It was a final week of the WMBL season that showed what could have been for the Yorkton Cardinals. After eight straight losses eliminated them from playoff contention at the hands of the Weyburn Beavers, the Cardinals rebounded to end their 2013 season with four straight wins to end their 2013 season off on a high note.
In that four game winning streak it seemed that everything fell together for the Cardinals for the first time in July. Yorkton won three of those four games by one run and shutout the Weyburn Beavers 2-0 in the other win and for once got results that matched the talent on a team that was at the very least an improvement over a much worse 2012 roster.
"I felt that we played good baseball all season and improved the team from 2012, but the breaks of the game sometimes didn't go our way this season even though we had a good team," says Cardinals manager Bill Sobkow when looking back on a season that saw Yorkton continue its postseason drought.
A gutsy win by a go ahead run in the bottom of the seventh Thursday against the Saskatoon Yellow Jackets gave the Cardinals their first win in eight games and would spark a red hot weekend for Yorkton that despite coming perhaps two or three weeks late, excited the Cardinals players nonetheless as a group of mature and professional young ballplayers committed themselves to playing the rest of the season with a full effort.
On Friday the good times would continue to roll during the Cardinals farewell weekend as Shaniel Riveria pitched a gem of a start for Yorkton, shutting out Weyburn for seven innings before Kody Rock and Chris Estrada closed out the shutout for Yorkton. With the shutout all the Cardinals needed was RBI's from Kevin McLeod and Mike Meany to seal some good old fashioned revenge on the Weyburn Beavers after the Beavers eliminated them from the playoffs.
The Beavers, one of the WMBL's hottest teams in July, earned nothing but praise from Sobkow during his end of season interview, "Weyburn stepped up their ballclub in July and we could not get ourselves up to the level they did, especially with their pitching which was much improved down the stretch," says Sobkow on the Beavers.
With the win against Weyburn in their pockets and two straight wins registered, the Cardinals would finish their season with the rest of their East Division rivals coming to Jubilee Park to close the season.
On Sunday afternoon Yorkton would continue their hot streak in a wild game with the defending back to back WMBL champs, with both teams combining for a staggering 23 runs in a game that reached extra innings. Yorkton would go up 11-9 going into the top of the ninth, but could not find the save as they conceded two runs to send the game to extra innings before Liam Goodall would end the game with a walkoff single to cash in Kevin McLeod and give the Cardinals their third straight win to set up a chance to sweep the entire East Division in their season finale Monday night against the Melville Millionaires.
With Melville having locked up first place in the East and the Cardinals eliminated from playoff contention, both teams were strictly playing for pride and bragging rights on Monday, but you couldn't tell from the Cardinals dugout who embraced the game like the last day of school. After a stressful July three straight wins appeared to have brightened the spirits of Sobkow's club as the Cardinals were chanting and signing in the dugout and in old school Spanish baseball fashion, drumming in between pitches.
That light mood seemed to pay off in the bottom of the fifth when the Cardinals exploded for a four run inning off of RBI's from George Santiago, Alnardo Rodriguez and Goodall to put themselves in the drivers seat with a 4-0 lead. Starter David Toth was commanding the mound early and it looked like Yorkton had the win sealed and prepared to deliver in front of a mostly full Jubilee Park for the 2013 finale.
Toth would come off of the rails in the following two innings as Sobkow arguably stuck too long with his starter in the final game of the year with as deep of a bullpen as he could ask for with no more games left to play. Toth stuck in for seven innings, but not before he gave up four earned runs and the lead for the Cards.
In the seventh Yorkton would once again get the go-ahead run as Kevin McLeod would finish his Cardinals career with his 22nd RBI of the season.
In the eighth Sobkow employed Kody Rock to attempt to close out the game as the Canora born freshmen pitcher would be given the ball one last time in relief. Rock, who had a very solid season for a freshmen from a Canadian college playing in the WMBL, couldn't keep the lead, surrendering a run and forcing Sobkow to put in Kameron Mizzell to close out the inning. Mizzell got the final out of the eighth to give the Cardinals a chance yet.
Yorkton would take that opportunity in the bottom of the ninth as Liam Goodall got his second straight walkoff hit, this time taking an inside fastball deep over the wall to get a rare walkoff home run win at Jubilee Park, a feat that has definitely never happened in the park's history, a season ending walkoff home run.
Sweeping the East Division to end the season, Sobkow remarked that he felt that the end of the season showed that the Cardinals were better than their record indicated this year, a step in the right direction. "I think we showed that we had a good group here and we had the right idea in bringing in more veteran players this season as we showed what it takes to win in this league in rattling off four wins in very close ballgames," says Sobkow.
As for what went wrong, Sobkow had a couple of excuses that involved lady luck and two pitchers leaving the Cards hanging. "We lost our opening day starter in Stephen Barnett as well as another starting pitcher who was apart of a College World Series team that would have probably made us a playoff team as well as the fact that we gave away some games this season and had a few results taken from us by the umpires, things that can't happen if we are going to be a winning club," closes Sobkow.
Sobkow mentioned that he would like to see a lot of returning players next year and that he plans to return as head coach. Still you have to wonder what type of changes the Cardinals have to make to give Yorkton playoff baseball finally.
