MONTPELLIER – The D1 season is underway, and after the first weekend of play, featuring six of the league’s 10 teams, here’s what we can gather so far.
Turning the Tables
It’s too early to tell, of course, but with split results in two of the weekend’s matchups, it’s tempting to think there might be a bit more parity this season between the haves and have-nots of the league.
That seemed to be the case in Montpellier, where the Barracudas (17-3 in the 2021 regular season) hosted the La Rochelle Boucaniers (8-12) on Sunday.
The Barracudas have dominated the Boucaniers in recent years, and they did it again in their first match behind a strong outing from left-hander Kevin Canelón. The Venezuelan ace pitched six innings, striking out six and allowing five hits to secure his first win of the season and continue what has been a fantastic trajectory since joining D1 in 2019.
Kevin Canelón picked up his 19th D1 win (Credit: Le Baseblog)
Canelón went 7-3 last season with a 1.75 ERA. In 2019, his first year in the league, the former Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets prospect won 11 games (against just one loss) and posted a phenomenal 0.49 ERA.
The Barracudas also benefited from a balanced offense in their first game. Newcomer Luis Delogu had two hits and four RBIs, and Fabian Kovacs, returning from an injury that sidelined him in the second half of last season, was in sensational form, going 4-for-4 in the game and 7-for-8 overall that day.
Delogu had three hits and four RBIs (Credit: Le Baseblog)
Together, the Montpelliérains scored 11 runs to easily win the contest (11-4).
However, in Sunday’s afternoon match, the Boucaniers – who went 0-4 against Montpellier last year – bounced back, in part thanks to their own Venezuelan ace, Wilce Nieves.
Nieves joined D1 for the first time in 2021 (Credit: Le Baseblog)
The former Chicago White Sox prospect was excellent, limiting the Barracudas to just one run in 8.1 innings. Franklin De La Rosa, who is back with the team after an absence of several years, picked up the save.
The team’s strengthened lineup also performed well. Forrest Crawford was phenomenal, going 4-for-5 in the game. Daniel Rosell, who played for Clermont-Ferrand’s Arvernes last season, and catcher Théo Lakmeche each had three hits.
Rosell had a big opening day for the Boucaniers (Credit: Le Baseblog)
La Rochelle took an early lead, scoring two runs in the first inning off Mathis Nayral, and never looked back, winning by a final score of 8-1.
Like Cats and Dogs
While the Barracudas and Boucaniers, both from Group B, faced off in Montpellier, two of Group A’s strongest teams traded blows in Rouen.
The Huskies have won six consecutive D1 titles and 14 of the last 15. But for the second year in a row, they lost their season opener, this time to the Montigny Cougars, who were on fire late in 2021, winning eight of their last 10 but just missing out on the playoffs.
Picking up where they left off, the Cougars shut out the champions 6-0 behind a complete game from veteran pitcher Yorfrank López (seven strikeouts) of Venezuela.
Newcomers Agustín Tissera of Argentina and Allan Bellen-Fagnoni, a Brazilian, were also important, paying immediate dividends for their new club with two hits each.
His Brazilian teammate Gabriel Do Carmo also had two hits in the game, as did Rafael Jimenez, a Dominican who moved to Europe as a teenager, and Dylan Mayeux, the team’s captain.
In the second game, however, the Huskies made it clear they weren’t just going to roll over and play dead.
Joris Bert of Rouen (archive photo)
Pitchers Esteban Prioul (five innings) and Félix Carvallo (four innings) combined to limit Montigny to just one run, despite allowing eight hits between them (including four to Tissera and Bellen-Fagnoni).
Rouen capitalized on big games from Dylan Gleeson and Bastien Dagneau, who each had three hits. Joris Bert, Hugo Blondel, and Gabriel Harrison also got in on the action, each collecting two hits to give the Huskies an easy 8-1 victory.
Undefeated, but Not Untouchable
The third and final match of the weekend – between the heavily favored Sénart Templiers, the league finalists the last two seasons, and Nice Cavigal, who went 5-15 in the 2021 regular season – was rather lopsided.
Shane Priest (archive photo) had a 9-4 record in 2021 (Credit: Le Baseblog)
As expected, the Templiers, playing at home, won both games and lead Group B so far with a perfect 2-0 record.
Yet it wasn’t exactly a perfect start for the home team, who actually found themselves trailing midway through their first match on Saturday night, despite having their ace, Shane Priest, on the mound.
Nice scored four runs off the American, none of them earned, and after six innings, Priest (9-4 last season, with a 2.70 ERA) was replaced by Emile Brelle. The French pitcher, making his D1 debut, finished with the win, but only thanks to a late offensive surge led by another newcomer to the team, American rookie Thomas Greely.
Naoki Teramura
The former California State University Long Beach player hit a two-run triple in the seventh. Héctor Velasquez, a Venezuelan rookie, had three hits in the game, including two off Nice’s starting pitcher, Naoki Teramura of Japan, who struck out 11 in six innings.
Nice Cavigal ultimately failed to pull off the upset. And in the second game, they were crushed, 0-10. But they showed that the Templiers, who had an incredible 18-2 regular-season record last year, might be a bit more vulnerable this time around.
Coming Soon…
What we don’t know yet, of course, is how the four D1 teams that didn’t play last weekend will fare.
Metz Cometz was supposed to host Paris UC, but those games had to be postponed due to weather. A quirk in the schedule means the Cometz won’t play for the next two weeks either. They will finally make their debut on May 1st – on the road against Montigny.
Fortunately, you won’t have to wait as long to see Paris UC and the Savigny Lions, who face off next Sunday (April 17) in Paris. The Toulouse Tigers, the other team that had the weekend off, also play that day, at home against the Templiers.
Texts and photos: Benjamin Witte
Visuals: Maxence Esteban
