Oosterhout Twins secured third place in the 2026 Lucky Day Honkbal Hoofdklasse with a 7-1 victory over UVV in the postponed regular-season finale, completing the playoff bracket just two days before the postseason begins. Twins will face Amsterdam Pirates, while Kinheim drops to fourth place and will meet regular-season champion Curaçao Neptunus.
Oosterhout Twins have officially claimed the No. 3 seed in the 2026 Honkbal Hoofdklasse playoffs.
Twins defeated UVV 7-1 in Oosterhout on Tuesday, August 18, winning the controversial postponed game that had left the final postseason matchups undecided throughout the summer break. The victory improved Oosterhout to 19-17 and moved the club ahead of Kinheim, which finished its schedule at 18-17. The official Hoofdklasse standings now have Curaçao Neptunus first at 33-3, Amsterdam Pirates second at 30-6, Twins third at 19-17 and Kinheim fourth at 18-17.
The result means the two best-of-five semifinal series are set. No. 1 Curaçao Neptunus will face No. 4 Kinheim, while No. 2 Amsterdam Pirates will take on No. 3 Oosterhout Twins. Both series are scheduled to begin on Thursday, August 20, with Game 1 listed for 19:30 local time in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The two semifinal winners advance to the Holland Series.
2026 Honkbal Hoofdklasse playoff bracket
| Seed | Team | Regular-season record | Semifinal opponent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Curaçao Neptunus | 33-3 | Kinheim |
| 2 | Amsterdam Pirates | 30-6 | Oosterhout Twins |
| 3 | Oosterhout Twins | 19-17 | Amsterdam Pirates |
| 4 | Kinheim | 18-17 | Curaçao Neptunus |
The third-place finish is also significant historically for Oosterhout. Twins finished third in 2025, and the club entered the August 18 makeup game describing another third-place finish as matching the highest regular-season position in Twins history. The official 2025 standings also list Oosterhout in third place.
It therefore marks back-to-back third-place regular-season finishes for Oosterhout Twins.
Twins pull away from UVV with three-run fourth and sixth innings
The decisive regular-season finale was tied 1-1 after two innings before Twins took control.
Oosterhout opened the scoring in the bottom of the first. Daan Verpaalen drew a walk and stole second before Nando Mostaert drove him home with a single to center field, giving Twins an early 1-0 advantage.
UVV answered immediately in the second. Kik Uppelschoten doubled to right-center, advanced during a sequence that included an Oosterhout error and eventually scored when Valentijn Guillot lifted a sacrifice fly to right field.
That would be UVV's only run.
The breakthrough came in the bottom of the fourth. Luuk Bun and Jerzy van Gool opened the rally with consecutive singles. Bun later scored on a wild pitch before Dion Frank launched a two-run home run to deep left field, bringing Onne van Gool home and extending the Twins lead to 4-1.
Oosterhout added another three runs in the sixth.
Mostaert walked and pinch-hitter Gijs van Zalingen singled through the right side. Jerzy van Gool followed with an RBI single down the left-field line, scoring Mostaert. Onne van Gool then reached on a fielder's choice that allowed Van Zalingen to score, before Frank produced his third RBI of the night with a sacrifice fly.
The rally made it 7-1, and neither team scored again.
Dion Frank drives in three as Twins collect 10 hits
Frank produced the biggest offensive performance of the night, finishing 2-for-3 with a home run, three RBIs and a run scored. His two-run homer in the fourth transformed a one-run game into a three-run advantage, and his sacrifice fly two innings later completed the scoring.
Jerzy van Gool went 2-for-3 with a run and an RBI, while Gijs van Zalingen came off the bench and went 2-for-2 with a run scored. Mostaert finished 1-for-3 with a walk, one run and an RBI.
Twins produced 10 hits, compared with only three for UVV.
