Tuatara roster takes hit ahead of playoffs

The Auckland Tuatara are to lose ace pitcher Josh Collmenter after this weekend’s crucial series against Brisbane.

The Tuatara’s Australian Baseball League playoff hopes are hanging in the balance after drawing one game against Canberra last weekend, because of rain, and losing three.

One win in the four-game final round series against the Bandits at North Harbour Stadium will secure the Tuatara a wildcard playoff spot, but they will likely need to do better than that to finish top of Northeast League of the ABL to secure the second seeding.

But this weekend will be the last time Collmenter will be available as he has to head back to the United States for personal reasons. Collmenter’s last game will be on Saturday and he’ll depart the following day.

The Tuatara have already lost plenty of players this season and losing Collmenter is a significant blow as he’s been by far the club’s best starting pitcher since Jared Koenig departed.

The former Arizona Diamondback and Atlanta Brave has pitched 42.1 innings this season, with an ERA of 2.57.

If the Tuatara have a threegame series in the playoffs, they would likely start Jen-Ho Tseng,

Kyohei Muranaka and Jimmy Boyce.

Muranaka should be fine, but Tseng was lit up by Canberra last weekend and Boyce has struggled for most of the season and has an ERA of 6.62.

Tuatara manager Steve Mintz would look to get as much out of Tseng and Boyce as possible before relying on the bullpen to finish games off.

After a poor start to the season when the Tuatara won one of their first nine games, they went on a tear to get to the top of their division.

But the roster has been decimated, partly because of prior arrangements with MLB clubs and also because their players have been so impressive that major league teams have picked them up.

Players the Tuatara have lost over the season are Hever Bueno, Kyle Glogoski, Lucas Jacobsen, Koenig, Ryota Okumoto, Josh Morgan, Hansel Moreno and Jeremy Vasquez, while Luke Hansen is still injured and Ryan Costello passed away before the season began.

A factor in losing so many players is that the Tuatara will struggle to fill a 22-man roster for any playoff games.

In order to be on the playoff roster, a player must have played in a certain number of games, including playing from round eight onwards.