Spain team only could reach 9th place in 2010 Eurobaseball Championships played this summer in Germany.
Spain, who came to this Champs with great hopes after outstanding performance at 2009 Baseball World Cup, almost reaching final round and playing excellent games against hard rivals like Korea, Cuba, or Puerto Rico, produced a bitter sensation among Spanish baseball fans.
Some factors did not help at all to Spain team to get its best level: great part of the team was the same as 2009’s squad… but some of most talented key players were not allowed by their MLB organizations to attend: so, names like World Cup’s champion bat Paco Figueroa and his brother Daniel (both AAA), and two solid pitchers like Eric Gonzalez and Rhiner Cruz did not either could come by same reason.
In addition to that, short stop, captain and defensive “column” of the team, Nestor Perez, was injured in one of the last games of Liga Nacional, and his knee was not recovered to be able to play in Germany.
Tough Spain had a good role in the previous Italian Baseball Week to prepare the European, the first games in Stuttgart were not positive at all: first one was a big loss against future champion Italy (9 -1). Second day Spain reached an unexpectedly hard victory against Croatia (7-6).
But next days Mazzoti’s team did not show their normal face, specially at defence and pitching: Greece defeated Spain (9-13): final reaction by Spain was not enough to equal a very bad start. Next game was another painful loss, against Great Britain (5-1).
Last game of round robin showed the real level of Spain: 16-6 win against Sweden, but too late. And even though Spain had a chance to move to second round (due to possible triple-tie among Sweden, Great Britain and Spain), the unexpected defeat of Italy against Sweden (3-2) in one of the many rain re-scheduled games of this European Champs, did not allow Spain to be part of the 6 best teams of Europe, ending 5th in its group and ending in 9th position (equaled to Belgium) this forgettable Eurobaseball for Spain.
While one of the strongest teams ever for Italy recovered the European Crown (8-4 against Netherlands, who also missed some MLB players), Spain will have to play and win an European Qualifier in 2011 trying to be again with the top teams in 2012 Eurobaseball in The Netherlands.
Find all results, rosters, boxscores and stats at CEB official site:
http://competition.baseballeurope.com/2010/stuttgart/schedule.php
