Asia Winter League: review

Yesterday team Europe played its last game in the Asia Winter Baseball League. Four weeks ago the team went to Chinese Taipei to go step into an unknown world. Never before a team from Europe had participated in this tournament with the biggest talents from Asia.
What did they have to expect? They would find out soon enough.

In the sportive area this tournament may not have been a big success as team Europe won only one game, lost eleven and had three ties. But this trip was so valuable for the European players as they could get a lot of experience against the best talents from Asia.

At times team Europe showed flashes of brilliance. At times the team stumbled big time. Of course all the players had to get accustomed to the opponents and their level. Take Lars Huijer fo example, who is not a bad pitcher. In his first start vs the KBO delegation, he gave up five runs (three earned) on six hits in just two innings. Later in the tournament he would recover. The same with Maickel Rietel. In his first game he got through the first three innings without much of a problem but then got hit hard in the fourth, surrendering four earned runs on five hits. He would recover as well, even though he didn’t last long in his second start either.
Next to these two Dutch starters, there were a couple of other nationalities that took the mound. Javier Sanchez for example. In his first two starts he was hit hard and didn’t get through the fourth inning. Gianny Fracchiolla had a hard time adjusting to the level of his opponents. In six appearances (three starts) he posted a 1-3 record with two blown saves,  a WHIP of 2.61 and an ERA of 13.94. Owen Ozanich appeared in six games, of which two were starts. In 19.1 innings he allowed less than a runner on base per inning and had a 1.86 ERA.

The bullpen was the team’s Achilles heel. Many times the relief pitchers gave away a lead. The ERA of the relief pitchers varied from 4.50 to a whopping 22.85.

And then the offense. At times the hitters saw the ball very well, but there were also games in which the team was limited to only a few base hits.
Best hitter overall was Chris Howard (.379)of the Regensburg Legionäre. Best hitter from Italy was Sebastiano Poma (.333). Urving Kemp was the best Dutch hitter (.294). Even though Kevin Weijgertse had a flying start, eventually his average dropped below .300.

Perhaps it is unfair to say that the difference between baseball in Europe and in Asia is still rather big. Especially when you look to the Global Baseball Match that was played in March when Europe and Japan split a two game series. But the Asian players all play in a professional league. In Europe only Italy has a professional league but the number of games is limited to two. Except for the Dutch league, where they play three games per week, all the other leagues also play two games in a weekend.  When you look at that, the difference may be easy to explain.

For the players it must have been a great trip, despite som big losses. In general I think that team Europe could keep pace to a certain extend. There were plenty of games in which they did not lose with big numbers.
Trips like these are very valuable to let the players get experience, face different pitchers and face different batters.