The Grays finally appear to have found their rhythm with fourth straight win as playoffs loom

The Gate City Grays are now over .500.

And not a moment too soon either.

They did so with a 10-0 shutout of the Brigham City Peaches for their fourth straight win Monday night in the home regular season finale at Halliwell Park.

“It feels really good. It’s kind of a relief,” said Gate City head coach Rhys Pope with a laugh. “We told the boys way back at the beginning of June, ‘Hey, we want to play our best baseball at the end of July and into August. So we’re at the end of July and we’re playing pretty good baseball. So hopefully we can continue that and head into the playoffs playing well.”

That was far from the case just a little more than a week ago.

The Grays (12-11) suffered an 11-6 loss at The Lab out of Logan, Utah on July 22. It was their third consecutive road loss in three days when they were outscored 48-23 − arguably their worst stretch of games on the season. It dropped them to three games under .500 at just 8-11.

So Pope and owner Terry Fredrickson took an unusual approach in trying to get the team back on track. Rather than having batting practice the next day, the guys played some dominoes instead.

“It was just like, ‘Hey guys, let’s get back to having fun,’” Pope said. “Sometimes guys going right from their college seasons into summer baseball, it can get kind of long right? You kind of forget at times that you’re playing a game. So it was like, ‘Hey, let’s take a little reset from baseball. Let’s just have some fun, get the guys together.’ They were able to do that team bonding type of stuff, but still compete because they’re playing a card game and the guys want to win.”

The unorthodox plan worked.

Gate City returned to the field two days later with a 7-4 win over the Brigham City Peaches at home. Three more wins followed with them outscoring the Peaches and the Smithfield Blue Sox 24-5.

It’s their best winning streak of the season. Prior to that, Gate City had only won consecutive games twice this season.

“Clean baseball is huge. I think that’s probably the biggest thing,” said Pope, whose team only committed one error in the last three games. “On the pitching side of things, we’re limiting free passes. We’re pounding the strike zone, getting ahead of guys and being able to put them away. And then on the offensive side, we’re just having gritty tough at-bats. Being able to get dudes on, whether that’s a knock or a walk, and then being able to get the hits when it counts when you get runners on.”

No one’s been doing that better for the Grays recently than JD Gunderson.

The Pocatello High alum, who’s now playing at Oregon Tech, has racked up nine hits, including two doubles, and six RBIs during this current stretch. He’s the only Gate City player to record multiple hits in all four games.

This came off the heels of going just 1-for-4 at the plate in the 11-6 loss to The Lab back on July 22.

“He got out in one of his first at-bats of the game and he got pissed off,” Pope said. “I don’t even know why he was ticked off because he was hitting .424 before that. But that’s just JD. He’s just a competitor. He’s always trying to be the best that he can be. And that’s the right mentality to have. Every time he goes up to hit it’s like, ‘I should get a base knock here. I am good enough that I should get a base knock.’”

Tyler Vance also had a hot bat. He tallied six hits, including a home run and a pair of doubles, for three RBIs.

The Grays got some outstanding pitching, as well. Their staff allowed just one earned run and 13 hits. They also combined for 24 strikeouts.

Most of those came from Gate City’s unquestioned ace, Brayden Pieper. He notched nearly half of them with 11 between two starts. Pieper gave up no earned runs and only six hits, too.

“Anytime he goes out on the bump, he brings an energy and a presence. When he’s on the bump, we got a shot to win it,” Pope said. “Our guys feel that and I think it relaxes our offense because they know that he’s gonna go out and do his thing.

“Every time I text him that he’s got the start, he’s just freaking pumped. And he goes, ‘I don’t want to give you the ball back.’ And I’m like, ‘Piep, I don’t want you to give me the ball back either.’”

Gate City finished out the regular season on the road at the Hyrum Hornets Tuesday. The game was still in progress at press time. The Northern Utah League playoffs then get underway Saturday.

“These are highly emotional games that we’re about to be playing. So just stay in the cool right? Not letting the highs get too high and the lows get too low,” Pope said. “Not putting too much pressure on ourselves. Let’s just keep playing our game and let things happen instead of pressing.”