European League Update - Italy
There are baseball leagues in most of the European countries, but the two best are the leagues for Italy and Netherlands. Both of those leagues just started their season and you’d be surprised some of the ex-major league players that are plying their trade there. We’ll summarize the Italian League first. You can go to http://www.mister-baseball.com/italian-baseball-league-starts-tonight-preview/ for a more detailed breakdown of each of the teams:
T&A San Marino are the defending champs but they will have a battle to repeat, going against Danesi Nettuno, who suit up three ex-major leaguers. Abraham Nunez, who once led all major leaguers in homeruns, after spring training, plays right field and Manny Alexander, who Cal Ripken snubbed as his heir apparent to play short are the position players. Jeff Farnsworth is the pitcher.
In San Marino’s opener, Horacio Estrada tossed 6 innings of a 2-hit shutout to lead them to a 1-0 win over Reggie Emilia. Luis Ramirez replaced him for the last three innings, mowing down seven of the hitters via the strikeout. Horacio played in the major leagues from 1999-2001 (Milwaukee Brewers and Colorado Rockies), and then pitched in Mexico, Taiwan and Korea. He also represented his country, Venezuela in the 2008 Olympic qualifier. Former Red Sox Abe Alvarez pitched for Reggie Emilia and threw six shutout innings. He was removed after six. San Marino scored their lone run in the seventh.
In the other match Bologna shutout Parma 6-0, getting seven shutout innings from Jesus Matos. Matos pitched five years for the Colorado Rockies minor league system. After playing a year in the short lived Canadian League he went to Europe where he has had five impressive seasons.
On Saturday, http://www.mister-baseball.com/recaps-san-marino-8-win-hr-de-biase/ you can find details of some of the results here, but the highlights saw Abraham Nunez go 5 for 5 to lead Nettuno to a 9-2 whipping of Godo. Nunez at one time was the top prospect of the Florida Marlins and earned a starting job when he led all major leaguers in homeruns after spring training. Once the regular season started Nunez couldn’t keep the job. In the second game Nunez had a 2-run double to key a 4-run eighth inning comeback and a 4-3 Nettuno victory. Jeff Farnsworth struck out 10 in six innings, but yielded two first inning runs and wasn’t around to get the win when Nettuno mounted their comeback.
Rimini swept Grosseto 6-3 and 6-0. Mario Chiarini went 4 for 5 with two homeruns in the opener, driving in five of the six runs scored. He also scored three of the runs, driving himself in twice with the homeruns and scoring the only run he didn’t drive in. Rafael Garcia had a no hitter until the fifth inning in the second game and finished 8 innings of shutout ball, giving up only two hits. He struck out 8 and didn’t walk a batter, pitching to the minimum 24 batters. The two hits were erased by double plays.
San Marino beat Reggie Emilia again 10-9 on Saturday, getting a walk off solo homerun from Massimiliano de Biase. Emilia had scored seven runs in the first two innings and were up 8-0 and 9-7 after scoring a run in the top of the eighth. Jake Blalock, the brother of Hank, hit a grand slam and went 3 for 4 with seven RBIs in a losing cause.
Parma swept Bologna 6-4 and 8-3, getting even with them after the 6-0 shutout in the opener. Johnny Balentina had four RBIs in the first game for Parma to lead the offense. Davide Dallospedale hit a 3-run homerun in the second game and Stefano de Simoni also drove in three runs.