Cardinals Beat Themselves Early in Game 1 and Fail To Rally Against Chilliwack; Crozier Spins a Gem in Game 2 as the Sticks Heat Up and Salvage a Split

Finished at last with their 4-game regular season weekends, the league-best West Coast Cardinals arrived at Bird Field on Saturday morning ready to round out their Interdivisional schedule against the 3rd-place Chilliwack Cougars. This would be the Cards’ final tune-up before the Victoria Day tournament in Richmond gets going next weekend, where they will face Chilliwack in pool play. The field looked more like a lake at first glance and the chances of it being playable in time for a 12pm start weren’t looking great, but many thanks go out to the grounds crew that whipped it into the best shape possible. The Cards’ play in the first few innings unfortunately reflected the sloppy field conditions. They settled in after a while, but it wasn’t enough to overcome an early 4-run deficit in game 1 as they headed home with a split with the Cougars.

Chilliwack 6 CARDINALS 4

The Cardinals pitching and defence repeatedly shot themselves in the foot over the first three innings. It started with a deep, drifting flyball to right centre-field with 2 out and nobody on in the 1st that dropped over the head of the Cards’ outfielder, who miread the flyball. They were fortunate that all it cost them was a handful of extra pitches for starting pitcher Sugi to escape the 1st inning unscathed, but this would prove to foreshadow more costly errors to come. With two out in the top of the 2nd, Chilliwack’s leadoff hitter dropped a single into left field, managing to drive in his teammate from second base despite said teammate blowing a tire rounding third base. The next batter hit a towering pop-up that fell among three Cardinal defenders just a few feet behind second base, two more runs coming around to score and give the Cougars a 3-0 advantage. Simply unacceptable defence from the Cards, as they dug themselves a huge hole due to a lack of awareness and communication, now needing their bats to bail them out in a big way. They cut into the lead thanks to a blast from Kang, cashing in Hendriks all the way from first, but the bottom of the order could not come through late in the inning, stranding two Cardinal base-runners. It was up to Sugi to keep the Cards within striking distance, but a hanging slider that was deposited over the fence in right field by one of Chilliwack’s many potent left-handed bats didn’t help. Sugi would sit down the next two hitters and exit the game after 3 mediocre innings of work. The Cards would answer quickly, getting those 2 runs back in the bottom of the 3rd with RBIs from Yuen and Hendriks, but still trailed 5-3.

The bullpen received a rare call to pick up the starter’s slack, and they were up to the task. Symons provided his teammates with exactly what they needed - a chance to mount another comeback, throwing 2 2/3 of spotless baseball, his longest and strongest outing of the season bar none. Suzuki came in to retire the final batter of the 6th and maintain the deficit of two runs. Down to their final five outs, Yam inserted Powell into the order in desperate need of an offensive presence to try and tie the game up. The move worked out perfectly, as Powell pounded a ball to the right-centre gap, speeding his way into third for his first triple on the year. He would record the Cardinals’ fourth run of the game two batters later, reducing the Chilliwack lead to just a single run. Kang took control of the mound for the 7th, looking to put the bats right back into his team’s hands. The first two batters reached due to an error and a walk, and they would capitalize off a few too many pitches that got away from backcatcher New, reclaiming their 2-run advantage. It proved to make no difference as the Cards’ heart of the order couldn’t even muster a base-runner in the 7th, failing to complete a fourth comeback win in the last week, losing game 1 by a score of 6-4.

CARDINALS 5 Chilliwack 2

Contrary to the front end of the double-header, the back end saw the majority of the offence take place in the later stages of the game. The Cards took an early lead in the top of the 1st, as Sugi was handed a free pass and later driven in by Baybay. Crozier was called on to weather the Cougar’s storm in this one, and he held that 1-0 lead all the way through 4 innings, receiving some help from his defence and the opposing base-runners along the way. All four Chilliwack base-runners in the first three innings ran themselves off the bases. Fukuoka had himself a 2nd inning behind the plate, catching a runner attempting to steal second and back-picking another at first. Then in the 3rd, a crazy and well-executed double play saw Hendriks catch one runner sleeping on a groundball hit to him at short, tagging him out in a short rundown before firing over to first to catch the batter-runner hung up between first and second. The Cards would gradually add to their lead beginning in the top of the 5th. Crozier led off the inning with one of his three hits in the game, was sacrificed over to second, and later scored on a booming double over the centre fielder’s head off the bat of Sugi. Hendriks led off the 6th with a double down the left field line, and he would score the first of two runs in the inning for the Cards. Turnbull came off the bench to drive in a run and Crozier drove in another to give himself a 4-0 lead to take back to the mound with him. After Chilliwack finally put one on the board in the 6th, the Cards got that one right back in the 7th, benefiting from a misplayed liner to left from Sugi leading off the inning. Right behind him was Yuen, who dumped one just over the head of the second basemen, scoring Sugi easily from second, who was off on the pitch. Crozier trotted back out for the bottom of the 7th with his first complete game in his sights, but he would need to navigate through the meat of Chilliwack’s order one more time to earn it. Their #2 through #4 hitters delivered back-to-back-to-back singles to begin the inning, the tying run now in the batter’s box with still nobody out. Yam went out to talk to his starter and Crozier was adamant about staying and finishing the ballgame which was enough to convince his manager. Crozier would do just that, as he struck out the next three hitters to end the threat. He was magnificent from start to finish in this one, adding a 3-for-3 day at the plate, helping towards a 5-2 victory for the Cards.

As is typically the case whenever the Cardinals come out on the losing end, the defence wasn’t at its best for parts of today. Momentary lapses in concentration prevented them from making a case for the first game, but they did well to clean that up and walk away with a split against a tough Chilliwack team. The Cards won’t be able to afford any such lapses over the coming Victoria Day weekend, where they will take aim at winning it all in Richmond. They’re well aware of what can happen when you rely on other teams to do your dirty work for you thanks to their experience at the Best of the West in Kamloops last month. This time, they’ll need to be ready to go out of the gate when they open pool play on Friday night against Calgary.