After flooding in the Parkland area gave the Yorkton Cardinals an unplanned break in their Western Major Baseball League schedule, baseball returned this week as the Cards played five games with the weather cooperating enough to get all but one scheduled game completed after one of the most rain-filled starts to July in recent memory.
Despite the excitement to get back on the diamond, the layoff appeared to have cooled off the Cardinals promising play from June as after hovering around .500 Yorkton has went 2-3 to start July.
After splitting their postponed Canada Day doubleheader with the Saskatoon Yellow Jackets the Cardinals played host to the Regina Red Sox on Friday night as Jamie Whitehead would get the start for Yorkton against Red Sox starter Kevin Hand.
Whitehead would get plenty of early run support as the Cards would score an early run in the first before scoring three more in the bottom of the second inning to climb out to an early 4-0 lead, eventually leading 7-2 heading into the Red Sox last turn at the plate after two bottom of the eighth runs gave reliever Aaron Dick plenty of cushion to close the game out and secure a second straight win for Yorkton on the bounce.
Dick would need all of that run support as the Langley, B.C. product was unable to get an out while allowing four Red Sox runs to cross the plate, forcing the Cardinals to use another closer in Cole Roark to come to the mound.
Despite having a higher season ERA than Dick, Roark showed impressive composure by retiring all three Regina batters without blowing the lead to earn his second save of the season in a 7-6 win that was a lot closer than anticipated following the four run Regina rally in the last half inning.
Whitehead was solid on the mound for the Cards in what was his second win of the season, striking out six batters in 6.2 innings of work on the mound to move to 2-1 in five starts for Yorkton with a 2.59 ERA in early July for one of the Cardinals better Canadian born pitchers this season.
At the plate Georgie Santiago and Kameron Mizzell continued their strong seasons with two RBI's apiece in the win. Austin Drummonds, Ben Grillo and Matt Collier each got one RBI apiece as the middle of the Cardinals lineup was solid on Friday night.
Heading to Regina for a rematch on Sunday the Cardinals would start their workhorse in Jeff Pool, but trouble would strike early as the Alabama born pitcher would be unable to get out of the fourth inning, giving up four runs and seven hits in the process to put Yorkton behind early and forcing reliever Codi Scanlon to come in.
Luckily for Yorkton, the bullpen would shutout the Regina hitters once Pool left the game, allowing the Cardinals to work their way back into things. Two runs in the fifth inning followed by another in the top of the sixth thanks to RBI's from Santiago and Collier would make things interesting, but starter Labradford Griffis would get out of danger and allow the bullpen to close out a 4-3 win to avoid two straight losses to the Cardinals as Regina would take a crucial East Division win.
After a potential third straight game between the two ballclubs was rained out as a storm at Jubilee Park cancelled a game between the Cards and Red Sox, Yorkton would turn their attentions to a Highway 10 battle as Melville came to town looking to take second place in the East Division.
Something that the Cardinals wanted to spoil, sending Chris Rideout to the mound in the hopes of closing the distance between Melville and first place in the division with a home win.
Things started out promising as in the bottom of the first inning Yorkton would score first as the veteran Mizzell would score leadoff hitter Nick Gotta to put the Cardinals up 1-0 early, giving their starter a very small cushion of run support to work with.
That lead would stretch to the top of the fifth inning as after the Yorkton bats couldn't provide any more runs for Rideout the starting pitcher eventually conceded the first run of the game to Melville before reliever Vin Whitenight allowed two more runs in the sixth to dramatically change the game as after the Cardinals spent most of the opening half of the game holding onto a slim lead they would have to play catch up for their final four trips to the plate after things fell apart on the mound slightly.
Sadly the bats couldn't get going for Yorkton despite for an infield hit from Cameron Duncan in the bottom of the ninth and some nifty base-running on throwing errors from Melville to get runners on second and third with one out the Cardinals couldn't get much going until it was too late in a 4-1 loss.
Yorkton assistant coach John McVey mentioned that the rain delay against Regina, and the rain delays in general have made it difficult for batters to get their rhythm. Especially against a strong pitcher like Melville's Steven Bunnell who went eight innings and struck out six after calming down from Mizzell's RBI double early.
"It has been a stop and start type of season with the weather, something that can really change the momentum of a hitter especially when we are dealing with young ballplayers here," said McVey following Tuesday's loss. "Even the most consistent of batters can be thrown off by a rain delay and it was a difficult challenge for us tonight to face one of the better pitchers in the East Division which cooled our bats a little."
McVey also mentioned that it was good to get back to baseball after the weather forced both the Cardinals and the Millionaires to cancel Canada Day weekend action, noting that after Melville's field and city faced significant flooding it was good to see them able to host home play as of late.
"The weather and flooding was unfortunate for everyone in the are so we are excited to get back to playing baseball and giving the fans something to cheer about now that things are back to normal, especially for Melville who had some problems with their field so it is good to get back into a routine that hopefully won't be interrupted by Mother Nature like that again this season," said McVey.
Sitting 1.5 games up on the Weyburn Beavers for the last playoff spot in the East Division, the Cardinals will have arguably the most important stretch of their 2014 campaign when they play the Beavers four straight times this week. With a chance to get some distance between themselves and get back into the East Division race with both Melville and Yorkton chasing the 18-10 Red Sox, McVey is looking for the Cardinals to go on a streak to secure their playoff hopes in a crucial July for a ballclub that has missed the postseason for the past few seasons.
"Right now three teams are battling for two playoff spots and two of them are going to eventually get hot and turn things around after going a bit below .500," said McVey. "We have to control our destiny and make sure that we are one of the teams in our division that gets some wins going in order to make the playoffs which I believe we are more than able to do this year based on the first 20 plus games we have played this season."
"We have to make sure that we believe in ourselves and get the guys to have faith in themselves that we can get wins and make the playoffs to really make a run here, once we do that I think our season can definitely be a success if we can get those wins to get into the postseason," closed McVey.
