By Caleb Knudsen
To no one’s surprise, the Healdsburg Packers begin the last full week of PEL (Pacific Empire League) play on Wednesday with an unassailable 5.5 game lead over two second-place teams, their 20 wins against only three losses demonstrating their dominance. With only three or four games left for each team, a different pennant winner is impossible.
Congratulations, Prune Packers!
If there were a time for the season’s momentum to change, it would have been last weekend’s three-game series against the Humboldt Crabs in Arcata, the college town north of Eureka. The Crabs were on a roll, having won five in a row and 14 of their previous 15 games. Hosting the Healdsburg team in their foggy home town should have given them an edge, but it was not to be.
The visiting Packers squeezed out a 3-2 win on Friday, July 18, the first game of the series that reached a climax with an eighth inning lead-off home run from JC Osorio-Agard to break the tie. If anything, the second game was even more exciting: the Crabs had a 3-2 lead at the end of five innings, but the Prune Packers scored two in the sixth when Logan Sutter doubled to take the lead. Healdsburg added an unearned run in the next inning and won the game, 5-3.
Starting pitcher Matt Barnes struck out 10 in his 4.2 innings of work, though reliever Bandon Mann got the win by facing only 13 batters in his stint, whiffing six and not allowing a runner to reach base.
The third game started Sunday at 12:30, with the sky grey where the fog had turned to cloud, and the temperature barely cracking 60. This was the last chance for the Crabs to show their home fans some winning baseball, and the tension was in the stands as well as the dugout. Healdsburg held a 4-1 lead at the end of four innings, then in the top of the fifth the Crabs snapped back.
It was the sort of inning that drives visiting pitchers mad, and home team fans into delirium. Center fielder Timmy Reed drove the first pitch off starter Alec Belardes for a single, and scored two plays later on a Cameron Sewell single. Adam Enyart drove in a run, and Sewell himself scored on a bases-loaded walk from Hattenbach in relief. Finally Enyard scored on a wild pitch, giving the Crabs a 5-4 lead – their first of the series.
That lead held for three scoreless innings, until the Prune Packers did what they’ve done all year, rallied for the win. Maximo Martinez homered with one out, and two more runs scored when Logan Sutter hit his ninth home run of the season for the 5-3 win.
The three straight home losses seemed to take the wind out of the Humboldt team; they had entered the series with a real chance to take over first place, or at least gain some ground. But while they were losing to the Packers, the Lincoln Potters took five out of six from the Medford Rogues to slip into a tie for second with the Crabs, both now at 5.5 games behind.
The insurgent Lincoln Potters certainly bear watching. In the PEL’s inaugural 2024 season, the Placer County team also finished strong and took the playoff seat from the Humboldt Crabs. Then the Potters had the audacity to win the first of three championship games, 13-12 over the Pack.
The Wednesday, July 23 game this week find the Lincoln Potters hosting Healdsburg in a regularly scheduled league game, one of five the two teams meet in the regular season. So far Healdsburg has won the first three, July 8-10.
This year’s playoff series is scheduled for Tuesday, July 29; Thursday, July 31; and Friday, Aug. 1, at locations to be determined. See prunepackers.org.