The regular-season numbers in the final box score also underline some of the offensive threats Amsterdam will have to contain in the semifinal. Rob Paller enters the postseason with a .333 batting average and 1.114 OPS, while Mostaert is listed at .306 with a .977 OPS. Railison Bentura finished at .302 with an .802 OPS and Verpaalen at .300 with a .737 OPS.
Dave Paradela earns win as Twins pitching staff holds UVV to three hits
Twins used seven pitchers in the regular-season finale, with nobody working more than two innings — an important detail with the postseason opener following only two days later.
Finn Kops started and allowed two hits and one unearned run across two innings, striking out two. Dave Paradela earned the win after taking over in the third and delivering two scoreless, hitless innings with three strikeouts and no walks.
Dienston Manuela, Simon Gross, Stijn van der Schaaf, Misja Harcksen and Ayumu Ishikawa handled the final five innings.
Combined, Oosterhout's pitchers allowed only three hits and no earned runs over nine innings, recording 12 strikeouts against five walks.
Ishikawa closed the game with a scoreless ninth, allowing one hit and striking out one before Lucas Bekker grounded into the game-ending 4-6-3 double play.
For UVV, Stijn Bruins Slot took the loss, surrendering three runs on four hits in two innings. Riley Gonesh, Ruben Dekker, Sean Wout and Elijah Rustenburg also appeared as UVV allowed seven runs, six earned, on 10 hits.
Postponed game left playoff seeding unresolved until August 18
The significance of the result was magnified by the unusual circumstances surrounding the fixture.
The original Twins-UVV game scheduled during the final regular-season weekend did not start after one of the assigned officials experienced car trouble. KNBSB reporting at the time stated that, under the applicable rules, the game could not begin and would have to be played on a Tuesday evening.
The postponement became a point of discussion because third place — and therefore both semifinal matchups — depended on its outcome. Questions were also raised about the applicable regulations and the competitive effect of moving the decisive game deep into the scheduled summer break. There has been no evidence that the postponement was intended to influence the standings.
The makeup date ultimately became August 18, only two days before the start of the playoffs. Official Hoofdklasse reporting had already confirmed that Twins needed to win all three remaining games against UVV to move ahead of Kinheim.
Oosterhout did exactly that.
Twins won the first two games in Utrecht 4-1 and 16-7, reducing the equation to one final victory in the makeup game. The 7-1 win on August 18 completed the three-game sweep and pushed Twins from fourth to third.
Kinheim now faces Neptunus as Twins draws Amsterdam Pirates
The result dramatically changes the postseason paths for both Twins and Kinheim.
Kinheim had already completed its regular season and could only watch as Oosterhout pursued the three victories necessary to overtake the Haarlem club. Twins' sweep means Kinheim falls into the No. 4 position and must immediately face a Curaçao Neptunus team that dominated the regular season with a 33-3 record.
Twins instead receives the No. 3 seed and a semifinal against 30-6 Amsterdam Pirates.
Amsterdam will have home-field advantage in the best-of-five matchup, but Oosterhout enters the playoffs having won all three of its final games against UVV and with its pitching staff having limited the opponent to one unearned run in the deciding contest.
The short turnaround will now become part of the challenge. Twins played its final regular-season game on August 18 while Amsterdam's regular season had already concluded more than two weeks earlier. Oosterhout's decision to spread Tuesday's nine innings across seven pitchers at least meant that no individual arm carried a heavy workload into the playoff opener.
Honkbal Hoofdklasse playoffs begin August 20
After weeks of uncertainty, the route to the 2026 Holland Series is finally clear.
Curaçao Neptunus vs. Kinheim and Amsterdam Pirates vs. Oosterhout Twins will determine the two championship-series participants, with both best-of-five semifinals beginning Thursday, August 20.
For Twins, the 7-1 victory over UVV did more than settle a postponed regular-season game. It secured a second consecutive third-place finish, matched the best regular-season result in club history and ensured that Oosterhout will avoid dominant top seed Neptunus in the semifinals.
The regular season is finally complete.
Now the race for the 2026 Holland Series begins.
