The Nanaimo Hub City Paving Pirates will look to carry their strong start to the season to the Lower Mainland this weekend (April 16-17) knowing things are about to get a whole lot tougher.
The Pirates handily defeated the Victoria Eagles in both games of a B.C. Premier Baseball League doubleheader last weekend 8-1 and 7-4, but with the Vancouver Cannons and high-powered Langley Blaze waiting for them Saturday and Sunday respectively, maintaining that perfect record will be challenging.
“This is a different situation where Langley is on the back end of it, so with a team that good, you tend to worry a bit about your own team looking ahead and not preparing properly for Vancouver, who could come up and bite us,” said Pirates manager Doug Rogers.
Vancouver started the season 0-3 while the Blaze are 3-0.
But with five quality pitchers capable of winning against anybody, Rogers said he has the luxury this year of employing a dependable rotation instead of worrying about saving his aces for strong clubs.
“We have guys who can win against any team so I don’t have to worry about saving Kenton (Schroter) for Langley. There’s no issue anymore. It’s a really nice luxury to have.”
With 19 hits in two games to start the season last weekend, Rogers thinks the Pirates will have similar success against Vancouver at the plate, but expects the play to be much tighter against Langley.
“[Langley] has national-team pitching, so hits will be tough to come by. We hope to play little ball and do a lot more bunt and run, hit and run, all those little things that generate runs. We’ll be working on those things in practice this week and will implement them against Vancouver as well,” he said.