Men's Baseball CEB European Championship 2019

[phelps 7,664]

meh...I don't think Italy have been so impressive...

 

sure, they won 4 games out of 4, but their offense is at least suspect...they were almost shootout by Croatia (not the USA or Japan) and they scored most of their runs only in the final innings against weak relief pitchers...

the positive side ionstead is pitching...I expected our pitchers to make disasaters and instead until now they've been quite good...hopefully they can repeat themselves also when it really matters...

 

however I think that most of the top teams are still hiding themselves, as they have to play the OQT just after the end of the Europeans (here they only need to make the top 5)...

[CCB 563]

Another big win for Italy (11-4 against Belgium). Now they have to wait who their next opponent will be. 

[CCB 563]

And The Netherlands with a big win as well (13-4 against Israël), first place in group A still possible 

[Dunadan 1,103]

And NED won.

So I believe Netherlands-Belgium and Israel-France are the first known quarterfinals.

[phelps 7,664]

NED won also the game vs GBR (10-2 the final score), stopped because of darkness on day #1...

 

meanwhile CZE are thrashing GER out (9-2 in the top of the 6th)...

 

if we take for granted the Czech win, the final outcome of the groups in stage #1 is going to look like this:

 

Group A

 

Netherlands, 4W - 1L

Israel, 4W - 1L

Czech Republic, 3W - 2L

Germany, 2W - 3L

Great Britain, 2W - 3L

Sweden, 0W - 5L

 

Group B

 

Italy, 5W - 0L

Spain, 4W - 1L

France, 3W - 2L

Belgium, 2W - 3L

Austria, 1W - 4L

Croatia, 0W - 5L

 

therefore the Quarterfinals should feature the following pairings...

 

NED vs BEL and ESP vs CZE in the top half of the draw

 

ITA vs GER and ISR vs FRA in the bottom half of the draw

 

as a consequence, most likely NED vs ESP and ITA vs ISR are oing to be the semifinals...

 

 

on the other hand, should GER comeback and win tonight's game, they would end up 3rd in the group (and face Spain in the QTRs) meanwhile the Czechs would be 5th in the group and eliminated from the medal round...and GBR would be 4th in the group and face ITA in the QTRs...

 

however, this wouldn't have much impact on the possible semifinals, as I think they're quite locked in any case...

[phelps 7,664]

and Czech Republic finally won 10-6 vs GER...

 

so, now all the rankings and brackets reported in the post above this are official...

[dcro 10,210]

Croatian results are as random as WTA.

 

Close losses to were followed by 1:12 vs ,and 0:23 (!!) vs .

 

But today they defeated 17:2. I can't even.

 

Perhaps we wasted our best pitchers on unwinnable matches...

[phelps 7,664]

1 hour ago, dcro said:

Croatian results are as random as WTA.

 

Close losses to were followed by 1:12 vs ,and 0:23 (!!) vs .

 

But today they defeated 17:2. I can't even.

 

Perhaps we wasted our best pitchers on unwinnable matches...

 

sure...they wanted to avoid some kind of humiliating score in those 2 matches and so they lost their opportunity to win the games they could (and should) have won...

 

they lacked in self-believe, I guess...

 

however, Baseball is so cruel...even when a very good team you're never sure to win, but at the same time it's mathematical that with a bad pitcher you're never gonna win a match...

finding the right balance in building the whole roster is always very complicated (unless you have so much talent available as in the USA or Japan or the few other true Baseball Nations in the world)...

[phelps 7,664]

I just can't belive what those bunch of chokers named "Italy" are doing...

 

they are unbelivably down 5-2 (and they were 0-5 until a few minutes ago) against GER after 5 innings...

 

Maestri just unwatchable on the mound and the bats more than cold...frozen!

 

what a shame!

 

I should stop wasting my time with them and watch Russian hockey and MLB/NPB Baseball...

[phelps 7,664]

meanwhile, the first 3 quarterfinals are already over:

 

Israel 8-2 France

 

Netherlands 17-2 Belgium (after 5 innings)

 

Spain 5-4 Czech Republic (after 10 innings)

 

therefore, the first semifinal pairing is NED vs ESP, meanwhile ISR are waiting for the winner of the GER vs ITA match-up...