(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Robert Bos)
 Starting Pitchers coming series
Nederlands
 AMSTERDAM (Neth.) -
On Thursday-evening (June 3), three 3-game series will get underway that were not originally scheduled.
The series will be completed in the weekend.
Initially, the regular season was to be interrupted after last Tuesday.
The last games were scheduled on Sunday, to be followed by eventual make-up games on Tuesday.
Indeed, last Tuesday, two make-up games were played.
In the preliminary schedule, there was a 3-game series scheduled for each of the eight teams to start on Thursday.
However, early April that series was postponed due to the preparations of the Netherlands National Baseball Team for the Baseball Final Olympic Qualifier.
At that moment the Qualifier was scheduled to be played in Taiwan on June 16-20.
But on May 20, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced that the Qualifier was moved from Taiwan to Mexico, because of new restrictions imposed in Taiwan due to a surge of cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19).
On May 28, it was confirmed by the WBSC that the new dates for the event are June 22-26 and that the games will be played in Puebla with June 20 and 21 to be practice days.
Australia, Chinese Taipei and the Netherlands qualified for participation in the Baseball Final Qualifier.
With that, the schedule of the regular season in the Dutch big league needed some adjustment.
It also made the upcoming weekend available for an additional 3-game series.
The eight clubs in the Dutch big league were informed and had to react within 24 days whether or not they would accept the proposal to play on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
As these were to be days off, it could have been possible that some players planned other activities or appointments.
DSS/Kinheim and Twins Oosterhout informed they would not accept the proposal.
Quick Amersfoort also opposed the proposal stating that games could only be played by all eight teams together or none.
Despite this reaction, Quick Amersfoort got a 3-game series scheduled against Silicon Storks.
This was followed by a discussion between the management of Quick and the Dutch Federation on Wednesday.
In the end, despite missing some of its players, Quick agreed to play the newly scheduled games, but strongly opposed the way things were handled and communicated.
DSS/Kinheim and Twins Oosterhout will play their 3-game series on June 24-27.
Amsterdam Pirates and Neptunus will meet each other again in a 3-game series on June 10-13, meaning the teams will face each other six times in eleven days.
On Thursday-evening, lefthander Diegomar Markwell will make his sixth start of the season for Curaçao Neptunus at home against reigning champion L&D Amsterdam Pirates.
Last week, Markwell won the 150th regular season-game in his career and closed in to his 1,000th career strikeout.
Markwell, who last week struckout only two batters, needs six more strikeouts to reach the 1,000 mark.
One pitcher will make his first start of the season in the upcoming series.
That is righthander Gedryon Basilia, who will start on Thursday for Silicon Storks against Quick Amersfoort.
Beneath are the announced starting pitchers for the upcoming series.
As always, these assignments can change on game-days.
This season, the starting pitchers will be published (or updated) on Wednesday-evening, as some of the teams conduct their practice sessions on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, which has to do with the testing of the players for the games on Thursday.
(June 2)
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| Roster | CURAÇAO NEPTUNUS (14-1) | vs. |
L&D AMSTERDAM PIRATES (11-3-1) | Roster | Game-info |
| # | Starting Pitchers Neptunus | G | # | Starting Pitchers Pirates |
| Date, Time & Site |
| 35 | LHP Diegomar Markwell (4-0) | 1 | 20 | RHP Tom de Blok (3-1) | Th. June 3, 7:30 PM, Rotterdam (1) |
| 38 | RHP Orlando Yntema (5-0) | 2 | 45 | RHP Juan Carlos Sulbaran (3-1) | Sa. June 5, 2:00 PM, Amsterdam (2) |
| 27 | RHP Kaj Timmermans (4-1) | 3 | | to be decided | Su. June 6, 2:00 PM, Rotterdam (1) |
| (1) - Neptunus Familiestadion, Sportpark Abraham van Stolkweg, Rotterdam; (2) - Loek Loevendie Ballpark, Sportpark 'Ookmeer', Amsterdam |
| Roster | HOOFDDORP PIONIERS (4-11) | vs. |
HCAW (11-3-1) | Roster | Game-info |
| # | Starting Pitchers Pioniers | G | # | Starting Pitchers HCAW |
| Date, Time & Site |
| 8 | LHP Ryan Huntington (0-3) | 1 | 39 | RHP Lars Huijer (3-1) | Th. June 3, 7:30 PM, Hoofddorp (3) |
| 7 | RHP John Michael Halley (2-2) | 2 | 45 | LHP Jim Ploeger (1-0) | Sa. June 5, 2:00 PM, Bussum (4) |
| 25 | RHP Lars Broersen (0-1) | 3 | 7 | RHP Dennis Burgersdijk (4-0) | Su. June 6, 2:00 PM, Hoofddorp (3) |
| (3) - ETO Ballpark, Sportpark Hoofddorp Pioniers, Park21, Hoofddorp; (4) - Rob Hoffmann Vallei, Sportpark Zanderijweg, Bussum |
| Roster | QUICK AMERSFOORT (1-14) | vs. |
SILICON STORKS (2-13) | Roster | Game-info |
| # | Starting Pitchers Quick | G | # | Starting Pitchers Storks |
| Date, Time & Site |
| 14 | RHP Jan-Willem Geerts (0-3) | 1 | 2 | RHP Gedryon Basilia (0-1) | Th. June 3, 7:30 PM, Amersfoort (5) |
| 25 | LHP Maverich Lourens | 2 | 25 | RHP Twan Naessens (0-3) | Sa. June 5, 2:00 PM, The Hague (6) |
| 52 | LHP Jhan Rifaela (0-2) | 3 | 5 | LHP Nelmerson Angela (0-3) | Su. June 6, 2:00 PM, Amersfoort (5) |
| (5) - XL Lease Park 'Dorrestein', Amersfoort; (6) - Sportpark 'Kijkduin', The Hague |
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