The Yorkton Cardinals have struggled to put a win together this season, with a record of 1 and 11 so far this season. The latest chance was an afternoon game against the Regina Red Sox on June 4. The Cardinals stuck in through the last inning, before finally falling 5-2 after 9 innings.
The game was scoreless until the fourth, with Regina starting the scoring with two runs, one from Erik Crossman off of a hit from Chris Diehl, while Robbie Wilkes came home from a hit from Griffin Keller. Yorkton got a run of their own immediately after, with Jason Wallace going from first to home during the at bat of Gage Buck.
Regina put another run on the board in the fifth, with Wesley Moss getting home after an Erik Crossman hit. In the sixth, Chris Diehl made it home thanks to a hit from Samuel de la Cruz. In the seventh, Wesley Moss came home a second time on a hit from Robbie Wilkes.
Yorkton got their second run of the game thanks to an error from Regina, allowing Gage Buck to make an unearned run.
Coach Robbie Dombrowski said that while they’ve had a tough start to the season, they have still been in the hunt for the games, and they’re still going into it with the right attitude.
“This whole week, we’ve been in close ball games, which is an improvement for us and really, if you look at the beginning of the week, we’ve got the two best teams in the league. We’ve got Regina and we’ve got Weyburn, and it’s towards the end of a long seven game stretch, I was worried a little about our pitching, and every guy I put in there really competed on the mound. I know we’ve got guys who can hit, and while they didn’t show it today, if we continue to pitching performances like that, we’re going to win some ball games. It’s going to get better.”
While the start of the season has been rocky for the Cardinals, the defense is starting to get on track, and now they have to work on hitting.
“The pitching and defense today were good enough to win,” said Dombrowski.
Next up for the Cardinals is a meeting against the Weyburn Beavers in Yorkton at Jubilee Park on June 12. It won’t be an easy game, as they’re against the top team in the league, but the Cardinals have been in close against them in previous games.
“We have the talent to beat them, and the expectation is to beat them. We don’t ever come into a game going ‘oh shoot they’re 10 and 2 and whatever our record is, we’re going to lose this game.’ That’s never our attitude, and it’s my job as a coach to set that tone, no matter if we’re playing Melville, Weyburn or the New York Yankees. We come out and we expect to win. That’s something we haven’t had yet, that expectation, it’s going to come as we get a bit of confidence and get a couple of wins under our belt,” Dombrowski said.
While the lack of hits was a disappointment against Regina, Dombrowski believes they’ll put it together soon.
“That’s the way baseball goes, sometimes you’re hot, sometimes you’re not. But the way we’ve hit the last two games, we’re due to get hot!”
