Another marathon victory

By Ryan McCracken on July 27, 2017.

srooney@medicinehatnews.com @MHNRooney

It’s not only the heat that seems to slow things down — Medicine Hat Mavericks games have lasted longer this summer than ever in the team’s 14-year history.

With a combination of the Western Major Baseball League’s best offence and one of its worst defences, outings at Athletic Park have regularly surpassed three-and-a-half hours.

Wednesday’s 12-11 win over the Brooks Bombers began at 7:05 p.m. It didn’t end until 10:34 p.m.

By comparison, Major League Baseball is looking at potential rules changes to speed up its games, which average 3:05 this season.

“Some games we struggle fielding. It just combines together, and we get 20 hits a game,” said Mavericks infielder Rock Jordan. “(But) it’s fun, we’re playing ball and it’s fun putting up 20 hits a game.”

The teams combined for seven errors in Wednesday’s slugfest, the worst example coming in the fifth inning. With the bases loaded, Brooks’ Lee Thomas hit a comebacker to Hat pitcher Connor Deeds, who fell to one knee and rushed his throw home. As catcher Jacob Leal went to retrieve the ball two runs scored, then Leal lost the ball under his feet and a third run came across.

But Medicine Hat still led by two.

“Tonight a lot more runs, a lot more errors, stuff just adds up,” said Brooks coach Calvin Ellis. “There’s nothing really you can do.”

In the big leagues options like a pitch clock and reducing mid-inning breaks are on the table. But those aren’t the biggest time-wasters in the WMBL, where college-level players simply aren’t as polished as their professional counterparts.

Fans won’t complain so long as the home team is winning, and to be sure it looks like attendance is again up for the Mavericks this season — 950 were in the stands Wednesday. But that doesn’t mean they want to be staying out later and later, especially on weeknights.

Medicine Hat was hitting a league-best .313 as a team entering Wednesday’s game, way above Brooks’ .250. But their pitching staff’s earned run average was 6.20, nearly three runs worse per nine innings than Swift Current’s league-leading 3.34. And they’d committed 74 errors, fourth-worst in the WMBL.

They know they’ll need to clean things up to make a decent playoff run, but a side benefit would be quicker outings.

“It’s not really a physical thing right now, it’s a mental thing,” said Jordan. “I feel we’ll climb out of it.”

A four-run fourth inning gave the Mavericks an 8-3 lead. It included an RBI double from Chris Caffrey, and a Tanner Helms hit to the warning track that popped out of Kyler Genenbacher’s glove and was ruled an error to score two more.

Chris Rodriguez added a two-run home run in the eighth but Genenbacher responded with a ninth-inning grand slam, making for a nervous finish.

Pitcher Juan Carreon (3-5) took the loss for Brooks, pulled in the fourth inning. Deeds improved to 3-3, going 4 1/3 innings.

Now 24-20, Medicine Hat is in a dead heat with Lethbridge (24-20) and Edmonton (24-20) for the second, third and fourth spots in the Western Conference. With four games left there’s no telling where they’ll wind up. They host conference champion Okotoks (32-13) tonight, then play at Brooks Friday, and Edmonton Saturday and Sunday. If records wind up tied the Mavs’ season series with Edmonton is tied 3-3, though Lethbridge won the head-to-head series 4-2. Edmonton and Lethbridge’s season series is tied 2-2 and they face each other twice more.

Just like a Mavericks game, it seems the playoff race is going to take as much time as possible to decide.

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