Dutchie Among Top Pitchers in Austrian 1. Bundesliga

Now that the regular season is over in Austria, it is time to see where the sole Dutch player in the league ended in the stats. Rick van Dijck, starting pitcher for the 2021 Austrian champions Diving Ducks Wiener Neustadt, is among the top pitchers in the league.

Throughout the season, Rick van Dijck pitched a strong season. He earned five wins and took three losses. In the first half of the season, he pitched several solid games, but didn’t get the needed run support, so he took some losses then. His worst start was against the Vienna Metrostars, when he surrendered six runs in six innings. His best start was against last year’s runner up, Dornbirn Indians, in which he pitched eight innings and gave up only one earned run.

With his five wins, he is ranked fifth in the W-L stats. As a starter, he finished on top of the standings with an ERA of 2.76. Partly thanks to Rick’s good season, his club is sharing first place with the Vienna Metrostars in the final standings of the regular season with a 16-8 record.

For now, there will be a two week summer stop. On August 19, the playoffs will start. The Diving Ducks will face the number four in the standings, the Dornbirn Indians in a best-of-five series. The winner will advance to the championship series. If the Diving Ducks advance, they will face a team from the Austrian Capital Vienna, as the Vienna Metrostars will face the reigning champion Vienna Wanderers in the other best-of-five series.

Even though his W-L record may not look that impressive, his season was a constant one. In every start (but one) he gave his team a chance to win it.

When it comes to strikeouts, he was nowhere to be seen this season. But he didn’t walk many batters. Of those pitchers with more than ten starts, he had the lowest number of walks by far: 18.

One can wonder how big the chance is the Diving Ducks will make it to the championship series. They will have to face the Dornbirn Indians in the first round, and even with only a 12-12 record, that team are should not be underestimated. The team won the 2023 Federation Cup, and they have experienced players who know what they are doing. So the Diving Ducks may have the best papers in the first round of the playoffs, nothing is engraved in stone.