The Charleston RiverDogs are ready to compete in the postseason for the fourth straight year on Tuesday and claim another Single-A Carolina League title.
“The team once again made an impressive turnaround in the second half and made the final games of the regular season very meaningful,” Dave Echols, president and general manager of the RiverDogs, said in a statement.
“The playoff atmosphere created by our fans over the last three seasons has truly been unmatched.”
The league’s first playoff game will take place in Charleston
The first of the three playoff games will be Tuesday, 19:05 in Charleston against the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers. Tickets cost between $13 and $23. The RiverDogs say the playoff opening game will feature $1 beer, thanks to Budweiser. The first 1,000 fans will also receive a Gildan and Nucor Steel Berkeley T-shirt.
Games two – and three, if necessary – will be played in Kannapolis on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
The Cannon Ballers, an affiliate team of the Chicago White Sox, finished the first half of the Carolina League South with a score of 41-25. The RiverDogs, an affiliate team of the Tampa Bay Rays, finished the first half in last place in the division with a score of 27-38.
But in the second half of the Carolina League South, the RiverDogs woke up and led their division with a record of 41-23, eight games ahead of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. Kannapolis, meanwhile, finished in fourth place with a record of 29-35, 12 games behind the RiverDogs.
The RiverDogs, who have a 68-61 record this year, will end the regular season on Sunday at 5:05 p.m. with a game in Columbia against the Fireflies (68-62).
The 2023 season brought a third victory in a row
Last year, the RiverDogs won their third straight Carolina League championship after a 99-year drought. And last year, like this year, the team started slowly – with the worst record in its division in the first half before storming out to 39-26 in the second half.
“We had a young, talented group, but we had a lot of things to work on and improve on,” manager Sean Smedley said last year. “That’s a testament to the guys – they went out and got better every day. They started learning on their own and learned to play this game at a high level and they ended up winning the championship.”
In 2021, the RiverDogs won their first championship in nearly a century. In 2022, the team boasted its strongest record – 88-44, the best in all of professional baseball that year.
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