(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Bologna takes 2-1 lead in Italian Series
Nederlands
 RIMINI (Italy) -
UnipolSai Fortitudo Bologna won 5-4 on Monday-evening (August 15) against Pirati dei Rimini to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Italian Baseball Series.
Bologna opened the Championship Series on Thursday with a 6-2 victory, but the lost the second game on Friday, 5-3.
The next games will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday in Rimini.
An eventual sixth and seventh game will be played in the weekend of August 20 and 21 in Bologna.
At Stadio dei Pirati in Rimini, Bologna was outhit 9-4 by Rimini and also committed three errors.
Nevertheless, Bologna won, as two of their hits were homeruns, accounting for all five runs.
In the first inning, with two outs, Claudio Liverziani was hit by a pitch and Osman Marval followed with a double.
Hereafter, Alex Sambucci homered to give Bologna an early 3-0 lead off of starter José Escalona.
Rimini got one run back in the second inning.
Luis Serafin de Camargo then led off with a walk, advanced on a double by Lino Zappone, then scored on a grounder by Lorenzo Di Fabio.
But the team also left a runner behind on third base.
Bologna added two runs in the top of the fifth inning.
Francesco Fuzzi led off with a walk, then scored when next batter Ronny Cedeno homered to make it 5-1.
In the remainder of the game, Bologna was not only held hitless, it also reached base only one more time.
But that runner was eliminated in a double play.
Five of the last six batters struckout.
In the bottom of the fifth, Rimini scored its second run.
With one out, Ennio Retrosi reached on an error and scored on a 2-out single by Jairo Ramos Gizzi after a pitching change.
However, Rimini also left two runners behind again.
In the seventh, Rimini narrowed the deficit to 5-4.
Stefano Desimoni led off with a walk, then José Flores reached on an error with one out.
A double by Daniel Mayora and a grounder by Jairo Ramos Gizzi then accounted for the runs, but another runner stranded on third base.
Rimini left two more runners in the eighth and another one in the ninth to end up empty-handed.
(August 15)
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Game Three best-of-7 Italian Baseball Series.