T-Bones stirring up a storm in a mid-season charge

July 3, 2:13 PMKansas City Sports ExaminerCharles F. Rouse III

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Kansas City Sports Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

KC's other professional baseball team 

What’s with the T-Bones? In case you haven’t noticed, Kansas City’s independent minor-league baseball team is making up lost ground fast and making a mid-season charge in the Northern League.

 Heading into the July 4th holiday weekend, the T-Bones have won 6 of their last 7 and 8 out of the previous 12 games, leaving them at 21-21 and in a three-way tie for second place with the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks and the Gary SouthShore RailCats in the heavily bunched middle of the Northern League standings. All three trail the league-leading Winnipeg Goldeyes (27-13) by seven games.

The T-Bones had a season-high six-game winning streak snapped Thursday night at the hands of the last-place Joliet JackHammers. It took extra innings to bring Kansas City’s week-long win streak to an end, but the JackHammers came up with a dramatic walk-off, two-run homerun by former T-Bones player Brad Correll, his first with Joliet and seventh on the season, in the home half of the 10th for a 6-4 victory to snap the KC win string in sudden, stinging fashion. The T-Bones were looking for a four-game road sweep of the JackHammers. With their 5-2 win on Wednesday night, the T-Bones had climbed above the .500 mark for the first time since June 11. 

The T-Bones are off to Schaumburg for a three-game holiday-weekend series against the Flyers to close out the first half of the season as Northern League teams head into the All-Star break. The Great Plains team (Kansas City, Fargo-Moorhead and Winnipeg) takes on the Great Lakes all-stars (Gary SouthShore, Schamburg and Joliet) on Tuesday night at Joliet’s Silver Cross Field.

Eight T-Bones players are on the Great Plains team roster for Tuesday’s Northern League All-Star Game. Infielders Ryan Fox, Damian Ross and Mark Minicozzi join catcher Craig Hurba, hot-hitting outfielder Greg Jacobs and pitchers Luis Villarreal, Ryan Knippschild and Daniel Sattler on the Great Plains All-Star squad. In addition, three members of the T-Bones coaching staff will be making the trip to Joliet to participate in the game: manager Andy McCauley, pitching coach Rick DeHart and hitting coach Tim Doherty.

Discounting the three games with always-tough Schamburg at their place this weekend, the T-Bones head into the second half of the season with some strong momentum. Things didn’t look nearly as good two weeks ago when the team stood 13-19 and was struggling with confidence and coming up with any kind of consistency. The defending Northern League champions have managed to find their winning ways again, which should make the second half of the season exciting to follow as the T-Bones and four other league teams try to chase down Winnipeg while beating up on each other.

Considering that Kansas City’s other professional baseball team, the Royals, are struggling to score and, at the same time, prevent opposing runs – a not too surprising formula for the familiar, fast-fading fix our hometown heroes find themselves in heading into the dog days of another major league season – it’s refreshing to realize that lackluster baseball is not endemic to all of the local boys of summer. There’s another game in town, Kansas City baseball fans. Take note!