After a bit more than a month (after he hit a rock with his head during a hiking accident), Loek van Mil made his appearance on the mound for the Brisbane Bandits in Thursday’s 21-5 win over Geelong-Korea. 

In the slugfest, Brisbane collected eighteen hits of which three were doubles and nine (9!) were home runs. Every batter of the Bandits got one hit at least. Best hitter for Brisbane was Andrew Campbell, who went 3 for 4 with a double, a home run and three RBI and two walks. Daniel de la Calle drove in most runs with five and slugged two home runs.

But of course, the most important news of this game was the return of Loek van Mil on the mound. After a freak accident that left him unconscious for at least 24 hours in the Australian bush, Van Mil was rushed into a hospital where he was under constant supervision because of bleedings in his brain. Eventually, those bleedings stopped and from there the recovery set in.

In Thursday’s game, manager David Nilsson, directed Van Mil to the mound in the eighth inning to replace starting pitcher Ryan Bollinger. In something that was far from a save situation, Van Mil allowed two hits and struck out one, lowering his ERA to 3.86.  The Youtube clip below shows his outing on Thursday (Go to 2:26:20 to see the start of his outing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB-7_trzq2g

His colleague reliever on Geelong-Korea’s side, who entered the game in the fourth inning to replace starter Byeong-Geun Kim, Jae-Gon Lee, did a lot worse in his 4.1 inning outing. Lee had some serious control issues as he gave up eight walks, gave up eleven hits and allowed Brisbane to score fifteen runs. He also struck out five but that was rather bleak compared to the eight walks and fifteen runs he gave up.

With this win, Brisbane is still on track for a spot in the semi-finals of the ABL.