Single A Edition
Sept. 16: Pegler League Championship!
By Rick Mariotti
Minor Leagues Beat Writer
Chicago Sports Online
Grand Junction, Colo. – The Grand Junction Gold Sox won the first Charley Pegler League championship in its history last week, completing a sweep of the Lake City Limes (Seattle) in their best-of-five series.
The Sox won the clincher 4-3 at Lake City behind the power hitting of outfielder Daniel Serrano and the power pitching of right-hander John McClain.
Daniel Serrano
John McClain
In the final game, he went 2 for 4 with a triple, a home run and 4 RBIs. Serrano, 26, a right-handed hitting left fielder, hit a solo shot in the first inning to give Grand Junction a 1-0 lead. Then, in the second, he keyed a two-out rally by hitting a bases-loaded triple off Lake City SP Ángel González that scored all three runners.
“Man, that was a dream come true – to be able to deliver in a spot that gives your team a shot at winning the championship,” Serrano said. “I mean, that’s every ballplayer’s fantasy.”
McClain, meanwhile, pitched 6 strong innings, allowing 4 hits and 2 runs with 5 walks and 3 strikeouts, before yielding to reliever Jerry Fletcher.
Fletcher pitched 2 scoreless innings, allowing 1 hit and striking out 1. Closer Ike Kocher came on in the 9th and yielded a 2-out solo home run to Lake City RF Luis Deocampo before getting CF Taro Kudo on a deep fly to right to end the game and notch a save.
“I think I gave the guys in the dugout a little more excitement than they wanted at the end there,” Kocher said. “But we got the job done in the end, and that’s all that counts.”
Grand Junction had the second-best record in the Pegler league this season, going 94-46 and winning the West Central Division with a 15-game margin. Only the Billings Cowboys had a better record, going 95-45 to win the Frontier Division by 21 games.
A highly-anticipated playoff showdown between the Cowboys and Gold Sox never materialized, though, because Billings lost its first-round series to Aspen 2 games to 0.
This year’s championship was especially satisfying for Grand Junction because it helped erase the past two seasons of playoff futility for the club. The Gold Sox have won their division three times in a row now, but lost to Hollywood in the first round last season and to Aspen in the first round in 2040.
“It was nice to bring it all home this time,” said rookie manager Roberto Solis. “I know there was a lot of angst in the organization and among our fans about whether we could ever succeed in the playoffs – but we’ve answered those questions in a big way.”