Göteborg Baseboll

Despite great Swedish weather, a stellar starting pitching performance and more than one Web-Gem defensively, Gothenburgs Elite Series opener ended up in the loss column. Final Score: Skövde Saints 6- Good Guys 4. The reason, quite simply, was an inept day at the dish. Sharks bats were colder than a hair on a polar bears ass (sorry kids, but sometimes profanity adds flare… and no, Polar Bears don’t walk around Main Street Sweden as many Americans seem to think).

After a scoreless first inning, Skövde took a two runs in the top of the second. As they say, walks will haunt and so will errors. Both of which occurred early in the top of the second and Skövde took advantage, scoring two runs on a walk, an error and a base-hit.

The next few innings belonged to the stellar defense of the Sharks infield. Andreas Wallin made a great stop and throw on a bad bounce grounder up the middle and Andy Vanecek turned a beautiful double play (1-4-3), jumping over a sliding Skövde baserunner while tossing a bullet to firstbaseman Jon Hildahl to end an inning where Vanecek had a part in all three of the put-outs.

Chipping away one run at a time because of the hitting of Leo Penagos, Johan Weidolf and Andy Vanecek (2 hits and a walk each) as well as good situational hitting by Wallin, the Sharks came back to tie the ball game at two going into the 7th inning.

Unfortunately, by then Pennycook’s arm was tired and Gothenburg made the call to the bullpen. It was a tough spot for Sharks lefthander Magnus Martinsson who, making a comeback for the 2005 season, hadn’t seen action in over 5 years. Control problems led to Magnus walking the bases loaded with only one out. All of those free passes would definitely haunt as the each came around to score giving Skövde a 5-2 lead before the inning ended. The Saints would add one more run in the top of the 8th that scored after a dropped ball at first base on a would be inning-ending double play from Wallin to Vanecek to Mattias Niklasson.

Gothenburg didn’t give up and loaded the bases with nobody out in the 8th, but couldn’t get the key hit to spark the comeback. Instead they settled for one run in the 8th and one in the 9th, losing the ball game 6-4.

The Sharks look to bounce back this weekend against celler-dwellers Oskarshamn who are 0-4 in the Series this year. Gothenburg has already beat Oskarshamn twice this spring- once in a pre-season tournament and once in the Swedish Cup. Then Sharks like their chances against the Oskarshamn Lost Boys….as long as they can get their bats to thaw out after a long Scandinavian winter.

Innings	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Final Score
Skövde	0	2	0	0	0	0	3	1	0	6
Göteborg	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	1	1	4