Officially, the opponent was the Lethbridge Bulls, but in reality, the Yorkton Cardinals' main foe over the weekend was rain. A series of three games scheduled against the Bulls over three days wound up as a double header on June 16.
The first game began on June 14, before being postponed for rain after a single inning. It picked up on June 16 at 2:05, starting with Lethbridge in the lead 1-0. While Yorkton quickly got on the board in the bottom of the second, it was Lethbridge’s game. The Bulls took the lead with three runs in the third, and sealed the deal with four in the seventh. Two runs in the eighth finished the scoring for Lethbridge, and while Yorkton put one up themselves in the bottom of the eighth, it wasn’t enough. Lethbridge won that contest 10-2
The second game started better for Yorkton. The Cardinals were in the lead in the bottom of the second, scoring a single run. The Bulls tied it up in the fourth, but in the fifth, two runs put them ahead and lead to their second win of the weekend, with a final score of 3-1. Coach Robbie Dombrowski, frustrated by what he saw as a poor call, was ejected from the game at the top of the fifth.
Dombrowski was frustrated with the weekend overall, and said that it’s clear that offense is the weakness for the Cardinals right now. Disappointed with losing two games that he thought they had a real chance at, he said that they really need to get more competitive at bats.
“We’ve got guys swinging for the fences every pitch of the game. We have no approach with two strikes on us, we’re not playing very good situational baseball, not moving guys early, not making aggressive plays on the bases. It’s hard in this league to string together four hits in a row and score runs, so we’ve got to do those things, and we haven’t been doing the little things.”
While he was ejected from the second game, he said that he’s always going to have his players’ back.
“He had a short fuse with me, so I figured I had to go out and get my money’s worth. No matter what our record is and no matter what the score is, I want the players to know I’ve got their back.”
Dombrowski gives full credit to Lethbridge for coming out on top after a frustrating weekend.
“I’ll give credit to Lethbridge, they sat in a hotel room for 48 hours straight, and they came out and beat the snot out of us. They were just more ready to play than us, we have no excuse for that. This is our home park, we were sleeping in our own beds.”
Next action is against the Regina Red Sox. While it’s not going to be an easy game, with Regina being one of the toughest teams in the league, Dombrowski believes playing against the team elevates their game, and they want to win one against them.
“That’s the good thing about this league, you’ve got a ball game every night. You’ve got a chance to redeem yourself. There’s no time to sit around and sulk, there’s another ball game tomorrow. We’re not going to say we’re at the bottom of the division, go home and pout about it, we’re going to play hard against Regina.”
