Race to the Playoffs

by Ethan Ignatovsky, Walnut Creek Crawdads

The CCL Showcase Game is in the rearview mirror, the regular season is less than a week away from wrapping up and the march to the playoffs is officially underway.

Every team starts the season with the same goal: win it all. The challenge is that there are only a finite number of playoff spots available. In the CCL, that number is three teams per division. A single-elimination bracket then determines the two divisions representative in the best-of-three championship series.

At this point in the season, some teams are out of playoff contention, but other teams will feel like they can almost reach out and grab the trophy they’re all fighting for. For those teams, the first step is still locking their spot in the playoffs. The last week of CCL action will be full of jubilation for some of those teams, while others will end the summer heartbroken.

Here are the teams still fighting to win it all.

NORTH

The playoff race in the CCL North features tight fights that could go down to the very end. The Sonoma Stompers (22-14) currently hold first place, but the San Luis Obispo Blues (21-14) are a half game back, and both the Walnut Creek Crawdads (18-15) and Alameda Merchants (16-13) two and half games back.

The Stompers are locked into the playoffs and are just battling for the No. 1 seed against a relatively easy schedule to close out CCL play. Of course, there’s never anything easy about winning baseball games, but the team plays the last-place teams in both divisions -- the San Francisco Seagulls and the Philippines Baseball Group, who have a combined record of 11-40 -- twice each to conclude the regular season. The Stompers aren’t locked into the No. 1 seed, but they’re very, very close. 

The second-place Blues don’t have as easy of a remaining schedule, playing the 22-11 Conejo Oaks twice and 20-12 Orange County Riptide once to finish off the regular season. Before those three games, though, they have one game each against the 11-20 Academy Barons and the Philippines Baseball Group. The Blues will need to take advantage of their weaker opponents earlier in the week and win at least three games throughout the week to eliminate any chance of them not making the playoffs, and give themselves the best odds of making the playoffs as the No. 2 -- or maybe even No. 1 -- seed. 

The Crawdads and Merchants are two teams in very similar situations. Both started the year much hotter than the Stompers and Blues, but have cooled off considerably since. Both teams are 4-6 in their last ten games and have similar remaining schedules, including four head-to-head matchups over the last week of the regular season. The team that comes out on top of those matchups will very likely make the playoffs, while the other team misses. If both teams go 3-3 on the week and the Blues fail to go at least .500, both the Crawdads and Merchants will make the playoffs and the Blues will miss, but that scenario is extremely unlikely. When the squads aren’t playing each other, the Crawdads will play the 15-20 Menlo Park Legends and the Merchants will play the Seagulls, both teams that the playoff contenders should beat, but have struggled against at times this year.

SOUTH

The Santa Barbara Foresters (23-9) are currently in first place in the South, but won’t participate in the CCL playoffs, leaving the Oaks as the de facto No. 1 team in the division. The Oaks are locked into a playoff spot, as are the Riptide– the Arroyo Seco Saints (15-16) have already secured themselves into the 3rd seed and Wildcard round with their win against the Barons on Tuesday. 

The Oaks have a 1.5-game lead over the Riptide, but that could disappear in the blink of an eye. The two teams play each other twice to start the week, and if the Riptide could rattle off a pair of wins, they’d make the battle for the No. 1 seed incredibly close. The Oaks' schedule doesn’t get much easier after playing the Riptide, as they have a two-game set against the Blues, before a softer final landing against the 5-13 San Diego Bombers. The Oaks could still lose both games to the Riptide and end up as the No. 1 seed, but they won’t want to put that pressure on themselves. 

The Riptide, on the other hand, would love to put themselves right on the Oaks' tails before a two-game set against the inconsistent Saints and a one-off game against the Blues to end the year. If things go the Riptide’s way, they could end the week on top, after starting the year floundering. Even if they can’t nab the No. 1 seed from the Oaks, it would take an unlikely string of events for them to fall to the No. 3 seed. 

The No. 3 seed will go to the Saints, as they have already bumped out the Academy Barons with their win against them on Tuesday. They are 4.5 games back from the Riptide, so even if the Saints win all of their next 4 games and the Riptide lose out, there is no possibility of the 3rd seed changing.

No matter who makes the CCL Playoffs, the Wildcard game will take place on July 29 and Division Playoffs on the 30th, with the CCL Championship starting on August 1 and continuing until August 3, i