3/27/17

To say this Spring is a wet one is the understatement of the year and many Baseball teams are getting themselves into quite a jam as far as trying to get their schedule in, believe it or not as of today (Monday) 3 teams in Districts 3 and 4, which covers from Kent to Vancouver and the entire Peninsula ,there are 3 teams who have yet to play a game, 7 that have 1 in and another 18 with only 2. Add the new pitching rules and it’s likely teams will begin to drop some of these non-league games from their schedule.

Centralia AD Scott Chamberlain’s Tigers squad is one of the three that have yet to play a game but is holding out hope they will still get in all of their games. That is going to be challenging with Spring Break next week and most teams try not to schedule any games during that time but some are being forced into playing over the break.

Centralia’s last two cancellations were last Friday and Saturday and so far have only re-scheduled 3 of their non-league games but still have an 18-game schedule to play. However, the Tigers, like most leagues if they are not already, has a heavy league schedule where they are playing 3 games a week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays.

On top of it coaches now have new pitching rules to contend with and if a pitcher throws more than 75 pitches they have to take 3 days off, 51-75 2 days and 30-50 1 day. Having to jam a 4th or even 5th game in a week will no doubt strain the pitching staff. Even if Centralia or other teams that have games they can make up it might be hard to get agreement from other teams that may be in a play-off push.

The other 2 schools that have yet to play a game this Spring are Fort Vancouver and Seton Catholic. The 7 teams with only 1 game in are Forks, Stevenson, Gig Harbor, Lindbergh, Port Townsend, Kingston and Charles Wright. Those with 2 in the books are Peninsula, South Kitsap, Fife, Washington, Highline, Renton, Tyee, Port Angeles, North Kitsap, Prairie, Rochester, Montesano, Tenino, Kalama, La Center, Ilwaco, Life Christian and North Beach.

With rain chances between 60 and 70-percent over the next few days and over a 50% chance through Spring Break it’s not looking great for games to be completed which will only add to the back log. This will likely set up an interesting 2nd half to April all the way to postseason in early May.

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