Let The Games Begin

schedule the rainy season began and it seemed like no one played a game in June.  July brought better weather so that the regular season could be played out before the snow hits.  

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Here is the first round matchups:

Holden Blue Jays (1) vs Bardo Athletics (4)

After taking a year off of playoff baseball the Blue Jays made up for it with their first regular season title, although half the team couldn’t celebrate it with a champagne shower as they are to young drink and had to get up early to write junior high finals.  It did not come easy for the Blue Jays as they first had to deal with the off season passing of clean up hitter and team leader Pat Kawaliuk.  Then at the start of the season they lost there ace lefty Kyle Muzechka to an arm injury.  The Blue Jays then got off to an 0-2 start, but then righted the ship and reeled off seven wins in a row on the way to a first place finish on the backs of a good young pitching staff and tight defense.  The Jays still don’t score many runs, but on most nights they don’t have to as the pitching and defense have been the best in the league.  Somehow the youngest team in the league got younger this year and it paid off as the young power arms gave up the least amount of runs in the league at only 3.9 runs per game.  Interesting fun fact:  The team that gave up the least runs per game in the regular season has won 10 out of the last 12 PBL championships.  I think the Blue Jays will take those odds.

The Bardo Athletics took a similar route to the playoffs as they also got off to a tough start as they  had to deal with the retirements of hall of famer Mike Leclaire and all time great Ray Lehman.  Then they dropped their first three games to get behind the eight ball early.  They went 7-4 the rest of the way and clinched a playoff birth in the last week of the season.  The Athletics also derived their success from pitching, but mostly veteran pitching.  Offensively the lineup isn’t as scary as it once was with all retirements the past few years, but they still have some veteran holdovers left from the championship years that know how to score runs.  They also have injected some youthful legs into the lineup which gives them a bit of a different look and gives manager Pete Neufeld some small ball options on offense.

Prediction:

Look for a low scoring series as Logan Skori and Grayson Suprovich have been tough on hitters all year while veterans Chris Middlestadt and Ryan Olsen have a knack for saving their best performances for the playoffs.  The two teams don’t possess explosive offenses, so the difference will probably be which team can make the plays on defense at the key moments.  Will youth prevail or will Bardo’s old man strength win out?  I would expect this one to go this distance and be a low scoring, tight, tense affair.

Armena Royals (2) vs Leduc Milleteers (3)

This one could be hard to predict as both teams have been a little Jekyll and Hyde at times this year.  The Royals possess the league’s best offense as they averaged almost eight runs a game.  They also possess a deep pitching staff led by Boettger and knuckle baller Ian Sherbaniuk.  This combination of power hitting and strong pitching made the Royals the class of the league most nights, but they also laid an egg or two and gave up double digit runs on a few occasions.  Still the Royals seem to be on the up swing as they continued to build on their strong playoff run from last season.

If the Royals seemed a little inconsistent, then the 2013 version of the Milleteers would be schizophrenic.  After four consecutive championships using the formula of a deep pitching staff, timely hitting, and some of the best defence the league has ever seen, the Milleteers were just plain awful on some nights this year.  The pitching and hitting performed as expected, as the pitching was good and the hitting inconsistent as usual.  The big difference was the transformation of the defense from the league’s best to the league’s worst.  The Milleteers used to make seven errors in a month, but it became common place to see more errors than hits in the box score, and it led to the worst regular season in club history.  If the defense doesn’t improve, the championship run will come to an end in a hurry.

Prediction:

Was the Milleteers lousy regular season foreshadowing for the end of the longest championship run in league history, or was it just a bump in the road on the way to another championship?  Are the improving Royals ready to take the next step and become the PBL’s new powerhouse?  Some questions are going to get answered this week.  This one could go any number of ways.  Both teams have deep pitching staffs that can shut down their opponents.  Both teams can also score runs in bunches, and at times both teams have given up runs in bunches this year.  Add in the fact that the teams don’t like each other and met in the finals last year, this should be interesting.  It could turn out to be a tight three game barn burner, or an ugly blowout sweep.  Either way the series should make for some memorable commentary and increased traffic on the website.

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