{"id":4025,"date":"2009-09-16T21:41:55","date_gmt":"2009-09-16T20:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=4025"},"modified":"2009-10-18T16:07:34","modified_gmt":"2009-10-18T15:07:34","slug":"nicaraguas-garcia-baffles-britain-once-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=4025","title":{"rendered":"Nicaragua’s Garcia baffles Britain once again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Great Britain faced Nicaragua this evening for the second time in\u00c2\u00a0the 2009\u00c2\u00a0Baseball World Cup\u00c2\u00a0and came up short once more.\u00c2\u00a0 Team GB ran them closer this time,\u00c2\u00a0losing 4-1<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0compared to\u00c2\u00a0the 10-0 drubbing in the first round, but they were flummoxed once again by the Nicaraguan pitcher\u00c2\u00a0whose name alone causes confusion.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Diego Garcia Sandino gets listed in the official accounts as Diego Sandino, but the pitcher prefers to go by Diego Garcia.\u00c2\u00a0 The discrepancy had Eurosport2 commentator Paul Romanuk<\/a> scratching his head at first, but it was the British hitters who ended the evening baffled by the pitcher.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Both teams entered the contest with 0-2 second round records and saw this as a chance to get a win on the board.\u00c2\u00a0 Great Britain had their ace on the mound in Brian Essery and were given a boost when the lineups were announced.\u00c2\u00a0 Nicaragua had decided to rest some of their best players for the game, including\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Jimmy Morales and Sandor Mayorga who both went deep twice in the previous encounter.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a sure sign that Nicaragua felt they could beat Britain regardless and that fact alone should have given Team GB a sense that they were being taken lightly.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nicaragua’s moves appeared to be justified\u00c2\u00a0when they took an early 3-0 lead in the top of the second inning.\u00c2\u00a0 The\u00c2\u00a0frame was punctuated\u00c2\u00a0by some regrettably sloppy fielding.\u00c2\u00a0 The score was already 1-0 when, with one out and runners on second and third, Mario Holman hit a sacrifice fly to left-fielder Matt McGraw.\u00c2\u00a0 His throw back into the infield was sensibly\u00c2\u00a0cut off, knowing that the run would score regardless,\u00c2\u00a0and Sandor Guido was caught\u00c2\u00a0in between second and third needing to be put out to end the inning with minimal damage.\u00c2\u00a0 However, the ball was dropped at second, allowing Guido to hustle his way into third. Adolfo Matamoros then placed a bunt towards first baseman Aeden McQueary and confusion resulted in no one covering the bag. Guido was allowed to come home on the play and 2-0 had needlessly become 3-0.<\/p>\n

Great Britain hit back in the bottom of the inning when Chris Falls brought Sam Wiley home on a fielder’s choice to make it 3-1.\u00c2\u00a0 They followed this positive play with a great defensive effort to get out of a bases-loaded jam in the top of the third inning.\u00c2\u00a0 Aeden McQueary got the force at first and then saw that\u00c2\u00a0Edgar Lopez\u00c2\u00a0was heading for home.\u00c2\u00a0 His quick throw beat him there and catcher Chris Berset applied the tag to complete the double-play and end the inning.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the sort of momentum-changing moment that can lift a whole team and GB’s starter Brian Essery was certainly inspired by it.<\/p>\n

Britain’s ace returned to the mound in the top of the fourth inning and retired the Nicaraguan batters in order.\u00c2\u00a0 He repeated the trick in the fifth and sixth innings before a run of eleven straight batters retired was ended by a lead-off single by Guido in the seventh.\u00c2\u00a0 He would eventually make it home for the second time in the game to increase Nicaragua’s lead to 4-1, although the improved defense was displayed yet again when second baseman Chris Falls made a smart play on a high-chopper to end the inning.<\/p>\n

Tom Bolesko relieved Essery in the eighth inning and continued from where he had so impressively left off against Croatia in striking out three of the first four batters he faced.\u00c2\u00a0 He got out of some trouble in the ninth to keep Nicaragua from extending their lead, but Great Britain still trailed by three as they headed into the bottom of the ninth inning.<\/p>\n

The solid pitching and defensive effort counted for naught because the batters simply couldn’t get anywhere against Nicaragua’s starter.\u00c2\u00a0 They had their chances early on, but hit into inning-ending double plays in the first and third innings.\u00c2\u00a0 Right-fielder Sam Wiley then\u00c2\u00a0reached first to lead off the bottom of the fourth with a hit-by-pitch and might have got around to score on a Berset scorcher to centre had\u00c2\u00a0Morales not made a great diving catch. Wiley had to retreat to first and was caught\u00c2\u00a0on a pitch-out when he next tried to advance attempting to steal second.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

From there, Garcia settled down and Great Britain couldn’t find a way to knock him off course, despite having seen him at first hand for six innings in the previous game between the two sides.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a case of ‘how do you solve a problem like Garcia?’ and the answer was we didn’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 He pitched a great ballgame (nine innings pitched, five hits, one walk, one unearned run) and sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the opposition for out-playing you on a given day.<\/p>\n

So Great Britain fell to their third straight defeat, but tomorrow gives us another chance to get a second round win live on Eurosport2.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t get any easier as our opponents will be Puerto Rico.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the World Cup is all about though: competing against the best international teams out there.\u00c2\u00a0 First pitch is 12.00 BST.<\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/strong> Game report from the Great Britain baseball team site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Great Britain faced Nicaragua this evening for the second time in\u00c2\u00a0the 2009\u00c2\u00a0Baseball World Cup\u00c2\u00a0and came up short once more.\u00c2\u00a0 Team GB ran them closer this time,\u00c2\u00a0losing 4-1\u00c2\u00a0compared to\u00c2\u00a0the 10-0 drubbing in the first round, but they were flummoxed once again by the Nicaraguan pitcher\u00c2\u00a0whose name alone causes confusion.\u00c2\u00a0 Diego Garcia Sandino gets listed in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,21],"tags":[63,64],"class_list":["post-4025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-baseball-2","category-international-baseball-2","tag-great-britain","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4025"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5426,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4025\/revisions\/5426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}