Mavs keeping things simple in Fort Mac

By Sean Rooney on June 22, 2018.

Staying focused on baseball hasn’t been much of a problem for the Medicine Hat Mavericks this week.

In Fort McMurray to play four games in four nights, it turns out they haven’t done much else.

“Yesterday we took them to Walmart so they could get some groceries and not spend a lot of money,” said head coach Andrew Murphy when asked how the team has spent its down-time since arriving in the northern Alberta city Tuesday. “Today we took them to the mall.”

Not that they’re complaining. After seeing their 10-game winning streak stopped in Edmonton Monday night, the Mavs won their first two over the Giants and remain atop the Western Major Baseball League Western Division standings.

Murphy said that while conditions at Shell Place aren’t great for scoring runs, his side has found a way to scratch enough across.

“It’s really hard to score in this park, the ball doesn’t travel very well and the turf is extremely slow, any ground ball is an out. That’s been the toughest part,” said Murphy, whose team won 5-2 in 10 innings Tuesday, then 5-2 Wednesday. “We’ve tried to play a little more small ball, run a little more and it’s worked out.”

One more game Friday, a good night’s sleep, then 12 hours on a bus is all that separates the team from getting home. They host the Lethbridge Bulls Sunday, 2:05 p.m. at Athletic Park, but the schedule-maker has the team headed straight back on the bus next week with games in Lethbridge, Melville and Yorkton.

The good news, of course, is that after this two-week stretch the Mavericks spend most of July in friendly confines. Ten of their first 12 games in July are at Athletic Park.

Also good is how the team’s played thus far, regardless of location. Carson Johnson leads the club with a .360 batting average, Louie Canjura has 18 RBI and Jumpei Akanuma is 3-1 with a paltry 1.40 earned run average. The team batting average is above .300, best in the league, while the pitching staff’s combined ERA is 2.30, a mark bested only by 13-1 Weyburn (2.09).

“It makes my job harder but it’s also a lot more fun, because anybody I put in there I know is going to be good,” said Murphy.

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