The Italian National Baseball team has gotten off to a rough start thus far at the inaugural Premier12 world championship in Taiwan after they dropped their first 3 games of the tournament to Puerto Rico, Chinese Taipei and and the Netherlands.
Game one of the tournament went by the final of 7 to 1, with Puerto Rico having very little issues putting up runs against an experienced Alessandro Maestri and company. Puerto Rico got on the board with the games first run in the 4th, before opening the game up with 3 in the 5th and 2 more in the 6th. The game would finish at 7 to 1 in the box score with Andres Santiago picking up the win, while it was Maestri who suffered the loss.
In Italy’s game two of the Premier12, it was Chinese Taipei who posted the same result on the scoreboard, 7 to 1, dropping the Italians to a 0 and 2 mark. Taipei’s scoring was persistent throughout the game, putting up runs in 6 of the 9 inning played. Suffering the loss for Italy was the southpaw, Luca Panerati, while it was Lin-Chun Kuo who earned the ‘W’ for Taipei. On a side note, Alex Sambucci was responsible for Italy’s sol run with his solo shot off of Kuo in the 5th.
In the third day of the P12 Italy was overpowered by the Netherlands offense and shut down by the long time national team veteran, Robbie Cordemans, in a 16 to 1 blowout. Suffering the loss for Italy was Carlos Richetti and he was roughed up for 5 runs in his two inning outing, while the pen behind him didn’t fair all that much better in this shortened 7 inning affair. On the evening, Italy accomplished just 4 hits to the Netherlands 17.
Next up for Italy will be a very Canada on Saturday followed up by Cuba on Sunday, which will conclude the opening round of the tournament.
