[MAW] 2019 Wild Card Tournament Recap & 2019 Championship Tournament Preview

ERL Outlasts Meats to Win Wild Card

Paul Cooke

From the first batter in the box to the last.

Just a tick after 9 AM on Saturday morning, ERL’s Devin Torres stood alone in the Buffalo field batter’s box. With still an hour to go before the 10:00 AM scheduled start time, Devin was the first player on either field. Without a teammate to throw to him, he took some dry swings. Occasionally, he “threw” batting practice to himself by tossing a Wiffle Ball into the air and hitting at it on the way down.

Some ten hours later Torres was once again in the batter’s box, this time on Sheff. Instead of throwing to himself, this time he was staring down the Meat’s Kyle VonSchleusigen. The Meats and ERL were in the second game of the championship series – a series that by then was 20-innings long over two games. With both team’s pitchers quickly running out of steam and with only about twenty minutes of sunlight remaining, something had to give . . . and quickly. After just missing a base hit on the previous pitch, the left-handed hitting Torres knew he had Kyle timed up. He just needed a more hittable pitch. He got that on the next offering – a screwball middle-up – which he deposited over the right-center field fence for the game winning home run.

The walk off home run ended what was truly an epic finale to the first ever Mid Atlantic Wild Card Tournament and wrapped up the fourth seed for ERL in this weekend’s Championship Tournament. As big as Torres’ walk off hit was, he would likely not have been in that position if not for a play he made one inning earlier.

The Meats broke a scoreless tie in the fourth and were after insurance runs in the fifth and final regulation inning. Kyle got ahold of a hanger and sent the ball screaming towards the trees in left-center. Torres had positioned himself deep and timed the flight of the ball perfectly as he jumped in the air and swatted it back into play. Turning a sure homerun into a long single would have been good enough, but Torres was able to get under the volley and catch it on its way down. Turning that home run into an out proved huge, as ERL squeaked out a two-out run in the bottom of the 5th to extend the game. There is no guarantee the game would have even reached extras if not for Devin’s impressive defensive play.

In addition to those highlights, Torres also threw nine innings against the Risers in ERL’s opening game of the Wild Card Tournament. Because of his contributions to ERL’s tournament win, Devin was named tournament MVP. However, ERL’s victory at the Wild Card Tournament was far from a one-man show.

After ERL took down the Risers – which took nine innings – they collectively made the decision put their best arm forward against the Meats in the winner’s bracket final. That meant pitching newly minted 2019 Mid Atlantic pitching and MVP award recipient, Jordan Robles. Robles got the job done against the Meats in that game and didn’t give up the ball the rest of the day. In total, Jordan threw 25 innings – all against the Meats – on Saturday. Two earned runs in 25 innings is impressive on its own, but to do against the murder’s row that is the NY Meats lineup is incredibly difficult. Jordan contributed on offense as well throughout the tournament.

Connor Young spent the first half of the spring/summer season struggling to get in a groove at the plate. Things finally started to turn around for him in July and he built off that momentum in the Ridley Park playoffs where he hit .219/.490/.438 in 49 plate appearances to help his team to the league championship. On Saturday, Soup kept things rolling. His ninth inning single off Dave Capobianco got ERL passed the Risers in the opener. His biggest hit of the day came with two outs and two on in the bottom of the 5th in the second championship game versus the Meats. With his team down to their final out, Soup singled off Ryan Bush to tie the game and give Torres the chance to walk it off a few innings later.

ERL achieved what they set out to do by advancing to the semi-finals, but at what cost remains to be seen. Robles was understandably sore the next day and it is uncertain if he will have enough recovery time to be at 100% on the 14th. If ERL stays away from Robles partially or completely this weekend, they will need to decide how to divvy up the innings between Young and Torres. Additionally, word is that ERL will be a trio for the finals as Kenny Rodgers is expected to miss the tournament for prior commitments. ERL has momentum in their favor after the Wild Card Tournament, but will they have enough in the tank to get passed the Juggernauts and reach the finals?

Here and There

Once again, the Risers’ Dave Capobianco was the tournament Iron Man. Cap threw nine innings against ERL in a loss, the maximum twelve innings against the Yaks in a win, nine more against the Stompers in another win, and another six against the Meats as his all-family team finished in third place . . . Staying on the Risers for a moment, Dave’s son Matt was a late addition to the playoff roster and continued to turn heads. Matt – who had a couple of hits the last time he faced Jarod Bull – added a couple more and picked up the game winner off Gino Joseph and the Stompers . . . The Yaks and Stompers both went win-less on the day and both were done in by hitting woes. The Yaks have been in search of hits all year while the Stompers have largely run hot or cold . . . In coming back from one down in the 5th inning to win in extras against the Meats, ERL became the first team to win a post-season MAW game in which they trailed going into the final regulation inning . . . During a break in the action, the 2019 regular season award winners were announced. Cam Farro edged out Gino Joseph for Rookie of the Year while Kenny Rodgers Jr. did the same to Bent Stant in the hitting category. ERL’s Jordan Robles too home both pitching and MVP honors.

