The Danube Titans are still on a high and are still comfortably in second place in the Baseball Regional League East. The third match day, which took place on June 22nd, had a special challenge in store. The Danube Titans had to play not only against the Vienna Bucks in the Geese Ballpark in Rohrbach, Burgenland, but also against the undefeated league leaders, the Crazy Geese from Rohrbach.
It was a duel for the lead in the table and it was already clear beforehand that Rohrbach would be the biggest hurdle of the season so far.
As expected, the encounter turned out to be extremely exciting. Both sides found their game well in the first inning and a high-caliber encounter began. Both teams were on equal footing and after five innings the score was 3:3. Strong pitching on both sides, solid defensive work and few mistakes made the duel one of the most attractive baseball games in the state league in recent years.
The Titans repeatedly found their way into their offensive innings, but with several runners on the bases, the Burgenlanders usually had a good answer and the Titans were unable to get their players to home base.
Dominik Riedl had the chance to decide the game when he almost hit an inside-the-park home run on the hump plate but was called out by a very narrow margin. If he had scored here, the Titans would have taken the lead and the game would probably have had a different outcome.
So the Cracy Geese took control in the late innings. From the sixth inning onwards, the home team adjusted better to the Titans’ pitching, hit much better and provoked a few errors from the Titans’ defense. “At this level, every error is brutally punished,” said Stephan Unger, who played as short stop for the Titans in this game, commenting on the turn of events. The Titans were deflated and their morale broken after this inning. In the end, the Titans had to accept a somewhat too clear 11:3 defeat, but were able to challenge the Rohrbachers harder than their opponents had managed to do so far.
The Titans got rid of their frustration over missing out on a small sensation in the second game of the day. Stephan Unger now acted as pitcher and played a confident game. On the other hand, the Titans scored consistently and won every inning. In the end, they had a confident 24:7 victory.
Despite the defeat against Rohrbach, the Titans are still clearly on course for the play-offs, in which the three best teams in the league will compete for the title in a separate tournament in September.
2024-07-05 03:03:48
#Baseball #Titans #challenge #league #leaders
