The Buchbinder Legionaere Regensburg have dismissed head coach Ivan Rodriguez, the club announced in a press release on Saturday evening. Current hitting coach and former minor leaguer Kai Gronauer is taking over as head coach until the end of the season.
Rodriguez had taken over the head coach position at the end of 2014, succeeding Martin Helmig on that post. The Venezuelan previously worked with the Dutch Junior National Team and Mr. Cocker HCAW in the Dutch Hoofdklasse.
The move came unexpected as the Buchbinder Legionaere are currently in second place in the southern division of the German Baseball-Bundesliga with a 16-5 record only 0.5 games behind the Mainz Athletics. On Friday and Saturday the team split a two-game set against the Heidenheim Heidekoepfe.
In the press release the club says that certain structural goals haven’t been reached and that leadership within the team hasn’t changed in the last few weeks. The decision already had been made prior to the games against the Heidekoepfe, but they decided to remain quiet until afterwards to keep the turbulence away from the team ahead of these important games.
Photo by Gregor Eisenhuth, www.eisenhuth-photographie.de