Kenny Serwa’s knuckleball last week was on a tight leash — and helped the SeaWolves steam into this week’s championship series.
Well, that will teach the Erie SeaWolves to be so doggone pesky in September.
They could have been headed by now for an offseason break after five months of games and bus rides had the Tigers’ Double-A partner not pushed its way into the Eastern League playoffs, beating Richmond twice last week, to set up a best-of-three championship series against Reading that begins tonight (5:05 p.m.) at UPMC Park.
Credit those SeaWolves players for these two overtime playoff series:
Peyton Graham, shortstop and all-around defender, who’s continued to hit and thieve bases. Zyhir Hope, the former Dodgers blue-chipper and outfielder the Tigers got in their Tarik Skubal swap. Woody Hadeen, another all-position wizard who switch-hits. Thayron Liranzo, whose three-run homer Thursday beat Richmond, 5-3, and sewed up a championship series ticket.
Notice, also, that knuckleballer Kenny Serwa was Thursday’s winning pitcher, thanks to seven innings of four-hit ball, walking only one batter, while striking out four, with one blemish: a three-run homer he allowed when a man who lives by his knuckleball decided unadvisedly to throw a fastball.
“We’ve got some parts,” Erie manager Tony Cappuccilli said during a Saturday phone conversation. “Right now, when playing our best nine, it means we’ve got a couple of tough decisions -– somebody’s sitting who should be in the game.
“But we’re throwing a lineup out there with a balance of some speed and power. And that balance seems to be favorable.”
A surprise or two also has factored in a team that finished the regular season with a 79-58 record and was first in the Eastern League’s Southwest Division.
Consider catcher Luke Shliger, all 5-foot-7, 197 pounds of him. In last Tuesday’s first playoff game against Richmond, he smashed a pair of grand slam homers, good for eight RBIs in Erie’s 18-6 romp.