Dirk Fries Diary: Lost but still hopeful

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 7th

Rumor has it that TAICHUNG is a hotbed for crime. That’s why every team is being escorted to the stadium by a police car. So far I can neither confirm nor deny this. But besides this little anecdote let’s talk about today’s game. We lost to AUSTRALIA, by a score of 4-1. We played well, but unfortunately not well enough. So consequently we are disappointed, but in no way disheartened. We know we have a good team and won’t back off our goal, which is to try and go to the Olympics, until we are mathematically eliminated after all, it is the only chance for my generation of Ballplayers to become an Olympian. With no baseball being played in London, 2012, the next possible chance would be 2016, if Baseball can make its way back.

We were able to watch the end of the Mexico-Canada game, which surprisingly turned into a slugfest. After that we were allowed onto the field and got in our regular pregame routine, having batting practice on the field. The playing field is really nice, and pretty big. It’s 400 feet in centerfield, with 330 down the lines. The field is surrounded by enormous stands, which, coming as no surprise, remained almost empty throughout the day.

We, as home team, took the field first, with TIM HENKENJOHANN starting. He turned in a very solid performance, yet did not have his best day. Opponent hitters hit only a few balls hard, but capitalized on walks and wild pitches, executing well when they had opportunities. We played really solid defense, committing only one error (the scorer was of different opinion on that play), with ROBERT GRUBER making a spectacular diving catch in the outfield and KAI GRONAUER throwing out four Australian base runners.

Offensively we struggled a little at first, but starting swingeing the bats better towards the end, hitting balls hard and right at fielders quite a few times. We had a chance for a rally in the 8th, but could not score. Overall, KAI GRONAUER was excellent in this rescet also.

After losing today, tomorrow is going to be a big game for us we haven’t played well against SPAIN in our last few matchups, which we are looking to correct. In Prague in 2005 and most recently last year’s European Championships, where a lopsided loss actually cost us a medal and at first left us out of this tournament, we didn’t play up to our own standards and expectations. Also a win would give us some momentum and significantly raise our chances. Most likely four wins in this tournament will get the job done. With six games left to play, we are still very much in it.