The Okotoks Dawgs are well on their way to getting their pitching rotation set up for next season.
The two pitchers who took home some hardware at the Dawgs awards banquet Saturday plan to be back in June to help the Okotoks Dawgs in their pursuit of a fourth Western Major Baseball League in five years.
Right-hander Danny Britton-Foster won the True Grit Award at the ceremony at the Foothills Centennial Centre and hard-throwing righty Desmond Sullivan was named the Dawgs’ Pitcher of the Year. Sullivan posted a stellar 7-1 record with a 2.21 earned run average with the Dawgs last year.
Sullivan said his first year with the Dawgs was not only a great experience, but made him better on the bump.
“The biggest thing is everything around this organization put me in a position to be a better pitcher,” Sullivan said. “I couldn’t believe how much I improved in my two or three months here. It will help me continue to pursue my dream to play professional baseball.
“I’m not getting any younger.”
The 26-year-old Sullivan was called “Grandpa” by his teammates last season.
He credits pitching coach Duane Bozic and coaches Brett Thomas and David Robb for his improvement on the mound.
“The level of play that this organization encourages means I want to strive to do my best regardless of whether it is here or at school,” he said.
Sullivan pitches for Rio Grande College in Ohio. The Toronto native wound up in Okotoks after hearing about the class organization.
“Initially, another team (in the Western Major Baseball League) was showing interest in me and I asked players on my summer team back in Toronto what they thought,” Sullivan said. “Davey Wallace, who played with the Dawgs in 2005, said if I was going to play for anybody out here it should be the Dawgs because they are such a class organization. He was right and I will be back next year.”
He has set his goals for the summer.
“I want a championship,” Sullivan said. “On paper we had the best team in the league, but we had some injuries. But that helped show the depth of this program. Some of those young Junior Dawgs stepped in and did well for us.”
Danny Britton-Foster went to the Dawgs’ camp last June from UBC with a fastball that didn’t exactly live up to its name. He had lost some heat on his heater.
“Losing my velocity makes it more difficult to reach my goal to be drafted (by a Major League Baseball team), so it was tough for me,” Britton-Foster said. “But in the long run, it made me a better pitcher.
“When my shoulder was healthy I was in the 88 (miles per hour) range,” Britton-Foster said. “Last year, when I started with the Dawgs I was at about 81.”
Foster said he no longer relied on just his heater, but he has four other pitches in his repertoire. He also worked more on locating his pitches.
He has been working throughout the offseason and hopes to be back to full velocity when the Dawgs break camp in June. He ended up showing more True Grit last summer than either Jeff Bridges or John Wayne ever did.
Despite the drop in velocity on his fastball, Britton-Foster still posted a record of 4-3 last year with an ERA of 3.05 in 44 innings pitched.
He plans to be back to win a championship — just like he did in 2009 in his rookie season with the Dawgs.
The Dawgs’ MVP was Jeff Harkansee who had a .394 batting average and seven home runs. His season with the Dawgs was cut short because of family illness. He is not expected, at this time, to be back with the Dawgs this summer.
The Dawgs’ Rookie of the Year was Andre Kinder. Kinder did double duty hitting .380 at the plate and he was also a workhorse on the mound. He was the Dawgs’ stopper out of the bullpen with a 0.60 ERA. He had Nolan Ryan-like numbers in posting 35 strikeouts in 30 innings.
Kinder will also not likely be back with the Dawgs this summer.
Kinder and Harkansee were unable to attend the awards ceremony on Saturday.
