The Mainz Athletics have won the German Baseball-Bundesliga championship for a second time in team history. After the Buchbinder Legionaere Regensburg avoided a sweep in the best-of-five finals with a 1-0 shutout on Saturday, Mainz clinched their second title after 2007 with a 5-2 win on Sunday in game four.
Peter Johannessen broke a scoreless tie with his run in the fifth on a RBI single by Thomas De Wolf. A 90-minute rain delay followed at the Armin-Wolf-Arena and then a pair of RBI hits by Lucas Dickman as well as a two-run double by Mike Larson gave the Athletics a 5-0 advantage and deciding the outcome. Regensburg cut the deficit to three runs with a two-run single by Marcel Jimenez, but wasn’t able to come back.
On Saturday Nino Sacasa had scored the lone run of the day through a sac fly by Maik Ehmcke in the first. Mike Bolsenbroek then out-pitched Jan-Niclas Stoecklin to keep the Buchbinder Legionaere alive. Mainz was on the verge of tying the game in the eighth, but Trey Stover’s flyball one-hopped over the fence for a ground rule double stopping Max Boldt at third. But in the end Mainz won anyway.
Photo by Gregor Eisenhuth, www.eisenhuth-photographie.de