(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
   Curaçao records huge win vs. North American Team
Nederlands
 ROTTERDAM (Neth.) -
On Wedneday-evening (July 17), Curaçao recorded a huge 20-2 victory against Team North America on Day 6 of the 17th World Port Tournament Baseball in Rotterdam.
In the afternoon, Chinese Taipei was outhit 11-6, but won 4-2 vs. Japan.
With today's games, the preliminary round ended with Chinese Taipei finishing in first place.
The Asian squad suffered its lone loss against the Netherlands, which won 4-1 on Tuesday-evening.
The Netherlands ended in a tie for second place with Curaçao and Team North America.
As the Orange-squad lost both its games against these teams, it finished in fourth place.
Because of the win tonight, Curaçao finished in second place, followed by the North American mix-team in third place.
Japan finished in fifth place with one win in four games.
Japan won its only game against Curaçao with a 4-3 score.
Japan is represented in Rotterdam by the team of Kanagawa University in Yokohama.
The team also plays with the name of 'Kanagawa' on its uniforms.
On Thursday, the Play-Offs will begin.
In the afternoon, Chinese Taipei and Curaçao will meet at 1:30 PM.
In the evening, the Netherlands plays against the North Americans at 7 PM.
The loser of this last game will play for fourth and fifth place on Saturday.
The winner will face the face the winner of the Taipei-Curaçao game on Friday-evening.
With its big victory on Wednesday-evening, Curaçao did something that wasn't done in the tournament for 22 years, score twenty runs.
On June 28, 1997, during the seventh edition of the World Port Tournament, Ciudad Habana (Cuba) won with a 21-3 score against the National Team of Taiwan (Chinese Taipei).
With that, the Cuban squad became the first and only one to score 20 or more runs in one game.
Until tonight.
It also marks the fourth time that a game ended with an 18-run difference.
After the Habana vs. Taiwan game was the first in 1997, two other games ended with a 19-1 score.
In 2011, Chinese Taipei won 19-1 against Curaçao.
And in 2015, it was the Netherlands that outscored Curaçao with a 19-1 score.
...Raywendley Van Gurp was 3-for-6 (2 doubles),...
...scored twice and batted in four runs for Curaçao...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
In tonight's game, Curaçao took an early lead, scoring four runs in the second inning and three in the third at bat, while Team North America scored only once in the second in the fourth.
The second run was scored on a lead-off homerun by Liam Scafariello.
Leading 7-2, Curaçao rallied for six runs in the fifth inning, then had a 7-run rally in the seventh to finish the game with the mercy-rule.
Curaçao collected 19 basehits off of four pitchers, which included six off of Paul Kirkpatrick, who pitches in the Dutch big league for Hoofddorp Pioniers.
The North American defense committed six errors.
Raydel Isabella went the distance for Curaçao.
He gave up eleven basehits, but allowed only two runs.
Remarkable enough, Johnny Gregorius, who was the designated hitter, was the lone starting Curaçao-player without a run scored and without a basehit.
He also was one of two players without a run batted in.
Rayshelon Carolina and Raywendley Van Gurp both batted in four runs.
Van Gurp batted 3-for-6 (two doubles), Risandro Pastor was 3-for-5 and Riordan Windster was 3-for-4.
Pastor and Sander Boeldak both scored four runs for Curaçao.
In the evening-game, the eighth umpire made his debut in the tournament.
In the weekend, Antoine Loock officiated in two games.
On the next two days, Niek Elshof and Aad Otsen umpired one game.
Joining this group tonight was André Ficken.
The fifth and sixth umpire to make their WPT-debut were René Ras and Peter de Haan, who both have been active in the entire tournament so far.
Edwin Louisa, Stenar van Groningen Schinkel and Roy van de Wateringen have officiated in a WPT before.
Joining the group of Dutch umpires are Serge Makouchetchev from France and Simone Menicucci from Italy, who also are active in their first WPT.
Makouchetchev was an umpire on the Haarlem Baseball Week in 2016.
(July 17)
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World Port Tournament 2019.