Welcome back for an early morning (well, for me) Saturday edition of the Delco Baseball Now newsletter, where we take a look at everything happening in the area with summer ball.
From Little League to Babe Ruth to Legion to Delco League, we have you covered on all the action and even mix in a little Phillies at the end.
As always, make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet to get these updates delivered every day!
Little League 11U:
The Ridley 11’s had to battle out of the loser’s bracket to win the District 19 title, and they appear ready to do the same in the Section 8 Tournament.
After losing to Upper Providence a few days ago, they have battled back to force a winner-take-all game on Saturday at 11:00 AM.
Should they win, they would win their second straight section title and would advance to states. They fell in the title game last year to Hollidaysburg.
Little League 10/12U:
While the 11U Section 8 Tournament will end today, the 10 and 12 brackets will begin.
Ridley is our lone rep in the 10U bracket, but we have half of the four-team field at the 12U level with Newtown-Edgmont and Radnor-Wayne. I vote that if that ends up being the championship that the game be relocated to a neutral site in Delco like Media or Aston-Middletown. Kind of like how if Bonner and Strath Haven did meet in that 2023 State Championship game, it should have been played in Delco.
Babe Ruth 13U:
That’s a good way to get your home fans fired up early.
Broomall-Newtown, one of three Delco teams in this tournament, easily handled UDHL in Round 1. They will play their second pool play game Sunday, but with the top four out of six teams advancing into the knockout stage, they seem poised to at least get that far.
The semifinals and championship would be Monday, all games are at Thomas Field in Broomall.
Senior Legion:
As mentioned above, Pat Callahan has been absolutely filthy this summer, and Friday night was no different.
UDHL will advance to the Region 3 Tournament regardless, but they would certainly like to add a league championship along the way as well.
Springfield will have to beat Mt. Airy and then also beat Narberth to get into the championship game, where they would then have to beat Upper Darby twice.
We plan on streaming Monday’s legion title game on the Delco Baseball Now YouTube channel.
Delco League:
Upper Darby and Wayne will play one more time this season, which really feels like a game that will decide who gets the #1 seed and home field advantage in the playoffs.
That could turn out costly, as the 2022 and 2023 finals were between these two teams and they went all five games, with Wayne winning both titles on their home field.
As for Aston Valley, they needed this win in a bad way as Ridley was starting to make a push for that last playoff spot. Aston Valley’s win helped give them a bit more margin for error.
MiLB:
A great week for Bonner’s Kevin McGonigle is about to get even better.
The Monsignor Bonner alum was recently called up to the Double-A Erie SeaWolves, and he will now represent the Detroit Tigers in the MLB Futures Game as a part of All-Star weekend.
MLB:
I need to stop staying up for these West Coast Phillies games. All I get out of them is anger and sleep deprivation.
The Phillies trailed 3-2 in the top of the eighth and had bases loaded and one out, but both Nick Castellanos and Max Kepler failed to get the job done. Manny Machado immediately homered to begin the ninth which really put the game away.
Another strong start wasted as Ranger Suarez threw a great game but didn’t get any help. Let’s hope Zack Wheeler can give us another superhuman effort after he nearly threw a perfect game on Sunday.