were only eliminated from contention on the final day of the season. Both Melbourne and Sydney were eliminated by Adelaide in the minor semi-final series and the preliminary final series, respectively. Perth became the inaugural ABL champions when they defeated Adelaide two games to one in the championship series.
In June 2009, it was announced that the rights to the
Australian Baseball Federation. The 2010 Claxton Shield tournament was considered preparation for the inaugural ABL season.[1]
Although initial reports suggested that between eight and ten teams would contest the first season, including the possibility of a team based in New Zealand,[2] six teams representing Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney were announced in November 2009 as the foundation clubs.[3]
Compared to the previous season's Claxton Shield tournament, there were few structural changes to the competition. With the expansion from five to six teams, the need for teams to have a bye was eliminated, with all teams participating in games each round. The individual rounds were expanded from three to four games per round, resulting in an increase from 24 to 40 games per team for the season. The postseason was also expanded to include the top four teams, rather than only the top three.
^ abThe third game played between Sydney and Melbourne in round 4 was called a tie with a score of 1–1 under ABL rule 5-6-8. The result is not counted towards the teams' standings. A game postponed from round 4, held in round 5, was played with the Melbourne Aces as the away team and the Sydney Blue Sox as the home team, despite being played at the Melbourne Showgrounds.
pitchers' duel, Blue Sox starting pitcherChris Oxspring was the stand-out performer for the night, having scattered 3 hits and 1 walk over 6 innings and striking out 8.[20] The Cavalry, however, opted to use several pitchers, each throwing two complete innings.[21]
Brisbane Exhibition Ground, and the Sydney Blue Sox and Canberra Cavalry continued their series at Blacktown Olympic Park for the first round of the season.[17]
Adelaide v Melbourne
The Adelaide Bite won its opening game for the season, defeating the Melbourne Aces 9–1, in large part due to the Paul Mildren's pitching and Ben Wigmore's hitting. Mildren pitched 7 scoreless innings, allowing 6 hits and struck out 5, while Wigmore went 4–for–5 with a double, a home run and 5 runs batted in.[24] Despite scoring first in the second inning through back-to-back doubles from Grant Karlsen and Itaru Hashimoto, the Aces lost the second game of the series 7–4. the Bite's starting pitcher Darren Fidge was once again the standout; he pitched 8 innings and allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks, and struck out 7.[25]Quincy Latimore went 4–for–8 over the two games of the doubleheader; he hit a 3-run home run in the first inning and took a catch at the left field wall in the fifth inning of game one to help Adelaide to a 13–2 win,[26] then hit two more home runs in the second game where Adelaide won 8–3 to complete the series sweep.[27]
The Brisbane Bandits and the Perth Heat opened their seasons in Brisbane. The
extra base hits and his scoring two runs, Perth was unable to take the lead at any point in the game. Brisbane's Wade Dutton, Shuhei Fukuda, Alan Schoenberger, and Joel Naughton each had multi-hit games to help the Bandits to an 8–3 win.[29] Widlansky was a key player for the Heat again in the second game, which Perth won 2–0, opening the scoring with a solo home run. Daniel Schmidt was the other key player; he was the starting pitcher and pitched 8 innings, allowing no runs on 5 hits and striking out 8 Bandits.[30] Perth also won both games of the doubleheader—4–2 in the day game and 4–1 in the night game—to win its opening series. In the day game Brandon Dale went 3–for–4 with a double and a run batted in, and Luke Hughes went 1–for–2 scoring 2 runs, including scoring a run from his lead-off triple in the fifth inning.[31] Heat pitchers Warwick Saupold, Tyler Anderson, Robert Sorensen, and Liam Hendriks combined to keep the Bandits to 1 run on 7 hits, striking out 11 Brisbane hitters.[32]
Cameron Lamb (1–0) LP:Chris Mowday (1–1) Sv:Brett Jacobson (1) Attendance: 1,450 Notes: Scheduled as 7 innings. The first game of a doubleheader. Boxscore
