EVERETT — It’s all coming down to the wire.
Just four games remained in the first half of the Northwest League season heading into Thursday night, and the Everett AquaSox found themselves in poll position for claiming the North Division’s first-half title and a berth to the playoffs.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Everett manager Rob Mummau said. “Any time you’re in a playoff hunt and have your own destiny in your hands it’s fun.”
Everett went into Thursday’s action with a 20-14 record. That gave the Sox a one-game lead over the second-place Tri-City Dust Devils.
Everett has been out front all season long, thanks to a blistering 7-1 start to the season that staked the Sox to an early working margin at the top of the standings. However, the Sox have been a .500 team since. Meanwhile, the Dust Devils have been stalking Everett. Tri-City won 11 of 15 going into Thursday, turning what looked like a runaway first-half title for Everett into a horse race.
With only one game separating the teams going into Thursday, there’s a good chance the title will go down to the final day Sunday. Tri-City holds the tiebreaker from having won two of three against Everett earlier in the season. Therefore, the Sox headed into Thursday with a magic number of four, meaning Everett needed some combination of Sox wins and Dust Devil losses to equal four in order to clinch the first-half title.
“Every game from here on out is really crucial,” said Everett outfielder Corey Simpson, who went into Thursday leading the league in RBI with 30 in 31 games. “We’re playing some real good baseball. As a team that’s all you can ask for. Our pitching has been good, our defense has been really good these past few series. Hopefully we win this half and clinch a playoff spot.”
One other team was technically still in the race. Spokane wasn’t mathematically eliminated going into Thursday as the Indians were just three games back. However, the Indians have to leapfrog two teams, and just one loss to Everett in their current three-game series would knock the Indians out of contention.
The league has the unusual circumstance where the first half ends in the middle of a series. The first half concludes Sunday, which is the first game of Everett’s three-game series against Vancouver.
“I never even thought about that, to be honest with you,” Mummau said. “It’s a little odd, but it’s no big deal.”
Tri-City finishes off the first half against the same two opponents, with three games at Vancouver followed by a home game against Spokane. Therefore, if home-field advantage is a factor it favors Everett, since the Sox have all their remaining first-half games within the cozy confines of Everett Memorial Stadium — though Everett went into Thursday with a better record on the road (11-5) than at home (9-9).
“It’s good to have these last few games at home,” Simpson said. “Our fans have been really good to us, and hopefully we’ll win it for them.”
The first-half and second-half winners in the North Division square off in the first round of the playoffs in a three-game series. Then the North Division and South Division playoff winners face one another in another three-game series for all the marbles. Everett hasn’t won the league title since 2010, though the Sox did make the playoffs in 2012 and 2013.
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