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.
Thursday March 13th
Our ride has come to an end. The possible Cinderella story did not come true as we lost to MEXICO 0-4. We played a veteran team and gave it all we got, but it wasn’t meant to be. They had really solid pitching, and our offense wasn’t able to get much going. We had some opportunities, but just couldn’t capitalize. KAI GRONAUER had a double and was on third base with nobody out, but couldn’t score and a possible run scoring double by JENDRICK SPEER landed just foul. We just didn’t get the breaks we needed against a team this solid in every aspect of the game. ENORBEL MARQUEZ pitched great, as we have come to expect from him every time out. He held MEXICO in check pretty well, limiting them to three runs over eight innings.
Still, we feel pretty good about ourselves. The way we played and the way in which we conducted ourselves was very respectable. I believe that we gave every team a good challenge, with the Korea game being somewhat an exception. We made everybody work hard to beat us, and won some games along the way. And it wasn’t like those two wins came easily. We had really tough games against SPAIN and SOUTH AFRICA. It just shows how high-level this tournament is, when almost every team can beat anybody on a given day, depending on that day’s performances.
We came into the tournament thinking that we had a good chance against those two teams, and needed to find a way to possibly win two more. We knew it was a long shot, but believed in having a possible outsider’s chance. After all we were playing against traditional powerhouse baseball countries.
But even after being eliminated, our tournament isn’t over yet. Tomorrow we play CANADA, a real strong team that beat KOREA today and is already qualified for the OLYMPIC GAMES. But we cherish these high-level games, knowing that those are the games that make us better. Playing more often against those types of teams has moved this organization into the right direction. Participating in the World Cup gave us our first experience at this level, and we put it to good use this time. So we are striving to use this tournament to make even greater strides in the future. Already being qualified to the 2009 WORLD CUP gives us a great goal to work towards. We will do everything possible to try and even have a better showing at next year’s World Cup.
Regarding our match up with CANADA we will try our best to win and at least make it a close encounter. We play for our own pride, for earning respect and for gaining experience. As COACH FRADY mentioned in this diary before, these types of games, no matter their meaning, are our Olympic games. For most of us amateur players, this is as good as it gets. Therefore veterans like me enjoy their possible last go-around with the team, and the young guys gain experience every time out. So in many ways tomorrow’s game isn’t going to be a meaningless game at all.
Good job in the tournament and good luck against Canada. It’s great to see Germany compete as well as they did, and I look forward to another season over there.