Long distance drivers and those operating heavy machinery can be exempt, but for every other type of British baseball fan let’s agree on one thing: your boss/teacher won’t be too upset if you’re a little tired just for one Monday at work/school.

First pitch for Great Britain’s game against Israel is set for just after 23.00 BST and it’s one you’re not going to want to miss. A win would see GB qualify for the full World Baseball Classic tournament for the first time. The game is being streamed live, for free, on worldbaseballclassic.com.

Great Britain’s 4-3 victory over Brazil in the early hours of Sunday morning, UK time, was a thriller and we can expect more of the same tonight.

Chris Reed battled brilliantly on the mound, getting into a few scrapes but finding his way out of them during his 4.2 innings pitched, none more so than the stunning back-to-back strike-outs to get out of a bases loaded jam in the eighth inning.

The Brazil win was set up by a convincing 14-0 victory against Pakistan, who were always likely to be the tournament underdogs. Greg Hendrix followed up his good pitching in the Euros with four shut-out innings and the British bats kept adding on runs after a score-less first frame.

Great Britain’s 5-2 loss to Israel in the first game put their backs against the wall, but that has seemed to bring out the best in them. It was a close game that could have gone either way, with Michael Roth pitching superbly over his six innings, before Israel got to the British bullpen – with a few fortunate bounces along the way – to edge it.

Israel were able to throw experienced Major League pitchers at GB in the form of Jason Marquis, Josh Zeid and Craig Breslow.

They deliberately kept all three below the 50-pitch mark so that they could play in the final qualifier; however, the British hitters now have the benefit of having seen them from the batter’s box only a few days ago. They’ll know what’s coming at them from the pitcher’s mound and the speedsters will also have a better idea of what they do from the stretch to help in reading potential pick-offs at first base.

That’s not to downplay the challenge in front of GB though. GB Head Coach Liam Carroll doesn’t have the luxury of sending a 15-MLB season veteran like Marquis to the mound and instead will be trusting in Spencer Kreisberg, who earns his living as a High School PE teach in California.

Yet this is what ‘the GB way’ is all about. Kreisberg helped the Southampton Mustangs capture their first ever National Baseball League title this summer. He’s already seen teammate Rei Martinez strike out ex-Major Leaguers Nate Freiman and Ike Davis back-to-back in the first encounter between the two teams, whilst another Mustang Maikel Azcuy got himself a pinch-hit double against Pakistan.

The commitment and passion showed by all the GB players is great to see, but it’s extra special to see guys who have played for British teams on such a big stage.

Given the pitching options open to Israel, and the potential power they have in their line-up, it would be fair to peg them as slight favourites heading into this decisive game. The win against Brazil already means Great Britain have bettered their performance in the WBC qualifier four years ago, so whatever happens the team can be rightly proud of how they’ve done.

But GB have just played two ‘must win’ games and come out on the right side of both of them. Why not make it a fabulous three and book a place in South Korea next March?

Make sure you’re watching from 23.00 tonight to see if they can do it.

Reports of GB’s three games can be found on the BBF website.

Video highlights, and the full archived games, can be found on the WBC website.

Great Britain ended a challenging 2016 European Championship by earning back-to-back wins against Croatia and Greece to ensure they will be in the main event again in two years’ time without needing to go through a qualification pool.

It means that they will head on to the World Baseball Classic qualifier in Brooklyn in a positive frame of mind after an event that can be summed up in one word: frustrating.

The opening night loss to a clearly superior Netherlands team was no great shame or surprise. It was the following three losses against the Czech Republic, Germany and Sweden that were more difficult to swallow. Great Britain were in with a chance of winning all three and came out of every one with nothing but an L to add to the standings.

The extra-inning loss against Sweden was the most painful as the team had fought brilliantly to recover from a 5-0 deficit and then lost out under the international extra-inning rules (in which runners are placed on first and second base to start the inning), which are a bit of a lottery. The following 11-5 loss to Russia – fairly described as a disaster in the sporting context of the word – was a complete sickener even considering that their opponents had shown their ability by running the Netherlands close earlier in the Pool (a very creditable 3-1 loss).

There were moments when the pitching got away from GB during those games, but the batting lineup only managed four extra-base hits combined in the five Pool games and it’s difficult to win games relying on needing to get every run home in installments.

Player performances

The stand-out player with the bat for Great Britain was veteran Richard Klijn. This was Klijn’s fourth Euros and by far his best as he started all seven games and led the team with a .364 batting average (12-for-33), particularly doing damage against right-handed pitching (11-for-26, .423). He capped off his strong tournament by hitting his first major international tournament home run in the final game against Greece.

Chris Berset and Nate Thomas also went deep against the Greeks, with Thomas’ team-leading .696 slugging percentage being complemented by the five score-less innings he pitched in his start against Russia.

