On Monday, Austria got the unique opportunity to play against the best nation in the world. The fourth game of the WBSC U-23 World Cup took place at Saltillo Stadium and was Austria’s first night game at the event. Once again, Japan showed off their strength and forced the fourth loss for team Austria, losing 16:0.
Jan Alteneder got the honor to lead off against Japan, sending a long drive to deep right, but the speedy outfielder Takeda covered a lot of ground and picked ball out of the air. Also Ferdi Obed got a piece of it, but also this ball was caught. Alex Lambauer got to start against the Samurai. He took a hit against the leadoff hitter, but got short stop Ueda to pop out to right field. With a great throw, Richard Alzinger nearly double up the runner, but the runner returned to the base just in time. After a walk, Lambauer got to strike out left fielder Masago. The next batter sent a ball in the gap and Japan could score its first two runs. A broken bat single even scored the 3:0.
In the second inning, all bats kept quiet. While Austria went down in order, Lambauer could also return the favor and had his first 1-2-3 inning. The third inning started off as a good one for the boys in red and white. Amin Many opened up the game for Team Austria with a hit and Jan Alteneder followed, to move Many to third. Marc Seidl now had the opportunity to score the first run, but after a foul tip, the hopes were gone.
Also Japan wouldn’t start fighting right at this point and took some great swings. Lambauer and Bleyer, who followed his team mate from Dornbirn, also had problems with their command, walking a few batters. With the score being 9:0, Marc Seidl took over on the mound. Then Marc Seidl came to the mound. One more run scored, having Austria trail 10:0. Eventually, Seidl ended the inning with a strike out.
The next time, the samurai hitters adapted to Seidls pitches and started hitting him. Seidls started to lose the command over his pitches and also walked a couple. Japan scored a total of six runs in the fourth, when Manager Sakanashi made the change and sent Richard Alzinger to the mound to finish the inning.
Austria will finish the opening round tomorrow against Chinese Taipei, the winner of the last U-21 World Cup in 2014. The game will take place at Monterrey Stadium at 6pm. For the U-23 National Team this is another great opportunity to present the development in Baseball-Austria and Europe.
RESULT:
OCT 28, Cadereyta Stadium, 10 AM, Australia vs. Austria – 8:1
OCT 29, Cadereyta Stadium, 10 AM, Austria vs. Argentina – 3:13
OCT 30, Cadereyta Stadium, 10 AM, Nicaragua vs. Austria – 15:0
OCT 31, Saltillo Stadium, 6 PM, Austria vs. Japan – 0:16
SCHEDULE:
NOV 1, Monterrey Stadium, 6PM, Austria vs. Chinese Taipei
LINKS:
U23 WM-Spielplan (WBSC)
Offizielle U23 WM-Website
Facebook-Page der U23 WM (WBSC)
WBSC YouTube Channel (Live&On-Demand)
zurück
