myworldofbaseball

It is not often you hear about an Aussie signing and myworld prefers to report the unusual. The Padres have signed Australian pitcher Riley Yeatman. Yeatman played for the Australian national team’s under 12 and under 15 team. He hopes to continue that representation by playing for their under 18 team.

While playing for the Under 12 team he did start against the United States team but after two shutout innings engaged in a rough third inning. The United States won that game 13-1, exploding for seven runs in the third inning. Nicaragua had a surprising third place finish in that tournament with players like Elian Rayo (Giant signing), Lesther Medrano (Dodger signing), Fidel Loaisiga, Olston Rayo and Marcel Villareyna making the WBSC all World Team or myworld’s additional players list. Yeatman nor any other Australian made the list.

Yeatman stands 6′4″ and has a fastball in the high 80s. In the Australian Baseball League he is on the roster of the Adelaide Giants. As a 16 year old he was still too young to appear in a game, but they have high expectations for him next year.

Myworld thought it was a double elimination bracket, but it became a single elimination because of a corona virus lockdown announcement. For the second year in a row the Melbourne Aces can covet the Claxton Shield after defeating the Perth Heat 9-2.

The game was close, 2-1 after the Heat scored a run in the top of the sixth. The Heat went with their ace Warwick Saupold to start the inning. He retired the first two hitters. A walk to Chris Burke opened the flood gates. A Jake Romanski single was followed by a Jarryd Dale triple that scored two. Colin Willis drove a pitch over the right field fence to make it 6-1. Darryl George completed the four batter cycle with a double. A wild pitch, walk and Delmon Young single ended the day for Saupold. A single by Damek Tomscha scored the seventh and final run.

Tyler Beardsley got the win for the Aces with his six innings of work. Alex Hall drove in both runs for the Heat with his RBI single in the sixth and his solo homerun in the ninth.

They decided to have the championship game on Friday instead of having it a winner’s bracket battle because of the corona virus and the weather would delay the tournament into the following weekend. Victoria had announced a five day lockdown after Friday. Australia had a real battle all year with the corona virus, creating a number of schedule changes and cancellations.

The Melbourne Aces were homer happy in their playoff game against the Canberra Cavalry. They slugged 8 homeruns, with seven different players leaving the park in their 19-4 win. They will now face the Perth Heat in a winner’s bracket final.

The Cavalry started the homer fest off with two of their own in the first inning. Taylor Nathans started the game off with a homerun and Samad Taylor hit the first of his two homeruns.

Delmon Young quickly tied the game at 3-3 with his three run homer in the bottom of the first. Gift Ngoepe gave them the lead with a solo shot. There was no looking back after that.

Darryl George and Damek Tomscha went deep with solo shots in the third. Tomscha would also go deep in the eighth inning with a two run blast. Blake Gaillen found the bleachers in the sixth with a three run homer. Colin Willis followed suit in the seventh with a two run blow. Jake Romanski was the last to join the party with his two run dinger in the eighth.

The Cavalry’s Jimmy Boyce gave up four of the homeruns in his abbreviated three inning start. Chris Burke and Jarryd Dale were the only players in the starting lineup who did not go deep for the Aces.

The Perth Heat were also homer happy in their 20-6 rout of the Adelaide Giants. An 11 run fourth inning put this game out of reach. If this game had been played in Cuba it would have been over by five, after the Heat had taken a 21-1 lead. They hit seven homeruns.

The number nine hitter in the batting order for Perth, Shane Sasaki, smashed two homeruns and drove in eight runs. He hit two three run homers in the 11 run fourth inning. Sasaki also crossed the plate five times, tacking on two more singles and two walks.

Alex Hall also went deep twice for the Heat. He also slugged a three run homer in the fourth and waited an inning to mash a two run blast. He finished the game with five RBIs.

Others who went deep included Abiezel Ramirez who started things off for the Heat with a lead off homer in the first inning. Ulrich Bojarski followed an Alex Hall homer in the fifth with a solo job of his own to make it back to back. Grant Witherspoon in essence turned the lights out with his three run bomb in the sixth.

The Cavalry will play the Giants in a loser’s bracket game, while the Heat will play the Aces in a winner’s bracket contest.

The Australian Baseball League began their playoffs. With six teams in the league the last place team was eliminated from the playoffs. The fifth and fourth place teams played each other in a bit of a wild card game to see which team would qualify for the final four. The Canberra Cavalry nipped the Sydney Blue Sox 3-2 to advance. Canberra will now be rewarded with the win by playing the first seed Melbourne Aces in a double elimination playoff tournament.

The Cavalry got a strong six inning performance from Frank Gailey. Frank walked one and struck out seven, allowing just one run and giving up five hits. He got all the runs he needed in the third inning with RBI singles from Mike Reynolds and Cam Warner. They added an insurance run in the sixth on a Robbie Perkins ground out.

