As the Victoria HarbourCats close out their West Coast League campaign with four head-to-head games against the Bellingham Bells, they might want to heed the words of three-time World Series-winning GM Pat Gillick.
The HarbourCats (21-30) won鈥檛 make the playoffs, and their 3-2 victory Thursday in Bellingham, which snapped a five-game losing streak, eliminated the Bells (25-26) as well. But no players at the developmental level of baseball can treat any games as meaningless.
When Gillick was in Victoria last month for the WCL all-star game, he said MLB scouts look at every attribute when evaluating players 鈥� including attitude within a game. Among the seemingly mundane things that scouts note, Gillick said, is whether a player takes batting/fielding practice seriously before a game, runs briskly from the field to the dugout after the third out of an inning and whether a player sits aloofly by himself in the dugout or engages with his teammates.
Gillick said pro teams are looking for certain character sets as well as skill sets. These players are being analyzed even when they think they鈥檙e not, and whether or not your team is heading to the playoffs is irrelevant to that equation.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e out of the playoff hunt, pride in the way you play the game and grind it out takes over,鈥� said David Schuknecht, who had two hits and an RBI Thursday for Victoria while Alex DeGoti banged out two hits and two RBIs and Timmy Richards got a double.
Will Ballowe (2-4) from the University of Washington Huskies took the win, and Ryan Keller from the University of San Diego picked up his fourth save.
The HarbourCats close out their inaugural WCL season with a three-game home set against the Bells beginning tonight at Royal Athletic Park.
The Wenatchee AppleSox and Walla Walla Sweets have clinched the two North Division post-season berths, so nothing is officially on the line this weekend at RAP. Yet everything is on the line in another sense. As Gillick indicated, every game is a personal playoff for these players.
