Hometown players fired up for Border Cats return to Thunder Bay

Tuesday night will be one to remember for Thunder Bay Border Cats pitcher Jack Pineau.

Pineau is one of three Thunder Bay-born players — the others being Will Droll and Porter Jorgenson — on this year's Border Cats roster. And he'll be taking the mound in Port Arthur Stadium for the team's home opener on Tuesday, which is also the first Cats home game in three years.

As to how Pineau is feeling in the leadup to the home opener, he said he's "just super excited."

"I wouldn't say nervous, not yet at least," Pineau said during a team workout at Port Arthur Stadium on Wednesday afternoon. "But there's been quite a bit of buzz around the the city. It's gonna be pretty special night."

The sentiment was shared by Droll, who's also part of the Cats pitching rotation.

"It's honestly a dream come true," he said of being part of the Cats organization. "I grew up watching games here."

"We had season tickets when I was young and it's just kind of like a full circle. I mean, before when I was young, I didn't even know what college baseball was. I just knew I wanted to play for the Border Cats."

The Cats are back

This season marks the first time the Cats have taken the field in three years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tuesday will mark Pineau's second start of the 2023 schedule. The team opened the season on the road, playing two games each in Mankato, Rochester, and Waterloo.

Despite a convincing, 12-0 win on night one, the team is coming back to Thunder Bay with a 2-4 record over the first six games.

Pineau — a veteran of Canada's national junior baseball team — started game two, also in Mankato, which the Cats dropped 4-2.

"I gave a lead-off double to start the game, so that ... kind of made me give my head a shake a little bit," Pineau said. "But after that, pretty much I didn't surrender a baserunner for five innings, and then the sixth inning came around and there was a couple of fluke hits, and then that inning just really didn't go my way."

"We just couldn't make it back in time."

But despite the start, Pineau said the team has everything in place to have a successful season.

"I truly believe that we could be 5-1 right now if a couple of things just went our way," he says. "I'm not worried at all. It's just the start of the season, we're kind of still getting to know each other, so I think we're going to win a lot of games this year."

Droll, meanwhile, isn't expected to take the field during Tuesday night's game, but he'll have plenty of support in stands nonetheless.

"I think it's gonna be awesome," he said. "I think I know a ton of people that are going to be coming."

"I got a lot of friends and family that are gonna come too, so you know, that'll be good," he said. "My brothers are pretty big baseball fans, and they're excited to watch some Border Cats games, too."

This season will also mark the debut of the Cats new head coach, J.M. Kelly, who noted that the Cats have had a few more players join the team since the road trip wrapped up.

"We'll look a little different than we did on the road," Kelly said Wednesday. "But I'm excited for the city of Thunder Bay, for Canada in general. I mean this, for this to be back in Canada, and a part of the Northwoods League, it's a big deal. So I'm excited for that."

Kelly also said the Cats record over the first six games isn't necessarily indicative of how well the team played.

"Obviously you want to win every game you play in the summer, but it's about these guys growing as well, and working through some things," he said. "They're borrowed players."

"Whatever instructions they come with, we've got to make sure we follow those, and so we put some guys in some situations where we could have gone a different direction and knowing what we were going to get and probably won the ball game, but it's OK."

"I don't want anybody to think that we're blaming the game on any of that," Kelly said. "There's a lot of things other guys could have done differently, but proud of the way we competed on the road and you know, excited to be back at home and get to open up in front of some awesome fans."

The Border Cats home opener is scheduled for Tuesday night at Port Arthur Stadium. Game time is 6:35 p.m.