What they got instead was a rash of injuries that kicked them right into last place.
In a four-day span from July 21-24, pitchers Justin Walker, Bryan Ruff and Brad Holt were all lost for the season to injuries. Walker and Ruff were South Division All-Stars, and the three had combined for 11 wins and 1531/3 innings.
Most teams would be wondering what they’d done to offend the baseball gods. But the Loggers were almost numb to the situation by then, as three other starting pitchers — Dan Luczak, Victor Black and Scott Kuhns — had been shut down
earlier.
Before the team’s July 25 game against Waterloo at Copeland Park, Loggers pitching coach Chris Carlsen sat in the dugout trying to figure out what had happened to his staff.
“I’ve never been around anything close to this,” Carlsen said. “I don’t even know what to say.”
The ’07 Loggers never really figured it out, either. The team was relatively unscathed by injuries in the first half and went 17-16 despite having seven All-Stars.
Then, second-half injuries put the team in survival mode.
“What do you take from this? That when people get injured in mass amounts, it doesn’t pan out so well,” general manager Chris Goodell said.
The Loggers finished 27-41, fifth place in the South Division. The 41 losses equaled a franchise-high (2005).
There were highlights, too. The Loggers, in their fifth season, set a new record for attendance (106,871). On the field, Walker and outfielder Eric Thames were named to the postseason All-Star team.
Thames, a red-shirt sophomore from Pepperdine, batted .301 with 43 RBI and enhanced his status for next year’s draft.
Now, Goodell is left to pick up the pieces and move on.
The first priority is to determine the status of manager Rick Boyer for 2008. Boyer said Sunday that he will take a week or two before he makes a decision.
“We don’t have an exact date, but with recruiting going on, we’re not going to drag it out,” Goodell said.
|
More Loggers News: |


Continued wrote on Aug 21, 2007 5:25 PM: