After the European Championship hiatus the German Baseball-Bundesliga Finals will get underway on Saturday between the Mainz Athletics and the Buchbinder Legionaere Regensburg. It’s a duel between longtime league rivals.

Mainz, which already was considered one of the favorite teams at the start of the year, dominated throughout the regular season and easily clinched first place in the southern division. During the playoffs they stumbled a little bit in a four-game victory over the Untouchables Paderborn, before nearly falling down in a five-game win over defending champion Heidenheim Heidekoepfe.

They can rely on a formidable pitching trio to start the games with Jan-Niclas Stoecklin, Tim Stahlmann and Eric Massingham with veteran Manuel Moeller waiting in the bullpen. Additionally they got shortstop Trey Stover back before the playoffs and signed big bat Thomas De Wolf midway through the season after his hopes for a professional career in independent baseball in the United States didn’t pan out.

The Buchbinder Legionaere obviously are one of the favorites each season in the German Baseball-Bundesliga. However in the last two years the Solingen Alligators and the Heidenheim Heidekoepfe ousted them in the semi-finals respective finals. They secured second place during an average regular season by their standards.

Regensburg also changed head coaches from Ivan Rodriguez to Kai Gronauer and import pitchers from Blake Hassebrock to Clayton Voechting. During the playoffs they have found their stride, eliminating the Hamburg Stealers in four games in the quarterfinals and northern champion Bonn Capitals by sweep in the semifinals. Their strengths are Mike Bolsenbroek, a strong offense and certainly a lot of experience from their previous final participations.

Tim Collins is broadcasting games one and two at www.sportdeutschland.tv/baseball and www.meinsportradio.de

Photo by Gregor Eisenhuth, www.eisenhuth-photographie.de