Sydney scored in the fifth on a Jacob Younis single. In the ninth the Blue Sox sacrificed an out to advance runners to second and third. The Cavalry allowed a run to score on a ground out. With the tying run on second Shawn Morimando retired Travis Bazzana on a ground out to end the game.

The Perth Heat and Adelaide Giants will play the other playoff game. Both games will be played Thursday February 11.

Daryl George slugged two grand slams and broke the Australian baseball record for RBIs in a game with 10 to lead the Melbourne Aces to a 22-2 rout over the Brisbane Bandits. George hit his grand slams in the fifth and eighth innings and contributed a two run double in the seventh to drive in close to half the runs for Melbourne. Luke Hughes and Denny Almonte had shared the RBI record with 8. Hughes is also the only other player to hit two grand slams in a game.

The 22 runs scored by Melbourne was also a franchise record. Blake Gallen hit his league leading sixth homerun in the rout. Bandit pitchers walked 11 Aces batters, including lead off hitter Collin Willis four times. Delmon Young also went deep for the Aces and got an opportunity to pitch his second game in relief, working a scoreless ninth.

The Australian playoffs will start in one week, with five of the six teams making the playoffs.

The corona virus has been playing havoc on the Australian Baseball League season. The Sydney Blue Sox have only played two games and hope to begin their season this week after more than a month layoff.

Because of that the ABL will now play through February 7. The playoff will now also include a wild card game between the fourth and fifth seeded teams which will be played on February 9. The winner of that game will join the top three teams for a double elimination bracket that will be played from February 12-14.

A single championship game will be played on February 14 between the team from the winner’s bracket and the winner of the loser bracket.

Teams will be required to play at least 14 games to make the playoffs. If they fall short of 14 games they can add losses to all the games missed and if the winning percentage still puts them in the top five seeds they will be eligible for the playoffs. All games will be played in one location.

There are only six teams in the league, so including five teams in the playoffs means only one team will be eliminated from participating in playoff action.

Manny Ramirez Australian career did not last long. The Sydney Blue Sox had signed Manny to play for the team. An undisclosed injury, which was later reported to be an oblique injury prevented him from starting the season in December. The plan was for him to coach the team but then the corona virus smacked the Australian baseball season.

After playing two early games on December 17 and 18 the Sydney Blue Sox have not played since. Government policy has put a quarantine on the area (New South Wales) and teams are prevented from travelling to or leaving the area where Sydney plays their home games. This put a level of uncertainty to the season, which was used as the reason to release Ramirez.

An announcement is expected soon for when Sydney can restart their season. The Melbourne Aces have played 12 games while most of the other teams have only played four or five games. The corona virus is playing havoc on the schedule makers.

The Australian Baseball League (ABL) is having some difficulty playing their games because of the corona virus. The Sydney area has had an outbreak and because of that there is a 14 day quarantine for anyone going to or leaving Sydney. This prevents teams from going to Sydney to play games or prevents players from the Sydney area to travel to play games.

Three games scheduled for January 1-3 between Sydney and Canberra have been pushed back. Three games between Sydney and Canberra for December 28-31 were postponed last week. A series between Sydney and Melbourne was shortened to two games because players from Melbourne had to leave Sydney before the quarantine was put into effect. Six of the eight games scheduled for the opening day had to be cancelled because of the corona virus.

A number of players from other teams also live in the greater Sydney area that is subject to the quarantine so games between teams other than Sydney have also had to be postponed. The only games being played this weekend in Australia is between the Perth Heat and the Melbourne Aces.

A revised schedule for the ABL to take into account these postponements will be issued tomorrow.

In the ABL opener the Sydney Blue Sox defeated the Melbourne Aces 12-6. The biggest news was the absence of Manny Ramirez, who is said to have a medical issue that may throw into doubt any further playing participation in the ABL. The medical issue was said not to be related to COVID 19 or to any other medical issue that could be transmitted to others.

Manny did indicate that he would still support Sydney off the field. This is the second big blow for the Blue Sox. Mets top catching prospect Francisco Alvarez also had to back out of playing the 2020/2021 season.

The World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC) will work with the Australian Baseball League (ABL) to stream baseball games through a number of social media outlets. These outlets include GameTime.Sport, You Tube and Facebook. Games played in Australia are usually played on the weekends, though because of the delay in the season there may be some early week day games.

Though it is primarily a prospect league, you can watch to see what is left in the swing of Manny Ramirez while he plays designated hitter for the Sydney Blue Sox. Another designated hitter Delmon Young, the younger brother of Dmitri Young is in his third season in the ABL. He plays for the Melbourne Aces and is the defending homerun champion.

The season begins this weekend with the Sydney Blue Sox playing the Melbourne Aces.