(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Bologna wins Game 4 Italian Series in 11 innings
Nederlands
 RIMINI (Italy) -
UnipolSai Fortitudo Bologna won 4-3 in eleven innings against Pirati dei Rimini in a game that ended early Wednesday-morning (August 17) to take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Italian Baseball Series.
Game Five will be played on Wednesday-evening.
An eventual sixth and seventh game will be played coming weekend in Bologna.
Bologna, which was outhit 14-8, took an early 3-0 lead in the first inning, but was unable to take more distance.
In the meantime, Rimini scored a run in the second, then added runs in the seventh and eighth to come alongside.
Bologna then went on to score the winning run in the eleventh inning of the long game, which took more than 4½ hour and ended at 1:07 AM, early Wednesday-morning.
At Stadio dei Pirati, Bologna was off to a good start, scoring three runs in the first inning off of starter Ricardo Hernández Sánchez.
The lefthander walked lead-off hitter Juan Carlos Infante, who then advanced on a wild pitch and moved on a single by Ronny Cedeño.
Another wild pitch followed, which enabled Infante to score the first run.
Next, Claudio Liverziani walked.
Hernández followed with a strikeout, but then gave up a runscoring single to Alessandro Vaglio that made it 2-0.
When an outfield-error followed, Cedeño also scored to give Bologna a 3-0 lead.
It also led to the departure of Hernández.
Rimini got a run back in the second inning off of starter Mattew Zielinski.
With one out, Lino Zappone and Federico Celli both singled.
The first then scored when an error followed on a force out trying to complete a double play.
In the seventh, Rimini scored again.
With one out, José Flores homered just over the fence in leftfield.
There, leftfielder Alessandro Grimaudo jumped up, appeared to catch the ball, but it jumped from the side of his glove over the fence.
Rimini came alongside in the eighth.
With one out, Federico Celli singled and advanced on an outfield-error, then moved to third on a single by Luis Serafin de Camargo.
After a pitching change, Celli scored on a sacrifice fly by Riccardo Bertagnon.
Rimini left two runners behind, but it was a new ballgame.
And so, the game went into extra innings, but the tie-break rule is not used in the Italian Baseball League.
Bologna then decided the game in the top of the eleventh.
With one out, Francesco Fuzzi was hit by a pitch and stole second base.
Juan Carlos Infante then walked, but was forced out on a following grounder that brought Fuzzi to third base.
Moments later, he scored when veteran Claudio Liverziani lined the ball into rightfield for a runscoring single.
(August 16-17)
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Game Four best-of-7 Italian Baseball Series.