HCAW rallied for four runs in the first inning to take an early comfortable lead, making it appear that a mercy-rule win was in the making.
However, the team added only two more runs in the next two at bats, then decided the game in the tenth inning.
In today's game, the defense of DSS/Kinheim made five errors.
In the opener last Thursday, the Haarlem-team commited six.
...Daan Verpaalen singles in the go-ahead run for...
...HCAW in the tenth inning...
(© Photo: (Alfred Cop Fotografie) |
In the top of the first inning, the first two HCAW-batters reached base when Brendly Martina and Victor Draijer both singled off of DSS/Kinheim-starter Robyn Clara.
Like Milan van der Breggen in the opener on Thursday, Clara is a reliever who made his first start of the season.
Clara appeared in 24 games (23 regular season, one Wild Card Qualifier) as a reliever, mostly as a closer, before making his first start today.
In fact, Clara has never started a regular season-game in his big league-career since making his debut in 2017.
He then played for DSS for whom he pitched three seasons (2017-2019).
Clara played for DSS/Kinheim in 2020, was a member of the Championship-team of L&D Amsterdam Pirates last year and is back on the mound for DSS/Kinheim again this season.
In his 6-year career, Clara made one start in a postseason-game.
On September 10, 2017, the righthander started for DSS against Twins Oosterhout in the Promotion/Relegation Pool.
Martina and Draijer moved on a sacrifice bunt by Jeandro Tromp, then Clara got the bases loaded when he walked Kevin Dirksen.
Then, the scoring started.
First on a sacrifice fly by Quintin de Cuba, then on a single by Jules Cremer.
Hereafter, Max Draijer added a 2-run double to make it a 4-0 score.
HCAW added another run in the second inning.
Brendly Martina led off with a walk, stole second base and moved to third base on a throwing error by catcher Sem Kuijper.
He then scored on a single by Victor Draijer.
In the regular season, Martina led the league with 27 stolen bases.
In the third at bat, HCAW scored its sixth run.
With one out, Jules Cremer singled and moved to third base when a grounder by Max Draijer ended in an error.
Cremer went on to score on a single by Bob van der Meer.
In the top of the fourth inning, Nick Boxelaar took over the DSS/Kinheim-pitching.
He got a runner in scoring position in the fourth, but then retired the side in the fifth.
Dennis Burgersdijk started for HCAW and although DSS/Kinheim got three runners in scoring position, he encountered not much problems in his first four innings.
In the bottom of the first inning, the righthander walked lead-off hitter Jason Jakobus, who moved to second base on a passed ball with one out, but was left behind.
With two outs in the third, Burgersdijk gave up a double to Jesse Velders, who also stranded on second base.
In the bottom of the fourth, DSS/Kinheim got a chance to do something back, but a baserunning mistake accounted for an unnecessary out.
Jochem Koedijk led off with a walk.
With one out, he advanced to third base on a double by Daisuke Fukuda, but Koedijk then overran third base and was tagged out.
Fukuda also was left behind on second base.
Trailing 6-0, DSS/Kinheim scored twice in the bottom of the fifth on four basehits.
The home-team got the bases loaded when Bram Blokker, Nick Hofer and Jason Jakobus all singled.
Burgersdijk recovered and struckout Jesse Velders, but thereafter, he gave up a sacrifice fly to Koen Halderman and a runscoring single to Jochem Koedijk.
The HCAW-pitcher closed by striking out Sem Kuijper.
Howevever, DSS/Kinheim started to come back, while HCAW was kept scoreless.
In the sixth and seventh inning, Ben Neijndorff pitched for DSS/Kinheim.
HCAW reached base, but left two runners behind on first base.
In the eighth, Bas Timmer became the new pitcher for DSS/Kinheim.
Again, HCAW stranded a runner on first base.
In the ninth, Mathijs Oosterbeek became the fifth pitcher for the home-team and did well, as he struckout three of the four batters he faced.
DSS/Kinheim came close to another run in the bottom of the sixth.
Daisuke Fukuda led off with a walk and Bram Blokker singled with one out.
The two advanced on a grounder by Nick Hofer.
However, they stranded on second and third base, as Dennis Burgersdijk closed by striking out Jason Jakobus.
In the seventh inning, Jasper Elfrink became the new pitcher for HCAW.
The lefthander struckout two of the four batters he faced, then added two strikeouts and retired the side in the eighth.
In the bottom of the ninth, after DSS/Kinheim had scored once, HCAW was one strike away from a victory.