Six days after the opening night of the season Sydney and Canberra continued their series at Blacktown Olympic Park. Three of the Blue Sox's key players from that opening night gave repeat performances to defeat the Cavalry 4–2: Chris Oxspring was the starting pitcher for Sydney and pitched 8 innings, having allowed 2 runs on 4 hits and struck out 7 to earn the win; Koo Dae-Sung retired the three Cavalry hitters he faced for a scoreless ninth inning to earn the save; Mitch Dening hit a
go-ahead run in the bottom of the fifth inning.[33] In the first game of the season to be called early as a result of the league's run differential rule, Sydney comfortably beat Canberra 13–3. Though the Blue Sox combined to hit 7–for–17 with runners in scoring position and 7 runs driven in with two out, they were aided by 2 wild pitches by Cavalry pitchers, 3 passed balls by catcher Michael Collins, and 4 errors in the field, resulting in only 3 of the 13 runs scored by the Blue Sox being earned.[34]Alex Johnson's 3-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning was the difference in the final game of the series, helping Sydney to a 7–5 win and to sweep Canberra 4–0 in the series.[35]
The Melbourne Aces were scheduled to open their first home series of the season on Friday, 26 November but had to wait for two days and three games to be rained out. As a result, the series was shortened to two 7 inning games played on Sunday, 28 November.[40][41] In the first game the Aces scored all their runs from four home runs, including 2-run shots from Scott Wearne (2–for–3) in the first inning and Grant Karlsen (2–for–3 with a double) in the fourth, allowing Melbourne to win 6–2. Wearne hit another first-inning home run in the second game, but the highlight—also in the first inning—of the game was a grand slam from Takahiro Ijyuin. Both home runs helped to set up a comfortable 10–2 win for the Aces to complete a sweep of the shortened series.
[42]
As was the case for Canberra's previous series in Melbourne, the opening game of the series was called off because of the rain before a pitch was thrown. The game was rescheduled for the following day as part of a doubleheader.[44]
Attendance: 1,540 Notes: Shortened to 7 innings, as part of a make-up doubleheader. ABL tiebreaking rule in effect for extra innings due to league imposed curfew. Game officially called complete as a tie.[46] Boxscore
Round 5
The
Perth.[17] The Melbourne Aces hosted the Sydney Blue Sox for the final games of their season series, including a makeup game from the previous round in Sydney.[47]
Coopers Stadium. The Melbourne Aces completed their homestand with two back–to–back series at the Melbourne Showgrounds; two games against the Cavalry to make up for the games washed out in round 3,[48] and four against the Brisbane Bandits as was originally scheduled.[17]
Though Adelaide were able to put together an early 6-run lead through 3
bases loaded.[52] Adelaide sealed the series win in the final game of the series, defeating Melbourne 10–7. The bite scored 5 runs without an out being recorded, including the first of two home runs from both Brandon Bantz and Tom Brice.[53]
The first game of the series was tied after the ninth inning, with both sides having had the lead at different points in the game. In the twelfth inning,
walks in the first two innings into 11 runs.[56] After the fourth game was tied in the bottom of the ninth inning through Tylor Prudhome's RBI-single broke the tie immediately in the tenth inning with an RBI-single from Trent Baker and a 3-run double from Josh Roberts to give Brisbane the win 8–4 and Canberra its first series loss at home.[57]
Despite having been swept at home by Sydney the previous weekend, and the addition of two
win in Perth's 4–3 victory, ensuring a Heat series win.[60] Blue Sox managerGlenn Williams was ejected in the bottom of the sixth inning of the final game of the series, for arguing against two consecutive calls that according to him were "questionable". Had either call been made the other way, Sydney would likely have scored the first run of the game. Perth scored in each of the remaining innings to win the game 4–1, and complete the sweep of the series locking the season series at 4–4.[61]
Brisbane Exhibition Ground, however the ABL postponed the series as a result of widespread flooding in South East Queensland. At the time, a decision had not been made as to whether the games would be rescheduled,[62] however it was announced approximately one week later that the games would be rescheduled to the Monday and Tuesday immediately following round 10 in the form of two doubleheaders, but only if either team had a chance of making the playoffs, and only the games required for one of the teams to qualify.[63]
