By Bob Fromer
Tuesday 28 July – Teams always want to start a major tournament by making a statement, and the GB Slowpitch Team did just that as the European Slowpitch Championships began this morning in Dupnitsa, Bulgaria.
In two games against Ireland and first-time participants Lithuania, Team GB scored 44 runs on 39 hits plus seven walks and 10 opponents' errors.
GB's opening game against Ireland, which began at 9.00 Bulgarian time, finished 23-2, and Lithuania was pounded 21-0 a couple of hours later. It's beginning to seem as if only Germany has a chance of giving GB a game, but that won't really be known until the teams have their first meeting of the double round-robin at 3.00 pm on Wednesday.
In the other games played today, Germany defeated the Czech Republic 18-7, Ireland bounced back to defeat Bulgaria 21-5, Germany made hard work of beating Lithuania 13-10 and the Czechs defeated Bulgaria 14-9.
GB v Ireland
In the opening game of the tournament, GB set Ireland down in order in the top of the first inning, then tore into them in the bottom half for 20 runs on 14 hits, a couple of walks and four Irish errors.
Never mind that most of those runs were unearned because of errors early in the inning; the ferocity of 's batting, which included a three-run home run by Dan Spinks, a triple and a single by Danny Gunn and two hits by Vicky Chapman, was much more than the Irish could cope with.
After that outburst, it only remained to play out the game. The Irish scored a couple of unearned runs in the top of the second inning, GB replied with three in the bottom of the inning on singles by Dan Spinks, Kim Hendry and Chris Yoxall and a double by Ben Taylor, and neither team scored again.
After the Irish batted in the top of the fourth inning, the mercy rule came into effect and GB had a 23-2 win to get off on the right foot in search of their 10th straight European Slowpitch Championship title.
Dan Spinks got the win, allowing only three hits and a walk in four innings and also claiming two strikeouts.
Dan Spinks also went 3-for-3 at the plate with three RBIs on his three-run homer, and Danny Gunn also had three RBIs. Steve Hazard, Danny Gunn, Ben Taylor and Vicky Chapman had two hits each.
GB v Lithuania
This game also lasted only four innings, and featured six GB home runs -- three two-run blasts by Steve Hazard in the first, second and third innings, two-run shots for Chris Yoxall and Ben Thomas and a grand-slam home run by Dan Spinks in the bottom of the fourth inning that got GB over the mercy rule line (20 after 4).
GB started the game relatively slowly, scoring only two runs in the first inning on the first of Steve Hazard's round-trippers. But that was followed by an 11-run second inning that finished the game as a contest. Apart from home runs in the inning by Hazard and Chris Yoxall, there was a triple from Danny Gunn and doubles by Kim Hendry and Vicky Chapman among 10 GB hits and three Lithuanian errors.
Brad Gilmour was the winning GB pitcher, allowing five hits -- all singles -- but no walks and no runs. The Lithuanians' best scoring chance came in the top of the second inning when they loaded the bases on three singles with just one out. But GB got out of the inning with a 1-2-5 double play on a ball hit back to the pitcher.
Over the first two games, Dan Spinks has gone 4-for-4 with seven RBIs, Chris Yoxall is also 4-for-4 with four RBIs, while Steve Hazard is 5-for-6 with eight RBIs, Vicky Chapman is 5-for-6 with two RBIs, Ruth Macintosh and Ian Kulka are 3-for-4, Danny Gunn is 3-for-5 with two triples and GB rookie Aaron Thomas is 2-for-3.
Tomorrow (Wednesday), GB will play the Czech Republic at 10.45am local time (08.45 in the UK) and then Germany at 3.00 pm and Bulgaria in the featured evening game at 6.30. After that, GB will have played all the other teams once and we will know whether they are going to face any real competition.