The Tri-City Valleycats and Sussex County Miners have a toxic relationship, which is apparent even when they’re not playing each other.
As the Frontier League’s regular season entered its final day, Tri-City had put themselves in a situation where, in order to make the playoffs, another team had to lose.
Meaning, they had to rely on the Miners to win.
Equipe Quebec led Tri-City in the Atlantic Division by one game entering Sunday’s season finale. If the Valleycats won and Quebec lost, then the Valleycats would have made the playoffs, as they held the tiebreaker with an 8-7 record during the regular season.
On Sunday, Quebec defeated Sussex County by a score of 11-7, clinching the division ahead of the Valleycats regular season finale against Washington at 5:30 p.m., rendering that game meaningless.
There is a line between giving players rest and blatantly putting out a sub-par lineup. Sussex County manager Bobby Jones did his best to blur that line with his lineup decisions, as his team took the field on the final day. Those decisions raise questions which shouldn’t need to be answered in a league whose main purpose is to provide baseball players the opportunity to return to affiliated ball.
Starting Sunday’s game for Sussex County was Trevin Esquerra, normally and outfielder and first-basemen, who had only pitched two-thirds (.2) of an inning this season. He gave up five runs and six hits, over four innings. Esquerra went back to right field after he was done pitching.
Listed as a switch hitter and left-hander, Esquerra threw from both the left and right sides during his time on the mound.
Audy Ciriaco, who announced his retirement on Saturday and had his number retired by the Miners, was not in the lineup. Ciriaco hit .303 this season, with 103 hits. Instead starting at third base was Ramsey Romano, primarily a pitcher for the Miners. He had eight at-bats entering the game.
In the fifth inning, Jones removed Chuck Taylor, Kaleo Johnson and Cito Culver from the game – the meat of the Miner’s batting order.
Alexander Vargas, a starting pitcher who threw 92 innings this season, entered the game to play first base. Dwayne Marshall, a relief pitcher, received an at-bat in the eighth inning after Sussex lost the DH.
The Miners took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, but Quebec quickly got in back in the game in the top of the second as they tied it on a three-run home run by Dustyn Macaluso. With a runner on third, the go-ahead run crossed the plate on a balk by Esquerra.
Leading 8-3 in the fifth, the players who remained in the Sussex lineup weren’t giving away their at-bats as they scored three, making it a two-run ballgame.
The Miners picked up one more in the bottom of the ninth, as they trailed 11-7, before Evan Rutckyj got the final out for Quebec.
Quebec finished the season with a record of 52.44. The Valleycats were 50-45 going into their games with the Wild Things. Sussex finished at 49-46.
HISTORY
The ‘Cats and Miners rivalry first rose to significance on August 7, when during a game at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, Valleycats manager Pete Incaviglia accused Bobby Jones of stealing signs and relaying them to his players.
That led to a benches clearing incident where Incaviglia and Jones were each ejected and suspended two games.
The following week on August 14, Sussex pitcher Max Herrmann was ejected for using a foreign substance, spider tack, after Incaviglia requested the umpires check his hat. Later in that game, Jones requested the umpires check Tri-City’s closer, Trey Cochran-Gill, for foreign substances, which did not result in anything.
There were other benches-clearing instances and shoving matches between the two teams throughout their season series, one resulting in the Valleycats’ Chris Kwitzer being suspended for the remainder of the season.
The two teams, who are not in the same Frontier League division, played each other 31 times in their 96 game season – or about 32-percent of their schedule. For reference, Tri-City played 19 games against New York and 15 games against Quebec, the other two teams in the Atlantic Division.
Early in the season, U.S. based teams could not travel to Canada due to COVID-19 restrictions, prompting the schedule reorganization. Tri-City did not play any of the teams in the central or west divisions.
The Valleycats were 3-11 on the road against Sussex and 12-5 at home, including 1-1 in their two games which were decided by a home run derby. Overall Sussex won the season series against Tri-City, 15-16.
