Burroughs baseball opens playoffs on road against Downey
Burroughs High baseball coach Craig Sherwood has always taken the same approach to the CIF Southern Section playoffs.
“If you don’t get in you can’t win,” Sherwood said. “So we’re in and now it’s time to make something of it. Once you’re in anything can happen, you just never know. This is an opportunity for us and we have to take advantage of it.”
The Indians will open the Division III playoffs at 3:15 p.m. Wednesday in a a wild-card game on the road at Downey.
Burroughs is the lone local baseball team that qualified for the playoffs.
Burroughs (13-15) enters the postseason after placing fourth in the Pacific League. The Indians ended the regular season Friday with a 6-3 league loss to rival Burbank.
Sherwood said if his team hopes to be successful in the playoffs it has to wake up its bats and score more runs.
“We have stranded something like 180 runners on base this season.” Sherwood said. “You just can’t do that and expect to win. We just have to hit and that’s something that we’ve struggled with this season.
“Our pitching has been solid all year, but our hitting comes and goes, like it did [Friday]. Our hitting has to be consistent and we have got to drive guys in. And that’s on the players; they have to have the mentality to drive those runs in. It’s the difference between winning and losing.”
Downey (16-13) comes into the playoffs after finishing second in the San Gabriel Valley League behind Gahr.
If Burroughs is successful Wednesday it will move on to the first round Friday where it will take on host Santa Fe (20-10), the Del Rio League champion.
“ I really think we’re as good as anybody out there,” Sherwood said. “I love our chances against anybody.”
Twitter: @jefftsports
