The Jackals have hit the halfway mark of the 96-game season and it’s crystal clear what they’ll have to do to make it to the postseason:

     They’ll have to improve their pitching.

     Their hitting over the first half of the season was sensational – the best in the entire Frontier League with an eye-popping .302 batting average that went along with their league-leading 333 runs. They also led the league after 48 games in hits, RBI, total bases and slugging percentage, and were No. 2 in the league with 76 home runs.

     Nonetheless, the Jackals began the second half of 2022 on Sunday with a record of 23-25, near the bottom of the standings and trailing first-place Quebec by 10 games in the East Division loss column.

     The reason: New Jersey pitching, with a team ERA of 6.53, was the third-worst in the league, better than only Trois-Rivieres and the 3-46 travel team known as the Empire State Greys.

     But, there is a bit of a silver lining: Even though the Jackals are far from first place at the moment, the teams in front of them are bunched up only slightly ahead of them.

     “We need a nice little winning streak,” said manager Brooks Carey. “Things would look a lot brighter with a nice little winning streak.”

     When the regular season ends under a harvest moon, the No. 2 and No. 3 teams will play a single Wild Card game on Sept. 6, with the winner going on to face the No. 1 team in the East in a best-of-three series for the division title. The East and West champs then meet in a best-of-five for the overall league championship.

     All of that is still a long way away, but still within Carey’s sights, regardless of the current record.

     “I really do believe we can make a run at this,” Carey said.

     “Our hitting has not been just a couple of guys here and there, it’s now a team thing. It’s not just individuals any more, it’s the whole team, which doesn’t happen every day. This group can get to the playoffs. I like this group a lot.”

     As for the pitching…

     “Some guys could come around in the second half,” Carey said. “We’ll keep trying and we may have to come up with a new face or two to help us.”

     Still, there have been standouts.

     Wiry 26-year-old Dominican righty Jorge Tavarez has brought some drama to the mound at Yogi Berra Stadium, ranking third in the league with 72 strikeouts to go with his 5.40 ERA. The former minor-leaguer with the Los Angeles Angels had a tough outing Saturday night, lifted by Carey after five earned runs in four innings.

     Leonardo Rodriguez (2-3, 5.23 ERA) has been solid in his eight starts, while two relievers, Hansel Rodriguez (2.37, 15 appearances) and Angelo Baez (3.45, 18 appearances) have generally kept things under control, Baez with 38 strikeouts and just six walks.

     It’s the hitting, though, that has kept the Jackals alive in the East Division this year.

     “We expected to hit,” said Carey, who brought back most of last year’s super productive lineup. “Still, it would have been hard to predict that we’d hit this well.”

     Start with 27-year-old first baseman Dalton Combs, who is having a simply insane season so far. After going 4-for-6 in Sunday’s doubleheader, he’s now batting a league-leading .407, and he’s third in the league with 49 RBI. The former San Francisco Giants draft pick – who also has 11 home runs – will take a 23-game hitting streak into the home series against Sussex County that begins tomorrow.

     Center fielder Todd Isaacs is 10th in the league at .335, Josh Rehwaldt leads the league with 17 home runs, Combs, Rehwaldt, Justin Wylie and Alfredo Marte are all in the league’s top 10 in RBI and Isaacs is tied for fifth with 19 stolen bases.

     Adding to the glittering offensive stats are Rehwaldt (.319), Wylie (.301), Santiago Chirino (.297), Trevor Abrams (.294), Marte (.291) and Jason Agresti (.288). Overall, that’s eight players who form a monstrous lineup from top to bottom each night.

     No… Hitting has not been a problem.

     Carey was a standout pitcher back in his day, when he played Triple-A ball with the Baltimore Orioles, but he won’t be taking the mound in Little Falls. Instead, with four more victories as manager, he’ll move into the No. 11 spot for all-time wins in the Frontier League, acquired first with the Normal (Ill.) CornBelters and now with the Jackals.

     After this week’s series with the Miners, the local squad hosts Tri-City over the weekend, then it’s time for a four-day break for the league’s all-star game in Washington, Pa.

     The Jackals will conclude the month hosting the West Division’s Windy City Thunderbolts, followed by an 830-mile bus trip to Illinois to face the Schaumburg Boomers, visiting the Lake Erie Crushers on the way back home.

     From then on, it’s all East Division opponents in August, including home and away series with first-place Quebec, six home games against the last-place Greys and six potentially dramatic Garden State games with the Miners, ending the regular season up in Sussex County Sept. 2-3-4.

     After that? It could all depend on improved pitching over the second half of the season.

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