There’s leftover glory and brand new challenges for the North Shore Twins of the B.C. Premier Baseball League as the franchise is coming off a history-making season in 2017.
The Twins franchise pulled off a triple crown last year, winning provincial titles with all three of their teams: the bantams, juniors and seniors. It’s a feat that has never been accomplished before in B.C.’s top youth baseball league and it could be a long while before it’s ever duplicated.
The trophy sweep was a testament to the depth of talent throughout the club as well as the steady hands that are coaching the players and running the franchise.
“It was hard to believe,” said Rick Elstone, general manager of the senior Twins, about last year’s triple play. “I really never, ever thought that that was going to happen. It wasn’t in anybody’s crystal ball that we could pull that off at all three levels. It’s a strong league at all three levels. … None of us were even thinking about a triple crown.”
The good news for this year’s senior team is that with all that talent up and down the club, there should be plenty of players ready to step up again and continue the winning tradition.
The challenge, however, is that a lot of last year’s seniors graduated from the program, leaving massive holes to be filled in the lineup. And the results so far have been … mixed.
The Twins opened the BCPBL season with a pair of wins against the UBC Thunder – a new franchise in the league – before going 1-3 in a pair of double headers played last weekend, coming out on the losing end of some scary score lines. The Twins were outscored 31-9 over the weekend, including losses in back-to-back games against the White Rock Tritons by identical 11-0 scores.
“It’s been a bit of a tough start to the year,” said senior head coach Brooks McNiven. “We lost a big chunk of our pitching staff from last year as they all graduated and moved on. We have a lot of younger guys – very capable guys, very good players, but I think the PBL is a very good league and making the transition from the junior PBL to the senior PBL is a big jump. I think we have some guys who are working through that learning curve right now and I would suspect as we get into the season everything will settle down and we’ll be very good and very competitive.”
Along with missing out on a lot of practice time due to rainouts early in the season, the Twins have also been missing their best pitcher. Declan Dutton, who starred in last year’s championship playoff run, is playing with the junior national team. When he returns to the Twins he should be the ace of an otherwise young pitching staff, said McNiven, adding that Dutton can beat batters with an upper-80s fastball as well as a good breaking ball and changeup.
“He’s one of those guys who has the velocity but also has the command,” said McNiven. “He should be one of the top pitchers in the league. … He’s really challenging to hit off because he doesn’t give the other team any extra opportunities. He makes them earn everything that they get.”
On offence the Twins have more returning players, with veterans such as Brandon Hupe and Dion Wintjes anchoring the lineup along with West Vancouver’s Wyatt Schnorr, who played with Coquitlam last season. Rookie Damon Hutchings is off to a fast start at first base and hitting in the middle of the order.
“Last year we had a lot of power, we had a number of guys, almost one through nine, who could hit the ball out of the park,” said McNiven. “I don’t think we have that this year but we certainly have more team speed and we have a number of guys who can wreak havoc on the bases and get out there and cause problems for the other team’s pitchers and catchers. We’ll have a little bit different style of play than we did last year, but with those big guys in the middle of the order there and some speed guys at the top and the bottom, I think we’ll be very competitive and hopefully be back near the top of the league again this season.”
Last year’s success is no doubt a point of pride for the club, but the leaders of the Twins acknowledge that it is definitely a tough act to follow.
“It’s one of those things where coming into the season, you pull off something like that that’s never been done before, and it may be a number of years before it’s done again, it does set a pretty high expectation,” said McNiven. “Sometimes it makes it pretty hard to follow that up. … Right now we’re off to a bit of a slow start at the seniors, just kind of sometimes it’s whether we become a little lackadaisical because of that success, making sure that we’re continuing to work, that we’re not expecting just to show up at the park and win. Hopefully that attitude is not creeping into the team, but it’s one thing that we’re certainly going to make sure it isn’t happening and address it to make sure we are continuing to improve with every outing and every practice.”
McNiven, however, said he expects the Twins to be right back near the top of the standings at the end of the season.
“The younger guys are going to get an opportunity to play through it themselves. I think we might be a team that comes on strong at the end of the year and middle of the year as we kind of get things sorted out.”
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The Twins will play their first home games of the season on Sunday, hosting the North Delta Blue Jays for a doubleheader at Parkgate Park. First pitch of Game 1 is scheduled for noon.
