Mallards off to perfect start
You won’t find a much better start to the season than what the Moose Jaw Mallards put together in the first two games of their Baseball Regina ‘AA’ Bantam league campaign last week.
The defending provincial champions opened the season with a 15-5 win over the Regina White Sox in their home opener on May 3 and followed up the next night with three pitchers combining to toss a no-hitter in an 8-0 win over the Regina Blue Jays.
A total of 24 runs and a clean sheet with only two games under their belts. You could say things are looking plenty positive as the local squad shoots for their third-straight Baseball Saskatchewan title.
“There are a certain number of fundamentals to baseball and we’re trying to nail those fundamentals down, but it’s definitely looking good right now,” said Mallards head coach Curtis O’Reilly. “I think of it as a three-legged stool: pitching, hitting and defence, and there are a whole bunch of different aspects to those, but if you have two of the three you’ll be sitting pretty good, but if you’re decent at all three you’ll be tough to beat. So that’s what we’re working on.”
Evan Callaghan got the start for Moose Jaw against the Blue Jays and tossed three scoreless innings while striking out eight before giving way to Kyle Duncan for an inning and Nick Daly, who carried the no-hitter the rest of the way – much to O’Reilly’s pleasant post-game surprise.
“I honestly didn’t realize it,” he said with a laugh. “There’s no scoreboard, you’re trying to manage and keep the kids going and keep the kids focussed. We only knew when (scoring app) GameChanger told us, I saw the summary and there it was.”
The contest was close until the late innings, as the Mallards didn’t score their first run until the fourth inning and nursed a 2-0 lead through five. The bats woke up in style from there, though, finally picking up where they left off the previous night,. “I don’t want to say I was expecting that kind of production, but I knew we had some heavy hitters on the team, some big strong kids who have a lot of bat speed and can square up a ball hard,” O’Reilly said. “You’re worried about rates of contact against live pitching versus batting practice, and you don’t know until you go live in the season. But to my pleasant surprise, they’re really squaring it up and hitting it hard. They’re getting balls out to people and even through them because they’re hitting them so hard.
“And the big thing is if one kid isn’t hitting that game, their teammate behind him picks him up. It’s fantastic.” While it’s only two games into the campaign, the Mallards will be hoping for more of the same when they trav- el to Regina to take on the Pacers on May 9.
“We have a great group of kids, they’re all very good ball players for sure, with great personalities. They’re team first and there to work hard and have fun,” O’Reilly said. “They have positive attitudes and work hard and it’s such a pleasure to be able to work with guys like that.”