The Welland Jackfish aren’t concerning themselves with the past as they ready themselves for a meeting with the Guelph Royals.
The Jackfish host the Royals Saturday at 6:05 p.m. in Game 1 of their Intercountry Baseball League best-of-five playoff semifinal series which is a rematch of last year’s semifinal that saw the Royals prevail in four games.
“We’re not going on anything from last year,” Jackfish manager Brian Essery said. “We’re a different team this year. Obviously, they’ve changed. A lot of new faces on that team, too. They made a lot of moves so they’re a totally different team than what we’ve seen all season.”
The Jackfish, who finished in first place with a 31-11 record, swept the Royals in the regular season winning all four games by a combined score of 30-13.
The Royals placed sixth with a 20-22 record and upset the third-place London Majors in the first round of the playoffs.
“They’re not a sixth seed by any means,” Essery said. “Just the way they loaded up at the deadline, we saw what they did to London in the first round. We know we’re in for a battle, because their pitching is really good and so is ours.
“It’s going to be a battle of the two best pitching staffs in the league.”
The Royals added pitchers Claudio Custodio and Andrew Case at the deadline. Custodio earned the win in Game 1 of the quarter-finals while Case tossed three scoreless innings in two appearances.
With pitching expecting to dominate, Essery figures the little things will matter even more than usual.
“We have to still maintain our aggressiveness, which we will. We’re not going to shut that down by any means,” he said. “So we’ll still be aggressive on the bases, but we have to be smart and we have to play really good defence. Any little one of those things can cost you a ball game. So defensively, we have to be real sound, real tight.”
Both squads will be well rested for the series which will see the teams playing potentially five games in six days.
“No issues on the mound. We’re fresh and ready to roll and they will be as well because they ended their series on the weekend too,” Essery said. “You have two pitching staffs that are going to be fully ready to go, so I anticipate a tight series.”
Essery said he will keep the same starting rotation as in the quarter-finals. Teo Ortega will open the series followed by Euclides Leyer and Ben Abram.
“If it goes to a Game 4, we’ll see where we’re at then,” Essery said. “Depending on how we use (Jose) Dominguez out of the bullpen for the first three games, he can obviously start Game 4 and we feel real comfortable with Dominguez in Game 4. But who knows? We may need him. If it’s tight situations and high leverage innings towards the end of the game, that’s when we’re going to use him.”
The Jackfish also have lefty Pedro De Los Santos and closer Deivy Mendez to use in high leverage situations.
“We’re going to lean on those guys in the tight spots this series and I imagine there’s going to be some tight spots this series,” Essery said.
Game 2 is Sunday in Guelph at 4 p.m. with Game 3 Tuesday, Sept. 2 in Welland at 7:15 p.m. Game 4, if necessary, is Wednesday, Sept. 3 in Guelph at 7:35 p.m. Game 5, if necessary, is Thursday, Sept. 4 in Welland at 7:15 p.m.
Barrie takes on Hamilton in the other semifinal which begins Friday in Barrie.
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