The honeymoon over, Majors’ mettle being tested

Around the Diamond: London Majors (4-11), looking for wins, host Welland (Friday) & Hamilton (Canada Day); Can London solve first-inning riddle?; Brownlee reaches 500 RBI; Verhoeven steps up. Read the latest Majors news & notes …

(Photo: Matt Hiscox Photography).

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This is unfamiliar territory for the London Majors – especially considering the franchise’s most recent two seasons. The team went on a storybook run in 2021 and 2022. They pitched and hit their way to an impressive two straight league pennants – and back-to-back IBL championships. Everything, it seemed, went right.

Today, everything, it seems, is going wrong. The Majors have, indeed, been brought back to earth. Their 4-11 record heading into the Canada Day weekend in 2023 is a mark so foreign to the team it’s left them scratching their heads. And eight straight losses? Barely comprehendible.

But that’s the reality in which the team finds itself. The magic couldn’t last forever, of course. That’s not the nature of baseball. It’s a hard game. And the Intercounty Baseball League is a competitive circuit with particularly good parity this year. There are a lot of strong teams.

Okay, so the honeymoon has worn off. Now what? Not that their two league titles came easy, but things are certainly going to be more difficult this year – not unlike they were before the ‘glory years.’ Over the years, manager Roop Chanderdat has guided many Majors teams that scratched and clawed their way through rigorous IBL seasons trying to climb their way to the top.

There will be scratching and clawing this season. The path will be more difficult, in other words, but teams would be foolish to dismiss the Majors as a contender despite their rough start. There is plenty of season left, and thus plenty of time to right the ship.

Will the climb start this weekend?

1) Back at it. “The good thing with sports,” Chanderdat says, “is you get another opportunity pretty quickly. This weekend presents another opportunity, and that’s all we can ask for. If you can win two out of three, that changes a lot.”

This weekend doesn’t exactly present an easy route back to the win column. The Majors host the first-place Welland Jackfish (14-3) Friday night at Labatt Park and then the third-place Hamilton Cardinals (11-7) on Canada Day Saturday. On Sunday, London will travel to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs (10-8).

Despite currently riding an eight-game losing streak, Chanderdat believes the team is close to turning it around. “We’re right there. We’re at the door, we’re at the entrance, we just haven’t been getting in that entrance,” the manager said. “But we gotta put a (win) up on the board.”

The Majors have battled back in several eventual losses, including a pair of last weekend’s games — against Kitchener and Hamilton. But they’ve come up short in the end. Still, Chanderdat says it’s encouraging to see the fight in his players – something that’s helping keep confidence levels from getting too low after a slew of losses.

“We’re hanging our hats on small victories right now. I call them moral victories,” he said. “But somewhere we need a real victory. We need a win. My message to the guys has been, ‘When are we gonna turn this around? Why not this weekend? Why not tonight?’

Chanderdat’s been proposing the question around the clubhouse, ‘How can you help the Majors win?’ “We’re just trying to focus on what each guy can do to help the team right now.”

(Photo: Matt Hiscox Photography).

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2) Pitching doesn’t pan out. He had one more start to show his stuff. Unfortunately for Abdiel Velasquez, the right-hander faltered again last Thursday in Kitchener, allowing four runs in the first inning before being removed from the game – and, later, released from the ballclub. Two walks, two hit batters and a double did most of the damage in his final inning in a Majors uniform in a game London ended up losing 11-5.

Velasquez is hardly the only pitcher who’s struggled for the Majors this year, and Pedro De Los Santos, coming off a good outing the previous weekend, was knocked around Sunday in Guelph in a 10-2 Majors loss.

The left-hander had his own first-inning woes, allowing three runs to come across. Then, he was charged with five more in a big seventh inning for the Royals. His final line: nine runs (six earned) on six hits and five walks in just three innings. He struck out three in the 86-pitch outing.

And London’s third starter? Though he pitched a much better game than his counterparts, Owen Boon also found himself down early when Hamilton’s Tyler Duncan roped a three-run homer off the veteran right-hander with nobody out in the first inning. In Boon’s case, he wasn’t helped by a bloop single and an error to start the contest.

Going seven innings in total against the Cardinals, Boon allowed five runs (four earned) on 10 hits in the 8-7 London loss. He walked one and struck out eight. On the season, the righty is actually leading the IBL in strikeouts with 39 in 25 2/3 innings (four starts). He’s posted a 3.86 ERA and allowed just five walks thus far.

Boon will be available to pitch one of this weekend’s games. While the other two spots are to be determined, there’s a decent chance import arm Edisson Gonzalez will be re-activated to make one of those starts, while the other could go to either Anfernee Benitez or De Los Santos.

3) A Major milestone. It wasn’t all bad last Thursday in Kitchener. In the top of the eighth inning at Jack Couch Stadium, Cleveland Brownlee smoked a ball over the left field wall for a home run – and his milestone 500th RBI of his illustrious IBL career.

“No better way to get to 500 than with a home run. I’ll take that any day,” Brownlee told Gameday London. “It was a great accomplishment for me, and to get that out of the way relieves a lot of stress. 

https://t.co/fywsRnBc8b pic.twitter.com/iStLVuKcl1

— London Majors (@londonmajors) June 23, 2023

“I talked to one of the coaches on Guelph the other day, and he said to me, ‘Did you ever imagine you’d be here in the league this long and set such a good precedent?’ I told him, ‘No, I didn’t, but I’m thankful.’ Roop gave me a chance to come here.”

That was back in 2010 when Brownlee first joined the Majors as an import player from Atlanta, GA. In the 13 years since, he’s racked up a franchise record 132 home runs and 500 RBIs while posting a career batting average of .298. During the league’s 100th anniversary season, Brownlee was named a Top 100 player all-time. He has a chance this year to move into second place all-time in RBIs.

Coming off one of the best seasons of his career, at age 37, Brownlee is off to a bit of a slow start in 2023, although his four long balls are second on the team only behind import catcher Eduardo de Oleo (five). In 13 games, Brownlee is batting .240 (12-for-50) heading into action this weekend.

4) Stepping up. Speaking of home runs, another Major hit one in that Kitchener contest – and it was the first of his IBL career. Catcher Brad Verhoeven, a junior call-up from the St. Thomas Tomcats, went yard in the fifth inning to tie the score at 4-4 (before the Panthers put up a four-spot in their half of the sixth). The youngster finished 2-for-4 with a pair of RBIs and two runs scored.

Verhoeven, in fact, caught all three games last weekend, as de Oleo served as the designated hitter Thursday and then missed Friday and Saturday’s games due to injury. After an 0-for-4 night Friday, the rookie catcher went 3-for-3 with a walk and a run in London’s loss to Guelph.

Certainly, one of those ‘moral victories’ Chanderdat has referred to. Another bright spot from last weekend? Against Hamilton Friday, Josh Williams went 2-for-4 with his first homer of the year, while Kayne McGee had three hits in four at-bats with a pair of RBIs. Myles Miller had another good game, going 3-for-5 with his first homer as well.

“And we got a good outing from Cam O’Reilly in Kitchener,” said Chanderdat. “He gave us three innings of pretty good pitching, he just ran out of gas.”

Look for Verhoeven to continue getting chances behind the plate – particularly if de Oleo misses more time. The young catcher has seven hits in his first 20 at-bats this season. Also on the injury front, Dan Battel has been dealing with a nagging one, and he may miss time after getting just one at-bat last Sunday. Austin Wilkie, still out with multiple knuckle fractures from a hit-by-pitch early in the year, is expected to serve as a pinch runner this weekend and hopefully return to the lineup in a couple of weeks.