After struggling to start the year, the Midget AAA Devons have really started to turn a corner over the past few weeks, winning four of their last seven games. They split a doubleheader in Saskatoon against the Diamondbacks on Saturday to put their record at 5-9 on the year.
Both games were close in the doubleheader with the Devons taking the first one, 5-2, and dropping the second one, 4-3.
“I thought played very well,” said head coach Don Anderson on Monday about his team's weekend. “They pitch the ball very well and we know that when we play those guys it's going to be tight, but we capitalized on some of the mistakes they made to put some runs up and carried it from there.”
The Devons' play of late is in stark contrast to early in the season when they struggled to get runs, let alone wins. The team's offence has been producing and helping them to wins against some of the league's top teams, including a 3-0 defeat of the Regina Athletics last Thursday.
“It's coming along, we've lost some close ones and played pretty well in those games that we did lose, but that's baseball,” said Anderson. “I've said to the kids all along that if we play our best game and end up losing, I can handle that and I'm sure they can to, but early in the season it wasn't happening that way.”
While the Devons pitching staff has been led by Bryce Crosbie and Chris Cooper all season, Riley Morhart has put together back-to-back solid efforts to improve to 2-1 on the year. He pitched six innings in the Devons' 5-2 win on Saturday, giving up only two unearned runs.
“For a first-year player, he's pitched some pretty solid ball games his past couple of starts and this was another example of him locking in and challenging the hitters and forcing them to hit his pitch because he was ahead for most of the ball game,” said Anderson on Morhart.
The Devons will need everything working when they get back on the field on Tuesday night as the first place Regina Wolfpack come to Ross Wells Park. Not only are the Wolfpack in first place, they've yet to lose this year, going 9-0 so far.
“They're a pretty solid ball club, they pitch well, they hit well and they defend well. We're going to be in tough against them as anyone would be,” said Anderson. “We're swinging the bats pretty well right now, so we'll give the Wolfpack a good run and the bottom line is they know that they have to play their best game to beat us.”
The Wolfpack did that with ease in their only meeting of the season, which was a 10-1 loss for the Devons, but it came on opening day. Since then Moose Jaw has started to play better.
There will be another bonus for Moose Jaw as they plan to use either Crosbie or Cooper as their starter in the game. “It's going to be a game time decision,” said Anderson. “I'll talk with Aaron Foster, pitching coach, and it will be a game time decision. We have a few days off afterwards, so many we'll extend them both, but the game plan is undecided right now.”
Either way the Devons are in good hands as Cooper pitched a complete game two-hitter in last Thursday's 3-0 win over the Athletics, while Crosbie has been solid all year with 18 strikeouts in 15.2 innings and a 3.12 ERA.
First pitch between the Devons and the Wolfpack goes on Tuesday night at 7:00pm from Ross Wells Park.
Tue, May 7, 1:00 AM
Labour, Seasonal
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