The thirtieth Baseball Week Haarlem started for the Netherlands with a narrow victory. After seven innings, the baseball-players proved too strong for Italy, 2-1. That score was already achieved in the first inning.
Juremi Profar hit the ball far into the right backfield. This allowed Sharlon Schoop and Denzel Richardson of Amsterdam Pirates to take the lead: 2-1. Before this, Ricardo Paolini had already put Italy at 1-0. It took until the third inning before something exciting happened again. Alberto Mineo and Friscia Vito end up in a double play (two players who are thrown out at the same time).
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That happened again in the sixth inning, again with Mineo and Vito. Ricardo Daschenko (Neptunus) got a chance at a grand slam (all bases loaded) in the same inning. That seemed to happen, as he nearly hit a homerun. The ball went out, so the party was cancelled. This made it unnecessarily exciting. In the end, Italy was unable to add more runs in the seventh and final inning, meaning the game was decided early.
Friday’s other game between Japan and Curaçao was won by the Asians. On Saturday, America will play against Japan (1:00 PM) and the Netherlands against Cuba (7:30 PM).