The rossoblù finally return home after four consecutive away games and face second-placed Verona in the group. Fraschetti will have to do without Andrea Pasotto, disqualified in the first match. The Milanese and Venetians are equivalent in terms of batting, but Verona has a very reliable team (2.64 team average)
Last day of the first phase for Milan who wants to raise their heads by finally returning to Kennedy after four consecutive away games. The guests of the rossoblù will be Verona, second in the group, with Marco Fraschetti who will have the whole team at his disposal, but will have to deal with the disqualification of Andrea Pasotto (as well as pitching coach Morillo) in game one, as well as the usual Cueto who finally had his hand cast removed on Friday.
Challenges number 45 and 46 between Milan and Verona, which is the oldest opponent among those faced in the group, given that the first meeting dates back to 64 years ago: an 11-3 victory at Giuriati in 1960. In Milan in particular, the precedents are 21 with 14 red and blue victories and half (7) of the Venetians. Passarotto and the Veronese Kinnunen are the only pitchers to have signed two victories, between the first credited to Gigi Manca (in ’60) and the last to Luca Marzullo (in 2011). Bianchi, Manzini and the Venetian Curran are the bombers of the challenge with three homers each in the Nineties. And only one match ended in overtime, the fateful one in the scudetto semifinals of ’91, won by Verona 5-4 in the 11th.
The statistics obviously reward the Veronese, second in the standings, not so much in batting average (practically identical: 238 to 231 for the Venetians) but above all for the pitching mound that makes the difference with Verona at 2.64 average team PGL against the 4.38 of Milan. In particular Marco Fraschetti can rely on the hot bats of the Pasotto brothers (Marco 333 and Andrea 317), followed by Torrellas (286), while in Verona the most fearsome is Nifosì (393), followed by Meliori (338) and Rampo (264). On the Milan mound, with Cueto (0.56) always unavailable (he took off the cast today), the best of the most used is Dall’Agnese with 5.59 PGL. Verona instead shows off the Ramon (0.80)- Aldegheri (1.67) duo with the reliever Guarda (1.29).
