Baseball
	European Championships 2005

Compiled and Copyright © 1997-2005 by Marco Stoovelaar

Dutch beat Sweden with small shutout; clinch Play-Offs
Nederlands | Box Score | Play-by-Play
CHOCEN (Czech Republic) - The Dutch team on Monday shutout Sweden 2-0 to register its smallest shutout-win ever against the Scandinavian country. The previous smallest shutout was 6-0 in a game played on July 29, 1999 during the European Championships in Bologna (Italy).
With the win, the Netherlands became the first team to officially qualify for the Final Phase of this years Championships, which will open next Thursday in Prague. On Tuesday, the remaining two teams from Pool A will clinch a spot in the final round. On Monday-evening, the top-three in Pool B was decided. Spain, France and Czech Republic all advanced to the final phase. The final ranking and therefore the pairing for the games in Prague will be known after the games on Tuesday when the preliminary round ends.
In an attractive game on Monday-evening, host Czech Republic trailed 3-0 vs. Croatia, but went on to win 7-4 in front of almost 2000 enthusiastic spectators in the Chocen baseball stadium. Croatia, which is managed by the Head Coach of Dutch big league-team Hypotheekzeker.nl-Tornado's Jimmy Summers, therefore was officially eliminated.

In the afternoon, the Dutch offense produced only two runs off of Swedish pitcher Tomas Eriksson, who pitched a fine game and was supported by good defense. Veteran short stop Rickard Reimer made some fine plays. But it were two homeruns that gave the Dutch their two runs. In the third inning, Evert-Jan 't Hoen led off with a homerun, his second of the tournament. In the sixth, Ivanon Coffie homered again, this time with one out. This was his third homerun in three days.
In the second, fourth and eighth inning, Sweden turned three double plays to help their pitcher. In the fifth inning, the Dutch team had runners on first and second with one out, but failed to score.

David Bergman started for the Dutch team and threw six fine innings, in which he had to work with only a 1-0 lead. In the home sixth, Coffie's homerun made it 2-0. Bergman appeared to be in problems in the third inning. With one out, he walked Petter Diurlin and hit Per Lindgren with a pitch. Next batter Tony Dermendziev followed with a single on which Diurlin tried to score, but he was thrown out at the plate by rightfielder Harvey Monte.
In the fourth and fifth inning, Sweden got its lead-off batter on base, but both times he stranded on the bases.
In the seventh inning, Bergman gave up a lead-off single to Hakan Börjes and was relieved by Gregory Gustina, who was greeted with a single by Philip Gajzler, but a groundout, fly out and strikeout ended the at bat.
In the eighth, Sweden got on base again, this time they had runners on first and second with one out and at that moment, Gustina was relieved by closer Robin van Doornspeek. Just as he did vs. Russia, Van Doornspeek did his job and retired all five batters he faced, including three on strikesouts to earn a save.
(July 11)