By Michael Boriero
A spot in this year’s Ligue de Baseball Majeur du Québec (LBMQ) playoff finals was not in the cards for Sherbrooke, as the Shawinigan Cascades swept the Expos in the semi-finals, bookending a dominant series with a 7-2 win on Friday at Amédée-Roy Stadium.
Sherbrooke hung in for as long as they could in game four. They trailed the Cascades 3-2 at the end of the fourth inning, however, Shawinigan eventually added four runs at the top of seventh inning, and closed out the game with a solid pitching performance.
According to Expos Manager Bruno Laurin, his team never really broke out offensively against the Cascades. And they were ultimately flattened by a handful of costly mistakes throughout the series. It always came down to one disastrous inning, he explained.
“We were not opportunistic like Shawinigan who did pretty much everything they had to do to win the games […] we were not clutch, their offense on the other hand was clutch at the right time, which was the real difference in those games,” said Laurin.
The Cascades were one of the top teams in the league this year, finishing tied for first with Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, who they now meet in game one of the finals on Wednesday. Laurin knew it was a tough matchup, but he didn’t expect his team’s offense to disappear.
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