All four European participants at next week’s World Baseball Classic Qualifiers are in training camps. Three of them, Germany, France and the Czech Republic, are in Arizona and already got their first exhibition games in.
Germany played two games against the Toros de Tijuana of the Mexican Pro League. On Wednesday evening they lost 1-6 after Tijuana used a four-run rally to decide the outcome. Jan-Niclas Stoecklin got the start. Sascha Lutz scored their lone run. On Thursday morning they rebounded for a 3-2 victory. Three runs in the second gave the German squad an early three-run advantage. Enorbel Marquez-Ramirez, Luke Sommer, Kevin Trisl and Maurice Wilhelm shared the workload on the mound.
France faced the Seminole State College on Thursday. They defeated the college team 8-4. Jonathan Mottay got the start. Melissa Mayeux, who is in training camp in Arizona as an honorary invitee, also got an at-bat. The Czech Republic faced a minor league team of the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday. They lost 4-5. After trailing quickly 0-4 they came back and tied the game in the seventh thanks to a two-run base hit by former New York Yankees minor leaguer Daniel Vavrusa. However he also made a costly error, which led to the Brewers’ fifth run in the ninth.
The fourth European squad in the WBCQs next week is Spain. They already traveled to Panama City and got things started with a couple of workouts.
