Brisbane sweeps way to Claxton Shield title

On his 27th birthday, Donald Lutz gave fans of Queensland baseball the biggest present he could: the Claxton Shield.

Lutz bashed a three-run homer, veteran Travis Blackley pitched six stellar innings and for the first time in their history, the Brisbane Bandits captured the Australian Baseball League title. Their 7-1 victory over the Adelaide Bite on Saturday completed a two-game sweep in the best-of-3 Championship Series.

"Awesome, you know especially doing it out here at [home]," Lutz said. "We had an awesome squad, a lot of fun, a great time here. It's been our goal from the beginning. Everyone was just doing their part, the little things that they were supposed to do, so we just put it together and pulled it off."

In Friday night's series opener, the hulking Lutz legged out an RBI triple in the third to add to his team's early lead. On Saturday, that was the magic inning again. The Reds prospect crushed a two-out offering from Adelaide starter Steven Chambers, depositing it over the right-field wall to stake the Bandits to a 3-0 lead.

"The first at-bat, he came in hard a couple of times," said Lutz, who was named ABLCS Most Valuable Player. "He came in with two fastballs hard, a low slider and then the next at bat I was like, 'He's going to try to come in again and try to get me extended.' So I just cheated a little bit, backed off the plate, and I was lucky I got something on it."

The margin was more than enough for former big leaguer Blackley who struck out six while allowing a run on six hits and a walk over six innings. Though he pitched with traffic in each of his first five frames, the Marlins farmhand kept the Bite off the board. Blackley waited out a 20-minute rain delay before the fourth and returned to the mound feeling even better.

"I was in there visualizing my inning beforehand, while we were waiting," he said. "I came out, threw a couple of towel drill things, just to keep my arm moving, and I felt probably even better once that ended. It was very uncomfortable out there early on, always having to stop and get my cleats on right -- really hard to keep a rhythm -- but once they fixed that mound up, it was a lot easier to get a bit of a rhythm.

"It let me compose myself a little more, gave me time to collect myself and realize that we had a little bit of a lead and get a shutdown inning right there, and that was the key."

The lefty allowed a leadoff homer to Mariners prospect Kyle Petty in the sixth as his only blemish.

"I knew they were going to be aggressive," Blackley said. "I knew that they were, like they did last night, they were going to take it to us and they showed it to us in the first game. I knew I couldn't go just laying in fastballs, and they made me work. It was tough conditions for both sides, having to pitch, having to hit in the rain. I can't say I had my best stuff out there. I really just battled with whatever I had.

"I really just tried to get zeroes, as many as I could. Didn't care how I got them, or if they looked pretty or not -- just get it done, and then let the boys take care of it with the bats."

Blackley and Lutz added star power to a Bandits team that had never qualified for the playoffs through the ABL's first five years, and they did so as outsiders. Blackley, a Melbourne native, had pitched in parts of three prior seasons for his hometown's Aces before joining the Bandits for 2015-16. Lutz played for Canberra back in the league's inaugural 2010-11 season.

"He really battled through that weather and put us in position like our starting pitching has done all year, let the offense come around," Bandits manager Dave Nilsson said. "Same formula, good starting pitching, get some runs, turn it over to the bullpen."

Brisbane's shutdown bullpen showed its colors again with three more dominant innings behind Blackley. Matt Timms struck out a pair in two innings, and league MVP contender Ryan Searle (Cubs) finished off the victory with a perfect ninth. In two ABLCS games, Bandits relievers combined to allow just one hit over seven shutout innings, striking out five.

"I've touched on it before, so many special things about tonight, to have all of the old guys here, for everyone who's to be a part of it who's been around for a long time," Nilsson said. "Then we've got this new generation of young kids coming through, [Ryan] Battaglia behind the plate, Mitchell Nilsson, Logan Wade, 'Soupy' [Andrew Campbell], David Sutherland. There are so many exciting things about this group."

The sweep was just the second in six years of ABL Championship Series play and finished off a postseason that featured a host of new faces. The Bandits finished off a historic year with the title, breaking a stretch of four championships in five years for the Perth Heat, who were left out of the 2015-16 playoffs. The Bite reached the Championship Series for the second consecutive year.

Nilsson, the first Major League All-Star from Australia, is quite familiar with making history, but on Saturday, his focus was on the pride he shared in piloting his home team to glory.

"All teams say it, but this is one of the best groups I've ever been around," he said. "We're just a big family."