(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen & Robert Bos)
  DSS/Kinheim No-Hits Germans; Juan Carlos Sulbaran re-joins Neptunus; HCAW wins marathon
Nederlands
     AMERSFOORT / AMSTERDAM / BUSSUM / ROTTERDAM (Neth.) / SOLINGEN (Germany) -
On Saturday (March 16), six of the nine Dutch big league-teams played an exhibition game, two of them played against German teams.
The highlight was a 7-inning Combined No-Hitter by four pitchers of DSS/Kinheim in a 12-1 victory against and at Solingen Alligators in Germany.
On Sunday, DSS/Kinheim recorded a 15-0 shutout-win.
DSS/Kinheim was one of three teams that played their first exhibition-game of the season.
HCAW also played its first game, which was a 12-inning contest against UVV, and recorded a 9-2 win.
Curaçao Neptunus was the third team to come into action for the first time.
The team played two 7-inning games in a double-header against Bonn Capitals from Germany.
Neptunus won the opener 6-4, Bonn won Game 2 with an 8-4 score.
It was confirmed that pitcher Juan Carlos Sulbaran will re-join the club.
Reigning champion Amsterdam Pirates and Quick Amersfoort both faced a second team from the First Division.
Surprisingly, both lost their game.
Pirates lost 9-5 against its second team.
Quick lost 11-10 against the second team of HCAW.
Initially, RCH-Pinguïns and Oosterhout Twins were to play in Heemstede on Saturday and in Oosterhout on Sunday.
However, due to expected rainy weather-conditions for this weekend, the teams decided to move their games.
The game in Oosterhout was played last Thursday-evening, the game in Heemstede will be played coming Tuesday-evening.
In the original schedule, Hoofddorp Pioniers was scheduled to play this weekend against Neptunus.
But that was changed, as Neptunus hosted Bonn.
Instead of playing, Pioniers now organized a 2-day trainingcamp on its home-site in Hoofddorp.
Complete Schedule & Scores
In Solingen (Germany), Rick Rizvić (2 innings), Donny Breek (2 innings), Mike Groen (2 innings) and Robyn Clara (1 inning) threw a Combined No-Hitter for DSS/Kinheim on Saturday against Solingen Alligators, which plays in the highest German league.
Groen is a newcomer in the DSS/Kinheim-staff, as he played for Neptunus last season.
DSS/Kinheim was productive from the beginning and scored three runs in the first at bat, en route to a convincing victory.
It was reported that the Haarlem-team collected many basehits.
On Sunday, DSS/Kinheim again recorded a convincing win, this time a 15-0 shutout in 7 innings.
Lefthander Jasper Elfrink (formerly HCAW) started and threw three innings.
He was succeeded on the mound by Finn Blokker (3 innings) and Robyn Clara (1 inning).
Rick Timmermans also threw two innings, but he pitched for Solingen, filling in, as one of the German pitchers got injured.
...Juan Carlos Sulbaran pitching for Netherlands...
...during 2023 World Baseball Classic...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
In Rotterdam, Curaçao Neptunus played two 7-inning games against Bonn Capitals, which was the German champion in 2019 and 2022.
Last year, Bonn finished fourth in the European Champions Cup-tournament after losing the Bronze Medal-game against Amsterdam Pirates.
Playing for the first time for Neptunus was German catcher Vincent Ahrens, who is a former player of Bonn.
Tom de Blok (3 innings), Ryan Huntington (2 innings) and Joost Terpstra (2 innings) were on the mound for Neptunus in the first game.
De Blok, who was in Japan one-and-a-half-week ago as player of Team Europe, threw three solid innings.
In the second game, Shairon Martis (3 innings), Aaron de Groot (1 inning), Koen Postelmans (1 inning) and Tijn Frederikze (2 innings) were the pitchers for Neptunus.
Postelmans also is one of the newcomers in the Neptunus-team, as he transfered to Rotterdam from Oosterhout Twins after last season.
Terpstra and Frederikze both played for Tridents (Neptunus' second team) last season, but both will be on the roster of the main-squad this season.
It was also confirmed that Juan Carlos Sulbaran has been added to the pitching-staff for coming season.
Sulbaran earlier played for Neptunus during the 2022 season.
The righthander earlier played for Storks (2018), DSS (2019), Amsterdam Pirates (2020-2021) and RCH-Pinguïns (2023).
He won the Championship-title with Pirates in 2021.
During the 2018 season, he left Storks, as he went on to play in a professional Independent League in the USA.
In March last year, Sulbaran signed a professional contract with another Independent League-team, but due to visa-problems, his departure took longer than expected
Instead, the National Team-pitcher began the season in the Dutch big league with RCH-Pinguïns, before joining his new team halfway June.
In Bussum, HCAW and UVV played a 12-inning game.
Initially, the teams were scheduled to play on Saturday and Sunday.
Due to the weather-forcast for Sunday, it was decided to drop Sunday's game and play a long 12-inning game instead on Saturday.
At HCAW, Ronald Jaarsma returned into uniform, as he made his debut as Head Coach of HCAW.
Jaarsma had not been active last year after having been the Head Coach of Amsterdam Pirates in 2022.
Last month, Jaarsma was named a new Head Coach of HCAW as the successor of Danny Rombley, who stepped down after completion of last season.
Earlier in the week, it was reported by sources that HCAW has added (or will add) a Venezuelan pitcher to its roster, but that is not officially confirmed yet.
For UVV, this was its third exhibition game.
A week ago, UVV played a double-header against Quick Amersfoort (one tie, one win).
This season, UVV will be led by American Scott Radinsky, who pitched in the Major League in 11 seasons for Chicago White Sox (1990-1993, 1995), Los Angele Dodgers (1996-1998), St. Louis Cardinals (1999-2000) and Cleveland Indians (2001).
