(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Brisbane strikes first in Australian Baseball Final
Nederlands
 MELBOURNE, Victoria (Australia) -
Reigning champion WellDog Brisbane Bandits opened the best-of-three Australian Baseball League Championship Series with a 6-2 win against Jet Couriers Melbourne Aces on Friday (February 10).
The entire Championship Final will be played at the site of Melbourne Aces, who became the first finalist by finishing in first place in the regular season, which also earned them the right to host the event.
Game 2 will be played on Saturday.
A week ago, Brisbane became the second finalist when it won the best-of-three Preliminary Final against SA Power Networks Adelaide Bite, 2-1.
With the loss in the third game, the season ended for Dutch players Loek van Mil and Bas Nooij, who played for Adelaide.
Mark Hamburger started for Melbourne.
The 30-year old American righthander threw eight innings, struckout ten batters, but also gave up ten basehits and six earned runs to become the losing pitcher.
Dushan Ruzic pitched the ninth inning for Melbourne and added two strikeouts.
Ruzic pitched in the Dutch big league for Rotterdam-based Neptunus in 2008-2010.
Hereafter, he pitched one season in the Italian Baseball League for Rimini, but he came back to Neptunus to pitch there one more year.
He then returned to Australia.
Justin Erasmus started for Brisbane.
Last year, Eramus played in the Dutch big league for De Glaskoning Twins and in Germany for Munich-Haar Disciples.
The righthander had a brief outing, as he was relieved in the third inning, despite leading 4-2.
However, Erasmus needed a lot of pitches and already had thrown 54 when he was replaced.
Brisbane opened the score right away in the first inning off of Hamburger, who pitched in five Major League-games for Texas Rangers in 2011.
Hamburger gave up a lead-off single to Aaron Whitefield, then Trent Oeltjen followed with a homerun.
Erasmus also gave up a lead-off single to Cody Jones in his first inning, but then was supported with a double play.
He walked the next batter, but then closed with a strikeout.
...Dushan Ruzic pitching for Neptunus in 2010...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
In the top of the second inning, Brisbane added a run.
They got runners on second and third base when Kevin Padlo and Thomas Milone led off with singles.
Padlo then scored when next batter David Sutherland also singled.
Melbourne got two runs back with two outs in the bottom of the second inning.
Mike Walker led off with a double.
With two outs, he scored on a single by Jared Cruz, who then scored himself when next batters Matthew Zablan and Cody Jones also singled.
Now leading only 3-2, Brisbane took some more distance in the third when David Rodriguez homered with one out.
With one out in the bottom of the third, Erasmus gave up a single to Allan de San Miguel and was replaced by lefthanded veteran Ryan Rowland-Smith to face lefthanded hitting Mike Walker.
Rowland-Smith did his job, got a grounder from Smith and was relieved by Ty'Relle Harris, who closed the inning.
In the next four innings, both teams got into scoring position only once.
Brisbane stranded a runner on second base in the sixth inning, Melbourne left a runner on second in the seventh at bat.
In the top of the eighth, Brisbane added two insurance runs.
With two outs, Logan Wade and Kevin Padlo hit back-to-back homeruns to lift the lead to 6-2.
Ryan Searle closed the game for Brisbane.
He took the mound in the eighth and retired all six batters he faced, four of them with a strikeout.
As Brisbane had a 4-run difference lead when Searle took over the pitching, he wasn't credited with a save.
A pitcher only can earn a save with a lead of not more than three runs (which is one of the three major save-rules).
(February 10)
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