It was a close contest (Box score) at the Armin-Wolf-Baseball-Arena. Engel Beltre scored in the bottom of the first on a sac fly by Justin Connell to give Spain a quick 1-0 advantage. But Czechia answered right away as Martin Muzik belted a two-run home run in the top half of the second frame to put them ahead 2-1. Marek Chlup went deep two innings later with a solo home run to extend the lead to 3-1. Spain threatened to come back in the seventh inning. But after a single by Engel Beltre Edison Valerio was thrown out at the plate by Marek Chlup trying to score from second.
Czech veteran Martin Schneider pitched 6 1 /3 tremendous innings to keep Spain at bay, allowing just one run on five hits and five strikeouts. Marek Minarik, who had been chased by Spain early on in their first encounter on Saturday, closed it out with 2 2/3 scoreless frames. Ronald Medrano got charged with the loss.
Spain already had lost a heartbreaker 9-10 in extra innings against Great Britain on Tuesday evening, which gave the British the first of two World Baseball Classic tickets. With the already qualified teams from the Netherlands, Italy and Israel, European baseball will be celebrating a record number of five teams in next year’s main event of the World Baseball Classic to be played in March of 2023. It will be the first time that Czechia and Great Britain will play in the World Baseball Classic.
All information about the World Baseball Classic can be found at www.worldbaseballclassic.com.
Photo by Ladislav Svěnčík
