HarbourCats back in playoff driver’s seat
VICTORIA 10 BELLINGHAM 4
It is an arms race minus the arms.
The West Coast League playoff drive is taking place with bullpens as empty as post-season hopes in Blue Jays-Land.
The Victoria HarbourCats have managed to overcome the dearth of pitchers with a team that can tear the hide off the ball. They showed that again Tuesday night with a key 10-4 victory over the Bellingham Bells before 2,336 fans at Royal Athletic Park.
The result left Victoria half a game ahead of the idle Wenatchee AppleSox and 1 ⁄ games ahead of the Bells in the tight battle for the WCL North Division second-half regular-season crown and playoff berth that goes with it. The ’Cats play their final regular-season home game tonight against the Bells. Victoria will close out the season with two games across the strait in Port Angeles.
Victoria is 14-10 in the second half, Bellingham 12-11 and Wenatchee 12-9.
The ’Cats, like every other WCL team, will have to do it with their bats.
“Nobody’s got any pitchers. Teams are going to have to out-slug the opposition,” said Victoria HarbourCats head coach Brian McRae.
“That is not a good brand of baseball for the league, to not have a full complement of pitchers, and have 12-13 run games.”
Slug-happy hitfests aren’t true baseball, said McRae.
The HarbourCats are down to eight pitchers, said McRae, and he has had to patch up with “high school players and position players.”
The issue throughout the WCL, and other summer leagues, is that many NCAA U.S. collegiate teams shut their pitchers down in August in readiness for college and university fall ball. Summer leagues, such as the WCL, only borrow the players from NCAA teams.
“[An answer] is to end the season 10 days earlier . . . there are things you can do to compress the season such as playing doubleheaders,” said McRae, a 10-season former major-leaguer.
The situation for the Victoria pitching corps was compounded with the departure this week of ace Jack Owen (4-1, 1.01 ERA), who was shut down by the Auburn Tigers of the SEC, where Owen is headed as a prize freshman recruit.
On the mound Tuesday, Taylor Prokopis took the win by giving up seven hits and three runs over 5 ⁄ innings. Kevin Collard from the University of San Diego went three-for-three, with a homer, double and single, with three RBIs and three runs scored for the ’Cats, while Hunter Vansau from Mississippi State added four hits.