Dirk Fries Diary: Disappointed
Dirk Fries, pitcher of the German National Team and the Cologne Cardinals, will give us a daily report about his time at the Final Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Taiwan.
Friday March 14th
Today’s game got moved up on short notice. Because CANADA earned themselves a spot in Beijing, the organizing committee wanted them to participate in the closing ceremony, which took place in INTERCONTINENTAL STADIUM. Our Game against the CANADIAN TEAM therefore was played at 4:30 (local time).
ANDRE HUGHES pitched outstanding for us. He allowed one run in eight innings, striking out his fair share of CANADIAN batters (7). Unfortunately, his great effort went to waste when we lost the game in the 10th inning. I was able to get out of bases-loaded one out jam in the ninth, but kind of lost it the next inning. A walk to the first batter set up a bunt where we couldn’t get the out. With runners on first and second a balk on a botched play on my part sent both runners into scoring position. Coach FRADY was forced to intentionally walk the next batter to keep a force play in order. While the next batter was out on an infield fly, the next guy hit a sharp groundball to first that DONALD LUTZ threw home on. SIMON GUEHRING stepped on home plate but couldn’t complete a double play because he was hit by the sliding runner from third who unfortunately got hurt trying to break up the possible double play. After an injury related short delay the came continued and the next batter was walked, forcing in the winning run.
Our only run was scored by KAI GRONAUER, who scored from second on a double by JENDRICK SPEER, who had his first at-bat after just replacing LUDWIG GLASER. We had a couple of opportunities, but faced strong Canadian pitching, which wouldn’t allow us to score again.
The worst thing about today’s game is that they didn’t win the game, we lost it. Walking two batters, the leadoff man and walking in a run, balking on a play I’ve executed a thousand times and some other little things that annoy me most about my performance. And that’s what is so disappointing right now. It would be a lot easier to accept the result if they had just beat me with the bat. But instead I gave up my second free pass with two out in the bottom of the 10th to end the game. What an unworthy way to end this game, and in the same instance our tournament.
When the dust has settled and the disappointment fades a little more, I will probably be more adept to speak about the way we played again tonight. After all, CANADA is going to participate in the 2008 OLYMPICS, and after beating us tonight, finished first in this tournament. So playing straight up with them and forcing extra innings is very special and kind of puts an exclamation point behind our performance in this event. But right now, these thoughts are a little further back in my mind, knowing that we could have maybe scrapped out another win against such a team but instead suffered a heartbreaking loss.
Stay tuned for a complete review of our tournament, which will be posted a few days after returning home.
