MIAMI (USA) (ITALPRESS) – Italy’s race at the World Baseball Classic stops in the semifinals. The Azzurri were defeated for 4 to 2 by Venezuela who qualifies for the final of the tournament, where he will face the United States.
The boys of Francisco Cervelli gave everything but this time it was not enough: 5 valid against 8 of Venezuela and a ko occurred in reassembly with the three decisive points cashed in the seventh inning. The South Americans have thus confirmed the black beast of the Azzurri to the Classic, having won the sixth confrontation on six in the tournament, but for Italy it was however an edition in which the team was able to rewrite the story by beating Mexico and the United States in Pool B, closed full score, and Puerto Rico in the semifinals, for a total of five wins in six races. After a first inning from zero points whose highlight was a double blue defense game (Marsee-Pasquantino on the fly-out of Arraez), it is to the second attack of Italy that the score moved.
Dezenzo opened the base with a single, Montero granted three ball bases in Caglianone, Fischer and D’Orazio and thus entered the blue point for 1-0. On the Venezuelan mountain climbed the Sanchez rilevo: still charged bases (with an out), rebounding of Nori with elimination in second but in the meantime Caglianone for the 2-0. The South Americans unlocked themselves in the upper part of the fourth inning with only one homer of Suarez on the outside left for 2-1. The Venezuelan tie came to the seventh inning, after two outs but with two men based, with a valid internal leadoff Acuna. Immediately after here is also the 2-3 driven home base by Garcia. Very difficult phase for Lorenzen: the new Arraez vial on the outside center was the 2-4 final.
“My boys are the tournament champions for me,” said manager Francisco Cervelli very proudly at the end of the game. “No one expected them to do what they did: they revolutionized our sport in Italy. What we have achieved in this period was spectacular and does not end here: we will go on”. In fact, the game ended in the seventh inning: “ Venezuela has done everything very well. We did a spectacular game, we did not win but the merit is all of Venezuela: they played a clean game, they launched at best, they scored points when needed. We didn’t make so many mistakes. We didn’t fail. Today we simply faced a great team. Everyone runs, runs and still runs. This is the result. This is baseball.” “We are no longer the Cinderella of the situation and this is an important aspect: in three years they will take us seriously. We have a group of young players who will participate in the next Classic. What they have lived today will take him with them for the rest of their lives: a spectacular boat at the stadium. And my team was spectacular, fantastic; a group of friends, guys who support each other.”.
Also the president of Fibs, Marco Mazzieri. “Losing never likes anyone, losing in this situation even less, but I think that the thing that these guys will take after from now to twenty years is that when they find themselves, they will smile because the emotions and feelings they have experienced in these fifteen days if they remember them all their lives. What leaves us this Classic is definitely an important signal for the Italian boys because, as Gabriele Quattrini and Claudio Scotti have shown, they have been here to be able to say their own, and it is the demonstration that working hard you can achieve great results”. “Now it will be up to us as a federation to be able to channel all this enthusiasm in order to try to bring as many people as possible to our sports and, possibly, also to make all our clubs understand that we have to do something more from the side of the game because baseball is more than ever fun,” concluded the president of Fibs.
– Photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
