and Marco Sabbatini (who was 3-for-4) also delivered RBI-singles to increase the lead to 6-1.
Rimini was able to add only one more run in the seventh inning, which was scored on a single by Desimoni.
That was the lone basehit given up by reliever Raúl Juan Rivero, who relieved Zielinski in the sixth inning and struckout seven batters.
Ryan Searle threw the ninth inning for Bologna.
He also gave up one basehit, but also struckout three batters to seal the win.
In June, Rimini was beaten 5-4 in ten innings by L&D Amsterdam Pirates in the final of the European Champions Cup.
In the opening game of the event, Amsterdam defeated Rimini 6-2.
In the same event, Bologna won the bronze medal by winning 7-6 against Curaçao Neptunus, which was dethroned as Cupholder the day before by Amsterdam Pirates, losing 11-7.
In the preliminary round, Bologna also won against Neptunus, but then only 1-0.
In the regular season, Bologna finished in first place with a 27-9 record, followed by Rimini (22-14).
T&A San Marino (22-14) and Nettuno Baseball City (21-15) completed the top-four.
In the best-of-seven Play-Offs, Bologna won 4-1 against Nettuno, while Rimini did the same against San Marino.
In the Rimini vs. San Marino-series, two games needed extra innings.
In the third game, Rimini won 3-2 in ten innings.
The next day, San Marino won its lone game with a 3-2 score in eleven innings.
(August 11)
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Game One best-of-7 Italian Baseball Series.