Pennant Race Update - Saturday Edition

Photo Credits - Cleveland Brownlee (by Matt Hiscox)  Justin Gideon (By RJ Rose) and Claudio Custodio (by Gar Fitzgerald)

After last night's victory by the Guelph Royals over the London Majors, things in the Intercounty Baseball League got a little closer.

A look at the standings heading into action Saturday night in the IBL, shows us that there is now just a half-game separating the top three teams in the league.    

London Majors 30-11  (1 Game Remaining at Toronto Sunday) 0.5 games ahead of both Guelph and Welland
The loss last night to the Royals put the Majors in a must-win situation on Sunday in Toronto 2 pm  at Christie Pits. The Majors need to do their part vs. the Leafs to hold on to a share of first place.

Welland Jackfish  29-11  (2 Games vs. Barrie Saturday, at Hamilton Sunday) 0.5 games behind London tied with Guelph for 2nd place.
Welland needs to win both remaining games to force themselves into a tie with London and potentially Guelph for first place.
The Jackfish can't look past the Baycats who beat them last week at home and would need to pull out all the stops to lock down the victory at the pond. Welland closes out their regular season in Hamilton Sunday afternoon against the Cardinals at 2 pm

Guelph Royals 29-11 (2 Games Remaining vs. Brantford Saturday, at Kitchener Sunday) 0.5 a game behind London and tied with Welland

Guelph heads home tonight to face the Red Sox following an emotional victory in London the night before and will be playing in front of their home crowd with an 18-2 record at home. They will need to continue to ride that high all weekend as the Royals travel up highway 7 Sunday to face the Kitchener Panthers who beat the Royals earlier this season at Jack Couch Park.


Should all three teams win out their remaining games,  they would all finish the regular season with a 31-11 record which would cause a three-way tie for first place and would mean one and potentially more playoff games to determine the pennant winner.

From the IBL website the tie-breaker format is as follows:

FIRST PLACE - Where two teams are tied for first place, the team winning the division title will be decided by a sudden death game or games if more than two teams are tied.

The site for the sudden death game will be decided by comparing won and lost records against each other or if necessary, comparing runs for and against between the teams involved. If a tie still exists then a coin toss will establish home field.

Current Season Series Records
London and Welland split their season series 3-3
Guelph took their series with Welland 4-2
London and Guelph split their season series 3-3

Head to Head Records of all three tied teams
Guelph 7-5
London 6-6
Welland 5-7