Why This Year's D1 Season Is So... Awesome!

The 2023 D1 baseball campaign has proven to be a true challenge. The regular season is wrapping up, but seven of the league’s ten teams are still in the hunt for the title. For French baseball fans, this is excellent news.

After all, this league hasn’t really been a model of parity in recent years.

One team—the Rouen Huskies—has won seven consecutive championships (and 16 of the last 17). The stiffest competition has come from the Sénart Templiers. The Montpellier Barracudas, Savigny Lions, and Montigny Cougars have also had some strong seasons, but after that, the gap between the league’s haves and have-nots tends to widen.

This year, the D1 has delivered some welcome intrigue in this regard, and we’re here to break it down, with a look at the current situation in each of the league’s two divisions.

Division A

The Huskies aren’t leading Division A at the moment. What?

Far from it, and the team currently on top (for now, at least) is a pleasant surprise. It’s the Toulouse Stade, a squad that overhauled its roster in the offseason and has taken a giant step forward.

Recall that the Tigers, as they’re also known, finished last season with a disappointing 3-13 record. This year? They’re sitting at 12-6!

Toulouse still has six regular-season games left, but they have a good shot at adding two more wins this weekend when they host the Division A cellar-dwellers, Paris UC (1-17).

The team nipping at Toulouse’s heels in the Division A standings is just as surprising: it’s the La Rochelle Buccaneers.

The Buccaneers have bounced back from a slow start

After making the playoffs last year for the first time in club history, the Buccaneers started the 2023 campaign on a cold streak. But over the last month, they’ve turned up the heat, winning seven straight, including two come-from-behind victories last Sunday against the Huskies.

Thanks to those wins, La Rochelle is now 12-8 and tied with the Montigny Cougars, who split a doubleheader last weekend with Toulouse. And guess what? The Cougars and Buccaneers face off this Sunday in a doubleheader at La Rochelle.

Game on!

That leaves the Rouen Huskies in fourth place in Division A with an 11-9 record. Remember, only the top two teams from each division make the playoffs.

The Huskies are backed against the wall, but they’re not out of the woods yet. They’ll be off next weekend, but they’ll return to the field on July 23 against the PUC, the Division A basement-dweller.

Division B

Division B is also tightly packed. The Montpellier Barracudas sit atop the standings with a 15-3 record, the best in the league. But they’re being chased by the Sénart Templiers, who swept a tough Savigny Lions squad last Sunday to move to 14-4.

So far this year, the Barracudas are 3-1 against the Templiers. But that’s about to change one way or another this Sunday when they meet again in a doubleheader at Montpellier.

For Sénart, it’s a chance to gain ground. For the Barracudas, it’s a chance to put their Division lead out of reach. The anticipation is palpable!

In the meantime, both teams have their eyes on the Savigny Lions, who reached last year’s championship final and, despite dropping two games last weekend to Sénart, can still make a playoff push.

Unlike the Barracudas and Templiers, who have just four regular-season games left, the Lions (13-5) have six, starting with a doubleheader this Sunday against the second-to-last-place Metz Cometz.

Savigny is favored to win those games. If that happens, the Lions will be in the driver’s seat, as they’ll close out the season with doubleheaders against Sénart (July 23) and Montpellier (July 30).

Nothing is set in stone. So yes, French baseball fans, enjoy it, because the fun is just beginning!

Benjamin Witte
Photo credit: BW