As the minor-league baseball regular season comes to a close, the Lansing Lugnuts have secured themselves a spot in the playoffs - the only question is who’ll they play.
If Lansing finishes at the top of it’s Eastern Division of the Midwest League, it will face off Sept. 3 at home against the West Michigan Whitecaps, the first-half wild-card winners.
If the Lugnuts nab the wild-card spot, it will be pitted against the Michigan Battle Cats, the first-half champions.
Lansing is 8-8 on the season against each team, but hasn’t faced the Battle Cats since July 26, which with all the changes a minor league team sustains, could mean the Lugnuts would face a whole new team.
But Lugnuts hitting coach Mike Micucci, said he’s not concerned about who the Lugnuts first-round opponent will be.
“Early in the year we didn’t have much success with West Michigan, and Michigan we haven’t seen in a while,” Micucci said.
“Both teams are very good teams - it really doesn’t matter who we play.”
If the Lugnuts can take two of three games from their opponent in quarterfinal play, the team will advance to the divisional championships and play the winner of the other Eastern Division quarterfinals. The divisionals are also best-of-three play, and take place Sept. 6-8.
At the end of the postseason road is the league championship. Should Lansing advance to this point, it will host games one and two, playing games three (and if necessary), four and five on the road. The league championships are set to take place Sept. 9-13.
The Lugnuts qualified for the playoffs last season by winning 15 of 18 games in the second half of the season. They were eliminated from the quarterfinals after losing two straight to the Dayton Dragons.
In 1997, Lansing was crowned champion of the Midwest League after defeating the Kane County Cougars in five games in the finals.
Although 1997 marked the team’s sole championship, center fielder Mike Mallory remains optimistic about this year
“We have a really good team this season,” Mallory said.
“And now that we’ve qualified for the playoffs, I think if we take one game at a time. We have a really good chance of going all the way.”
Lansing catcher Lukas McKnight is confident of his team’s chances in the quarterfinals, whether it’s against the Battle Cats or Whitecaps.
“They’re both good teams, so we’re going to have to play well each day and hopefully the breaks will come.”