Up Next – 2019 Championship Tournament

Seven tournaments down. One left to go.

On Saturday September 14th, the four teams left standing in the 2019 Mid Atlantic season will descend on Shi Wiffleball Park. The winners of the two best-of-three semi-finals will square off in a best-of-three finals series to decide the 2019 Mid Atlantic Champion.

The format for the Championship Tournament – two short series – clearly differs from the normal structure at most wiffleball tournaments and certainly from all other MAW tournaments. It can require a different set of strategies than teams might otherwise not utilize during a normal summer tournament.

In 2017, the top seeded Yaks were a slight underdog to the 4th seeded ERL. With only one pitcher they could really rely on (then rookie Jarod Bull), the Yaks decided that to win it all they would need to steal a game against ERL with someone else on the carpet. They threw Dan Potter in the first game of the series and lost in a blowout. ERL’s Connor Young homered on the first pitch he saw from Bull in the second game and ERL swept in two. However in doing so, Young used up a lot of his energy and was largely ineffective in the championship series versus the Stompers.

Last season – with a modified double elimination tournament leading into the semi-finals – teams employed several different pitching strategies. The Longballs alternated between Sean Bingnear and Tyler Nachbar in both the double elimination portion and in their semi-final series with the Stompers to modest success. The Longballs went 2-0 in the double elimination section and while they dropped two straight to the Stompers, both were close, low scoring games. ERL hoped to get through the semi-finals by throwing rookie Blake Hoffman, but quickly pivoted when Blake – nursing an injury – struggled in the first inning of the semi-finals. The tournament champions, the Stompers, were able to execute their plan of throwing Chris Sarnowksi in the semi’s and Jordan Robles in the finals.

Then there was Ray Lutick and the Lemonheads. Like the Yaks in 2017, the Lemonheads hoped to steal one early against the Barrel Bruisers and lay off their ace – and only reliable pitcher – until later in the tournament. That plan went out the window when Tim Beck struggled to find the zone in the first. The Lemonheads were able to escape what had all the markings of a major upset, but in doing so essentially committed to throwing Ray the rest of the tournament. Ray was up to the challenge, tossing 48 innings and getting his team within one run of the title.

In any post-season tournament – but especially one comprised of short series – pitching decisions are paramount. In 2017 and 2018, teams made logical, common sense pitching decisions. Some panned out, some didn’t. Some teams were able to adjust, some weren’t. There is no blueprint. Some teams decide that winning the semi-finals doesn’t matter if it severely cripples their chances in the finals. Others go with their best pitcher right away and let things play out. Those teams fortunate enough to have several high-end pitchers have divvied up the duties in the past. We have seen each strategy succeed and fail these past two years. Both the choice of a pitching strategy and the ability to execute on that strategy is dependent on the personnel.

Which brings us back to this year’s Championship Tournament. Unlike in prior years, all four teams are relatively similar in that each one has at least two high-end pitching options to choose from. Each team in the field – assuming full attendance and health – could have three above-average pitching options to choose from. While depth is good, it can potentially complicate things for a team captain. When there are options to choose from, matchups and other more micro-level considerations take on a greater importance. The more options a team has, the easier it becomes to overthink and choose the option that in hindsight ends up being the “wrong” one. That is sometimes inevitable and as long as teams are quick to readjust – as we saw for the Lemons in 2018 – it can be recovered from.

Three of the four teams in this year’s Championship Tournament have a clear ace, with the Shortballs being the only team whose top pitcher isn’t quite as obvious. The Juggernauts, Longballs, and ERL will – under ideal circumstances – look to Ryan McElrath, Tommy Loftus, and Jordan Robles, respectively, in critical situations. The Shortballs – who have studied match ups, particularly prior successes against certain teams, in choosing their pitchers – will have more of a decision to make on whether they throw Teddy Drecher or Frankie Campanile when their backs are against the wall.

Even in knowing who their ace is going in, the three non-Shortball teams will still have to decide when and how to deploy their best pitcher. That decision is rarely as obvious as it seems. For example, the Juggernauts could reasonably decide to throw Ryan McElrath out of the gate against ERL so they can match up their ace with the best offensive team they have a chance of facing. It would also be reasonable to use Sarno – at least for game one – and hope to get at least one win from him in that series and save Ryan for the more traditional ace role in the finals. The Longballs and ERL will have to face similar decisions. Things may even get trickier for ERL who leaned heavily on Robles last Saturday while Young didn’t pitch a single inning. If Robles is less than 100% on Saturday, it would likely alter how ERL utilizes him in the Championship Tournament.

How the four teams use their pitchers is only one of many interesting stories that will unfold this weekend. Mid Atlantic is streaming the entire tournament on their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/midatlanticwiffle) starting with the first game of the Shortballs/Longballs series at 9:00 AM ET.

In the Hole

A little over a month after the Championship Tournament, MAW will hold its final outdoor tournament of the 2019 calendar year. The Fall Wiffs event on October 19th is a draft tournament welcome to all players, new and returning. For full details and to register: https://www.midatlanticwiffle.com/2019-fall-wiffs.