By Charm Plankovich November 28, 2020
After a tough loss to end a tough Season 7, the Garveys are looking to bounce back in Season 8 with a playoff-ready team for game 1 against the Spiky Dudes. While finishing with a sub .500 record in Season 7, the Garveys felt that they could have been a lot better if their offense had picked up the slack. “I can’t really explain it” said Garveys manager Steve Garvey, “we had all the pieces we needed in all the right places. We had big bats, but they just weren’t hitting the ball very hard, you know, slow rollers and pop ups, they weren’t driving it into the gaps and definitely not over the fence.” Garvey is right. The team batted a franchise-worst .205 in Season 7 and were below .200 for the first half of the season. After firing pitching/hitting coach Tom Niedenfeur after game 3 and bringing is the much-feared Kirk Gibson to ignite their bats, Garvey felt that would be the spark they needed. While averages increased, it wasn’t nearly enough. “I was really counting on Gibby to shape these guys up, but even he couldn’t do it. He came up to me after game 7 and told me they were all ‘pathetic’ and that they ‘couldn’t hit a basketball if he lobbed it to them’ . And sadly, he was right we tried it with Almora and LoCain, we lobbed them basketballs for 45 minutes in the gym before game 8, not one solid contact from them. That’s when Gibby walked out of the gym” continued Garvey “I haven’t seen him or heard from him since.”
“While I was ready to let Cain go after the season, he reached out and told me he’s been working on his approach in the offseason and wants to make the Garveys champions again” said Steve. We reached out to Lorenzo earlier this week to check up on his progress. “Oh man” said Cain “I’m so pumped that Steve is givin’ me another shot. I’ve been hittin’ the gym every day man. First thing I do when I get there is hit basketballs for an hour…every morning man! The first time I connected, it was like the third or fourth morning, it was like ‘BAM’ and that thing went halfway across the gym man! Powerful!”
In addition to brining back Cain, Steve made sure that Haniger would be a Season 8 Garvey. “We called up Haniger during our final game, which was game 13 with the Hams. You know Haniger, he’s just…different, and he’s going to be a key part of our new offense” finished Garvey. In fact, Mr. Garvey has been traveling non-stop across the country talking with free agents and players on the market. “We really needed an offensive re-boot” said Steve “that was my focus, so I talked with Garv (Mitch Garver) who was a big part of our championship teams and a solid backstop and he was like ‘oh yeah!’. I’ve had my eye on a lot of players including Wis, T-Wizzle, and Up…not to mention the ‘G-Force’ as they’ve been calling themselves…Gurriel and Gordon at first and second, and I see this lineup, and see these guys driving the ball, and I say to myself….good job Steve, good job”.
The Garveys start Season 8 at Spiky playing the Dudes.
Charm Plankovich has been a reporter for BatBreaker since 2018.