Salt Lake Bees: Buzzing to playoffs

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Since going old school and becoming the Bees again in 2006, Salt Lake's Triple-A baseball franchise has won three consecutive division championships and, consequently, qualified for the Pacific Coast League playoffs each season.

But the Bees have yet to win a playoff series. They'll get another crack at it beginning tonight against the Sacramento River Cats in a best-of-5 Pacific Conference championship series.

Successful regular seasons followed by postseason failure have been a trend for the franchise dating back to the return of Triple-A baseball to Utah 15 years ago. In a league where only four of 16 teams qualify for the playoffs, the Buzz/Stingers/Bees are now heading to the postseason for the ninth time in 15 years, an amazing accomplishment.

Yet, Salt Lake hasn't won a PCL title since the 1979 Gulls did it. In a league where you need only win two series to earn the championship, Salt Lake has been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round five times and in the finals in its other three postseason appearances since 1994.

That could change in the next two weeks, however, as the Bees enter the playoffs on their best roll since the first month of the season.

After a record-breaking start that saw the Bees go 22-1 to open the year, Salt Lake played right around .500 baseball the rest of the way. But down the stretch, with the Tacoma Rainiers breathing down their necks, the Bees went 11-4 over the final two weeks of the regular season. Salt Lake finished with an 84-60 mark and with the most wins in the PCL.

"The players really stepped up nicely — especially the pitchers — at the end of the season," said Bees manager Bobby Mitchell. "We did a good job of holding off Tacoma because they were hot. It shows the character of this team. The character is really good and we go into this series with Sacramento with some momentum."

The Bees and River Cats had a memorable five-game series last season in the playoffs, when Salt Lake opened with a pair of dramatic wins in Salt Lake, only to get swept in the final three games at Raley Field in Sacramento. The River Cats then went on to win the PCL championship.

Sacramento finished this season one game behind the Bees, at 83-61, but clearly had the Bees' number in the head-to-head battles. The River Cats won 11 of the 16 games between the two clubs.

"Sacramento has a good team, no doubt about it," said Mitchell. "We have our work cut out for us. They have good pitching and their hitting is efficient with a good combination of lefties and righties both hitting and with their pitching staff."

One major difference favoring the Bees this season as opposed to last is that they get the home-field advantage this time. The first game will be played tonight in California's capital city and Game 2 will also be at Raley Field on Thursday night. But the final three games — assuming the fourth and fifth games are necessary — will be in the friendly confines of Franklin Covey Field over the weekend.

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