Recent road trip showed both flaws, triumphs of Cutters
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Even at the end of a long baseball season, things can still be learned about a team.
Heading into the final stretch of the season, the Williamsport Crosscutters have managed to keep the train on the tracks in the second-half campaign. Already clinching a spot in September 2's MLB Draft League Championship game due to their first-half title back in early July, Williamsport still had a long, grueling, 50-game slate to go across the dog days of summer with.
It is a second half of the season that, historically, has not been kind to Williamsport.
No team in the history of the MLB Draft League has struggled more in the second half than the Cutters. Since the league's integration of a 30-50 calendar in 2023, the Cutters had astonishingly finished in last place of the second half standings in every season. In some years, like in 2024 when Williamsport's 13-28 mark ranked eight games behind the next closest team, the margins were hardly close.
Yet in 2026, the maturation of the Cutters when the league turns to its professional half cannot be ignored. Heading into Friday's series against the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, the Cutters sat with a 16-14 mark in the second-half campaign for a respectable third-place position in the league.
And it was in their recent six-game road trip that showed both the flaws, and the triumphs that have the Cutters sitting in the middle of the pack.
Across two three game sets against the Mahoning Valley Scrappers and Aberdeen Ironbirds, the Cutters saw themselves split the trip, further solidifying their standing in the heart of the MLB Draft League in the second half.
Starting in Mahoning Valley, the Cutters' prolific bats showed out when they took the series on wins of 10-6 and 8-1 in the rubber match with a 2-7 setback in between.
In the series opener, the Cutters brushed off their top two in the order, going a combined 0 for 9 at the plate with four batters recording multiple hits. Included in the tally is Chris Stanfield and Trey Wells, who both snagged three hits batting sixth and seventh in the order.
Such efforts would be replicated in the rubber match against the Scrappers, with eight of Williamsport's nine in the order registering a hit on route to a crucial series victory last weekend. Further standing out this season, Matthew Williams would be the starlet with a three run homerun that solidified a win.
With their road trip concluding against the first place Aberdeen Ironbirds, the Cutters would get a close look at who can potentially be their opponents in the championship game. The newcomer Ironbirds would prove they belonged in the three game set, taking the series by scores of 8-7 and 14-7 while Williamsport prevented a sweep in the final game 12-8.
While the offense continued to produce, recording six runs or more in what would be the seventh time in eight games, Williamsport's struggles at the mound continue to be the catalyst in what is preventing Williamsport's season from being a historically great one.
In their final two games of the series against Aberdeen, Williamsport's bullpen would give up 17 runs in the sixth inning or later. Even in Williamsport's 12-8 win in the series finale, seven conceded runs in the final two innings made a comfortable win not as comfortable as they would like.
The conceded runs reflect what has been continued difficulties in the second-half season out of the bullpen. Going into the weekend, Williamsport's 7.71 earned run average over the last five games ranks second worst in the MLB Draft League, with 34 strikeouts thrown ranked last in the same span by seven strikeouts.
Looking to recover at the hill and continue at the plate, Williamsport hosted the Ironbirds in a three-game weekend slate before the Little League World Series moves the Cutters on a nine-game road stand in State College, West Virginia, and Aberdeen once more.