HarbourCats go for wins record
The Victoria HarbourCats should be in the theatre, not baseball. They certainly know how to bring down a curtain with some suspense.
Their 6-2 victory over then Yakima Valley Pippins on Saturday night before 4,976 fans at Royal Athletic Park gave Victoria a 39-14 record to tie the all-time WCL standard for wins in a season set by the 2011 Wenatchee AppleSox.
The HarbourCats can establish the new record of 40 today at 1 p.m. at RAP in the last game of the regular season.
Victoria blew the game open in the bottom of the eighth inning with a trio of big two-out blasts — a Ryan Anderson double followed by a P.J. Floyd RBI triple followed by a two-run homer by Tommy Jew.
“I was not looking to hit a home run. I just wanted to hit the ball hard to score a run [Floyd was on third],” said Jew, from UC-Santa Barbara. “But I got a hanging curve ball.”
Jew said a 40-win season wasn't a dream when the campaign began. “It was not our goal . . . but as we got rolling, it became real. And now it’s there for the taking.”
Floyd, out of Sacramento State, said: “This is a special group of players.”
Blake Hannah (4-2) from UC-Irvine took the win by going six innings with six hits, two runs, five strikeouts.
“Blake pitched really well tonight, as did our relief,” said Cats skipper Graig Merritt.
“Our pitching has carried us this season and did again tonight.”
And those hits weren’t bad, either, when needed in the eighth.
Scheduled starter today for Victoria is six-foot-two Kyle Mora, a Grade 12 graduate headed to his freshman season in the NCAA Pac-12 with the UCLA Bruins.
About potentially setting the WCL record for wins, Merritt said: “It comes down to one game. We want to do it for these fans.”
Both the HarbourCats, who will play the Bellingham Bells in the North Division playoffs, and the Pippins (32-21), who will play the Corvallis Knights in the South Division, are headed to the postseason next week.