INSIDE THE PARK — Expanded Border league ready to launch

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This article was published 15/05/2019 (2518 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Baldur Regals are enjoying their return back to the top of the Border Baseball League.

After a six-year run that saw them win every league title between 2007 and 2012, the Regals edged the pennant-winning Morden Mohawks in five games in a series that stretched to Sept. 4.

“It was tough to get back there but the league is so good, I don’t think anyone’s surprised if anyone wins,” player-manager Drew Janz said. “Anyone can win on any night with the way it’s going right now. It seems like Morden is always strong.”

Baldur will carry up to 19 players this season, with a nice blend of returning veterans and young players. The Regals are led by ageless catcher/third baseman Darrick Jones, who led the league with five home runs, 18 RBI and a 1.029 slugging percentage last season. He also carried a .471 batting average.

The pitching staff includes Jordan Wickens (33.3 innings pitched, 5.04 earned run average, 26 strikeouts), Raegan Johnson (24.33 IP, 3.74 ERA, 19 K) and Bryan Evans (21.33 IP, 4.59 ERA, 20 K).

“Pitching is something that everybody needs a little bit more of and we’re lucky we’ve got Jordan Wickens, who has established himself as our workhorse and has become one of the best in the league I would say,” Janz said. “And we’re going to have a couple of guys who work by committee after that but he’s going to be our guy who throws a lot.”

The Regals, who went 9-5-0 last season, are blessed up the middle, with Jones or Johnson behind the plate, Nathan Ramage at shortstop and Jesse Janz in centrefield.

Baldur certainly has a built-in advantage in Jones, who Janz calls a great leader, teacher and teammate who just happens to be one of the best players in the province.

“A lot of our success really starts with him,” Janz said.

The season begins on May 21, with each team playing a home-and-away schedule against the other eight clubs. The eighth- and ninth-place teams meet on July 16 for a play-in game.

The 2019 campaign will see the debut of the Altona Bisons, who join other recent additions to the league in the Winkler Whips (2016) and Carman Cardinals (2018) on the league’s east side.

Each of the other four clubs on the western side of the league also have their own strengths.

The Pilot Mound Pilots (8-5-1 last season) boast the twin threats of Clint Maxwell at the plate (.348 average, 17 RBI) and tricky left-handed pitcher Anthony Friesen, who led the league by striking out an incredible 42 of the 162 batters he faced. The Pilots also can put Brad McLeod, who fanned 29 batters, and Tyson McConnell on the mound.

The 2016 league champions will return virtually the same roster as last summer with 12 or 13 guys on their roster.

According to Maxwell, when its comes to the three legs of the baseball stool — pitching, hitting and defence — his club is actually fairly balanced.

“I wouldn’t say we’re standing out in any of those three,” Maxwell said. “Probably our strongest point and most consistent is our pitching. We have three guys we can go to at any time, which in senior baseball is kind of a luxury. It’s not always that way. As far as defence and hitting go, we’re fairly consistent and fairly comfortable. We’re a team capable of putting up a couple of runs on the board in an inning and at the same time we can make the big plays in the field to save runs.”

He notes that only three games separated the top five teams in the league in 2018, and his squad played well in a hard-fought, five-game quarterfinal series victory over the Whips. They eventually fell to the Mohawks in the semifinals.

“We expect to come out swinging and have good games. That’s how we’re feeling,” Maxwell said.

The Killarney Lakers (2-11-1) are led by Andrew Lochhead, who batted .459 and knocked in 15 runs. He also pitched 43 innings, more than double of the next closest pitcher John Kummer.

Killarney loses veterans Josh Dueck and Danny Groening but their roster sits at about 15 or 16 guys.

“Our strength is usually our hitting,” Lochhead said. “Our fielding — in senior baseball nobody likes to have too many practices — is something we can definitely improve on. What we still need to work on is our pitching. Last year we only ended up having two wins and 11 losses, but of those 11 losses, we were up in nine of the 11 games at the fifth inning. We would lose them in the fifth inning and on.”

The continued development of Kummer is one of the keys for Killarney as the second-year pitcher gradually takes on more work. After throwing 17 2/3 innings last season, Lochhead hopes he’ll be up around 25 or 30 innings this year.

Lochhead likes being part of a league that continues to expand, and feels Darren Russell is an excellent president.

“It’s great that the league is growing,” Lochhead said. “Altona can bring in some great players that will help in the overall value of our league and hopefully we get a couple more games playing teams that we don’t usually play. It’s nice that way as well.”

Clearwater’s Darcy Stewart hit .444 and led his club with nine RBI. Returning pitchers Joe Gardiner, Hayden Johnson and Jarrett Olson combined to throw all but 7 1/3 innings for the team last season, but some young arms may be arriving to lend a hand.

Clearwater (3-9-2) will carry around 18 players, including some who are midget-aged as they wean in the next generation.

“Any time you’re talking about this league, pitching is huge,” Stewart said. “If you can have good pitching and hit just enough, you’ll be just fine. Early on in the season when it’s going to be cold, our pitchers should hopefully be ahead of the batters and they can get off to a good start and we’ll be looking OK.”

Stewart believes the league is a strong one as it again welcomes in another new member. It won’t, however, change his team’s approach.

“We’re going to continue to do what we do,” Stewart said. “We go the diamond every day and have as much fun as we can and be competitive and try to do the little things right and win some ball games.”

For the Cartwright Twins (9-4-1), Bryce Enns led the way with 16 RBI and a .348 batting average. The Twins had no fewer than five pitchers — Tristan Mullin, Ty Enns, Bryce Enns, Drew Haight and Nick Riglin — throw between a dozen and 19 innings last year, with four posting earned run averages of 4.05 or lower.

Despite that depth on the mound, the team’s strength actually lies at the plate, where Cartwright posted a .326 average, led by Cole McKibbin’s .550 average. The Twins actually had five players hit .400 or better.

“We’re all lefty hitters, which is odd, but it definitely stands out for us,” Haight said. “We have a lot of pitchers but that doesn’t stand out. We can eat innings, but if we’re going to win, it’s our bats that usually get it done.”

The Twins will carry 15 or 16 players, with one high school player on a roster in which their oldest player is just 28. The roster remains intact.

“We do have a significant part of our roster that is around 27 or 28 and I guess we’re sort of what we’re going to be as players,” Haight said. “But the younger guys are still getting better.”

The team is also finding its way. After a sixth-place finish in 2017 on a 7-10-1 record, they attended the A provincials in Rivers and lost a heartbreaker in the final to the host Comets. Last summer they moved up to AA provincials and made it to the semifinals.

In the league playoffs, they swept the Cardinals to advance to the semifinal, where they fell in four games to the eventual champion Regals.

“From year to year, we could just never seem to put it together consistently,” Haight said. “We would find ourselves just under. 500 all the time and run into tough playoff matchups and be done in the first round. Last year, the way things shook out, we finished second and got to go provincials and that was pretty nice for us. We won a couple of games there too, which was huge. We’ll aim to get back there for sure as a team, and the playoffs, we can build on that too.”

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