Un seul être leur manquait. Sans leur leader naturel, le charismatique et éternel Felix Brown, les Templiers de Sénart n’allaient peut-être pas nulle part, mais ne semblaient pas devoir faire partie de la bagarre du haut de classement. 2-4, il n’y avait rien pour écrire à sa mère. Puis Félix est arrivé et Sénart a connu le destin du Phénix. 6 victoires consécutives. Une moyenne offensive qui passe de .219 à .253, une ERA collective qui tombe de 6,32 à 4,09. Et la première place du championnat. Bon, là, ce n’est pas une garantie, puisque successivement Montpellier, Rouen, Savigny et La Rochelle ont essayé de prendre la tête du peloton pour impitoyablement se faire reléguer. Mais en tout cas Sénart est premier, ex-aequo avec La Rochelle mais devant grâce à 13-3 infligé aux Boucaniers le 11 avril. Quand on vous répète que tous les points risquent de compter cette saison…
Ce serait sans doute réducteur de résumer la poussée des Templiers au retour de Brown dans le line-up. Mais la coïncidence est troublante. Sénart a gagné 6 de ses 7 derniers matchs. Et les 2 défaites ont été de justesse. Avec Brown, les Templiers ont un leader qui peut faire la différence. Il a battu un record de la ligue en frappes le 25 avril contre Montpellier, et a été nommé joueur de la semaine pour la semaine du 20 avril. Il a été le catalyseur de la poussée des Templiers. Et il a été le catalyseur de la poussée de Sénart.It is a bit puzzling. Perhaps the Templars just needed this one more piece to make everything work perfectly.
However, Sénart is nothing extraordinary: they are 6th in batting average, 3rd in OPS, 5th in stolen bases, 6th in strikeouts thrown, 7th in fielding percentage. This is not really the portrait of a 1st place team. One can only notice that Sénart players are patient (2nd in walks received) and precise (2nd in walks given) and that their ERA of 4.20 is in 2nd place. The same can be said for the individual rankings, there are few Templiers in the top rankings, even if the .355 of Do Carmo or the .351 of Lopez are of course to be taken into account.
So what is going on? One could argue that the 2026 championship is quite weak, and that nobody is capable of making a difference, and that a good series (with 4 matches against the last two in the standings out of the 6 wins) is enough to stand out.
and to take the lead. It is undoubtedly a part of the truth. But we also have the feeling that the Templars form a real group, that they all pull in the same direction, that the decisions made are the right ones, both in the construction of the line-up and in the management of the bullpen. Yes, the Templars’ slogan for several seasons has been « we are family ». But it seemed that it was a rather vain statement. This is no longer the case this year. This demonstrates this state of mind, the statistic of the « back from the back ». 36 times this season a team was leading after 6 innings. Only 5 times the score was reversed. And out of these 5, 2 belong to the Templars. We believe until the end in Sénart. By the way, this reversal of situation after 6 innings happened 3 times this weekend, Toulouse (also for the 2nd time) and La Rochelle achieved it.
Let’s talk about the Buccaneers, in fact. For a long time we thought they would make the playoffs.
Bad performance of the day, once again the bullpen of Montpellier betrayed them in the 8th inning. 3 pitchers of the Barracudas followed each other in this inning, but nothing worked: a mistake to start, a walk, a hit-by-pitch, two wild pitches, and 4 hits made the difference. The recurrence of the pitching difficulties of the Barracudas (where Delgado seems to have disappeared, but in French baseball, we do not talk about absences, departures, returns) continues to cost them dearly, even if the very convincing return of Ben Couvreur will do a lot of good, while waiting for Nayral, which could change everything. In any case, La Rochelle is holding on, and this victory snatched at the end of the game is significant.
One thing that has not changed after this day is that two teams are still outside the playoffs, oh so close, but they are outside: Rouen and Toulouse. But the situation is not the same for both teams.Both teams. Rouen missed a huge opportunity to take the lead in Game 2 after they had a commanding 4-1 lead in the 6th inning of the game. They had controlled Game 1 with a 5-1 win. The Huskies had their best pitcher, Ito, on the mound and with his 0.53 ERA, there was not much to worry about. There were even two outs (and a runner on third) when Bamberger came to bat in the 7th inning. But 4 hits later, Toulouse had taken the lead 5-4, adding an insurance run in the 8th, ending 13 years of failure and 25 consecutive losses in Rouen, and keeping their heads above water and hopes of going to the playoffs. The Soriano-Velazco duo put on a show all weekend, and it feels like the Stade will go as far as their 2 sluggers take them. As for the Huskies, they continue to scratch their heads: this team still has too many holes, technical and psychological weaknesses, to aim for their 20th title. Of course, we will have to judge the Rouen team when their pitchers are all present, but for now, Rouen does not reassure even their most fervent supporters.
