He’s the kind of pitcher where if you don’t get to him early it’ll be really tough to get to him later on, especially early in the year.
— Mark Jacobs on starter Logan Calanchie
The Yorkton Yankees opened up their 2015 Southeast Senior Baseball League (SESBL) campaign last week with a pair of wins, 16-5 over the Melville Bison and 6-2 over the Langenburg Indians, before dropping a narrow 3-2 decision to last year’s regular season champion Swan River Reds 3-2 to give them a 2-1 record and a share of second place with those same Reds.
The Canora Supers lead the league with a 2-0 record while Langenburg, Melville and Russell all sit tied for third with a 1-1 record. The Parkland Padres (0-1), West Parkland Stars (0-2) and Willowbrook Royals (0-1) are all winless so far this season while the Yorkton Orioles have yet to play a game.
Wins
The Yankees proved patience is indeed a virtue in their first game of the year, working the Melville Bison pitching staff for 10 walks in an impressive 16-5 victory to open the season.
The Yankees scored first in the game, pushing across one run in the first inning before exploding for six in the top of the third. The Bison responded with a run of their own in their half of the third inning to make it 7-1, however a Yankee seven spot in the fifth inning and single runs in the sixth and seventh put any hopes of a Melville comeback to bed resulting in a 16-5 Yankee victory.
MacKenzie Unyi (2-for-5, walk), Dave Morari (2-for-4, triple, walk), Nolan Johnson (2-for-3, walk) and Jeremy Johnson (2-for-3, double, walk, hit by pitch) all had two hits in the win. Jeremy Johnson and Logan Calanchie (1-for-4, walk) also drove in two runs while solo RBIs were added by Joey Van Dusen, Nolan Johnson, Kurt Karcha and Dylan Johnson.
Matt Poier picked up the win surrendering five runs, four earned, on ten hits and one walk while striking out two over five innings of work.
Two days later and the Yankees were once again on the field, this time welcoming the always tough Langenburg Indians to Yorkton’s Jubilee Park for the Yankees’ 2015 home opener.
A keen eye at the plate combined with timely hitting enabled the Pin stripers to score the game’s first five runs, one in the first, one in the fourth and three in the fifth, before the Indians valiantly attempted to make things interesting by scoring a pair of runs of their own in the top of the sixth.
However the two six inning runs was all the offence that the Indians could muster on the night as Yankees’ ace Logan Calanchie finished what he started, tossing a scoreless seventh inning for the complete game win. Calanchie gave up just two runs (one earned) on six hits and a walk while striking out seven for his first victory of the season.
Derek Kohut led the Yankee offence against Langenburg with a 1-for-3 effort at the plate that included a walk and two RBIs while Matt Poier (1-or-3, walk) and Logan Calanchie (0-for-2, two walks) picked up the other two RBI in the game.
Following the game Yorkton assistant manager/player-coach Mark Jacobs told Yorkton This Week that the game against Langenburg was actually much closer than it appeared to be, but thanks to a strong effort by Calanchie things went Yorkton’s way. “He’s the kind of pitcher where if you don’t get to him early it’ll be really tough to get to him later on, especially early in the year,” offered Jacobs on his star hurler. “Yeah he ran into some trouble there with a couple of guys on in the first couple of innings there but he managed to get out of trouble there and towards the end he was throwing just as well as he was earlier in the night.
“He definitely kept them off-balance.”
Jacobs also mentioned that the Yankees offence – which has been a trademark of theirs in recent years, but faded away towards the end of last season – returned; something that he was happy to see but also something he warned might also be due to lacklustre defence. “It’s definitely a good sign to put some runs up early but I’m not sure how many are from legit hits because there were quite a few errors out there,” said Jacobs. “Even tonight there were some balls lost in the lights that would end up being caught later on in the year when everyone has got their full teams.
“But it’s still nice to get contributions from everyone this early on.”
Shocked in Swan
The Yorkton Yankees travelled to Swan River on Sunday, May 24 for their third game of the 2015 SESBL undefeated, but returned from Swan as a group of ugly ducklings thanks to a 3-2 defeat at the hands of last year’s regular season champion Swan River Reds.
Dave Morari picked up the loss but went the distance on the mound for the Yankees, who carried a 2-1 lead into the seventh and final inning only to surrender two unearned runs to lose the game in walk off fashion. “Dave Morari went all seven innings and he pitched well for us,” mentioned Jacobs, adding that Morari was probably not prepared to pitch the entire game, but had to due to a very short bench. “His arm strength probably wasn’t up there to go seven but he’s a workhorse and we needed a guy to go all seven just because of how many bodies we had today.
“He threw well and I don’t think he gave up an earned run. He definitely deserved to win the game but it was unfortunate that he didn’t.”
Next action
The Yorkton Yankees were in action last night (Tuesday) against the Russell Bulls, however results were unavailable at press time.
The next action for the Yorkton Yankees will be Friday night when they take on the Yorkton Orioles. Game time is set for 6:15p.m. on Diamond Two at Jubilee Park.
