The two remaining Blue Jay farm teams begin their playoff push tonight. The New Hampshire Fisher Cats and the Lansing Lugnuts both start at home in their series.
Major league teams talk about the importance of playoffs for development. Its not the winning they value, its the increased intensity and pressure. That gives the teams, and the prospects, the closest approximation to the major league atmosphere that they can find. So tonight, the teams will make sure the players they value the most get to play. How will they handle the pressure? A player might come up from the team below just to get the experience. We have seen this in previous years, I believe many teams do this. We saw Josh Palacios in the lineup for New Hampshire on Monday. Will we see others such as Griffin Conine in Lansing?
New Hampshire face Trenton in the semi-final. It will be a best of five game series. Trenton finished two games ahead of New Hampshire in the regular season so the teams are evenly matched. In game one, TJ Zeuch will face Brian Keller. Hector Perez goes in game two against Nick Green. This series is set for five straight games, Wednesday through Sunday, so teams will need five starters. This is a rematch of sorts from last years FSL playoffs where Dunedin defeated Tampa. The managers in this series are the same as in last years FSL series.
Maximo Castillo is the game one starter for Lansing. Bowling Green is a Tampa affiliate and they won both the first and second half titles in their division. Combined they finished 10 games ahead of Lansing. Because the Midwest League has two halves, eight teams make the playoffs. In order to avoid a lengthy playoffs with eight teams, the first two series are three games each. After tonights game, both teams will make the 7 to 8 hour bus trip to Kentucky for games two and three.
There will be no minor league update tomorrow on tonights games. This thread will serve as the live update of the games.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20180905161144586