Sydney v Adelaide
For the third game in a row, Sydney allowed their opponents to get a 4-run lead before scoring themselves. However, in the first game of the series against Adelaide, the Blue Sox were able to snap a season-long 4-game losing streak through a walk off
third base to score the winning run.[66] The Blue Sox secured the series sweep by beating the Bite 6–2 in their final home game of the regular season. The four runs driven in by Andrew Graham, Trent Schmutter and Alex Johnson in the fifth inning gave Sydney the lead for the rest of the game.[67]
The season length was similar to the 2010 Claxton Shield by spreading ten rounds over twelve weeks, playing only the season's first game in the first week and taking a week off for Christmas and Boxing Day. Six teams were involved, playing a four-game series every week totaling two series against each team, one at home and one away. In total, the schedule allowed for 40 regular season games per team before a four-team finals series. During the regular season, games were played Thursday to Sunday, varying depending on the series and team, with 18 games scheduled as doubleheaders on a Saturday. Doubleheaders were scheduled to have the first of the two games shortened to seven innings, with the second game using the full nine innings.[17]
One of the regular season games resulted in a
official game, the result did not count towards the season standings.[68][69]
All but 4 of the scheduled 120 games were played. The four games that were not played were the series scheduled between the
Adelaide Bite, both they and Canberra were eliminated from contention for the playoffs; hence, the makeup games were not played.[71]
The Perth Heat and Sydney Blue Sox were the first teams to clinch positions in the finals series when Perth defeated the Melbourne Aces in the final game of their series in round 9. The Adelaide Bite were the next team to secure a place in the top four, after winning the third of an expanded six-game series against Brisbane. It was only on the final day of the regular season that Melbourne was able to claim the fourth finals position, and that the makeup of the semi-final series was decided: Sydney hosting Perth in the major semi-final series, and Adelaide hosting Melbourne in the minor semi-final series.
^ abThe third game played between Sydney and Melbourne in round 4 was called a tie with a score of 1–1 under ABL rule 5-6-8. The result is not counted towards the teams' standings. A game postponed from round 4, held in round 5, was played with the Melbourne Aces as the away team and the Sydney Blue Sox as the home team, despite being played at the Melbourne Showgrounds.
^ Minimum 2.7 PAs per team game. Correct as of 23 January 2011.[72]
^ Minimum 0.8 IP per team game. Correct as of 23 January 2011.[73]
Postseason
2011 ABL Postseason logo
Format
At the conclusion of the regular season, the postseason involved the teams in a three-round structure. Each round consisted of a best-of-three-game series between the respective teams. The first- and second-place teams played each other in the major semi-final, the winner of which proceeded directly to the grand final and the loser to the preliminary final. The winner of the minor semi-final between the third- and fourth-place teams also qualified for the preliminary final, while the loser was eliminated. Likewise, the winner of the preliminary final qualified for the championship series, the loser being eliminated.[74]
As in the finals series of previous Claxton Shield tournaments, though each series was hosted by a single team, the role of home team and away team alternated from game to game. For the second game in each series, the visiting team took the role of home team, fielding first, batting second, and wore their away uniform for the game.[75][76][77][78]
Coopers Stadium in Adelaide. Like Sydney, Melbourne secured fourth position through a result that did not involve them: Brisbane's loss in their final game against Adelaide eliminated them from contention for the finals, and since the Canberra Cavalry
had already been eliminated by Melbourne's win in its second-last game, Melbourne qualified.
Major semi-final series
The Sydney Blue Sox hosted the Perth Heat in the major semi-final series at Blacktown Olympic Park. The Blue Sox and Heat split their season series 4–4. This included back-to-back sweeps for each team, with Perth winning the second of the two series, played in Sydney.[79]
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