2022 Season Wrap Up: A’s Complete Championship Season

When January 7 rolls around and the Sheboygan Athletic Club holds its Annual Awards Dinner, it will be an evening of true celebration.

The Club’s 2022 edition of Sheboygan A’s Baseball had an outstanding year, a championship year, the best year since 2014 when the club won the Langsdorf League championship and finished with a 44-17 record under skipper Tyler Martin.

This year, manager Tim Moyer’s A’s:

• Ran up a 43-20 record
• Set a club record with 17 straight wins
• Won the Northeastern Wisconsin League championship
• Won the Northeastern Wisconsin League post-season tournament
• Won the season-opening Play Ball Tournament
• Won the Wisconsin Amateur Baseball Association Tournament
• Won the Wisconsin State League’s State Tournament qualifying tournament
• And rain denied them of their chance to win the Wisconsin Class A State Tournament.

The 43 wins rank seventh on the A’s all-time win list. Dave Moyer’s 1991 Wisconsin State League championship team of 1991 won 49 games, the 2001 and 2002 teams of Marc Marizzaldi and Mike Steed along with Chad Gehr’s 2008 team won 46 games, and the Craig Kloes teams of 1999 and 2000 won 44 games.

This was the first year the A’s won the Northeastern Wisconsin League title and it was their sixth championship season. The A’s won the Land o’ Lakes League Northern Division pennant in 1968; the Wisconsin State League title in 1991, 1997, and 2000; and the aforementioned Langsdorf League crown in 2014.

This year’s 43-20 record did not come easily. The club floundered at the .500 mark through the first one-third of the season, but everything changed when they bolted from a 10-10 record to a 27-10 record with the club record 17-game win streak.

The 16-10 finish was nearly as impressive as the 17-game win streak as it included 20 games against Lombard, West Allis, Burlington, Appleton, and Menasha, the toughest teams on the schedule.

And they did it with staters Jacob Neese, Brady Zackrisen, and Riley Palmquist out with injuries.

As a team, the A’s hit .316, fielded .950 and had 4.01 earned run average.

Jared Reklaitis led a strong pitching staff with a 6-1 record and a record-setting 0.45 earned run average giving up but three earned runs in 59⅔ innings.  That broke the oldest single-season record in the A’s books, the 0.89 ERA posted by Rick Reiss in 1969.  Further, it is the second time Reklaitis cracked the top five.

Sheboygan A’s Single Season Pitching Records: Earned Run Average
 (minimum 50 Innings Pitched)
0.45, Jared Reklaitis, 2022 (59.2 IP)
0.89, Rick Reiss, 1969 (80.2 IP)
0.95, Cody Griebling, 2008 (76 IP)
1.04, Jared Reklaitis, 2021 (52 IP)
1.14, Ron Herr, 1968 (63 IP)

So dominant was Reklaitis this year that in one stretch of the season, he recorded 19 straight scoreless innings. He threw four shutouts this year to tie the single-season record set by Bob Sauger in 1974 and tied by Will Madson in 2002. He struck out 93 batters and walked only 14 in 59⅔ innings. He allowed only 38 hits for a WHIP of 0.87.

But while Reklaitis was the ace, you don’t go 43-20 in an 11-week season without pitching depth and skipper Tim Moyer had a royal flush pitching hand to play. Contributing mightily to that was Blake Kunz, 6-2, 2.00 in 54 innings; Eric Schmitz (one of the staff’s aces for the last 10 years who missed the last month of the season with an elbow injury) 6-0, 2.29, 38⅓; Joey Pettit 4-1, 3.31, 39⅓; Brad Rindfleisch 7-5, 3.94, 80; Mac Doherty 3-1, 4.69, 16⅓; and Noah Imrie, 3-1, 4.91, 44. It should be noted that Schmitz’s 6-0 record puts him at 43-11 for his career.

The staff shattered the team strikeout record, racking up 547 “K’s” this year with Brad Rindfleisch at 104, Reklaitis at 93, and Blake Kunz at 92 topping that list.  The staff also set a new Wisconsin State League strikeout record with 277 eclipsing the former record of 261 set by Lombard in 2002 and tied in 2021

Not only was the pitching staff deep, but there was also quality depth among position players as well – and they could hit. The team batting average was .313.  The leading hitter, Gus Walker from Albuquerque, NM, who plays at Fond du Lac’s Marian University, flirted with the .400 mark but finished at .394. Other leading hitters were Harry Steldt .379, Jacoby Endreas .371, Ross Krist .365, Zachrisen .347, Jonathan Kim .317, Jimmy Juergensen .311, Sage Stellmacher .310, and Palmquist .285.

Steldt had another outstanding year logging a 1.082 OPS.  Only legendary names like Gene Mand, Randy Wilke, and Lee Wetenkamp stand between him and many all-time A’s offensive records.

In addition to average, Walker led the team in at-bats, hits, sacrifices, stolen bases, triples, and total bases. Steldt led in runs batted in, walks, hit by pitch, on-base percentage, OPS, and hit-by-pitch. Krist led in plate appearances, runs scored, runs batted in, sacrifice flies, and doubles. Kim led in stolen bases, Juergensen in home runs, and Endreas in slugging percentage.

“It was a good team,” Tim Moyer said, “probably the best A’s team, I have ever been around. Marian sent us some really good kids this year, we got great seasons and leadership from our veteran players and our pitching was just lights out.”

“It was a season that I’ll remember for a long time.  We had great kids and the help I got from Ken Neese and Cole Miklavcic made a big difference.  It was a good year,” the third-year manager said. “It’s a shame that we messed up some early season games, but we settled in when Jonathan Kim joined us and Blake Kunz came on. That really brought us together.”

The A’s will announce award winners at the club’s annual dinner on January 7 at Al & Al’s. Fans are encouraged to mark the date and join players and Athletic Club members at the event.