The Gothenburg Sharks will open the 2014 season away versus the 2013 champions Stockholm, exactly two months away from today, on May 3rd!

The home opener will be a week later on May 10th.

The field is not yet ready to play on but the Sharks has excellent practice conditions in the Shark Tank! It is an excellent place for batting cage practice and baseball practice in an indoor environment.

Don’t forget to visit the Games page and add the 2014 schedule to your mobile device or mail program calendar!

We’re expecting the team management to release information about imports for the upcoming season any time soon. Stay tuned!

The Regional team is playing a friendly against Malmö on Sunday at Shark Park. This game was supposed to be part of the regular season but Malmö failed to assemble a team on the 18:th of August. Malmö suggested a friendly a few weeks back and the Sharks made it happen.

Malmö have had their way with the Gothenburg Sharks previously this season, denying the Sharks a full seven inning game. The Sharks have put themselves on the board every single game and they are pumped to put up a fight tomorrow.

Five game series for the title

Today will be the first day of the five game series for the title versus Karlskoga and Stockholm. Both teams have not just only earned their place in that series by winning they semi final 3-0 against respective opponents. They have been the best teams over the season overall.

Karlskoga played Leksand last year in the final. Leksand won last years semi final 3-0 vs Stockholm and now the roles have turned. Stockholm won the final 2011 vs Gothenburg Sharks. We’re looking forward to quality baseball and wish them luck in the final.

The Sharks won what became the last game of the season. The three game series started with a Gothenburg Shark win on Saturday 11 to 16 and put themselves in the front seat to stay in the series without any further qualification games. The second game was interrupted in the 10th due to darkness with 6-6 on the board. That game was continued today before the scheduled last game of the series. Unfortunately the Sharks could not capitalize on the opportunity and Alby won the second game in the 12:th. The Sharks managed to keep calm and stay focused for the decisive third game. The Sharks once again stepped up and put themselves in the lead to secure their spot in the 2014 version of the Elitseries. The Sharks had a 11-3 lead in the beginning of the eighth and took another leap once there to 18-5 which also became the final score.

This ends a really tough season for the Sharks. A long way from the silver medal in 2011.

Alby gets a second chance to stay in the Elitseries playing a direct qualifying three game series versus the winner of the regional series play off. We wish them the best of luck there.

In the other end of the series, the play off for the title 2013, will Stockholm face Karlskoga Bats in a best of five game series for the title. Stockholm won three straight games versus Sundbyberg, even though the last game went into extra innings. Karlskoga did the same thing versus Leksand. That game series was on a bumpy ride. Leksand actually won game two, but the Bats claimed that the Lumberjacks used a non qualified player in that game and the appeal stood and Bats were given the win 9-0. The Bats won the final game of that series and won their spot in the final with three straight wins as well.

We wish both Stockholm and Karlskoga to play on the very top of their potential to make the series for the title a fair and exciting event.

The Gothenburg Sharks are proud to welcome the future of Swedish baseball to Gothenburg. The Acadamy is youngsters from all over Sweden who study in Leksand and specialize in baseball while studying. The former Shark Erik Earnest used to study there. He also played for the junior Team Sweden, before leaving for collage baseball in the US. He represented Leksand when they did visit us two weeks ago.

The game starts at 1300 on Thursday! Bring a friend and cheer for the Sharks! Two games will be played. The second game is preliminary scheduled to 1600, but will start about 20-30 minutes after game one ended.

Link to play by play
First game lost 13-2.

We got the leaders of the series visiting this Saturday. Stockholm is seven wins and two losses for the season. The Sharks are on the opposite side of the table with the opposite numbers showing two wins and six losses.

Stockholm has from time to time shown really good pitching. But when the pitching doesn’t work perfect, the offense is there to take them to the front seat. The Sharks scored three runs in top first in the previous game between the teams. Stockholm answered quickly by scoring five in bottom one. Stockholms two losses came versus Bats after extra innings and Sundbyberg.

The two losses that the Sharks had in the beginning of the season vs Stockholm was exactly a month ago on Saturday. It was the first time on an actual field of the season. The defense which the Sharks had struggled with the entire season has only got better since. We lost with big numbers last time. One could not really expect the same results on Saturday. These game are completely different.

Even though my heart would like to say that we’ll grab both games, I hope for one game even though I realize that it will be tough to get that. By watching the previous home games I think that the Sharks offense played better than the numbers on the board shows. They are giving themselves chances inning after inning missing the little extra something that makes you score them. That will turn in favor of the Sharks some time soon, why not on Sunday?

The Sharks did an awesome finish for the win in game one. Four runs in bottom ninth for the walk off win 6-7. The second game was casted live play by play which you may have noticed through posts here on http://hajarna.se

Curtis Dionne was finally back in Sweden and joined the team once again! The Sharks was kind enough to let him follow his assignment with his employer SKF across the pond which eventually earned him a title playing for the Philadelphia comets. Just seeing Curtis face raised the morale of the scattered defense of the Sharks. Curtis position which is defined to UTIL on at least two continents filled the short stop position when not closing the first game as pitcher.

The second game was a tight until sixth inning where both starting pitchers went deep into the pitch count. When relievers entered the game, the game turned in favor for the visitors. Although the Sharks gave themselves opportunities throughout basically every inning but they failed to capitalize on them. However the previous Achilles of the Sharks, the defense stepped up several levels today. The Sharks came up short for the second game, but they fought hard and everyone stood up for Kerry this time. Kerry went 130+ pitches and played the entire game. After pitching seven innings he took over first base and also had an at bat. The second game was lost 6-3.

Alby took on Sundbyberg today. The visitors Sundbyberg won game one 2-16 (7), but failed to take the momentum into game two where Alby managed to walk off with a 7-6 victory.

Stockholm taught Karlskoga Bats a lesson in game one not letting a single run and scoring nine. The second game got really close. It took until the eleventh inning to produce a winner and Stockholm drew the shortest straw.

The Sharks stepped up several levels in their defense today! Even though Curtis was a great reinforcement, the whole team stepped up. We just wonder what would happen to Curtis offense when he wears his own shoes and his usual #55 shirt?

Speaking about offense..

Patricks second game was really weird at bat. He got hit by an pitch, intentionally walked twice (!!) and the third baseman managed to catch a foul pop up for an out that was just a feet from the Gothenburg dugout to wreck his perfect on base percentage at his fourth appearance at the plate.

Branden hit another home run during game one. We like that to be a habit when playing at Shark Park.

More to come when we summarize the games at the season 2013 page later on this week!

We will unfortunately not have full coverage of today’s games. However, we’ll try to make a live score cast of game #2. Hopefully you wont follow the game there, but see it live at Shark Park..