We all know as baseball players and fans that every night can be different in terms of who wins and loses. Through the last few weeks of the season our team was getting pretty banged up with injuries and our heads werent really on the game. This was where I struggled, I wanted to leave weyburn knowing I had done well and proved something, but I mean I worked hard I just need to find something within myself to get me over that hump. I will admit I saw my stats go down the tubes, but I felt pretty good with myself. My last few appearances were mainly for me, although I always am a team guy. I wanted to prove to myself that this was just a bad stretch, which it was.
amongst all the hoopla with injuries and my mediocre performances my coach gave me a spot start against regina, he had seen my hard work all year and gave me a shot. I pitched poorly, but was thankful for the chance. That would be my last appearance on the mound for the summer, but my side work and off field training didn't stop. I hit the gym twice as hard, threw more long toss even got a few bullpen sessions in which helped me develop my change-up a little more.
With all that said ill get back to my team. As I said above we had our share of injured players and some of them were key components to our squad, we had our shortstop go down with a leg and back injury, our 2nd basemen go down with a nagging wrist problem, and one of our relievers out for the year with a lat injury in his back. We knew the last 3 weeks would be a grind, mentally and physically with the loss of some good talented players and a stretch of games where we played the 1st place team Regina 4 times. With all that said we pulled up our socks got a few key wins and mde the playoffs . But going into the playoffs we had been on a 7 game slide that gave us the 1st place team in the first round . We could have been playing melville though a team we knew we could beat on any given day, but the baseball gods rained on us during a game that we needed to win to get the higher seed and the game was canceled.
So we headed to regina to play game 1 of our 1st round series, we took an early lead and had our closer on in the 9th but we let it slip away on one error and a bad call. Down 1 game to 0 we headed back to regina the next day to play game 2, with our ace on the hill versus theirs. we battled and battled but they pulled ahead by 3 late and we were not able to come back. So back to weyburn we headed with game 3 the next day, there was an air of desperation but also one of calmness and belief. We played tied for 6 solid innings until a string of bad errors late and our bats getting shutdown caused us to be buoyed and end up eliminated.
This summer was one of the best of my life and I will never forget any of the boys who played with me, some of them will go on to bigger things in baseball, while all of us will move on to bigger things in life. I hope I return next summer because this is the type of ball I want to play every year because this is the type of ball that makes you a better ball player and person.
Thank you weyburn and thank you fellas for a helluva ride through the dusty plains of saskatchewan and the WMBL
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