NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Mavericks first baseman Andrew Savage watches the pickoff attempt from pitcher Zac Robinson in the Mavs' 5-1 loss against the Fort McMurray Giants on Wednesday night at Athletic Park.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The clock is starting to wind down on the 2023 WCBL season.
The Mavericks, coming off a 5-1 loss Wednesday at Athletic Park against the Fort McMurray Giants, have eight games remaining on their calendar with three slated for this upcoming weekend.
The Mavs head to Lethbridge on Friday to face the Bulls before hosting the Weyburn Beavers for a two-game set on Saturday and Sunday. Head coach Kevin Mitchell says it’s amazing each season how quickly games go by and how much they want to capitalize on the regular season contests left.
“These last eight games, it’s a good sample size to really see where we’re going to be at going into the playoffs,” Mitchell said. “Despite this loss, I still like the direction we’re going in and how we’ve been playing in the last week and a half, almost two weeks. A big goal for us is to finish at worst in second place to have a home playoff series in the first round and maybe further.
“Something that is also important to me is to finish at or above 500. It may not mean much in the standings but this team deserves to win more games. It feels good for the guys that we’re going into the playoffs as an above .500 team.”
The Mavs sit in second place of the WCBL’s East Division with a 23-25 record. They trail the division-leading Moose Jaw Miller Express (32-15) by 9.5 games but sit ahead of third place Regina Red Sox (20-27). If the playoffs began today, the Mavs would face the Red Sox in a rematch of their 2022 playoff opener series, a 2-0 sweep by Medicine Hat. Moose Jaw would face the fourth-place Swift Current 57’s.
Wednesday’s loss for the Mavericks came in their quickest game of the season, lasting only 2:13. Second baseman Brady Bean hit a home run in the bottom of the first, his sixth long ball of the season, for an early 1-0 lead. Fort McMurray scored five unanswered across the remaining eight innings for the win. Mitchell said it was a couple of Mavs mistakes and giving opposing players more credit than deserved that led to the loss.
One Giants run came off a passed ball in the seventh, another off an error in the eighth inning.
It was Fort McMurray who led the Mavs in errors committed (3-1). Medicine Hat pitchers walked four batters while Fort McMurray starter Alex Escobar pitched a complete game allowing only six hits, surrendering one run on Bean’s home run while fanning five.
The Mavs entered the contest off a split doubleheader in Swift Current, one day removed from a win at Okotoks against the Dawgs. They also played two extra-inning games on Thursday and Friday, totalling 45 innings across five days before Wednesday’s contest. But Mitchell says the schedule is the schedule, and didn’t see any signs of fatigue from the team – frankly seeing the opposite.
“Most days when we’re home, Mo (Greg Morrison) does early hitting work for the guys and he’s out here at 2:30-3 p.m., I showed up today because I like the shag for them, go out and catch fly balls,” Mitchell said. “There was like eight of our 10 position players out there getting extra swings, having fun, so it seems like they’ve got energy. Seems like they still have the juice, so it wasn’t that we were tired. It’s definitely been a lot of baseball all summer long, a long last couple of days into a week but that wasn’t a problem for us.”