Instead, DSS/Kinheim added three more runs to come alongside and force extra innings.
In the ninth, Ruben Dekker was the new pitcher for HCAW.
With one out, the righthander gave up an infield-hit to Jason Jakobus, then walked Jesse Velders and gave up an RBI-double to Koen Halderman.
A line drive by next batter Jochem Koedijk was then caught by second baseman Daan Verpaalen, who had entered the game an inning earlier.
With two outs, Dekker got to a 2-2 count on next batter Sem Kuijper.
And so, the Bussum-team was one strike away from the win, but Kuijper fouled off the next three pitches, then walked to load the bases.
Daisuke Fukuda followed with a runscoring single and Milan Lammerts added a 2-run single to make it a 6-6 score!
Another pitching change followed.
An outfielder became pitcher and a pitcher became outfielder.
Nathan Berkel, who had entered the game in the eighth as the new rightfielder for HCAW, was summoned to the mound.
That not only meant that the team lost its designated hitter, but also had to bring a new rightfielder.
In the seventh inning, Jair Bogaerts had become the new DH, replacing Quintin de Cuba.
Bogaerts is no outfielder, De Cuba can play in the outfield, but of course was not eligible anymore.
As HCAW had made several defensive changes earlier in the game, no postion-players were left over.
Instead, pitcher Lars Huijer was inserted to become the new rightfielder.
Of course, that is a risk, as Huijer is one of the team's pitching-aces.
In the opener last Thursday, Huijer had thrown a complete 7-inning game.
With runners on first and second base, Huijer's stay in rightfield could have been briefly, as a following basehit would have ended the game in favor of DSS/Kinheim.
However, a flyout ended the at bat and so, Huijer had to return to rightfield for at least one inning and also could get a plate appearance.
In the top of the tenth, HCAW re-took the lead by scoring four runs, three of them unearned due to three errors.
With one out, Julian Goins singled off of Mathijs Oosterbeek.
He then stole second base, moved to third base on a throwing error by catcher Koen Halderman and scored when next batter Daan Verpaalen also singled.
With that, the rookie gave HCAW a renewed lead.
After Verpaalen also had stolen second base, Nathan Berkel walked.
HCAW then got the bases loaded when first baseman Milan Lammerts made an error on what was a force play-grounder by Linoy Croes.
Oosterbeek struckout next batter Thomas Maathuis and then faced Lars Huijer, who went after the first pitch he saw.
Huijer hit Oosterbeek's fastball down the leftfield-line for a 2-run single!
For Lars Huijer, this was his first at bat and first basehit in the Dutch big league in five years, since he went 2-for-7 in the regular season in 2017.
Back then, he batted in one run.
The pitcher recorded his last basehit in the final game of the 2017 season on August 6 when he was the designated hitter and batted 1-for-4 for Hoofddorp Pioniers in a home-game against Twins Oosterhout.
The basehit by Huijer lifted HCAW's lead to 9-6.
With Croes on third base and Huijer on first base, HCAW got the bases loaded when Jair van Borkulo was awarded first base on catcher's interference.
Max Draijer followed with a runscoring basehit.
Three runners stranded when the inning ended with a flyout, but HCAW now led 10-6.
In the bottom of the tenth inning, Nathan Berkel began with a strikeout, then walked Jason Jakobus and went to give up one run.
Jakobus moved to second base on a single by Jesse Velders.
The latter was forced out on a grounder by Koen Halderman, which brought Jakobus to third base.
In an attempt to complete a double play, a throwing error by short stop Bob van der Meer followed, enabling Jakobus to score.
Halderman stole second base and Jochem Koedijk followed with a line drive.
Van der Meer caught the ball and that ended this long game, which took 3½ hours to complete.
With the win, HCAW completed a sweep against DSS/Kinheim to advance to the Play-Offs.
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HCAW needs extra inning to win vs. DSS/Kinheim and advance to Play-Offs
HAARLEM (Neth.) -
HCAW was one out away from a victory, but needed an extra inning to win 10-7 against DSS/Kinheim on Saturday (August 13) in the second game of the best-of-three Wild Card Bottom Series.
With the win, HCAW completed a 2-game sweep to advance to the best-of-five Play-Offs against the losing team of the Wild Card Top Series between L&D Amsterdam Pirates and Curaçao Neptunus.
Sometimes, you have 'one of those games'.
Sometimes, you have 'one of those days'.
Today was 'one of those days', as there was a lot of going in the three Wild Card-games that were played today.
Game 2 best-of-three Wild Card Bottom Series.