Humboldt Crabs Baseball

The Humboldt Crabs’ hopes of qualifying for this year’s Pacific Empire League championship series took a big hit over the weekend, although they did get some help from a league rival.

The Crabs came into the weekend in strong position to qualify for next week’s championship series, but they dropped all three of their games to league leaders, the Healdsburg Prune Packers.

The Crabs dropped the series opener 3-2 on Friday night, and followed that with a 5-3 loss on Saturday and a heartbreaking 7-5 loss on Sunday.

The Prune Packers rallied from a late deficit on Sunday, plating three runs on a pair of home runs in the top of the ninth inning to pull out the come-from-behind win and complete the sweep.

With the three losses, the Crabs are now 14-8 in PEL play and have dropped into a tie for second in the standings with the Lincoln Potters (14-8).

But it could have been worse.

On Saturday night, the Medford Rogues scored a pair of late runs in a 3-2 come-from-behind win over the Potters, a win that prevented a Lincoln series sweep.

With Healdsburg improving to 20-3 in league play and now guaranteed a place in next week’s big series, the race for the second and final spot will go down to the wire.

The Crabs will now be hoping the Prune Packers can do them a favor when they play a pair of games against the Potters (home and away) on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

If they do and the Crabs can take care of business in a three-game series against the Medford Rogues this coming weekend, then they should advance to the championship series.

According to the schedule, the Potters also have three other scheduled league games, one against the Solano Mudcats (Tuesday) and two against the West Coast Kings (Saturday and Sunday), meaning they will play two more league games than the Crabs. 

The weekend, however, was clearly a disappointing one for the Crabs and a low point of the season.

With the three losses, the Crabs dropped to 32-8 overall, with five of their losses coming against Healdsburg, while the Prune Packers continued to roll and improved to 33-3.

Sunday’s game was particularly heartbreaking for the local club.

The Crabs rallied from an early four-run deficit, scoring four runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 5-4 lead.

A four-pitch walk to Tate Medicoff with the bases loaded tied the game at 4-4, before Adam Enyart gave the home team a slender one-run lead when he scored on a wild pitch.

Maximo Martinez, however, would hit his second home run of the afternoon to kickstart a late Healdsburg rally in the top of the ninth, before teammate Logan Sutter added a two-run blast to give the visitors the lead.

Medicoff also hit a home run for the Crabs in Saturday’s loss.

The Crabs will be back in action against the Athletic Edge Express in non-league action at the Arcata Ball Park on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.