Pitchers dictated the game between the Netherlands and Panama on Sunday afternoon at Baseball Central in Thunder Bay. The game remained tied 2-2 going into the ninth inning before Netherlands broke up the stalemate by pushing across three runs in the top half of the inning. The win is the first of the tournament for the Europeans. The game finished 5-2. Netherlands and Panama combined for seven errors on defense.
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Team France made 3 of their total 5 errors in the first inning, giving to Venezuela an immediate 4-0 lead, in a game where the Europeans gathered a huge number of runners left on base (3 in the first inning), never getting the hit in the right moment to create troubles to the South-American opponents, who instead kept scoring along the game, putting soon themselves out of reach.
Only 4 of the 8 runs allowed by France were earned on their pitchers, and this is surely one of the main keys read this game.
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Cuba lined up 5 pitchers against Czech Republic, but the Europeans could not put on the spot anyone of them, suffering 11 strike outs along the 7 innings the game last and scoring their single run in the sixth, when Sila (triple) and Dvorak (single) delivered 2 of the total 4 hits of their team.
On the other side, the technical gap between the teams was neatly represented by the 16 runs scored by the Caribbean out of their 14 hits and 4 walks, with a single strike out.
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The job of the Korea's starting pitcher, Lee, last just the time to give up 2 walks to the first 2 batters of team Canada he faced, before Yoo came in to relieve him. No other pitchers were employed by the running gold medalists in this game.
This first inning was the basis on which Canada built their success, because Yoo, gave 4 runs before the end of the inning.
Kang Jin Sun take charge of the recovery, with a solo homer in the first and a double in the third, and the Koreans scored for the tie out of a loaded bases hit-by-pitch by the reliever Smith.
Canada scored the clincher run in the 5th, with a double by Deglan, a single by Atkinson and a wild pitch by Yoo. The Canadian pitching staff did not allow other hits during the game, getting out harmless even from a loaded bases 8th, to give their team a second, important win in the Championship.
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The perfect performance delivered by catcher Ryan Battaglia, who went 4 for 4, with 2 homeruns and 6 rbi's, could not give Australia a win against Chinese Taipei, in a unique game where both teams had 16 hits out of the 4 opponent pitchers, also making respectively 4 and 3 defensive errors.
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Team USA was simply out of reach for the Italian Team, who gave up a 10-0 loss in 7 innings, hitting safely only twice against starter John Simms, constantly around 92 mph, and collecting 11 strikeouts.
The American lineup got 5 doubles out of 8 hits on Luca Panciroli and Marco Gheno, with shortstop Francisco Lindor who ended up with a 3 for 3 in the box.
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