August playoff run made '98 a success

The JetHawks overcame promotions, injuries and one terrible stretch to qualify for the Cal League playoffs

After battling back to win 17 of their final 23 regular-season games and clinch the Valley Division wild-card spot with a 78-62 record, the JetHawks' 1998 season came to a sudden halt at Maverick Stadium Wednesday night. Halted when High Desert put the finishing touches on it's first-round sweep of the JetHawks with an 8-4 victory.

You could tell on the faces of the Lancaster players and coaches as they were leaving the field and climbing the hill to the visitor's clubhouse Wednesday night that this team wasn't ready to quit playing. Not yet.

"You never like your season to end," JetHawks manager Rick Burleson said. "I'd like to have it end when you win it all. Unless you do that, I'm not sure it's completely satisfying. . . There's always that empty feeling there when you come up a little short."

Even though the JetHawks would liked to have played more than two games in the playoffs, the fact that they even made it there is testimony to the motivational skills of Burleson and his coaching staff. That gave the players the desire to win during the final three weeks of the regular season.

The JetHawks finished with the second-best first- half record in the league, 10 games over .500. But they still were six-games behind first-place San Jose.

"I would say we had a pretty successful first half," Burleson said. "Finishing 10 games over is a good half."

It looked like that momentum would carry through to the second half, as Lancaster pushed its record to as many as 14 games over .500.

But on June 26, everything seemed to change. Adonis Harrison, who had been a spark plug for the Lancaster offense during the first half and steady defensively at second base, received a promotion to Class AA Orlando.

Along with Harrison, the JetHawks lost their two best relief pitchers from the first half, Aaron Scheffer and Cam Smith. Two weeks later, Lancaster's top starter, Patrick Dunham, was promoted.

To make matters worse, Brian Sweeney, who was the winning pitcher in the 1998 Cal League All-Star Game, was placed on the disabled list on June 21 with a right shoulder strain.

Rather than receiving some of the top prospects in Class A Wisconsin to help fill the void, the JetHawks got players who were struggling in Orlando instead, and it seemed to take some of them a while to come to grips with their demotions.

Lancaster went into a slow tailspin and saw its record dip well below .500 during the second half, thanks in part to a brutal 13-game road trip in the middle of July.

Things bottomed out Aug. 3-5, when the JetHawks were swept in a three-game series against Modesto at Lancaster Municipal Stadium. Not only did Lancaster's overall record fall to five games over .500, but the JetHawks also lost a one-game lead in the Valley Division wild-card race and found themselves two games back.

During that series, Burleson made one last attempt to find the right buttons to motivate his team during a closed-door meeting.

"I ran out of things to say, really," Burleson said. "It was a last ditch effort. Sometimes, the most important thing a manager can do is get the most out of each player. This was the last idea I had at how to do that."

Whatever Burleson found to say, it seemed to work.

Facing the prospects of falling out of the playoff picture, the JetHawks took three out of four at Rancho Cucamonga. They then battled to win two out of three at Bakersfield in a strange series.

Lancaster then returned home for its longest home-stand of the season and won eight out of 10 from Stockton, San Bernardino and High Desert. With that impressive run, Lancaster once again found itself in the driver's seat for the wild-card spot.

But when they got shut out in the first game at San Bernardino and were held down by Ismael Valdes, who was making a major league rehab start with the Stampede in the third, the JetHawks entered the final weekend of the season tied with Modesto for the final playoff spot.

On top of that, Lancaster had to travel to High Desert for three tough games.

"There was never any time that this team quit," Burleson said. "That's something I'm really proud of."

Even though Modesto won two out of three against San Jose the final weekend, Lancaster clinched its second consecutive playoff berth by sweeping the Mavericks.

"Any time you can pull together like we did in the last month of the season and grind it out, it's a good thing to see," Burleson said. "I think these guys took me serious, and proved that they wanted to be in the playoffs."

The reasons that the JetHawks were able to make that run were easy to figure out.

"Our defense improved down the stretch," Burleson said. "We started to play more consistently. That, and our pitching really came on."

During the final 23 games of the season, Lancaster committed only 25 errors. By comparison, the JetHawks' opponents committed 57 during the same stretch.

Couple that with the improved pitching, especially in the bullpen, and it was difficult for opponents to score many runs.

The Lancaster pitching staff was tormented by injuries and promotions throughout the season. Despite the turnover, Lancaster finished with a respectable team ERA of 4.61 and led the league with 1,181 strikeouts.

The JetHawks received a boost from Kevin Gryboski, who emerged as the team's closer during the final three weeks.

While the Lancaster pitching and defense really came around late in the season, the offense was a strength for the JetHawks. After a slow start, Lancaster scored the most runs (909) in the league and had the highest team batting average (.285).

"The offense was really strong for us all season long," Burleson said.

The two pillars of that offense were Cirilo Cruz Jr., who finished second in the league RBI race with 104, and Brendan Kingman, who claimed the Cal League batting title with a .340 average. Many other players stepped up at key points in the season, but Cruz and Kingman seemed to be consistent throughout.

"I'm very happy with what this team accomplished this season," Burleson said. "Obviously we would have liked to have gone farther, but the last month was really rewarding."