The Netherlands finally got their first runs and their first win on day four of the Olympic Baseball tournament.\u00c2\u00a0 Europe’s representatives got the better of the home nation, while there were also wins for Cuba, the U.S. and Korea.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
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It had been a tough start for the Netherlands, losing to Chinese Taipei in their opening game and then being swept aside by the U.S. and Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 An 0-3 record is a difficult hole to dig your way out of in the preliminary stage of this tournament and losing to China would have effectively killed any chance of making the semi-finals.\u00c2\u00a0 Under this sudden death pressure, the Dutch rose to the occasion and gained a 6-4 win<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Their first run of the tournament came in the top of the fourth inning to level the score at 1-1 and then they followed it up by plating five runs in the fifth, with back-to-back jacks by Sidney de Jong and Brian Engelhardt.\u00c2\u00a0 China made it interesting by reducing the deficit to three runs in the eighth and then to just two with two outs of the regulation nine innings still to go.\u00c2\u00a0 The Dutch held their nerve though and held on to their long-awaited first victory.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Aside from the Netherlands’ debut win, day four was billed as the ‘day of derbies’, with the U.S. facing Canada and Japan taking on Korea.<\/p>\n The U.S. recovered from 4-0 deficit to beat their Canadian rivals 5-4<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cardinals’ Triple-A infielder Brian Barden was the hero for the Americans.\u00c2\u00a0 Having replaced the injured Jayson Nix at second base, after the latter was injured against Cuba yesterday, Barden made the most of his opportunity by going 2 for 5 with a double and a solo home run which started the comeback (a word that seems to be cropping up a lot in this tournament).\u00c2\u00a0 The A’s prospect Brett Anderson gave up four runs (one unearned) over 5.2 innings before Brian Duensing (a pitcher on the Minnesota Twins’ Triple-A team) pitched 3.1 scoreless innings to build the platform for the U.S. victory.<\/p>\n The victory levels the U.S’s record to 2-2, while the Canadians slip to 1-3 despite playing some good baseball in all four of their games.<\/p>\n Korea improved their record to 3-0 with a 5-3 victory<\/a> over Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 With the game tied at 2-2 heading into the ninth inning, Korea jumped on pitcher Hitoki Iwase to score three runs in the top of the inning.\u00c2\u00a0 Japan could only muster one in return in the bottom of the inning, so they took their second loss of the tournament to fall to an even 2-2 record.<\/p>\n