Jul 14, 2025 By Chris Dugan 4 min read

Wild Things manager Tom Vaeth is like the guy with a fixer-upper house.

He replaces the gutters and the roof caves in.

He fixes the plumbing and the toilet springs a leak.

He replaces the wiring and blows a fuse.

Vaeth has been playing handyman with his ballclub this season. Every time he has applied a patch to one part of the team, another area has come unglued.

Early in the season, it was the pitching that needed tweaking. Two members of the starting rotation walked out on the team and another couldn’t get enough outs. The bullpen, meanwhile, was plagued by inconsistency.

A few key signings have seemed to stabilize the pitching, but at the same time the hitting stopped working. That’s when the Wild Things went 26 consecutive innings – believed to be a franchise record for futility – without scoring a run last week and were shut out in the first two games of a weekend series by Lake Erie. The Crushers swept the series and knocked the Wild Things out of first place in the Frontier League’s Central Division, by a mere half-game.

Vaeth admitted that his team’s hitting woes are a problem that had been percolating for weeks and reached a boiling point against the Crushers. He’s determined to apply a fix. That’s why, after a 5-2 loss Sunday, Vaeth said the league’s four-day all-star break will “give me time to find new guys.”

Don’t expect a full-scale rebuild of the roster. What Vaeth has in mind is likely a handyman touchup.

For too long this year, Washington has been relying on home runs. Or in the case of first baseman Andrew Czech, grand slams – he’s hit three.

And the running game, which has been a strength under Vaeth, is almost nonexistent this year. Washington has the fewest stolen bases in the 18-team league.

“We’re not good at getting the leadoff guy on base and we have no team speed,” Vaeth said. “We get a guy on first base and it takes three hits to score him. We can’t rely on the Earl Weaver three-run-homer style of baseball. We’re not built for that.

“The first thing we need is athleticism. I’ll be looking for hitters, guys with track records of getting on base, who have speed and can do something with it. We’ll also be looking for guys with a track record of driving runs in because we don’t do that.”

Though they’ve had to apply a patch here and some caulking there, the Wild Things are only half-game out of first place. With all the things they’ve had to overcome to this point, to be so high in the standings is amazing.

Even if they do find another hitter or two, and the pitching continues to improve, the road won’t get any easier for Washington. They begin a series Friday at East Division leader Sussex County and will play in August at Quebec, the North Division’s first-place team. The good news is they will play 13 home games in a 15-game stretch beginning July 25.

* The Cape Cod League has long been considered the premiere summer baseball circuit for college players. Seventeen Cape Cod alums were selected Sunday in the first round of the major league draft.

The Cape Cod League will hold its all-star game Saturday and two local players have been selected. Cotuit catcher Jack Natili, a Peters Township High School graduate, will play for the West Division team. Yarmouth-Dennis’ Tyler Pitzer, a former standout pitcher at South Fayette, was selected to the East Division squad.

Natili is coming off a strong season at the University of Cincinnati. Pitzer played this spring at South Carolina and has announced his transfer to SEC rival Mississippi State.

* Former Peters Township shortstop Sam Miller, who was the Ivy league Player of the Year this spring at Columbia, recently announced that he will be transferring to Florida.

* There are only nine more days until the Steelers’ first training camp practice.

Sports editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com