Bulls consider 2023 to be a positive season

By Lethbridge Herald on August 10, 2023.

Herald FILE photo byJUSTIN SEWARD Lethbridge Bulls’ Demitri Shakotko slides into third base safe just ahead of the tag of the Okotoks Dawgs’ Connor Crowson during Western Canadian Baseball League action last month at Spitz Stadium.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Despite a first round playoff exit earlier this week in a sweep to the Sylvan Lake Gulls, the Lethbridge Bulls felt they had positive baseball season.

“Yeah, you know, overall I think it was a positive year,” said Bulls head coach Chance Wheatley.

“You know, (we) would’ve liked to go a little further and still be playing. But it is what it is. But overall, I think it was a positive year.”

A focus from the onset of the season was to get more pitching depth and they delivered for most of the year.

“Yeah, you know, our starting pitchers did fantastic and we had some really good back end bullpen arms as well,” said Wheatley.

“You know, kind of going into the playoffs, (we) lost a couple guys and thinned us out a little bit. But, you know, overall, all year, I thought our pitching was definitely a strength and definitely a step up from the previous year. So hopefully we’ll just build on that next year and get a few more arms and going into the playoffs, be even deeper next year.”

Wheatley saw the players swing the bat effectively over the last couple of weeks.

“You know, (the) first month, month-and-a-half, we were pretty inconsistent with the bats,” said Wheatley.

“But I thought we ended off the year kind of (with)what we expected coming into the year.”

The coaching staff have identified some other areas that could use help next year.

“Hopefully we can bring in some impact players in those positions and bring back our impact guys from this year as well,” said Wheatley.

The Bulls made an important step forward this year by making playoffs after missing out last season.

“Our goal is to win the championship every year and you know we didn’t get there this year,” said Wheatley.

Bulls’ president and general manager Kevin Kvame looked at the season as satisfactory.

“We jumped back into the playoffs again and were competitive all year long, which was definitely a vast improvement over what happened last year,” said Kvame.

“I think we identified some of the areas in the offseason last year that caused us to miss the playoffs there last year for the first time and we didn’t want that to ever happen again. So we worked on that. (We) ended up just a bit short in a couple of areas. You know you lose a couple  guys (to) injuries or college coaches doing a left turn on you late in the spring when it’s close to the start of our season and you don’t get a couple of those arms. Would they be the missing pieces? It’s hard to say because we didn’t have them. But they could’ve been the missing pieces that would’ve, you know, took us right over the top this year.”

Kvame considered it to be a bounce back year off the diamond in terms of sales and attendance.

“I think we had a bounce back year there as well,” said Kvame.

“Last year, I don’t know what the word was, just a little bit disorganized or whatever you want to say. It just didn’t feel like it had for a number of years and that was both on and off the field. We bounced back this year on that front too. The stadium seemed to have more energy in it at times this year. We want to continue that effort.”