The Yorkton Cardinals hosted the Regina Red Sox at Jubilee Park in their last home game of the current season Wednesday, July 27. Following their double loss to the Okotoks Dawgs the Cardinals still had a chance, albeit a slim chance, to make it into the Western Major Baseball League (WMBL) playoffs with a win over the Sox and a subsequent follow-up win over the Weyburn Beavers. The faint hope was snuffed out as the Red Sox shellacked the Cardinals 8-2 on the strength of a seven run fifth inning.
Cardinals starter Yesniel Henriquez, who worked four and two thirds innings giving up nine hits which resulted in eight runs, took the loss.
James Green recorded a pair of RBIs while Landon Briscoe and Luis Sanchez each scored a run for Yorkton.
Following the final home game of the season, Cardinals assistant coach Jared Franklin reflected on the 2011 season. He feels the slow start to the season hurt the team. He suggests the team played very well in the second half of the season. "Had we started that way in the first half, we'd be in the playoffs. We just had such a poor start it put us in a big hole early," Franklin suggests.
Following his stint as assistant coach in Yorkton Franklin is looking forward to the possibility of a head coaching job in Pennsylvania.
An obviously disappointed Yorkton Cardinals head coach Bill Sobkow characterizes the current baseball season as the season from hell, a real nightmare, he suggests.
Sobkow echoes Franklin's assessment that the Cardinals had a bad start to the current season. Some of the players who arrived early were injured. Some really didn't want to be in Yorkton. Some had failing grades in school and had to return to look after things, he reports. "Gosh after June 20 we had to start recruiting all over again," he points out. Luckily the Cardinals found nine players to replace the earlier ones who left, he admits. "It was a very challenging year for us with players," he declares.
Ideally Yorkton could still catch Weyburn if the Beavers lost their last two games. If the Cardinals won their last two games with Edmonton, they could tie the Beavers. While he admits he's not optimistic about Yorkton's chances for a playoff berth, he does suggest the possibility is still there.
Part of the problem down the stretch was the Cardinals' short bench giving the team little chance to to replace struggling players during a game. "If you can't replace players by July 1 there is no opportunity anymore," Sobkow notes. The Cardinals ended up with players who left between July 1 and 10 which left the team without a solid bench whether it was pitching or position players, he reports.
The opposite problem occurs with too many players on the bench. Players want to play more and start sulking when they don't get the chance to play, Sobkow suggests. "It's a fine balance. You need players who have experience in winning and you need players who actually want to be in Canada to play summer collegiate baseball," he says.
With the WMBL changing into a full collegiate league, things will become more difficult for the Cardinals, Sobkow reports. Yorkton will not be able to draw from players who may be a little older. It will be all collegiate level players, he notes.
"Usually you can tell in your first six to eight ball games of the season whether there's going to be some sort of attack," Sobkow states. It became apparent early in the year that all kinds of things that were very negative offensively were happening on the field, he claims. "We were used to this because we've had some anemic batting in the last couple or three years," he says. In recruiting players he looked for good batters. According to the reports he received from coaches and from the stats he'd seen, he recruited some solid hitters. "Jon Mihic, for example batted .360 for his college this spring. I don't know if he'll reach .260. A .360 batter slowing down to .260 is a big letdown," Sobkow says.
One bright spot was James Green who was looking to break the all time league base stealing record. Green has performed very well both defensively and offensively this season, Sobkow states.
While he's disappointed at this point in the season, Sobkow is already considering options for next year. It's not east to recruit Canadian players, he says. When players like Mihic, Richie Seaton or Ben Sollows say they would like to return for another season, he needs to take players like that, Sobkow states.
He thinks the players from the Dominican Republic wanted to play summer baseball and did very well overall.
"Anytime you don't make the playoffs it's not good," Sobkow sums up his disappointment. The Cardinals have excellent sponsorship. People buy season tickets and the team draws some good crowds for home games. The staff and board will discuss the season, address all the problems and try to come up with a team that will qualify for the playoffs in the future, Sobkow closes.
The Cardinals wrapped up the season in grand style with an 8-2 rout of the Weyburn Beavers Thursday night at Tom Laing Park in Weyburn.
Cardinals starter N.D. Gonzalez who worked for eight innings, giving up five hits for one earned run and striking out 12 batters, earned the win.
Green led the scoring with three runs, followed by McLeod with two. Mihic, Jake Bailey and Sanchez each added a run.
Bailey had a pair of RBIs while McLeod, Gabriel Molina and Mihic each knocked in a run.
Despite the win, the Yorkton Cardinals finished out of the 2011 WMBL playoff race.
