By Ken Beckett

BURLINGTON – As the Barrie Baycats look to complete the drive for five and capture their fifth-straight IBL Championship, the Burlington Herd hope to play spoiler and put an early end to Barrie’s championship ambitions in the first round of the 2018 IBL Playoffs. 

The Burlington Herd enter the playoffs looking to build on what the club accomplished last year, picking up the first playoff win in franchise history against the London Majors, before falling in five games in the first round series. 

Going from a best-of-seven format in previous years, the IBL has switched to a best-of-five format for the first round so the room for error will be minimal. The Baycats swept the season series against the Herd, but several of the games were closer than the head-to-head record indicates, especially on home turf at Casey Cosgrove Field. 

While the Baycats won all three games played in Burlington, one of those wins was a close 2-1 victory in just the Herd’s third game of the season on May 17, before key additions like Mattingly Romanin and Vaughn Bryan signed with the team. In that early season match-up, both teams were tied at one until Kyle Degrace singled home Ryan Spataro in the top of the sixth inning. 

In another home game for the Herd on July 12th, Barrie jumped out to an early 8-1 lead, but Burlington showed incredible resolve to battle their way back and score five runs over the seventh and eighth innings before putting a man on base and bringing the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth despite the rally falling short. 

The Herd will look to their offensive leaders to solve the Baycats pitching staff and overpower a club that finished first in the 2018 IBL standings and enter the post-season on a 13-game winning streak. 

Justin Gideon led the way offensively for Burlington in 2018 as he has done in years before, finishing first in runs (34), hits (49), doubles (11), home runs (8), RBI’s (28), and stolen bases (16). The speedy centerfielder also tied with Bryan and catcher Jon Thibodeau for first on the team in batting average, with all three Herd hitters finishing the season batting .333 at the plate. 

A native of Pickering, ON and last year’s 2017 Herd regular season MVP, Gideon also enters the post-season on an 11-game hitting streak, collecting 18 hits over that stretch. In last year’s playoff series against London, Gideon was solid at the plate, putting together a .316 batting average with six hits, including a home run, two RBI’s, and four stolen bases. 

Making his first postseason appearance with the Herd is Vaughn Bryan, who has been a key addition since joining the team on May 31st after the season had already begun. Appearing in 30 games with Burlington, Bryan finished tied for first on the team in batting average but not only lead the team, but also the entire league in triples with four on the year. 

While Bryan was fond of using his speed to collect three base hits, the Sunrise, Florida native also used his blazing speed around the base paths to finish the season with 12 stolen bases, good for second best on the club behind Gideon.  

The Herd pitching staff will have their hands full with a Baycats lineup that batted a league best .316 at the plate in 2018. The next closest team were the London Majors who hit .286 over the regular season. 

Casey Howard led the Herd in wins this season with four and was the winning pitcher in last season’s lone playoff win. Howard finished second on the team, meanwhile, in strikeouts with 39 over 60.2 innings pitched, behind Chris Boatto who registered 41 strikeouts over 54.2 innings of work. 

Barrie enters this first round series coming off a strong 2018 regular season, finishing with 13-straight wins for first place in the standings with a record of 27-8, 3.5 games up on the Kitchener Panthers to capture the pennant. 

The Baycats were solid all around in 2018, receiving dominant hitting and pitching performances from several key contributors. 

It was Kevin Atkinson who was one of those contributors, finishing the season with a .352 average to go along with ten home runs and 45 RBI’s. Atkinson’s 45 runs driven in were good for second best in the league, just one behind Cleveland Brownlee of the London Majors. 

Another hot hitter was Jordan Castaldo, as the Baycats infielder led the league with a .403 batting average, collecting 48 hits in 31 games. Those 48 hits ranked second best in the IBL, trailing Gideon and Grant Arnold of the Hamilton Cardinals by one hit. 

As if those hitting performances weren’t impressive enough, the Baycats were also hard to hit against with a pitching staff that was led by import hurlers Frank Garces and Emilis Guerrero. Garces was downright untouchable, finishing the season with a miniscule 0.38 ERA, winning all seven of his starts. While Javier put together an 8-2 record in 2018, registering 64 strikeouts over 67.2 innings pitched. 

The Baycats pitching staff led the league with an ERA of 3.40, while also limiting hitters around the league to a .251 batting average. 

Game One of this first round series is set to go down on Thursday night at Coates Stadium in Barrie, with first pitch scheduled for 7:30PM. While Game Two will shift to Burlington as the Herd host the Baycats on Saturday, Aug. 11, with first pitch set for 6:05PM. The rest of the series schedule can be seen below. 

Game 1: Thursday, Aug. 9, at Barrie 7:30 p.m. 
Game 2: Saturday, Aug. 11, at Burlington 6:05 p.m. 
Game 3: Sunday, Aug. 12, at Barrie 7 p.m. 
*Game 4: Monday, Aug. 13, at Burlington 7:15 p.m. 
*Game 5: Tuesday, Aug. 14, at Barrie 7:30 p.m. 

If you can’t make it to the game, “The Voice of The Herd” Ken Beckett has the call for all Herd home games on Mixlr.com/IBLHerd. For live-game broadcasts, interviews, player profiles, game previews, and recaps, follow Ken on Twitter at @KenBeckett.  

The Burlington Herd are a member of Ontario's most elite baseball league, the Intercounty Baseball League. The 100-year old summer league is one of the oldest baseball leagues in the world, with the league established in 1919, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. For more information, visit www.iblherd.com or follow the Herd on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @IBLHerd.