It was a tale of two games.
That's what the players and coaches of the Muenster Red Sox must have been telling themselves on Sunday night after their exhibition doubleheader against the Notre Dame Hounds in Muenster.
Notre Dame dominated the first game, winning 9-0 and looking like Goliath against an overmatched David. Game two saw Muenster play Notre Dame to a 7-7 tie. Each game was only five innings long, owing to their exhibition status.
"The difference between the games was that this was our first game of the season and the other guys [Notre Dame] played 14 games already," said Red Sox manager Jim Korte. "We were rusty in the first one."
The Red Sox had been scheduled to play the day before in Regina, but a wet field cancelled that trip.
The games against Notre Dame went on as scheduled in Muenster, but it didn't quite look like baseball. There were bats and balls and umpires, but the grass in centre field was dead and the trees were still bare. The boys of summer were kicking things off during a late-arriving spring.
The Red Sox won the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League's (SBPL) AA championship last year, but this year's outfit looks quite different. There are several new players and the team is younger. Speaking before the first game, Korte wasn't sure what to make of his team yet.
"Our pitching and defence could be good," he said as his charges warmed up on the other side of a chain link fence.
As if to prove the unpredictability of sports, Red Sox pitcher Tanner Syroteuk had a rough opening inning in the first game, giving up three runs and setting the tone for the rest of the game. Muenster cycled through four pitchers, but none could settle into any sort of groove. Korte said the decision to play so many pitchers was by design, in hopes of letting each one get some time on the mound.
Other than a Syroteuk double the Red Sox struggled to generate any offence in the opening tilt. Notre Dame stole bases seemingly at will and capped it off with a towering three-run home run in the top of the third. Muenster stranded runners on second and third in the bottom of the third inning, their only real threat.
There were signs of rust on both sides. Pitches flew past catcher's mitts and more than a few batters were stung by wayward throws. A couple of routine fly balls were dropped.
"There are some players out here who are very green," Korte said before the game, "but what are you going to do? You play them and hope that they learn."
The Red Sox will not play another league game until May 25, but are scheduled to compete in a tournament in Moose Jaw May 17-20. Korte called it an "evaluation tournament", a place for players hoping to extend their baseball careers.
