If this is Thursday, it must be Connor Russell and Scott Kuzminsky.
The West Coast League is where collegiate baseball players are quickly thrown together for the summer without much time together following their various NCAA or NAIA seasons.
That makes it especially tricky for the men behind the masks, who must catch unfamiliar pitchers in game situations.
For Victoria HarbourCats catcher David Schuknecht, it was starter Russell and reliever Kuzminsky on Thursday after seeing winner Nick Pivetta and closer Ty Provencher the night before in the season opener.
Russell went 7-1/3 innings 鈥� giving up two runs on four hits with two walks, six strikeouts and three hit batters 鈥� in a 4-2 victory for Victoria (2-0) over the Kelowna Falcons (0-2). Kuzminsky, from the University of Hawaii Rainbows, came in to take the win.
鈥淵ou just have to work through it and make quick adjustments [when seeing so many new pitchers in succession],鈥� said Schuknecht, who was selected in the 12th round of the MLB draft out of high school in Palm Desert, Calif.
While Victoria Eagles product Pivetta, Baseball America鈥檚 105th-ranked player for the 2013 MLB draft, is expected to be taken today when the draft enters the third and further rounds, Russell is also a hometown player out of the Vancouver Island Baseball Institute Mariners.
While he never met Pivetta, Russell, Provencher or Kuzminsky before this week, the one person Schuknecht is well acquainted with is HarbourCats manager Dennis Rogers, who was also Schuknecht鈥檚 field boss at Riverside City College. It鈥檚 a connection Victoria fans should be grateful for as Schuknecht was lethal at the plate with three hits, including a homer, two RBIs and two runs to pace Victoria鈥檚 8-6 victory Wednesday.
Schuknecht followed up Thursday night with a hit and scored two runs, both on Chris Lewis RBIs.
鈥淚 was bad at the plate when younger and I鈥檝e worked through a lot of stuff as a batter,鈥� said Schuknecht, headed next season to UC-Santa Barbara of the NCAA.
The key hit Thursday was Alex DeGoti鈥檚 single-shot homer 鈥� a classic Pembroke Street Poke by the Long Beach State shortstop over the short porch in left field 鈥� that gave Victoria a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Meanwhile, the six-foot-one Schuknecht has had to work through a rotator cuff injury that ended his freshman season at the University of Arizona. The road back has gone through Riverside and now Victoria. It鈥檚 been a resolute recovery. So much so that Schuknecht鈥檚 bio on the WCL website states: 鈥淣ow fully recovered, Schuknecht is projected to be a potential first round pick when he re-enters the MLB draft following his college career.鈥�
He will be joined on the HarbourCats鈥� roster later this month by brother John Schuknecht, a first-baseman just finishing up his NCAA season at Cal Poly.
There were 1,082 tickets sold for Thursday鈥檚 game after the inaugural game in HarbourCats鈥� history the night before attracted 3,026 fans. That was the largest-ever WCL opening-day crowd and the fourth-largest overall crowd in the nine-year history of the league.
Kelowna and Victoria conclude their season-opening three-game set tonight at 7 at Royal Athletic Park.
