(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen)
 Canberra shuts out Melbourne in Australian Wild Card Game; Dwayne Kemp leads league in basehits
Nederlands
 ALTONA, Melbourne, Victoria (Australia) -
Canberra Cavalry shutout Melbourne Aces 5-0 on Wednesday-evening (January 23) in the Australian Baseball League Wild Card Game to advance to the Semi-Final.
It is the first time that a Wild Card Game is part of the Play-Offs in the professional Australian league.
Canberra now will travel to Brisbane for the best-of-three Semi-Final 1 against reigning champion Brisbane Bandits, which opens on Friday.
On the same day, the best-of-three Semi-Final 2 begins between Perth Heat and Sydney Blue Sox.
...Dwayne Kemp led the Australian Baseball League...
...with 55 basehits and was the 5th best hitter...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
The postseason set-up was as follows for this season.
The two best teams from both the North-East Division and the South-West Division qualified for the postseason.
The team with the fifth best winning percentage in the overall standings also qualified.
The two teams with the lowest winning percentages of the two second best teams and the overall number 5 have to play the Wild Card Game.
The two Division-winners advance directly to the Semi-Final.
The team with the best overall winning percentage will meet the winner of the Wild Card Game in the best-of-three Semi-Final 1.
The teams with the second and third best winning percentages meet in Semi-Final 2.
The winners of the two Semi-Finals advance to the best-of-three ABL Championship Series.
Last Sunday, the regular season of the Brut Australian Baseball League ended.
A day earlier, Brisbane Bandits secured first place in the North-East Division by winning 4-3 against Geelong-Korea.
Brisbane shared the highest winning percentage (.625) with Sydney Blue Sox, but ended up in first place because of the head-to-head results.
Sydney therefore will play in Semi-Final 2 and meets Perth Heat, which won the South-West Division, but has the third best winning percentage with .600.
Melbourne Aces was second in the SW Division, but had the fourth best winning percentage with .575, resulting in a spot in the Wild Card Game.
Canberra Aces (number 3 in the NE Division) was the fifth best overall team, but shared the same winning percentage with Melbourne, meaning it was the second team to qualfy for the Wild Card Game.
Adelaide Bite and Geelong-Korea were eliminated in the SW Division, while Auckland Tuatara, the first professional baseball-team from New Zealand, was eliminated in the NE Division.
Dwayne Kemp, infielder of Dutch reigning champion Curaçao Neptunus and the Netherlands National Team, played in his first Australian season.
As second baseman, he played in all 40 regular season-games for Sydney Blue Sox.
Kemp had a successful first season, as he led the league with 55 basehits.
Kemp was the fifth best hiter of the league with a batting average of .348 (55-for-158).
With this average, he was the second best hitter of Sydney, trailing former Major Leaguer Gift Ngoepe.
The player from South Africa batted .379 (50-for-132).
Kemp scored 25 runs, batted in 24 and collected ten doubles, one triple and two homeruns, while stealing six bases.
Dutch closer Loek van Mil began the season with Brisbane Bandits.
He pitched in five games, was 1-0, earned three saves and struckout seven batters.
However, in early December, he sustained severe head injuries during a hike in Canberra and was hospitalized in critical condition.
Luckily, Van Mil recovered very well.
Last weekend, in the season's final series against Geelong-Korea, Van Mil made his comeback on the mound.
He pitched one inning on Thursday and Saturday and added one strikeout.
Dutch/Australian catcher Bas Nooij again was on the roster of Adelaide Brisbane at the start of the season, but he didn't play for the main-squad in the regular season.
...Alex Maestri led the Australian Baseball...
...League with 78 strikeouts...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
How did the other players do who played in the Netherlands?
Sam Kennelly, who played last season in the Netherlands for De Glaskoning Twins and shared the lead with six homeruns with Denzel Richardson (then-DSS, this year L&D Amsterdam Pirates), played for Perth Heat.
He batted .212 (14-for-66) with four homeruns.
Japanese pitcher Shogo Nakashima (Sydney Blue Sox), who also played for Twins, pitched twelve games in relief and was 1-0 with a 2.45 ERA.
Ryan Dale (Melbourne Aces), who played for Quick Amersfoort last year in the Dutch big league, batted .231 (15-for-65) with two homeruns.
Greg Mosel (Adelaide Bite), who last year pitched for DSS, was 1-6 in ten starts and closed with a 5.70 ERA.
Todd Van Steensel (Sydney Blue Sox), who pitched for Kinheim in the Dutch big league in 2012, led the league with ten saves.
Justin Erasmus (Brisbane Bandits), who played for Twins in 2016, was 1-1 with one save in fourteen games, thirteen of which he pitched in relief.
Craig Anderson (Neptunus 2011) was 2-1 for Sydney Blue Sox with a 2.25 ERA (third best in the league) and two saves being used as both starter and reliever.
Dushan Ruzic (Neptunus 2008-2010, 2012) led the pitching-staff of Melbourne Aces with a 2.82 ERA, he was 5-1 in nine starts and struckout 46 batters in 51 innings.
Italian pitcher Alex Maestri (Sydney Blue Sox) led the league with 78 strikeouts.
German pitcher Markus Solbach (Adelaide Bite) was third with 74 strikeouts, but pitched the most innings with 65 1/3.
In the Wild Card Game on Wednesday at Melbourne Ballpark, Canberra opened the score with two runs in the third inning, then added a run in the sixth, seventh and eighth at bat.
Melbourne was limited to only two basehits.
Canberra's starter Frank Gailey threw seven innings.
He struckout five batters and gave up Melbourne's two hits.
Zech Lemond then completed the game and added two more strikeouts.
Melbourne failed to open the score in the bottom of the second inning.
With two outs, the team got the bases loaded, but the inning then ended with a strikeout.
Moments later, Canberra struck with two runs in the top of the third off of starter Jon Kennedy.
Kyle Perkins led off with a double, moved on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a double by Michael Fransoso.
He also advanced to third base via a sacrifice bunt and then scored the second run when Craig Massey connected for the third double in the inning.
In the sixth, Canberra scored its next run on an error.
The fourth run was added in the seventh at bat on a sacrifice fly by Zach Wilson, but the team then also left a runner behind on third base.
In the eighth, the score was lifted to 5-0 on a double by Cam Warner.
Melbourne recorded a single in the second and third inning.
After having stranded three runners in the second inning, Melbourne got its next runner in scoring position in the sixth inning, but then stranded runners on first and third base.
In the next three at bats, Melbourne got only one more baserunner.
(January 23)
Related Article:
 Loek van Mil returns to mound in Australia for Brisbane. (January 20)
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