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Winning brings major fun to minor leagues

Commentary

One of the best things about minor league baseball is when August rolls around and the Curve are in contention.

Things just start to feel different.

The sport, by its very nature, at this level is about player development every day. Winning is important to minor league teams — it always has been for the Pirates in Double-A — but there’s so much at stake regarding development, priority prospects getting their playing time or moving players up the system, that individual games sort of just come and go in the minors.

Right now, though, with the Curve in another playoff chase, the intensity level of these meaningful games down the stretch makes them feel more like major league contests than the usual minor league fare.

We’ve been very fortunate in Altoona over the years to get to see a lot of good teams that wound up making the playoffs. This is the Curve’s 19th season, and the club has a chance to reach the playoffs for the third year in a row and eighth time overall (also 2003-06, 2010, 2015-16).

That’s pretty cool.

“Our goal here is to win a championship, and our management (with the Pirates) has the same goals as we do,” Curve outfielder Jerrick Suiter said this week.

I walk around the concourse at Peoples Natural Gas Field a good bit during games talking to fans, and seeing them hang on every pitch late in games with a lot on the line shows just how much they actually care about winning.

It’s even neat to hear fans gripe when a player doesn’t come through in the clutch, or call for a pitching change when a guy’s struggling, or question a manager’s decision — all things that are commonplace in the majors but not so much in the minors.

At this point, after so many years of the Curve being good, or at least in contention, it’s probably safe to say that fans here are a little spoiled by minor league standards. Making the playoffs 40 percent of your years in existence will do that.

Curve manager Michael Ryan talked after Tuesday night’s game about how things with the club are a little different in the final month during a playoff chase. Some typical minor league decisions that are based on development — such as bullpen usage or playing time — can now go out the window because the emphasis is placed more squarely on winning.

“Once August hits, it’s all off the table,” Ryan said. “You perform, you execute, you’re going to get those innings (as a pitcher). You don’t, you’re not going to. Same thing with the lineup. Get in there, you play, help us do what we’re supposed to do, you’re going to keep playing.

“They’ve earned the right to play in these meaningful games the last month. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of them if we’re just trying to get a guy in for two innings because he has to, or have to get this guy 20 at-bats this week because of this or that. … The organization usually says handcuffs are off going into the last month, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Given that, expect more moves, more strategy, more situational stuff from Ryan and the Curve. For instance, Tuesday night, the manager left reliever Sean Keselica, a lefty, in for one extra batter to start the eighth inning because Erie was sending up a left-handed hitter. A lot of major league managers will do that, but it’s not typical in Double-A because the preference is to bring in a new reliever to start a fresh inning.

“It was fun,” Ryan said, “to leave Keselica in the game for a lefty and then have Tate (Scioneaux) ready. … It’s more of a matchup type game for us.”

I’m hesitant to say that what we get to see during a minor league playoff chase is more like “real baseball,” simply because that’s disrespectful to the players and coaches who bust their tails every day all season trying to play the game they love the right way.

Still, there’s no denying the energy at PNG Field — from the players and fans — when there’s actually something at stake during a playoff race.

There’s certainly nothing minor league about it.

Cory Giger is the host of “Sports Central” weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m. on ESPN Radio 1430 WVAM.

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