The boys of summer are learning the lessons of summer ball with the Victoria HarbourCats (7-7) in the West Coast League season.
“This is a great group of kids and they are working hard getting acclimatized to another country and to wood bats,” said Victoria head coach Todd Haney.
The WCL features university NCAA players and most are Americans.
“They are talented players who want to play at the next level and are at the [batting] cage every day.”
The route is set out there right in front of them. This year’s opening-day MLB rosters included 33 WCL alumni. Infielder Brooks Lee, part of the Corvallis Knights team that beat the HarbourCats in the 2019 WCL final, is ranked as the top overall player for the 2022 MLB draft next month. Catcher Adley Rutschman, also out of the Knights, was the top pick in the 2019 MLB draft by the Orioles. WCL alumni have been selected in the first round in each of the past five MLB drafts, although the players are listed under their university teams.
“This is the best group in my time with the club,” said HarbourCats GM Curtis Pelletier.
“They are here to learn and are all business. They all want to develop.”
The players go from weekend games in the NCAA, to playing every day in summer leagues such as the WCL, to emulate the kind of slog and bus travel they will face in the minor pros.
“Having to compete daily is the biggest adjustment for these players in summer ball,” said Haney, a long-tenured former pro, including five seasons in MLB with the Expos, Cubs and Mets.
“They are seeing and living the grind on a daily basis.”
That means not even the rare open WCL weekend is left dark. Nobody is going to be just hanging around town or the mall. With no WCL games scheduled for them this weekend, the HarbourCats began a three-game non-league exhibition set against the Coquitlam Angels on Friday night at Wilson’s Group Stadium at Royal Athletic Park. The Angels won the first game 9-6. The other games are tonight and Sunday afternoon. The HarbourCats return to league play Tuesday night when they welcome the Wenatchee AppleSox to Royal Athletic Park for the first of three games.
The Angels, 2018 Canadian champions, are a Senior A team with a roster of former college and university players that plays in the Pacific International League. The idea is that playing against men will take the HarbourCats’ learning curve to another level.
Meanwhile, Colton Moore’s three hits, two RBIs and two runs scored lifted the HarbourCats to an 8-3 victory over the host Kamloops NorthPaws in WCL action Thursday night and moved his team second-leading batting average to .333 behind leading Grady Morgan’s .364.
The win salvaged for Victoria something out of the three-game WCL set following 9-8 and 5-4 losses in Kamloops against the expansion NorthPaws (8-6 heading into Friday night).
The WCL expansion Nanaimo NightOwls (6-8), meanwhile, have a league-free break in their schedule this weekend but it’s also filled with an exhibition series Friday through Sunday at Serauxmen Stadium against the senior Redmond, Washington, Dudes from the PIL.
