It’s been a slow month for the fans situated in Gothenburg. The team has been playing two double headers away but they will squeeze in a double header home before the month is over. The newcomers Sölvesborg Firehawks will visit Shark Park Saturday 28th of June! Sölvesborg had a terrible start of the season but managed to catch some wins. They are six for fourteen, same as Karlskoga Bats.
The Gothenburg Sharks had a terrible set of games on the road versus Karlskoga and Sundbyberg. Lets hope that they can just forget about the games in Karlskoga and bring the offense back home from the Sundbyberg into the important double headers versus Sölvesborg on Saturday and get back into the series before it is far too late.
Karlskoga away (June 1)
Karlskoga has had some really good seasons the past years. Runner up in 2013 (lost the final vs Stockholm) and winner 2012. They were knocked out by the Gothenburg Sharks in the semi final 2011. Things have gone a bit slow this season though. Six wins after 14 games. Two of them versus the Sharks the first of June. The Sharks lost game one 10-0 after the Karlskoga, at times phenomenal, pitcher Paul Waterman shut down the Sharks completely. He allowed no hits, two walks and was noted for 8 strike outs. Kim Berglind started game one for the Sharks. He’s normally found in Uppsala but reinforced the Sharks. He allowed five hits and two runs in five full innings. Kristoffer Örjelund took over the mound in the sixth giving up three hits and seven walks in two and two thirds innings. Wilhelm Sundin took the Sharks and pitched a third of a inning but failed to prevent the tenth run (Kristoffer was responsible) and the game was ended premature in the eight.
Game two was pitched by the Karlskoga import Parker Talbert the first six innings allowing only one hit and Simon Andersson finished the Sharks off with a clean top seventh inning with one strike out and no hits, giving Talbert the win after Karlskoga scored 11 runs during the initial six innings. Jason Norderum and Hiba Nabi pitched game two. Jason gave up an unusual three earned runs (six scored during the first six) and Hiba added four earned and one unearned. During those seven innings the Sharks failed to get on the board heading back to Gothenburg scoreless.
Sundbyberg away (June 14).
Some two weeks later, on the 14:th of June, the Sharks travelled to Sundbyberg. Sundbyberg Heat have had a good 2014 season. They are one game behind Leksand Lumberjacks and four games behind the leaders Stockholm Monarchs.
The games vs Sundbyberg was the first one for Spencer Kreisberg who made his first appearance in the Swedish Elitseries since 2012 (playing for Karlskoga Bats). The Sharks lost the game 16-6 after seven innings. The frustrating part is that the Sharks let 16 runs of which 11 wasn’t earned! Spencer started on the mound for Gothenburg and had to see the Sundbyberg cross home plate ten times. Only one of those ten runs was earned. Hiba relieved one inning and had to let six runs of which four was earned. The game was ended premature in the seventh. Joe Lankford, and Spencer scored twice and Norderum and Melendez scored once. A multi hit day for the reinforcement Simon Tysk. Runs batted in by Laffin, Tysk, Melendez and Olivia.
Game two just want’s one that Gothenburg was supposed to win. Pitching wasn’t working, defense wasn’t working and the bats wasn’t working. Exception to that was the top of the batting order where Joe and Spencer did what they could. Both scored runs and both had extra base hits. Runs batted in by Laffin and Spencer.
Patrick Laffin have struggled this season. Half way through it his average has dropped from over .400 last season to .282 just now. He had 17 walks last year and halfway through this year he’s down to 2. Patrick is one of the keys to the Gothenburg offence, so lets hope that the numbers are going back to what they were last year and his team mates follow.
