IF you could go back in time to last Friday and tell the North Shore Twins that they were going to score 23 runs in their bestof-three series against the Victoria Eagles starting the following day, they'd probably start searching online for hotel rooms for the provincial championship final four tournament.
After all, the Twins relied on excellent starting pitching and strong defence to help them finish third in the B.C. Premier Baseball League with an impressive 30-18 record. That showing earned the team the right to host their opening round playoff series against the sixth-place Eagles but, in the end, home field and hot bats still weren't enough to get the Twins through to the finals.
The Twins got knocked around by Victoria in a 12-7 loss to open the series, rebounded for an 8-2 win in Game 2 but fell 9-8 in a dramatic, wild west shootout to end the series Sunday afternoon at picturesque Parkgate Park. The bats were there in every game but the Twins weren't able to shut down the Eagles in the field. Twins head coach Larson Bauck played the time machine game himself moments after bringing his disappointed team together for an end-of-season meeting.
"If you would have told me before the weekend that our pitching would have been our downfall, I would have told you you're full of it," he said. "But at the end of the day, it was the story.. .. It came down to pitching and defence and we just didn't do it."
Game 1 was over in a hurry as the Eagles scored eight runs, all with two outs, in the second inning to take a 9-0 lead and then pushed their advantage to 11-0 in the third. Twins centre-fielder Tristan Graham hit a grand slam in the fifth to make the score respectable at 12-7 but that's how it would end, Clark Grisbrook taking the loss and Victoria's Kurt Horne earning the win.
In game 2 the Twins put their ace on the mound and cruised to victory. Lefty Brad Smith, coming off a 10-win season, struck out four Eagles while allowing just one run on four hits and a walk in five innings. Catcher Riley MacDonald led the way at the plate with a 2-4 day, scoring one run while collecting three RBIs. Left-fielder Griff Goyer also had a nice game, scoring once and adding two RBIs while going 1-2 with two walks.
The win set up Sunday's sudden death showdown and the Twins actually got a dream start, scoring six runs in the bottom of the first to take an early 6-1 lead. The Eagles, however, spent the rest of the afternoon chipping away at the lead, scoring at least one run in every inning until the seventh.
Victoria finally caught up on a squeeze bunt with one out and runners on the corners in the fifth inning - the Twins fielded the ball cleanly but the throw to home plate sailed over the catcher's head. One batter later Kyle Muri gave the Eagles the lead for good with a two-out, two-run bloop single.
The teams traded runs in the sixth, giving Victoria a 9-7 lead heading into the final inning. The Twins finally put up a zero in the top half and Emerson Dohm made it interesting in the bottom half when his two-out triple scored Mitch Grisbrook. But with the tying runner on third, Victoria's powerful closer Brandon Feldman struck out Clark Grisbrook to end the game and the season for the Twins. Brandon Chernoff took the loss while Victoria's Riley Edmonds survived his disastrous first inning and earned the win by shutting out the Twins over the next four frames.
"We just didn't play well enough today to win a baseball game," said Bauck, adding that the team didn't respond well to the big lead they racked up in the first inning.
"We walked the leadoff guy the next inning," he said. "When you get a five-run lead and it's early in the game you've got to be aggressive and go after hitters. We didn't do a good enough job of doing that today."
Leadoff runners, in fact, were a huge part of Victoria's methodical comeback, said Bauck.
"Their leadoff hitter got on the first six innings, we couldn't get the leadoff guy out," he said. "Right away you're behind the eight ball right there. When you don't get the leadoff guy out it puts you in a position where they can bunt or play a little small ball. You've got to take your outs and we didn't do that today, we gave them too many extra outs. With any decent team that's going to come back to haunt you, and it did today."
The Twins suffered some hard luck just before the series started as shortstop Anthony Cusati, the team's best hitter this season, suffered an injury during practice the night before the playoffs began.
"It was just a bizarre situation where he just took a swing and tweaked his hamstring," said Bauck. "He's a great player and any time you lose someone in the middle of your lineup and at the shortstop position, it's always going to leave a hole."
The Twins were also without outfielder Robbie Panico, another top hitter throughout the season, who was on the shelf for the playoffs with a back injury. Bauck, however, was not about to use those injuries as an excuse.
"I really can't say that cost us," he said, adding that offence wasn't the problem. Matt Reyes, a member of the Junior Twins, was called up to the big club to fill in for Cusati and played well, going 5-9 in the series with a walk, two runs and three RBIs.
"Matt came in and did a phenomenal job for us as a Grade 9 kid," said Bauck. "He played great for us."
The major credit this weekend, however, goes to the Victoria Eagles, said Bauck.
"Credit to them in really putting a gutsy effort forward," he said. "They didn't play great defensively but at the end of the day they did what they needed to do to win the ball games and that's all that matters."
Feldman, the top hitter in the league this year, stayed hot in the playoff series, going 5-9 with three walks, two triples, five runs and three RBIs for the Eagles. Second baseman Zane Takhar gave Victoria some surprise pop as well, going 6-10 with five RBIs, all while batting ninth in the order.
"They were gritty," Bauck said about the Eagles. "They battled at the plate. Any time they got two strikes, they had good at bats. They were never an easy out, they didn't give anything away."
Victoria's upset win was part of a wacky weekend in the BCPBL in which the top three teams all lost in the opening round. The No. 8 Vancouver Cannons, who squeaked into the playoffs on the final day of the season with a 24-24 record, upended the No. 1 Langley Blaze and their mighty 39-9 regular season record. Meanwhile the No. 7 Nanaimo Pirates swept the No. 2 Victoria Mariners in an all-Island battle. Only No. 4 Abbotsford, the provincial host team, managed to avoid an upset, winning a tough three-game series against the Coquitlam Reds.
As for the Twins, Bauck was able to find the positives in a season that ended short of the team's ultimate goal.
"We're moving six or seven guys on to the next level, we had a guy (Lachlan Fontaine) drafted and signed as a professional, we had eight guys go to the (provincial team's) top-40 camp," he said, adding that setting players up for success at the college level or even in the pros is the club's top priority. Winning is always nice too though, and the Twins should have a lot of players back next year - including potentially Cusati and Smith - as well as a talented crop of players moving up from the juniors.
"The future looks very bright for us and we're excited," said Bauck. "As tough as it is to take a loss like that right now, you look forward to the future and the North Shore Twins are going to be pretty good again."