Pitching performances across a short international tournament are always subject to quite a bit of variation due to the differing levels of competition, and situations, pitchers face. To pick out a few notable performances:

• Daniel Cooper (5IP, 2 R, 0ER) and London Met Conrad Cornell (3IP, 1R) combined for a very well-pitched game against Germany. Cornell also pitched three good innings in the win against Croatia.
• Greg Hendrix kept GB’s hopes alive in the game against the Czech Republic with four score-less innings,
• The Southampton Mustangs’ Rei Martinez held Sweden to one run over his five innings pitched
• Cody Chartrand laid the foundations for GB’s first win of the tournament with his start against Croatia (6IP, 5H, 0R).

A satisfactory tournament

The goal for Great Britain is to be able to go into events like the European Championship and challenge for a medal. The 2016 Euros showed that the team has plenty of development to get to that stage – something that will not come as a surprise nor something that will discourage those involved from continuing to work hard to achieve this ambition in the years ahead.

If we are being realistic in terms of grading Great Britain’s tournament, a medal would have been fantastic, finishing in the top three of their Pool would have been very good, being ‘best-of-the-rest’ and involved in the 7th/8th-placed game would have been good and ensuring EC 2018 qualification would have been satisfactory.

Describing the Euros as a satisfactory event for Great Britain seems fair. The results didn’t go as well as they might have, but the first goal of keeping out of the qualifiers was achieved. That this was done with a roster that included 12 players from British teams (with 2 others who played some games in Britain this season) is encouraging with ‘the GB Way’ initative still in its early years.

The team showed a lot of character in bouncing back from the Russia defeat to gain two important victories. Head Coach Liam Carroll, the coaching staff and players can be proud of that and take that on to Brooklyn next week.

Game reports and additional coverage can be found via the Team GB section on the BBF website.

Stats can be found on the CEB 2016 European Championship website.

Great Britain’s hopes of making it through to the second stage of the 2016 European Championships were dashed on Sunday due to a narrow 3-2 defeat against Germany.

I noted in my preview that the schedule had given Great Britain the three best teams in the pool for their first three games. Winning one out of the three would have still given them a good shot heading into Games Four and Five against Sweden and Russia respectively.

Now, Liam Carroll’s team will instead aim to get two wins to finish fourth in Pool A and set up a 7th/8th-placed showdown on Wednesday, most likely against Belgium.

Two tough defeats

It’s the nature of tournament play that small details can make a big difference.

It was expected that the Netherlands would simply be too strong in the opening game, and so it proved with an 11-1, seven-inning defeat, but the losses against the Czech Republic (4-1) and Germany (3-2) were all the more frustrating due to how well Great Britain competed in those games.

Sunday’s game against Germany – based on the excellent online radio coverage by Tim Collins on meinsportradio.de – was a real kick in the gut, especially after the Czech loss made it a must-win match.

You sometimes get moments in games when you see a good opportunity go begging and worry that it might come back to haunt you. That’s exactly how I felt in the middle of the fifth inning of this one. GB had a 2-1 lead heading into the top of the fifth and loaded the bases with one out. A clean base-hit to the outfield, likely scoring two runs, would have given the team a small but important cushion and really grabbed hold of the advantage.

Unfortunately, Chris Berset, making his tournament debut after jetting in from his Triple-A team, saw his potential hit end up in the German second-baseman’s glove and then Brett Rosen grounded-out back to the pitcher to end the inning. Germany then came to bat in the bottom half of the inning and scored a run to level things at 2-2.

Although Great Britain were still firmly in the game at that point, it felt like a golden opportunity missed. Credit should go to the German pitcher Maurice Wilhelm for coming out of the bullpen and getting his team out of an almighty jam, but on such moments do tight games turn and on this occasion it turned the wrong way for British fans.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, the German shortstop Schuz bunted his way on, was sacrificed to second, moved to third on a fielder’s choice before being singled home by first baseman Boldt. It was a dose of ‘Deutsch kleiner ball’ and, try as they did to rally, it proved fatal to Britain’s chances.

How things could go from here

It should be a very competitive game against Sweden on Monday (13.30 start BST). They are 1-2 (their win coming against Russia) and theoretically still have a chance of progressing; however a German win against Russia on Monday would mean they would finish ahead of Sweden even if they both ended up on 3-2 records (as Germany’s 4-0 win over Sweden would be the tie-breaker).

Similarly, if Great Britain beat Russia in Game Five then fourth place would hinge on the GB-Sweden result (either Sweden winning and securing it before the Game Five results, or GB winning and having the tie-breaker over Sweden even if they were able to beat the Netherlands in Game Five).

The fly in the ointment with all this is that whilst Russia are 0-3 underdogs, they put up a tremendous fight against the Netherlands on Sunday and only lost 3-1.  Pencilling in wins for Germany and GB would be asking for trouble.

Still a good result to be had

Let’s leave potential scenarios from other teams to one side and simply state the best-case scenario for Great Britain from here. Two pool wins would lead to a 7th/8th placed match and if they won that then they would come away with a 3-3 record. That would be a very good tournament based on where we are on the GB development curve, so let’s not be too disheartened with the 0-3 start, especially given how the team has performed.

Monday’s game against Sweden is another chance to get a win on the board. There are plenty of ABBA-related puns to plunder whichever way the result goes. Hopefully it’s Great Britain who will be the winner taking it all rather than the team sending out an S.O.S.