(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
  First week in Nicaragua in the books for Denzel Richardson
Nederlands
 LEÓN (Nicaragua) -
Denzel Richardson has his first games in the professional Nicaraguan baseball-league behind him.
The first baseman/outfielder of Amsterdam Pirates joined the team of Leones de León on November 22.
On that day, the team released American outfielder Adán Fernández and replaced him on the roster with Denzel Richardson.
...Denzel Richardson playing for Amsterdam Pirates...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
In the team of Leones de León, Richardson now is a teammate of Roger Bernadina and Jiandido Tromp, who respectively play in leftfield and centerfield.
So far, Richardson has played in five games for Leones.
In three of those games, he was the designated hitter, in the other two, Richardson was the first baseman.
Richardson made a fine debut, as he was 2-for-4 in his first game on November 22 in what was a 5-4 win against Indios del Bóer.
The top of the first inning of that game became memorable as Tromp, Bernadina and Richardson (who batted third, fourth and fifth) all delivered consecutive singles.
For Richardson, that was a single in his first at bat and with that, he also batted in Tromp to give Leones an early lead.
However, Indios came back and led 3-1 after six innings.
Leones then scored three runs in the seventh to re-take the lead and added another one in the ninth.
Bóer scored one more run in the bottom of the ninth.
In his next game, Richardson was 2-for-5 and batted in two runs in a 4-3 win against Tigres de Chinandega.
In this game, playing at home, Leones trailed 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and runners on second and third base.
Richardson then connected for a walk-off, 2-run single to give Leones the win.
In his next two games, Denzel Richardson was 1-for-5.
On Sunday-evening (November 27), he was 0-for-4, but batted in a run in a 4-2 loss against Bóer in a game that was delayed by heavy rain for some time.
Leones de León, which is the reigning champion, started the season with two losses, but in the following weeks, the team moved up the ladder.
After Sunday's games, León shares first place with Gigantes de Rivas with a 6-4 record.
In the Dutch big league this season, Denzel Richardson batted .310 with 13 doubles, three triples and eight homeruns, scored 30 runs and batted in 39.
During the season, Richardson also played the majority of his games at first base, platooning with Kenny Berkenbosch, being the DH in other games.
In only three games, he played in the outfield.
After the season, he won the Award for Most Valuable Player.
Also this year, Richardson won the Baseball Week Haarlem with the Netherlands Team.
(November 28)
|
