Bittersweet Ending for German Baseball

German team loses 1-12 against Venezuela

by Tobias Diehl

The table was set, Team Germany would either have to win against Venezuela by a large margin or keep the Venezuelans from scoring more than ten runs. On the fourth day of the first round in Regensburg another 6,900 fans came to the Armin-Wolf-Arena to see the home team make it to round two. The hopes were up until the eighth inning, when Venezuela scored the eleventh of twelve runs and eliminated Germany from the World-Cup.

German Coach Greg Frady sent his left-hander, André Hughes, into the final game of the preliminary round of the World-Cup. Hughes had a good first inning, but was tagged for four runs in the second. Two runs came on a bases-loaded-double by Venezuela‘s shortstop Dirimo Chavez.

The German team had the chance to get some runs back in the bottom half of the inning, but Venezuelan starting pitcher Orlando Perdomo struck out Robert Gruber with two runners in scoring position.

Venezuela continued to hit Hughes and the left-hander‘s day ended early in the third inning after giving up home-run to Luis Landaeta and a double to Wuilliams Vazquez. With Vazquez on second Germany‘s reliever, Eugen Heilmann, gave up a single to Jonathan Sivira and Venezuela‘s lead grew to 6-0 before the inning was over.

And again Germany had the chance to score in the bottom of the inning. Sascha Lutz reached on a fielder‘s choice and moved to third on a hit-and-run, when Dominik Wulf came up to bat with one out. Perdomo came up big with two strikeouts against Wulf and Ludwig Glaser.

Germany‘s first and only run came in the sixth inning on a bases-loaded single by Lutz to score Michael Franke. The Venezuelans came right back in the top of the seventh, Michael Sandoval homered to center field to give his team a 7-1-lead. The Germans were only four runs away from elimination at that point and there were still more than two innings left to play.

In the eighth Germany had surrendered two more of those runs and the bases were still loaded with no outs. Rodney Gessmann was on the mound for Heilmann, he hit Lino Connell and Germany was now just one run away from elimination. It was a two-run-error by third-baseman Wulf, which sent the German team out of the tournament. Unable to score in the bottom of the inning, the game ended after eight Innings due to the ten-run-rule with a score of 12-1 for Venezuela.

It was the worst possible end to a wonderful tournament in Regensburg. Drawing a crowd of around 6,500 fans every day, with record attendance on Friday during the game against the USA with a crowd of 9,600, Team Germany will have to watch as the USA and Venezuela make it to round two of the World-Cup.

Photo: Walter Keller, www.catchthefever.de