Wingnuts close out regular season with win
Playing two games after clinching a division championship was barely enough to keep the Wingnuts’ minds occupied. With a day off before the postseason begins, manager Kevin Hooper is looking for more distractions.
The Wingnuts concluded the regular season with a 4-2 win over Grand Prairie on Monday afternoon at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. Wichita clinched its fifth straight playoff spot with a 21-1 win against Grand Prairie on Saturday, but then its thoughts began to drift.
Grand Prairie snapped an American Association-record 15-game losing streak with a win on Sunday, and the AirHogs led late on Monday before the Wingnuts’ three-run seventh inning.
Now the playoffs begin for Wichita on Wednesday at Laredo, the wild-card entry. The team was scheduled to leave by bus on Monday night, allowing the players to sleep through much of their idle time before a day of preparation.
“I like traveling through the night,” Hooper said. “If we left in the morning, we’ve got a full day on a bus and I don’t like that. Everybody tonight will get their rest and their food and we’ll get in at 10 a.m. We’ll have a nice, really light workout probably (Tuesday) evening sometime.”
The Wingnuts play the first two games of the best-of-five series at Laredo before returning home for Game 3 on Saturday with Games 4 and 5 scheduled for Wichita if necessary. The winner plays either Sioux City or St. Paul, which finished with the league’s best records.
Wichita saw its record 73-win regular season fall after one year as Sioux City finished 75-25, but the defending-champion Wingnuts feel plenty ready for the playoffs even though they won 14 fewer games in 2015.
Outfielder Jayce Ray returned from a day-to-day Achilles injury on Monday and should be in Wednesday’s lineup along with catcher John Nester, who missed the Grand Prairie series with a wrist injury after being hit by a foul tip.
The recent additions of Nick Van Stratten, Brent Clevlen and Andy LaRoche give the Wingnuts a lineup that rival those of the other three postseason teams, which are stocked with experienced, powerful hitters.
The Wingnuts aren’t playing their best baseball entering the playoffs, having gone 5-6 in their last 11 games. But from a personnel standpoint, they probably haven’t been in better shape all season. Former major-league pitchers Scott Richmond and Jon Link are scheduled to start the games in Laredo.
“We’ll be ready,” Hooper said. “Tough two days. It’s just like the years when we wrap it up early, like last year – it’s tough to motivate guys because you know that you’re in (the playoffs) and that’s all everybody’s waiting for.”
The Wingnuts trailed 2-1 after the top of the seventh on Sunday and were in danger of losing their second straight against the league’s worst team.
That distinction caught up with Grand Prairie in the bottom of the seventh, when it handed the Wingnuts a run on an error by center fielder Justin Byrd that allowed two baserunners to move up two bases.
Brent Dean scored on the play and Leo Vargas scored on a sacrifice fly. Van Stratten provided insurance with a home run to left-center before Wingnuts relievers Daniel Bennett and Paul Smyth combined for five strikeouts in two perfect innings.
Grand Prairie made six errors, offering less than a suspenseful end to a regular season that stopped mattering to the Wingnuts on Saturday night.
“Now the fun begins,” Hooper said. “Now it’s fun. We’ve done all the work, we’ve worked all year to get things right and get things the way we want them to be. Now it’s the fun time.”
Grand Prairie | Wichita | ||||||||
ab | r | h | bi | ab | r | h | bi | ||
Richardson rf | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | VStratten cf | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Byrd cf | 5 | 0 | 3 | 1 | Ray rf | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
H-Haslam 2b | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | LaRoche dh | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Diaz 3b | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Mosebach ph | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Fair c | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | Mttlstdt 3b | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Frazier 1b | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Oldham 1b | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Bozeman dh | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Kain lf | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Judge lf | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Dean c | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Castano ss | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Vargas ss | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Smart 2b | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |||||
Totals | 34 | 2 | 10 | 2 | Totals | 30 | 4 | 9 | 2 |
Grand Prairie | 000 | 100 | 100 | — | 2 10 6 |
Wichita | 010 | 000 | 30x | — | 4 9 0 |
E — Byrd (2), Pair 2 (7), Castano 2 (7), Whitmore (2). DP — Grand Prairie 2, Wichita. LOB — Grand Prairie 9, Wichita 6. 2B — Fair (10), Castano (1), LaRoche (9). HR — Van Stratten (3). S — Richardson. SF — Smart. SB — Kair (21), Smart (9).
Grand Prairie | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
Whitmore L,2-12 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
Rucker | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Wichita | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
Medina | 6 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Boshers W,4-2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Bennett | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Smyth S,7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
WP — Medina 2 (4). HBP — Diaz (by Boshers). Umpires — home, Chantz Wilson; first, Tyler Thurmond; third, Bryan Childe. T — 2:20. A — 3,102.
Wingnuts at Laredo
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
What: American Association playoffs first round, Game 1
Where: Uni-Trade Stadium, Laredo, Tex.
Radio: KWME, 92.7-FM
This story was originally published September 7, 2015 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Wingnuts close out regular season with win."