Dutchie sets strikeout milestone in Germany

Rob Cordemans isn’t the only Dutch player that is chasing a strikeout milestone. Mike Bolsenbroek, who has spent most of his baseball career in Germany got his 1000th strikeout tonight in the game between Heidenheim Heideköpfe and Bolsenbroek’s former team, the Buchbinder Legionäre from Regensburg.

In a very cold Regensburg (2-3 degrees Celcius), Bolsenbroek only needed five Ks to reach the 1000 strikeouts mark.

Bolsenbroek started to play baseball with Robur58 in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. In 2005 he made his hoofdklasse debut with HCAW from Bussum. In 2008, Mike debuted in professional baseball as he joined the Phillies organization, who appointed him to the Gulf Coast Phillies (rookie). Bolsenbroek split the 2009 season between the Gulf Coast Phillies and the Williamsport Crosscutters. After the 2010 season, in which he played with the Lakewood BlueClaws, Bolsenbroek was released by the Phillies.

Shortly before he went to the USA, he already played for the Regensburg Legionäre. After his US adventure, he returned to the multiple German champion. He would stay with the club until this season. Due to a disagreement, Bolsenbroek decided to turn his back to the club he played for more than a decade and decided to join the Heidenheim Heideköpfe.

In tonight’s game, which was a low scoring affair, Eric Harms was Bolsenbroek’s first victim in the first inning. Harms must have had a miserable night as he missed a fly ball in center field in the top of the second inning that allowed the Heideköpfe to take the lead and as he would be Bolsenbroek’s 1000th strikeout in the bottom of the fourth inning.

In the bottom of the second inning, David Grimes was Mike’s second strikeout victim and in the bottom of the third, José Palacios and Lukas Jahn also struck out for the third and fourth strikeout of the game.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Bolsenbroek gave up a leadoff double to Matt Vance.
But the Legionäre could not cash in as Bolsenbroek retired the next three batters, of which Eric Harms was his 1000th strikeout victim.

After 6.2 innings and 114 pitches, Bolsenbroek was pulled after he struck out ten in total to set his number of career strikeouts at 1005.

After Bolsenbroek was pulled, Regensburg had a golden opportunity to turn the game around as they loaded the bases but that chance was blown when Lukas Jahn struck out for the final out of the seventh inning.

Eventually, Heidenheim flexed its muscles in the eighth, partially due to poor pitching, as Shawn Larry hit a two-run homer, Phillip Schulz singled home Johannes Krumm and Simon Gühring drove in two with a single to left center field to extend their lead to 6-0, the final score.