Prior to this summer’s American Legion Senior Division baseball season, a reshuffling of the 14 teams in the WMass pool created some waves throughout the area. Perennial powers Greenfield Post 81, Northampton Post 28 and Pittsfield Post 68 were joined by Belchertown Post 239 in what was called Zone 1/2, while Zone 3A featured five teams and Zone 3B also featured five teams, most notably Wilbraham Post 286 Red.
It was the third different look for WMass Legion baseball in three years. In 2017, teams played in just one big league, with 14 teams battling for the top of the standings. Last year, teams were split into two zones (A & B), and Greenfield went out and won the Zone B regular-season title before falling to Pittsfield in the postseason.
But this year, scheduling changed with the realignment. Teams in the same zone played each other twice, while playing the rest of the squads in the league just once. In essence, the slate skewed top-heavy, with Greenfield, Pittsfield and Northampton playing the toughest schedules in the unbalanced format. The top two teams from each of the three zones earned postseason qualification, leaving just two wild card spots for the rest of WMass.
It didn’t matter.
The same four teams — Greenfield, Pittsfield, Northampton and Wilbraham Red — represented the final four teams in the playoffs. The three Zone 1/2 teams from that quartet are a combined 45-13. While the goal of the realignment may have been to give teams in Hampden County a better chance at making deep postseason runs, Zone 1/2 still occupied three spots in the eight-team double-elimination tournament.
“They tried to pull politics into it but the cream always rises to the top,” Post 81 manager Kyle Phelps said. “Three of our teams from our zone made it to the (final four) again. Belchertown, if they were in another zone, I think they definitely could’ve been a top-eight team and made the playoffs. I was hoping they were going to get in.”
The changes this year also included the shifting of the WMass tourney to neutral sites. In years past, higher-seeded teams hosted playoff games. That was not the case this summer, much to the chagrin of Post 81. The team finished as the No. 2 seed in the eight-team tournament, meaning it would’ve hosted the majority of their games at Vets Field in Greenfield. While the team did get to play Sunday night’s game against Northampton there due to other scheduling circumstances, Post 81 has made three trips to the Palmer/Wilbraham area in the past five days.
“We would’ve had all four games we’ve played so far at Vets Field under the old system,” Phelps said. “Luckily we got to play one there.”
Wilbraham’s Spec Pond will be the site of tonight’s championship slate. Greenfield and Pittsfield meet at 5:30 p.m., with the winner playing Wilbraham Red immediately after in a winner-take-all game for the District 1 championship. The team that comes out of tonight’s tri-meet will advance to the state tournament, set to begin on Saturday in Milford.
Pitch count has certainly made for an especially strategic approach to this year’s postseason.
“It changes your strategy in games with the pitch count. Sometimes you start thinking about the pitch count and not thinking about the games so it can be hard but we all try and weigh our different options,” Phelps said. “The amount of quality pitching we have on the roster, it’s helped us.”
Greenfield will play its fifth (and hopefully sixth) game in six days tonight, and it will do so without the services of its Nos. 1 and 2 pitchers. Ben Arnold threw 103 pitches in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Agawam, while Owen Phelps tossed over 100 pitches in Sunday’s win over Northampton. Anything over 81 pitches requires four days of rest, meaning neither pitcher can take the ball tonight.
Joel Peabody threw 69 pitches in Friday’s loss to Wilbraham Red, a number that requires three days of rest. He’s eligible to go tonight, and will get the ball to start against Pittsfield. Relievers Kalen Evans and Jacob Berry have both thrown innings during the postseason run, and both pitchers are available tonight.
“In the playoffs, once we got a loss, we just made the decision to let Ben go the full game, let Owen go the full game,” Phelps said. “We weren’t going to try and hold anybody back.”
The remaining teams are in similar boats. Pittsfield will not have pitchers Carter Matthews (91 pitches Sunday against Wilbraham Red) or Hunter Potash (106 pitches Friday against Northampton) available, meaning it will likely turn to Ian Benoit for the start against Post 81. Benoit threw 78 pitches in the playoff opener against Monson on Thursday.
“I told some of the guys who haven’t pitched all season that they could be pitching potentially in the final,” said Phelps, referring to players like Connor Waitkus and Garrett DeForest. “We pitched a few guys in the Keene tournament (last month) so they’ve seen a few innings. I would hope we should be able to get through with our top three pitchers remaining (Peabody, Evans, Berry), but you never know what’s going to happen.”
In some ways, Sunday’s thrilling 6-5 victory in an elimination game against Northampton was nothing new for Post 81. Playing close games, namely one-run games, has been a common sight in and around Vets Field this summer.
Greenfield is a whopping 6-2 in one-run games this season, including one-run victories in each of its last two games — both elimination tilts.
“I just think this group has played together for so long,” offered Phelps of his team’s resiliency. “The leadership of Colin (Cloutier) and Ben (Arnold) — both guys being 19 and a year out of high school — they’ve played in so many games that it kind of rubs off on the younger guys. Even if we give up a big inning, they’re never down, they pick each other up. They seem to always stay positive. We’ve had a lot of success in close games.”
Pittsfield offers a familiar foe. Post 81 lost twice to the Berkshire County club during the regular season, including a 4-2 loss on July 6. In last year’s tournament, Pittsfield handed Greenfield two losses, including an elimination defeat. Pittsfield went on to win the District 1 championship — its third championship in four years. Greenfield last won a title in 2014.
“The guys are ready to go, they want to make states,” Phelps said. “They’re motivated to do it. Obviously, we’re playing a tough team in Pittsfield. I think any one of the three teams left have a chance to win the whole thing. Hopefully, it’s us left standing at the end of the night.”