When Harmony Sea Kittens first sauntered onto the Olbrich sand in 2010, none could guess where the franchise would be after one year, much less after nine lives. But today the weather gods have all but given their final blessing for softball, and Harmony Sea Kittens commences its tenth season at Olbrich Park, dueling with Silver Eagle at 7:30 PM on Field #3 in the onset of MSCR Kenosha League play.
After establishing a team record for wins, coming within five runs of an unblemished Summer season, and winning the franchise’s second Summer League Title in 2018, Sea Kittens have advanced to higher-level play for Summer 2019. The Cats competed well in a higher-level 2018 Fall league , amassing a 3-2 record, but haven’t played in an upper Summer League division since going 0-5 in the first half of the 2014 Summer season. The higher level league will feature teams with better all-around defense and hitting, and will challenge the Cats to play the clean of their game, or to keep the litter clumps to a minimum, at very least, lest they get their comeuppance.
The burden the 2019 Sea Kittens must bear and attempt to shed: the club has never posted back-to-back winning Summer seasons.
Summer League Results
| YEAR | W | L | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 7 | 3 | |
| 2011 | 3 | 7 | |
| 2012 | 7 | 4 | Champions |
| 2013 | 5 | 5 | |
| 2014 | 1 | 9 | |
| 2015 | 5 | 5 | |
| 2016 | 7 | 3 | |
| 2017 | 4 | 4 | |
| 2018 | 10 | 1 | Champions |
| Overall | 49 | 41 |
The 2019 squad will be the most experienced in Kitten history, with 10 of 13 rostered players having appeared in 45 or more games for the Cats since 2010; only summer league rookie Boo Rabbit Bradley has appeared in fewer than 25 Sea Kitten contests, and she has 13 Fall league games with the squad under her belt.
Players to watch
Roadrunner Jami Hauer comes off a breakout 2018 in which she batted 0.536 over 16 games, joining teammate Schultzy Oele as the only Sea Kitten women to hit 0.500 or better across a full calendar (summer/ fall/ tournament) of games. Roadrunner’s 0.500 mark in Summer 2018 is second-best in Kitten history, and her 16 hits broke Mama Cat O’Brien’s 6-year old record for hits in a season. Roadrunner’s lofty 0.600 batting average in Fall tied for the best-ever among women in the Cats’ cool-weather season, and her 0.461 career batting average now sits atop the Cats’ all-time women’s list.
Bradley’s 0.786 career slugging percentage would be tops in Sea Kitten history among women if she had the plate appearances to qualify. Paired with Mama Cat O’Brien, whose 2017-18 two-year span has been the best of her storied career, and the duo has a formidable female lefty-righty power-hitting combo in the lineup.
On the men’s side, Dan DynamOele (853/865/1.735), Joe Hennessy (824/800/1.657) Zen Master Rowe (810/810/1.190), Sweet Thing Harkins (688/676/1.061) all posted gaudy career-best batting slashes (BA/OBP/SLG) in Summer 2018 and catalyzed the Kitten offense that dispirited opponents. Those four accounted for 50 of the record 78 extra-base hits the team clubbed.
2019 Summer League Roster Click player name for updated player profile
Skeptics argue that Kenosha League defenses will be less porous and a lot of “Monroe League hits” will turn into outs, and peg the Kits as a middling, 0.500 team. These debbie downer projections include significant regression across the board hitting-wise, particularly in the team’s top-end numbers, and ding the Harmony defense, suggesting opponents will be less forgiving of Sea Kitten moments.
While the Kitten analytics department acknowledges some regression is yeah sure maybe plausible in a player or two, it also points to the bounce-back potential of hitters like Man-Aaron Jossart, Boom Boom Magyera, Red Shoes Hewitt, and the Polish Puma Latzka, each of whom put up solid 2018 numbers but have career profiles that lend optimism to their 2019 projections. One X-factor in the Kitten season will be how the team’s continuity will manifest on the diamond- the squad has been much steadier defensively than in its early years. An XX factor is the part-time return of Mercury Stevens, who is recovering from knee surgery but will serve as the Cats’ go-to sub on the men’s side this summer as management works through a roster gender-balancing act, following departures of Heidibadger Nelson and Clutch Younger. And the XXX factor is Sunshine Curtis, who has hit 0.317 over the past two summers but found pummeling softballs to be cathartic release in Fall 2018, hitting 0.583 in the short season. Is Sunshine ready to bring summer-long rain in 2019?
Kenosha League Preview
The Harmony scouting group (Scouting Unit- Kittens, or SUK) has little data on the five other teams in Kenosha League. One opponent is sometime-Kitten Stephen “Slash” Grutzik’s Pitches Be Trippin squad, which figures to be very solid if it follows the pattern of teams Slash has assembled over the years. Grutzik’s scouting unit shared info that Silver Eagle may be an incarnation of a very tough Chief’s squad that won Kenosha League in 2018 and finished at or near the top of the Cats’ Fall League. Run Like Mad is a Wednesday night version of a Monday team that Bottomfeeders saw regularly and will give the Cats competitive tussles; the Monday night unit of RLM was relegated from the Monday top division for 2019. Two squads- Monona Mashers and Bat Intentions- are not known to SUK.
Looking for more intel on Silver Eagle’s strengths and weaknesses, Hennessy stopped in an scouted for an hour Monday night. The “walleye” sandwich is definitely a weakness. If Sea Kittens can sniff out the walleye sandwiches, they might be able to take down the Silver Eagle.
Tonight’s projected lineup
Smitten with the Kitten? Authentic Sea Kitten gear is available in the shop!