Baycats fall to Maple Leafs

Sports

Posted By LUKE EDWARDS, SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER

Updated 2 months ago

Mark Wanzel photoJordan Lundberg of the Barrie Baycats sends one up the middle which brought fellow teammate Jonathan Baksh home during third inning action against Toronto Thursday.June/24/10

For the most part this year, the Barrie Baycats have dominated close games. On Thursday night, however, that wasn't the cast.

Playing their 21st game of the season, Barrie coughed up a 6-1 lead to the Toronto Maple Leafs with a sloppy seventh inning and ended up losing 7-6. Heading into the game, Barrie had found significant success in close games, going 8-2 in one-run games.

After Barrie reliever Chris Kemlo retired the first two batters in the seventh inning, the wheels fell off for the Baycats. Five straight batters reached base, capped off with a three-run homer by third baseman Jordan Castaldo.

Barrie's defence was only charged with one error in the inning, but struggled throughout with a couple of questionable miscues. The one error that was charged went to third baseman Donovan Latour and it was costly. Kyle Degrace hit a hard grounder that took a strange hop on the lip of the infield grass.

Latour made the catch, but the strange bounce seemed to shake his concentration, as he promptly threw the ball five feet over Matt Logan's head at first base.

Castaldo followed with the home run that tied it up at 6-6.

In the top of the ninth, Toronto took the lead when Kern Watts drove in Rob Gillis with an RBI single to right-centre field.

The loss edged the Maple Leafs closer to Barrie in the standings. Toronto still trails Barrie for second place in the IBL, but the gap is now only 2.5 games. Brantford has moved into first place.

Paul Spoljaric got the start for Barrie and pitched six strong innings. The lefty gave up one run -- a home run to designated hitter Jeremy Walker. He allowed only two hit and walked none.

Marek Deska started for Toronto, pitching into the seventh. He allowed six runs on 10 hits and four walks, but struck out eight Barrie batters.

With less than a month to go in the regular season, the Baycats are heading into the stretch drive.

While it may be tempting to start scoreboard watching, the Barrie skipper said that that's not going to happen quite yet.

"We just have to play better baseball. We're playing well enough to keep us in ball games, but we just have to play better baseball and we'll win the majority of games. I'm more concerned about us (than what other teams are doing)," Roy said.

Barrie has been one of the best teams in the IBL since they won the league championship in 2006, and this year they are poised to record at least 24 wins for the third straight year. Last year, the team finished the regular season atop the standings with a 26-10 record. In 2008, they went 24-12. With the exception of a disappointing 2007 season, Barrie has won at least 20 games every year since 2004.

With the loss, the Baycats are 16-5. They have 15 games remaining in the regular season sched.

The 2010 edition of the Baycats have seemingly found ways to win games by any means necessary. On games when their pitching struggles, the offence explodes and when the bats can't muster anything, Barrie's pitching has shut the door on the opposition.

Barrie is now 8-3 in one-run games, a testament to their ability to find ways to win. Of the three losses, two of them have been come-from-behind wins for Toronto.

Heading into Thursday's game Barrie ranked second in the league with a team ERA of 3.41 and third in team batting average, hitting at a .270 clip. They've scored 107 runs, third most in the IBL, and allowed only 76, the second fewest.

The only area that Barrie has struggled to excel in is defence. Barrie is tied with Hamilton for the third-worst team fielding percentage in the league. That poor defence was on display on Thursday, as Barrie was committed three errors in the contest.

Barrie now heads out for three straight road games, beginning with a date in London with the Majors on Sunday. From there, they head to Brantford on Wednesday and then to Mississauga on Thursday.

They return home on July 3 for the first half of a home-and-home weekend series with the Kitchener Panthers.

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