The Baycats beat the Maple Leafs Wednesday night in Toronto 15-12 in 11 innings to take a two games to none series lead; but just as Barrie manager Angus Roy had warned us about, Christie Pits was weird and beautiful all in one.
Barrie starter Matthew St. Kitts had a rare rough outing, lasting 3.2 innings allowing eight runs (seven earned) on eight hits, striking out two. While the usual dominant starter seemingly couldn’t get anything going against an offensively gifted Leafs, it didn’t fare better for his counter-part Mike Webster. Toronto’s pitcher went 6.2 innings allowing eight runs (seven earned) on seven hits. Barrie bench boss Roy didn’t feel that the bad outing was entirely his starters fault.
“As soon as we saw the winds pick up in batting practice we knew it was going to be a high scoring game,” said Roy. “Our bullpen came up huge with Lawson being fantastic. I don’t feel St. Kitts did all that bad, he gave up maybe four homeruns and three of them would have doubles in our park so he shouldn’t beat himself up over it.”
The defense side of things was a little different with both teams combining for eight errors and Barrie having five of those. Roy knows that sometimes the whole team gels and others it takes different parts of the squad to get it done.
“Our offense was great,” said Roy. “Toronto is a good team at the plate and we battled them right back every time. Sometimes it’s the pitching, sometimes it’s the batting; we just have to get it done however we can.”
That’s a sentiment that Glenn Jackson echoed as well. The Baycats outfielder had a great night with a homerun in three at bats, three RBI’s and three runs. The veteran IBL player knows all too well about the need to get things done however you can and welcomes it.
“Sometimes ugly baseball is a beautiful thing,” said Jackson. “I truly believe in baseball there is karma and if you keep grinding then good things will happen. It was just intense.”
Karma was in full force as the Baycats lead 10-9 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth as Toronto had men on second and third. A routine ball to Baycats shortstop Branfy Infante’s was thrown high to first and allowed the tying run to keep the game going. The five run top of 11th was started by Infante and allowed the tired Baycats to head home with a two game lead. Jackson know mistakes will happen in the game and believes the closeness of the squad is what allows them to motivate each other.
“There was a lot of passion, we’ll call it, to start our half of the 11th,” said Jackson. “We were vocally reminding each other of who we are and that simple mistakes aren’t what we do. The best thing about this team is we’re brothers; this is a family. There’s no hard feeling after those passionate words. We pick our bats and gloves up and do better, and you saw that from Infante. That’s why he is a great player, that’s why this team has gone back to back. We’re a damn fine family.”
Baycats Adam Hawes got the win in relief despite the back to back 11th inning homeruns by a never-say-die Maple Leafs team.
Game three goes Saturday in Barrie at Coates Stadium at 7 p.m.