In his career, the lefthander was 42-25 with 52 saves in 557 games as a reliever, 180 of them as closer.
After his playing career, Radinsky was a Minor League Pitching Coach in the Cleveland-organization in 2005-2009.
In 2010 and 2011, he was the Bullpen Coach of Cleveland's Major League-team and in 2012, he was the Pitching Coach, until he was fired in August of that season.
In 2013-2015, Radinsky was a Minor League-coach again, this time in the Dodger-organization.
Radinsky returned as Major League-coach in 2016 as Bullpen Coach of Los Angeles Angels, where he was a member of the coaching-staff through 2018.
...Brendly Martina reached base 4x for HCAW...
...2 singles, 2 walks, 1 run...
(© Photo: Robert Bos) |
Sedley Karel was HCAW's starter on Saturday and threw two innings.
The next two innings were thrown by Elijah Rustenburg, who is a pitcher of HCAW's second team.
Hereafter, Kaj Timmermans threw four innings for the Bussum-team.
Nick Keur and Nathan Diaby then each threw two innings.
UVV inserted nine pitchers.
Veteran righthander Jurjen van Zijl started and threw two innings.
His successors Allard Helms and Mike van den Berg both also were on the mound for two innings.
From the seventh inning on, a new pitcher was inserted each time, who all threw one inning.
They were Colin van Laar, Ruben Dekker, Deef van Leersum, Sean Wout, Riley Gonesh and Jeffrey Levenstone.
Six of these pitchers are newcomers in the UVV-team.
Van den Berg pitched for RCH-Pinguïns last season.
Van Laar, Van Leeursum and Gonesh all played for Quick Amersfoort, Dekker was with HCAW and Levenstone played for Oosterhout Twins.
UVV opened the score with one run in the first inning.
With one out, Jurian Hansen walked and later scored on a basesloaded walk for Amar van Zwieten with two outs, but three runners were left behind.
Hansen and Van Zwieten also played for Quick last year.
HCAW, which played with 12 batters, came alongside in the fourth.
Brendly Martina (who reached base four times) led off with a single and scored on a single by Jeandro Tromp.
With two runners on base, a strikeout and double play followed.
The 1-1 tie was broken in the eighth when HCAW scored three runs off of reliever Ruben Dekker.
Delano Selassa led off with a single, advanced on a wild pitch and scored on a following single by Victor Draijer.
With one out, Bob van der Meer also singled, then the bases got loaded when Julian Goins walked.
A force-play grounder by Daan Verpaalen and a single by Kevin Wiegers then led to two more runs.
HCAW added a run in the ninth off of Deef van Leersum when, with two outs, Denzel Brooks (fielder's choice) scored on a double by Delano Selassa.
Like Neptunus-pitcher Tom de Blok, Selassa also played for Team Europe in Japan 1½ week ago.
In the top of the eleventh, UVV scored its second run off of Nathan Diaby.
With one out, Marvin Jakobus (another former Quick-player) walked and scored on a 2-out single by Jorrit Patist.
In the bottom of the twelfth, HCAW rallied for three unearned runs off of Jeffrey Levenstone.
Denzel Brooks (last year RCH-Pinguïns) led off with a double and Jeandro Tromp reached on an error.
With two outs, HCAW got the bases loaded when Victor Draijer walked.
Hereafter, Brooks scored when Shurman Marlin also walked and Bob van der Meer followed with a 2-run double.
That also led to the end of the inning and the game, as Marlin was eliminated trying to advance to third base.
In Amsterdam, Amsterdam Pirates played a game against its second team and lost 9-5.
A week ago, Pirates won twice against Oosterhout Twins.
Although the main-squad of Pirates didn't play as well as a week ago, it also should be mentioned that Pirates-2 on the other hand played a very solid and productive game.
Nelmerson Angela started for Pirates and threw the first inning.
He was succeeded by Martijn Schoonderwoerd, who was relieved during the fourth inning by Scott Prins, who added three full innings.
Yassir Lachkar (7th and 8th inning) and Maickel Rietel (9th inning) completed the game.
Amongst the Pirates-2 pitchers were Wesley Jansen, Kimi Verkruijssen, Casper Rammeloo and Casper Urbanus.
They all also practice with the main-squad and will get pitching-opportunities during the exhibition-season.
Jansen, Verkruijssen and Urbanus threw for the team last week.
Rammeloo made his debut in the regular season last year, pitching one inning for Pirates
The second team opened the score with one run in the first inning, but the main-squad quickly came alongside.
From the fourth inning on, Pirates-2 added more runs and took more distance.
On Sunday, the players and coaches of Amsterdam Pirates conducted a series of clinics for youth-players of the club.
In Amersfoort, Quick Amersfoort was left empty-handed against HCAW-2 and lost 11-10.
No details of this game are available (yet).
Coming weekend, the first tournaments are scheduled.
In Heemstede, RCH-Pinguïns will organize the eighth edition of the Ringvaart Tournament.
RCH-Pinguïns will be joined by Amsterdam Pirates, DSS/Kinheim and HCAW.
In Vleuten, UVV organizes its first edition of the international Frans van Elst Tournament, which is named after its longtime Equipment Manager/Groundskeeper Frans van Elst, who passed away in 2022.
Host UVV will be joined by Curaçao Neptunus, Borgerhout Squirrels (from Belgium) and Hamburg Knights (from Germany).
Hoofddorp Pioniers and Quick Amersfoort will meet in a 2-game series.
Saturday in Amersfoort, Sunday in Hoofddorp.
Complete Schedule & Scores
(March 16-17)
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