Wild Things sweep Crushers, to play for FL title
What works during the regular season usually carries over to the postseason.
During a 95-game regular season, the Wild Things’ pitching staff posted the most quality starts, lowest ERA and gave up the fewest runs in the Frontier League.
During the West Division playoff series against Lake Erie, the pitching staff was again dominant. Washington completed a sweep of the best-of-3 series with a 10-0 thumping of the Crushers on Saturday night before 3,300 at Wild Things Park.
Washington won both games in the series via shutout. After Kobe Foster and two relievers combined on a three-hit shutout in Game 1 Thursday in Avon, Ohio, five Wild Things pitchers worked a two-hitter to put Washington in the finals for the fifth time in franchise history.
The Wild Things’ opponent in the best-of-5 championship series has yet to be determined. Quebec beat Ottawa, 10-6, Saturday to even the East Division series at 1-1. Game 3 will be played Sunday (5:05 p.m.) in Quebec.
The championship series will begin in Washington. Game 1 will be Tuesday (7:05 p.m.) and Game 2 is set for Wednesday (6:05 p.m.). The series then shifts to Canada for the weekend.
Against Lake Erie, Washington pitchers yielded only five hits in 18 shutout innings.
“It’s hard to lose that way,” Washington manager Tom Vaeth said.
The Wild Things did have a small blip Saturday as starter Zach Kirby issued five walks in four innings. Both pitching staffs seemed to have trouble with home plate umpire Alex Lawrie’s strike zone as they combined for 15 walks.
“Zach didn’t have his best stuff,” Vaeth said. “He had trouble repeating his delivery. But when I took him out, I told him to look at the scoreboard. There were four zeroes up there. He gave us four shutout innings. That was important, especially after we took a 3-0 lead.”
Dariel Fregio (1-0) pitched the fifth and sixth innings, retiring all six batters he faced, three on strikeouts.
One of the interesting aspects of playoff baseball is that you never know who will come to the forefront. In this short series, it wasn’t Washington’s Caleb McNeely, the league MVP, or Tyreque Reed, the league batting champion, who did the most damage for the Washington offense. It was catcher Ricardo Sanchez, the No. 9 hitter in the lineup.
Sanchez was 3-for-4 and drove in both runs Thursday, then went 2-for-3 with three more RBI in Game 2.
Sanchez drew a leadoff walk from Lake Erie starter Jack Eisenbarger and scored the game’s first run in Washington’s three-run third inning. He added an RBI single in a three-run fourth and drove in two runs with a single in a three-run seventh.
Sanchez, who was signed by Washington as a free agent after playing the last two years for Trois-Rivieres, batted only .214 during the regular season.
“I’m fortunate to have good teammates around me,” Sanchez said after a champagne-and-beer-splashed celebration on the field. “I was beat up all season. I didn’t hit to my expectations. I didn’t help offensively but I was there defensively.”
Sanchez called 18 shutout innings as catcher in the series.
Washington took a 3-0 lead in the third. After Sanchez and McNeely worked walks, Tommy Caufield hit a hard smash back up the middle that struck Eisenbarger and ricocheted into shallow left field. Sanchez scored, and when McNeely tried to advance to third base the throw from the outfield got away, allowing a second run to score.
Caufield made it 3-0, scoring on a Wagner Lagrange sacrifice fly.
Lake Erie loaded the bases in both the second and fourth innings but Kirby pitched out of both jams.
“They have a helluva ballclub over there, but I would have liked to have capitalized on the chances that we did have,” Lake Erie manager Jared Lemieux said.
In the bottom of the fourth, Ethan Wilder’s double drove in Jalen Miller, Sanchez followed with an RBI single and Wilder made it 6-0 when he raced home on a sacrifice fly by Caufield.
Two Lake Erie errors allowed Washington to make it 7-0 in the fifth.
The Wild Things closed the scoring in the seventh when Wilder drew a bases-loaded walk and Sanchez followed with a two-run single to left centerfield.
Washington will now try to win its elusive first league title. The Wild Things are 0-4 in the finals, losing in 2002, 2007, 2018 and 2021.
“I’m looking forward to getting it done,”Vaeth said. “I’ve only been part of one of those but I’m looking forward to putting this to an end.
“There’s a challenge in that, but I don’t care who is in the other dugout. If we get good starting pitching and timely hitting, we can beat anyone.”
Extra bases
Former Pittsburgh Pirates manager and recent Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Jim Leyland threw out the first pitch. … Ryan Munoz, Alex Carrillo and Jordan DiValerio followed Fregio on the mound, each tossing one scoreless inning.