Busy sched ahead, Majors look to make up ground

Around the Diamond: Busy stretch (8 games in 12 days) starts this weekend (at home Friday vs. Barrie); Singles aren’t getting it done; Two pitchers depart, who will replace?; Catcher de Oleo returns to lineup. Our latest news & notes …

(Photo: Matt Hiscox Photography).

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Just when the London Majors thought they’d turned a corner, having won four games in five tries, they were hit by rain – and a lot of it. Postponed games last Tuesday and Friday cooled their momentum, and when they returned to action last Saturday in Barrie, they were hard-luck losers, dropping a 5-4 contest in Barrie that the Baycats won in the ninth inning.

They’ll get a chance at redemption Friday night when the Baycats come to town, but they’re now coming off two losses in a row (they were handed a 12-5 defeat by Welland Wednesday night) and are 6.5 games behind their Barrie counterparts heading into the weekend. London (8-14) sits in sixth place in the IBL standings, while the Baycats (16-9) are tied for second spot with the Kitchener Panthers.

A busy schedule lies ahead for the Majors, who will play eight games in the next 12 days (and 11 in the next 17). And if they hope to move up the standings in any significant way, they’ll need to win their fair share of those contests. First up is a trio of games this weekend. After Barrie at home Friday, London will head to Welland Saturday and then Kitchener Sunday (they’ll be back home Tuesday against Hamilton).

Besides improving their play on the field, on both sides of the ball, the team is engaged in last-minute talks with potential additions to the roster – including, perhaps, import players. The deadline to add players is Monday at midnight, and GM and field manager Roop Chanderdat has been busy working the phones.

In the meantime, though, they’ve got a weekend to win. Taking two of three is the goal, and that’ll be a tough task this weekend as they take on the league’s top three teams …

1) Majors needing something ‘extra’. If you remember the numerous big innings the Majors put up last year, including the five- and six-run frames that led them to so many victories, you’ll remember that a lot of the damage was the result of extra-base hits. Home runs, for sure, but also plenty of doubles that moved runners quickly around the bases.

That’s been missing this year. London does have 24 homers in 22 games, a more than respectable number, but they’ve hit just 30 doubles all year. That ranks last in the league. Their two triples are also tied for the fewest among IBL teams. All told, the Majors’ 56 extra-base hits are last in the league.

They’re also last in hits as a whole, which makes things difficult, but it’s made all the more hard when the hits are singles. This isn’t a Majors team that can run and create runs with speed. Without that component, they’re going to need to start driving the ball more, finding gaps and doing more damage with the hits they’re getting. In their two losses last week, they managed a combined two extra-base hits (11 hits in total).

It's not that they don’t have the potential. Starling Joseph, Byron Reichstein, Cleveland Brownlee, Tommy Reyes-Cruz, and Eduardo de Oleo (newly reinstated from injury) are all capable of putting the ball over the wall and finding gaps with doubles. They’ve just struggled to do so – especially in recent games.

2) Two games, two pitcher departures. Perhaps the writing had been on the wall. Import pitcher Anfernee Benitez had struggled in both of his first two outings in a London Majors uniform, allowing six runs (and an eye-popping 11 walks) in just 2 2/3 innings in his debut, and then five runs on nine hits in five innings in a loss to Toronto in his second appearance. 

But the breaking point happened last Saturday in Barrie. Brought into a 4-4 game in a matchup situation, with a runner on second and one out, the left-handed Benitez hit the first two batters he faced, both lefties. That loaded the bases. Though he was then pulled from the contest, a rules confusion by the umpires arguing that Benitez, as a reliever, was required to face a minimum of three batters, forced Chanderdat to put him back on the mound. He walked in the winning run on five pitches.

Benitez was released by the club after the outing, joining Adbiel Velasquez as another import arm that didn’t work out for the Majors this summer. Edisson Gonzalez then made it three this week. Though not performance based, Gonzalez was also released by the club due to injury.

The right-hander had been removed with arm discomfort in a game he’d no-hit Kitchener for five innings back on July 7. He returned to the mound Wednesday against Welland, but the arm issue was still there. He allowed three runs in two innings before exiting the game. Gonzalez had been on the road back from Tommy John surgery.

“He’s heading home, we’re going to shut him down,” said Chanderdat. “He’s a young guy, he’s had Tommy John … it’s about erring on the side of caution. He’s a great young man, it’s just unfortunate.”

(Photo: Wild Ave Photography).

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3) de Oleo delivers in return. Majors fans were surely excited to see the return of Eduardo de Oleo to the lineup on Wednesday. The catcher from the Dominican Republic was back in a London uniform after missing nearly a month of action due to a nagging injury. And he made his mark with the Majors down 8-0 in the fifth, he launched a three-run home run to lessen the deficit.

de Oleo finished just 1-for-5 in London’s loss to Welland, but the 30-year-old will certainly provide a boost to the Majors’ offense going forward – if he can stay healthy. He busted out of the gates in his IBL debut earlier this summer, collecting hits in each of his first nine games, batting .459 with five home runs and 15 RBIs during that span.

Those numbers had de Oleo at or near the top several offensive categories. But he then hit a rut, due in part to a nagging injury that limited him to designated hitter duties – and then to missing almost a month of action. In his 14 games overall, the catcher has a .321 batting average. His .661 slugging percentage and 1.022 OPS are both tops on the Majors.

With de Oleo back behind the plate Wednesday, another import player, Cris Ruiz, who had filled in during the former’s absence, moved to third base as Chanderdat wanted to keep the latter’s bat in the lineup. With the release of Anfernee Benitez, the Majors started the week with three of their four import spots being occupied by position players (de Oleo, Ruiz, Starling Joseph).

The team is adding an import arm this weekend to replace the departing starters, but it remains to be seen if they’ll make it two arms before the deadline Monday. If so, one of the three position players would have to be released.

4) Take a page from Drew. Offensively, strikeouts have been a major problem for the Majors, who have been racking up whiffs in recent action. Even in the two wins before their recent two losses, they struck out a combined 23 times against Kitchener and Guelph (while drawing five walks). It got even worse in London’s 5-4 loss to Barrie, as the team walked just once while striking out a whopping 16 times.

The situation was better Wednesday against Welland. Seven walks and seven strikeouts was a major improvement – even if it didn’t result in a win. The Majors currently have four players with 20 or more strikeouts on the season (Cleveland Brownlee, Starling Joseph, Keith Kandel and Tommy Reyes-Cruz). de Oleo and Byron Reichstein have struck out 16 times each.

So, Drew Lawrence’s numbers jump off the page compared to the whiff numbers of his teammates. The outfielder has struck out just five times in 60 plate appearances – while drawing eight walks in the process. He’s the only player on the team with more walks than strikeouts, an impressive feat for a player in just his second year in the IBL.

In fact, if he qualified for the league’s leaderboards (he’s just nine plate appearances shy), Lawrence would be one of just seven players to boast more walks than strikeouts. The others include Raul Gonzalez (Kitchener), who’s batting .398, and Dan Marra (Toronto), who’s at .357. Blake Jacklin and Liam Wilson of Kitchener are also on the list, as are Barrie’s Starlin Rodriguez and Guelph’s Ethan Hammond.

If the Majors’ offense wants to make more noise, they’d do well to replicate Lawrence’s impressive plate discipline so far this season. In 17 games thus far, the youngster is batting .298 with 12 runs scored.