NLA Baseball - Flyers pound Devils
On Sunday, June 18th, the first-place Therwil Flyers travelled to Sissach to take on the last-place Wil Devils. Though they were home games, the short drive through the hills was made necessary due to a scheduling conflict in Therwil. This did not slow down the Flyers one bit, as they flexed their muscles and won two lopsided affairs 22-0 and 20-0. Both games ended after the 5th inning due to the mercy-rule. Also contributing to the Flyers dominance was the return catcher Emmanuel Raouzeos, who had been on vacation continuously for the past 6 months. Since the two games combined saw the Flyers bat in only nine innings, we will just combine the stats. All advanced metrics are provided by Swiss-Statscast. A special thanks also goes to Philippe Kleiber for his game-ball sponsoring.
The game(s)
As expected against the team that had scored the fewest number of runs so far this year, both games saw dominant pitching performances by the Flyers. Stefan Koller took the hill for the first contest of the day, and he didn't give the Devils a chance. In his 5 innings of work, he allowed only a solitary hit - a bunt single while up by 20 runs - with 4 strike-outs and no hard contact. In the 2nd game, rookie Jeremy Schreiber took over on the mound. With Schreiber perhaps still thinking it was Draci Brno at the plate, he almost gave up a home run to the first hitter he saw. Quickly reminded he was back in Switzerland, the rookie pitcher proceeded to dominate, throwing a no-hitter with 9 strikeouts. Making his season debut at catcher, fellow rookie Chris Horne spent all day telling teammates about his amazing pop-time and throwing arm from behind home plate. Alas, Schreiber's domination did not allow Horne to show off his skills, leading many Flyers to assume that their Aussie was just making stuff up.
On the offensive side, the Flyers' bats went to work early and often, putting up crooked numbers in 8 of their 9 offensive innings. While helped by a total of 18 walks and 19 errors by the opposition, the Flyers also pounded out 26 hits on the day. They were led by shortstop Taka Oshima, who wanted to send a message after being snubbed by fans for the All-Star team, and seeing the player who beat him in the opposing dugout. Oshima put on a show, going 5-5 with a home run, a double, 6 RBIs and 9 runs scored. To add to his already amazing day at the plate, every single one of his hits had an exit velocity of 115mph or higher, setting a new Swiss record. Not to be outdone, the rest of the line-up combined to contribute ten more doubles, with Kaufmann, Hide Oshima, Castillo, Koller and Rodriguez smacking two apiece. Everyone up and down the line-up contributed to the large amount of runs scored, even "O-fer" Horne, who finally picked up his first hit of the day at the end of the 2nd game by grounding a ball just barely through the infield. On a 'sad' note, Hide Oshima not only picked up the Flyers only two strikeouts of the day, he also made two outs in one inning, leading to many gleeful shouts from the Flyers dugout for some reason.
Box Score Game 1
http://www.easyscore.com/data/box_Game4615_cr1yy0gooisqsuzjbw1rsh0t.pdf
Box Score Game 2
http://www.easyscore.com/data/box_Game4616_cr1yy0gooisqsuzjbw1rsh0t.pdf
After a one-week break due to a Swiss National Team tournament in Zurich, the Flyers will be back in action in the Swiss capital against the Bern Cardinals on July 1st.