Tag Archives: Alby Stars

The history repeats itself

The Gothenburg Sharks will have to face Karlskoga Bats once again the upcoming weekend. The teams met at Shark Park just more than a week ago in a double header where Karlskoga Bats won both games. Even though the numbers were greatly in favor of Karlskoga the games were closer than the numbers were. Gothenburg will travel to Karlskoga for the three game series to directly stay in the Elitseries the upcoming weekend! Two games on Saturday and possibly a third and directly deciding game on Sunday.

Karlskoga played in the other end of the series just last year and lost the cup in the fourth game vs Stockholm. In 2012, Karlskoga went all the way and won the cup in the fourth game of the five game series vs Leksand.

The loser of the series will have to face the winner of the second division play offs in a three game series. The winner will play in the Eliteseries 2015.

The Karlskoga Bats are of course favorites to win the first series. Stockholm was also the favorite to win vs Sölvesborg to go into the final the past weekend. Stockholm was down 6-5 starting bottom ninth in the third and directly decisive game and managed to turn it around to win! Sölvesborg was just inches from giving Stockholm two losses on the same weekend. That was almost twice as many as Stockholm lost in the entire season! The Stockholm Monarchs showed good morale and turned the game around and earned a very well deserved spot in the final vs Leksand after only one loss in the regular season.

The Gothenburg Sharks played Alby Stars in the playdown last year to stay in the series. Those games were away at Seagull Park where the Sharks almost killed the series in the second of the games. The second game went into extra innings and then the darkness took over and had to be taken up again prior to a possible game three. The game two of the series was taken up again the day after but the Sharks failed to capitalize on the extra nights sleep losing the game in the twelfth inning. That was just pure fuel to the Sharks bats which caught fire. The Alby Stars had to resign after eight innings losing the game 5-18. The Alby Stars eventually lost to Sölvesborg who took over the Alby Stars spot in the Elitseries.

The Sharks have been into a playdown before. They came out on top. Will the history repeat itself once again? The odds are against, the players are for! Go Sharks!

Very good position for the Sharks

Gothenburg won the important game 1, 16-11. The second game got a bit tighter and had to be interrupted in the top 10 due to nightfall at 6-6. They will continue the second game today. If Gothenburg wins that game they have succeeded to defend their Elitseries spot. If the lose, they will have another chance in todays scheduled game.

Two qualification chances

The Sharks are heading straight into the qualification series to stay in the Elitseries. The first chance is a best of three games series versus Alby, away.

The team is heading to Alby on Friday for a double header on Saturday. If no team win both games a third and directly decisive game is played on Sunday. The winner of that series will stay in the Elitseries.

The team who loses that series gets a second chance towards the winner of regional series play off in a best of three games series. The games will be played at the home park of the Elitserie team. The team who wins that series will get the Elitserie spot.

We wish the Sharks the best of luck this weekend!

Post season games scheduled

The Gothenburg Sharks are going to play Alby away to directly qualify to stay in the Elitseries. The games are already in your calendar if you subscribe to it. The games are scheduled to 31 of August with a double header. If no team win both games a tie breaker game will be played on the 1st of September. All games of that series are played in Seagull Park.

The teams that wins the series end the season there and then. The other team will get a final chance to stay in the Elitseries in a three game qualification series versus the Regional series playoff winner in mid September.

Frustrating times

Looking through the stats from the games versus Alby it is kind of frustrating on several levels. Check out the average that the Sharks got. That’s not bad numbers! For some reason the numbers just don’t work for us! A loss five to four away should have been the other way around. The second game illustrates the pitching problem that the Sharks has right now. Not the pitching in that game in particular, but that number of games that we had against us over and over again. Frustrating. To make it more than frustrating we can’t blame anyone in particular. Five games was lost in the seventh because we failed to score more than three runs! Only 14 games of the entire season did come up with a winner not scoring double digits.

That said, one must be impressed by Alby players such as Demond Wiltshire playing second base, third when visiting Gothenburg. Almost taking as many walks as at bats. His six errors during a hundred innings (perfect at third base) is impressive! The youngster Emil Sahlin got a bright future. Already pitching at a high level. His ERA of 9+ is leveraged by the number of walks. (Walking over two per inning). If the coach could align to the rules of how many innings a junior are allowed to pitch, this guy has a bright future (He pitched more than he was allowed to when the team was visiting Gothenburg) We won that game however. When Alby was visiting Gothenburg I was also impressed by the stamina and stubbornness of Raul Lozano. From where I was standing I could not see that he was born 1960 when pitching a nine inning game.

Today I must recognize a true fighter! A guy that stands up for the Sharks regardless if it is for a Elitseries game, the regional team or for our youngsters. He is a role model for any team! Thank you Joe Lankford.

A day to get past

The double header versus Stockholm today exposed Shark baseball where it is today. My predictions that we were past easy mistakes and being stressed out at plays was wrong. Stockholm got us right where they wanted us. They showed off a good defense where the Sharks did not get anything easy. Stockholm offered almost no mistakes and what could be called a solid defense which the Sharks failed to go by.

I tried to argue that there was something going with the Shark offense that wasn’t really out there yet. That did not show today. Stockholm Baseball almost shut us down completely. The solid pitching of Stockholm was too much for us. One can’t really blame the bottom of the Gothenburg batting order that got struck out looking too often. The other parts of the team wasn’t there to threathen the pitchers nor challenge the defense. That combined with almost no mistakes from Stockholm produces the offensive figures of the Sharks today. Two runs after fourteen innings. Stockholm scored 30.

