A Strangely Disappointing Home Season

The Rivercats ended their regular home season last night losing a game to the Salt Lake Bees by 4-2.   There are lots of things to cheer about in this year's team. Even after losing three in a row the team still has the best record in the PCL.  Our magic number (with eight games remaining) is three.  Early in the season we won a series of games with walk off wins.   Darren Bush, the Cat's manager, had to deal with a huge number of trades, which with the A's in contention are surely not done.   We met some great new players during the season and saw the continued development of some familiar faces.   In one of the games in this series we saw Brandon Hicks hit a no doubt about it grand slam - which is always one of the most exciting events in baseball.

But last night we left 15 runners on base.  (That count jumps to 37 for the last three games.)   We outhit the Bees over the last three games but our hits did not come at the right time.  And then there is that home record - both home and away records are above 500 but the away record - before the last eight games is six games up on the home record.

The Cats travel to Colorado Springs for a four game series and then end the regular season in Salt Lake.  The Reno Aces, who currently lead the Pacific Northern Division have the Fresno Grizzlies and then end up with the Tacoma Raniers.   The Sky Sox, which have a better chance (the magic number for the Aces is 6) to catch the Aces than Las Vegas has to catch us, end the season with Las Vegas, all of their games are at home.   So there are some interesting dynamics at the end of the season between the two divisions that play each other in the first round of the playoffs.

As always happens in the minor leagues, the outcome of the playoffs is heavily dependent on adjustments to the big club.   We could easily lose a couple of our big guns in hitting and some key pitchers.    So we have to just wait to see what the A's decide to do.