The final countdown before the Tourney of Randomness
As the days after the celebrations lingered, Flagstaff GM Greg Newgard had plenty of time to think over the past two years that led to the Outlaws standing of the precipice of history. After racking up 115 wins, breaking tons of franchise records along the way, Flagstaff stands just 12 wins away from what they view as their destiny.
“Our destiny? Yeah, you could say that,” Newgard said during his monthly review of the regular season. “We’ve been looking at this moment for nearly 18 months now. All the draft prep, trades both made and not, the sitting through last season, it’s all lead to this moment.
“We think we’re the best team in the league and the record showed that. But we throw those things out for the playoffs and everyone starts at 0-0 and anything can happen.”
When the conversation turned to their playoff opponent, the South Loop Furies, the conversation turned serious.
“South Loop is a dangerous team,” Newgard commented. “They were outscored and still managed to tally 86 wins. That shows to us that whatever they’re doing over there is something that helped them overachieve. Throw in the fact that they took two of three series from us, and we know we can’t overlook them.”
South Loop went 7-5 against the Outlaws in 2018, the only BDBL team to win a season series against Flagstaff.
“We haven’t really gone back and looked at those series,” Newgard said. “Many of those games were close games and they got their fair share of breaks.”
When asked about the playoff roster, Newgard just shrugged. “They are no tricks or need for much scouting here. We are putting our best 25 guys out there, the same 25 that did the bulk of the work to get us here.”
As the discussion shifted to the final month of the season, Newgard relaxed a bit. “We got off to such a great start, but stumbled a bit over the final two series, including some curious bullpen issues. It’ll certainly make us rethink the back end of the bullpen a bit moving forward. But we went 21-7 which is a great conclusion to a great regular season.”
When the topic of Players of the Month, Newgard pulled out a press release. “It’s hard to get excited about these with the end of the season totals and getting ready for the playoffs. But we also don’t want to diminish the efforts these players went through.”
Zach Greinke was awarded Pitcher of the Month, going 4-1 with a 3.50 ERA over his final six starts, racking up 47 strikeouts in 36 innings.
“Chris Sale had a lock on this award until his last two starts, where we got bombed.”
Paul Goldschmidt racked the Hitter of the Month award, hitting .379/.467/.733 over the final month with a team-tying nine himers, 30 runs scored, and 22 extra base hits.