Italy – Sweden 8-1
SWE 010 000 000 1 3 1 ITA 040 121 00X 8 12 1
At the 2010 European Championship in Germany, Sweden stunned Italy en route to a final round appearance. The Squadra Azzurri still ended up winning the tournament. But on Saturday evening they got some payback, defeating the Scandinavians 8-1. Four runs in the second and four combined in the fourth to sixth decided the outcome quickly. Juan Carlos Infante hit a three-run homerun and Jack Santora drove in two. Luca Panerati struck out seven in six innings, allowing two hits, an unearned run and a walk. Nicklas Melin took the loss. He issued four hits, five runs and three bb in 3 1/3 innings. Italy is 2-0, Sweden 1-1.
Wonderful that championships are here again. Can’t help feeling the group B is far stronger than group A. Netherlands and Italy are top 2 ,no doubt. Surely Germany and Czech Republic are the next best and then France and GB next with Spain maybe at the same level, For Italy to have to play Croatia,Russia,Greece and Sweden is a gift. To think that one, and possiblty 2, of them will play in the next round and that GGB and France may not get through is daft (I would think Gremnay and Czech Reoublic will go through). As I write Czech Republic have beaten Netherlands. Wonderful news for European Baseball. It just shows the potential for the game. The Czech republic only started seriously less than 10 years ago and it just shows what can be done. We must have a European Club league possible two leagues (east and west) covering major cities and baseball hot spots.
Czech Rep beat Netherlands and Spain give Italy a big scare. Italy take a one run lead in the bottom of the eighth, after trailing by one run, Baseball has finally become competitive in Europe and the Dutch are world champions. Now lets see how well Europe can do in the Classic.