PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Lefties were already tested in the heat this weekend.
Now, they are almost literally jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
The Lefties begin their longest road trip of the year today as they prepared Monday to travel to (gulp) Yakima.
Yakima is normally very hot this time of year, but central and eastern Washington are seeing some truly jaw-dropping temperatures this week. The Lefties-Pippins games are a go despite the heat.
While Port Angeles is looking to cool down considerably today, Yakima is expected to hit 115 today, 111 Wednesday and 107 Thursday — with those first two days roughly 20 degrees hotter than what this area has been experiencing the past few days.
Lefties owner/coach Matt Acker said the games will be pushed back to begin at 7:30 p.m., and could be pushed back even further into the evening. He said full nine-inning games are planned. The Lefties cut their nonleague game against the Honkers to seven innings Sunday, but Acker said that West Coast League games must go nine innings.
Acker said that while a number of his players come from warm-weather areas such as south Utah and Southern California, even those players were struggling with the heat this weekend at Civic Field.
“When you walk into a locker room and don’t have air conditioning, the body is constantly feeling that heat,” he said.
The good news is 100-degree temps in the Yakima Valley are not that unusual, so the area has much more air conditioning than the Olympic Peninsula.
“They’re more set up for the heat there,” he said.
After the three-game series against Yakima Valley, the Lefties will travel to Bellingham for a three-game series in more reasonable temperatures forecast to be in the low 80s.
