photo: Phil Hoops 

Baseballs could be flying in every direction the next few nights in Troy, NY, when the New Jersey Jackals visit the Tri-City ValleyCats in a faceoff between the two teams tied for the lead in Frontier League home runs.

     The Jackals and the Cats enter their first meeting of the year with 39 home runs apiece, and with two of the best offensive lineups in the East Division. Both teams rank in the top five in the league – New Jersey with a team batting average of .287 and Tri-City batting .282.

     New Jersey expected to have a big year at the plate with so many proven hitters returning from last year’s club, and that’s proven to be true over the first quarter of the 2022 schedule.

     The pitching has been another story so far, with the local listed next to last in the league with a team ERA of 7.51.

     “Obviously, I spend a lot more time thinking about our pitching than our hitting,” said manager Brooks Carey.

     “We knew we would hit. And, the great thing is that it’s not just one or two guys getting hot now and then, it’s pretty much everybody hitting and hitting with consistency.”

     And with power. With 39 homers in the first 24 games of the year, the Jackals could be aiming for 156 long balls over the course of the 96-game season if they stay at this pace. The league record is 164 home runs, set by the Gateway Grizzlies in 2007.

     Second baseman Justin Wylie is leading New Jersey with eight early-season home runs to go along with his .308 batting average. After hitting .342 for the University of Arizona in 2019 and suffering through baseball’s Covid shutdown in 2020, Wylie joined the Jackals last year and made a big splash, batting .289 with 15 homers and 64 RBI.

     Josh Rehwaldt is right behind Wylie with six home runs so far this year, followed by Trevor Abrams, Alfredo Marte and Todd Isaacs with five apiece. Meanwhile, ironman catcher Jason Agresti is one of the leading hitters in the league with a .357 batting average, just ahead of Dalton Combs, who’s at .352.

     It’s been a powerhouse lineup, for sure. Coming up with a cure for the pitching problems remains the main task at hand for Carey, himself a former lefty on the mound in his playing days.

Unique Challenges Ahead

     After this series with Tri-City, the Jackals return home to begin a two-week stretch when they’ll face the two best teams in the league in nine games, surrounding a three-game series with the worst team in the league.

     First, they’ll host the Ottawa Titans this coming weekend – a team currently in second place in the East with the second best record in the entire league at 18-6 (.750). The Titans boast one of the top hurlers of the early season, lefthander Chris Burica, who’s now 3-0 in five starts with a 1.65 ERA.

     Those same Titans will return to Yogi Berra Stadium two weeks later for yet another three-game series. That will follow a quick three-game road trip for the Jackals to Quebec to face the top team in the league, the Capitales, who’ve gotten off to a spectacular 21-5 (.808) start to the year.

     The Caps feature not one, but two pitching standouts in lefty Miguel Cienfuegos and righty Michael Austin. Each has six starts so far, the former with an ERA of 2.19, the latter at 2.23.

     And, right in the middle of all that top-shelf competition, the Jackals will host the vagabond Empire State Greys for a three-game series next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

     Created by the league this year to round out an eight-team East Division, the homeless Greys play all of their games on the road and are currently 0-25. The Jackals will host them a total of nine times.

     Of course, facing a winless team poses a different kind of “elephant in the room” challenge for any team.

Schedule Twists

     After opening the season with 15 straight games against West Division teams, the Jackals have now faced six West Division opponents, but that trend changes in a big way for the next three months.

     New Jersey has already played the Evansville Otters, Florence Y’Alls, Gateway Grizzlies, Joliet Slammers, Washington Wild Things and Lake Erie Crushers. The remainer of the 2022 season will be spent against East Division rivals except for two more series in July – three home games with the Windy City ThunderBolts and a trip to Schaumburg to face the defending champion Boomers.

     --- The Garden State Rivalry finally kicks in on July 1 when the Jackals and the Sussex County Miners play the first of 12 contests. The two clubs will face each other for the last time in the final weekend of the season Sept. 2-4.

By Carl Barbati, former sports editor of the New Jersey Herald, Daily Record and The Daily Trentonian.