I’m not sure there is anything to learn from todays games. The team just need to step up defensively and back up one another. When error situations do occur, be there to backup the plays. Take the full defense job and run the extra meter to be the back up. I guess it all comes down to practice more together. Minimizing the errors and when all else fails, score runs!

Checking around what happened around baseball today in Sweden we got two victories from the Karlskoga Bats playing Alby away. The first game ended 3-15 (7). The other game was probably rain shortened 1-8 (5). Leksand and Sunbyberg shared one win each. First game to Sundbyberg 7-10, then Leksand bounced back winning 8-4.

Todays most surprising moment was when I realized that Leksand made it to Twitter! I’ve been looking for updates from that part of Sweden for over two years and I seriously started to think that they didn’t have internet. We applaud them and are looking forward to more updates!

The Gothenburg Sharks needs to get todays losses off their shoulders quickly. On the national day of Sweden, on Thursday we are welcoming the Akademin to Shark Park as the last game before the summer vacation. Subscribe to the calendar to make sure you are up to date!

Game day!

Sharks pitching

Photo by Lars Sundin

The Gothenburg Sharks will take on Alby Stars today in a double header at Shark Park. Game #1 will start at 1300. A short break will follow and then game #2 will start. Game #2 has the official starting time of 1600.

We will do a test with a live score cast today. Check out game one live or after the game for a play by play. Check out the second game of the day.

The application will also broadcast on our live twitter account @HajarnaLive

You can get directions by checking out the Shark Park page.

Home opener on Saturday

Sharks vs Alby home opener

Sharks vs Alby home opener

Shark Park @ 1300 versus Alby Stars. The second game is officially scheduled to 1600, but will start after a short break after game one ended.

Alby and Gothenburg has had equally bad starts and are 0 and 2 for the season. Alby was swept by the Karlskoga Bats and Gothenburg by Stockholm.

Alby lost the first game of the season 10-0. They got on the board in the second game of the double header, which they lost 10-5. Karlskoga Bats took on Leksand Lumberjacks the past Saturday in a double header. They shared one win each. Game one ended 12-11 favor of Leksand and the second game ended 8-4 favor of the Bats.

The Sharks has allowed far more runs than the Stars. on the other hand we managed to score nine runs versus Stockholm, Alby managed to score five times versus the Bats.

Both Alby and Gothenburg faced tough opponents for the starting games. My guess would be that the double header played here in Gothenburg would echo for the rest of the season saying who would rank ahead of the other. A fair assumption is that will be a great deal of action in the games. Both teams are exited to get their first win.

Mark this Saturday for a visit to Shark Park! Instructions on how to add the game calendar to your mobile device is available at the Calendar.

Karlskoga Bats swept Alby Stars

Karlskoga won the seasons two first games versus Alby Stars. 10-0 (7) and 10-5.

Game one summary

(Box score)

Karlskoga pitcher Shawn Hetherington did his first six innings of the season and walked off the mound with 10 Ks after facing 20 total at bats. No hits, no errors and of course no earned runs. He was given the win. He walked once at his first four at bats and had a sac fly in the second game after three tries at bat. Alby pitcher Raul Lozano had a rough day at the job and had to let 8 runs after sex innings (eight runs of which six earned, eight walks and three strike outs). Releaver Hampus Hagman had an even worse start of the 2013 season and gave up 2 runs (one earned) after producing one strike out.

Alby had of course a tough time to get on base in the first game. They failed to produce a single hit versus Shawn and did not have better luck versus the releaver Anders Nygren.

Christoffer Johansson produced 2 runs and 3 runs batted in with his only hit (no walks and no strike outs). He did also manage to steal two bases. Jacob Spaeth (Karlskoga press release) produced 3 hits at his four at bats with two runs and two runs batted in. He entered the second game with an average of .750 of the seasons.

Game two summary

(Box score)

Bats pitcher Paul Waterman started the second game and had to give up a run immediately! Alby got back on the board with runs in the fourth, sixth and seventh for a total of five runs (all given up under Paul watch, however only three was earned). However for a total of 10 let runs Alby fell short after 9 innings losing 10-5. The Alby defense was charged with seven errors and only six out of ten runs was earned by the pitchers. Poor starter Emil Sahlin had to see eight runners touch home plate, but only four was earned. He did put himself in tough positions after a total of eight walks with three strike outs after five innings. Hampus Hagman took over the hill once again and passed two balls to his defense to pick up the out and walking two. He left the game after two outs and handed over the ball to Ramon Illa. Ramon gave up two runs (both earned) after four hits and 2.1 innings pitched.

Jacob Spaeth once again had an extremely good day at bat and landed .714 after summering the two starting games of the seasons. Short Stop Robin Pettersson and once again Christoffer Johansson had very hot bats and landed an average over .400 after the double header. The most lazy guy at bat of the day must have been Karlskoga Bats out fielder Stefan Fahlin. He only bothered to hit the ball once in the second game, where he has called out, but was walked no less than four times (two in the first game). That guy knows a ball when he sees one!

Alby pitcher Email Sahlin picked up two runs himself with one run batted in. Third base man Yader Bello lead the Alby offense with two hits, one run and one run batted in. The top of the Alby order left the day with less than 0.150 average.

The season has started

This means that the season has officially started and the Karskoga is two for two. Next game is the Stockholm welcoming the Gothenburg Sharks on the first of May (official holiday in Sweden). In a different part of the Stockholm area the Sundbyberg Heat is facing the Leksand Lumberjacks! Tune in Wednesday at 1300 on a ballpark near Stockholm!