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It is safe to say that the consensus among Gothenburg players, fans, and the rest of baseball in Sweden after their first loss of the season last weekend against Vidingsjö was, “well, at least we will still have a lead when we play them at home in two weeks since we play Lund next week”. The Sharks had a reason to be so confident since they had trounced Lund in all of their meetings since 2001 and Lund’s squad had been winless in each of their eight outings in 2004.
But, in baseball there are a number of wise words one should always keep in mind:
· “it’s a game of inches”
· “any team can beat any other team on any given day”
· and “hitting a pitched baseball is the single-most difficult thing to do in all of sports”
All of these rules-of-thumb were reinforced this sunny Saturday afternoon at Kungsbacka’s baseball field.
Lund came out of the gates swinging. On the very first offering of the game from Shark’s starter Berzad Saudopaulovic, Lund’s leadoff man hit a ground ball in the hole between short and third. Sharks shortstop Andy Vanecek back-handed the ball deep in the hole, planted and fired a cannon to Johan Weidolf who scooped up the short-hop at first. One pitch, one out, nice play…looking good. A nearly identical play would tally the third out of the first inning. No runs, no hits, no errors, on runner stranded on third.
The Sharks came up to bat with all the confidence in the world facing Lund’s starting pitcher who’s fastball would have a hard time shattering a catcher’s mitt made of glass. Trying desperately however, to prove rule-of-thumb # 3, Gothenburg went three up, three down.
Slowly but surely Lund built a 3-0 lead and going into the bottom of the fourth inning the Sharks were beginning to get frustrated with their lack of production at the dish. Then Lund did something very odd. They took out their soft-throwing starter and replaced him with a right-hander that had a little more heat…exactly the type of pitcher Gothenburg usually crushes. Though the Sharks did not demolish this pitcher, they did make a comeback and by through six innings they had tied the score at five.
In the top of the seventh inning Gothenburg made a call to the bull-pen for Canadian Curtis Dionne. Lund had in the sixth inning knocked three straight singles of Sharks second pitcher Andreas Wahlin so coach Weidolf chose to change things up a bit.
Usually un-hittable with a nasty “Calgary curveball”, Lund proved Dionne human and after hard line-drive double Lund had a 6-5 lead and runners on second and third base. With only one out, the Sharks had a meeting on the mound and decided to intentionally walk the bases loaded to create a double-play possibility.
Here is where rule #1 comes into play. Dionne’s first “walk” pitch was just a couple of inches too close to the plate and Lund tricked the Sharks by reaching out and bunting the ball. Curtis raced forward to the ball, but had no play at the plate and slipping to the ground he made a great throw to first to beat the runner for the second out. Unfortunately, Lund had stretched their lead to 7-5.
Leading off the seventh inning for the Sharks was clean-up hitter Andy Vanecek. Andy drove a two strike line-drive deep to rightfield. A sure double or maybe even a three-bagger. Running backwards at full speed Lund’s right-fielder reached up his glove in desperation having no clue where the ball was. I am sure you have seen something similar in a movie or cartoon. The ball landed in his glove… “whoo-hoo” he jubilated! One out. Rule #1.
With two outs, third baseman Jonny Edgren gave the Sharks hope when he hit a blast over the cones in rightfield, but since on of the umpires did not show up to the game the home plate umpire could not determine that it was a home run and awarded Edgren a ground-rule double. To second was all the further Edgren would advance as Lund retired the side and celebrated their victory over the division leaders.
“Embarrassing”, said Vanecek. “The sun was shining on them today. We couldn’t get key hits and they did. They deserved to win today. I guarantee we won’t let it happen again. In the next game we are going to kick their /&¤& by 20 runs!”
Game 2
And that is exactly what the Sharks did.
Combining good hitting and solid pitching by Pennycook, Gothenburg crushed Lund in five innings 23-3.
Curtis Dionne took the Slugger Award for chalking up five double on the day.
Next week the Sharks have a chance for revenge when they host Vidingsjö….a battle of division leaders!
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