The Ottawa Titans had a successful home opening series May 20-22, displaying on-field fireworks matching the celebratory sky show that followed their first game in front of the Ottawa fans.
The Titans defeated the New Jersey Jackals in a hard-fought three-game series at the Ottawa Stadium, taking the first two games. The home team dropped the third game to the visitors from Jersey, but the series win edged the Titans close to the .500 mark for the season, with five wins and six losses, and gave Ottawa a firm hold on third place in Frontier League’s five-team Atlantic Conference North Division ahead of another three-game home stand against the Atlantic-East’s New York Boulders.
The Illinois-based Frontier League is one of eight independent minor professional baseball leagues in North America. Comprised of 18 teams — including three Canadian clubs in Ottawa, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City — it’s an official Major League Baseball Partner League and comparable in calibre to the MLB’s Single-A class of leagues.
The Québec Capitales are the reigning league champions after taking the Frontier Cup last year in a final series against the Washington Wild Things. It was the third consecutive championship for the Capitales, the second Canadian team after the now-defunct London Werewolves (1999) to win the league title.
The Titans played their inaugural season in 2022 and have made the playoffs twice, including a berth in postseason action last year.
This series against New Jersey was a big deal to the local baseball community, as the Titans started the season with 9 straight road games before their first home affair. The May 20 home opener saw a franchise record 7,152 fans in attendance. It was the best-attended Frontier League game so far in the 2025 season.
For veterans like first baseman Taylor Wright, who has been with the team since the inaugural year, the home opener was extra special.
“To have that kind of turnout for opening night was just amazing,” said Wright. “It’s the biggest home crowd we’ve ever had here, and I think for a lot of guys in the room, probably the biggest crowd they’ve ever played for.”
“That was just a special experience for sure,” he added.
Fans who attended the home opener got their money’s worth, as the score bounced back and forth like a tennis match. The Titans looked like the better team early on, taking a 3-0 lead on a series of well-tagged hits and a top-notch performance from starting pitcher Grant Larson.
But a shaky sixth inning from Larson allowed the Jackals to pull even, and in the top of the eighth, New Jersey grabbed a 5-3 lead. The Titans would not be denied, however, as they put together a two-run inning in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game again.
The contest went into extras, and each team put up a run in the tenth. Under Frontier League rules, the teams then engaged in a sudden-death eleventh inning in which the home team elects whether to bat or take the field, and single run scored decides the outcome. The Titans chose defence, shut the door on the Jackals and nabbed the victory, improving their all-time record to 4-0 in home openers.
The Titans took another win from the Jackals in the second game of the series, played on Wednesday afternoon in front of schoolchildren from across Ottawa. The Titans comfortably won 7-4, with a dazzling seven-inning performance from pitcher Shane Gray and multi-hit outings from Lamar Briggs, AJ Wright and Jo Oyama.
The third match against the Jackals saw a smaller crowd in the stands, and the Titans were not at their best.
Ottawa lefty and former Houston Astros draft pick Evan Grills had his season debut on the mound. Grills struggled early, allowing several hits and walks and committing a throwing error on a toss to first base, which allowed a run to score. Across four and a third innings, he allowed six runs, though he also struck out six as he earned plenty of swings and misses.
On the mound for the Jackals was Joe Joe Rodriguez, a former Cincinnati Reds draft pick. He pitched six shutout innings, also striking out six. In his final inning, he loaded the bases with a couple of walks and a hit, but got out of the jam with a ground-ball double play.
“To have that kind of turnout for opening night was just amazing. It’s the biggest home crowd we’ve ever had here, and I think for a lot of guys in the room, probably the biggest crowd they’ve ever played for.”
— Taylor Wright, first baseman, Ottawa Titans
The Titans finally displayed a formidable offence in the bottom of the eighth as they scored four runs, with Lamar Briggs walking in one with the bases loaded, Tucker Zdunich and Michael Fuhrman hitting sacrifice flies and Felix Valerio knocking another run home with a single.
But the Jackals responded by putting up three more runs of their own to seal the win in the 9th. The Titans took advantage of some sloppy defence from the Jackals to put up two more runs of their own, but ultimately, there was too much ground to gain. Ottawa lost 9-6.
While it was a tough night for the team, Wright had a solid game at the plate, getting on base four times.
“I was happy with my at-bats overall, but obviously there’s still room for improvement,” he said. “I just take it one game at a time and try and build off every successful day.”
Another player to watch this season? Lamar Briggs. The left fielder is in his second year with the team, and he’s had a strong start to the season. Briggs is riding a seven-game streak of getting on base.
“I feel good at the plate and I feel good swinging the bat,” Briggs said when asked about his hot start to the year.
While the third game against New Jersey was relatively quiet by his standards, he still walked in the run that broke the shutout the Jackals were protecting late into the game.
“It meant a lot,” Briggs said when asked about breaking the scoring drought. “It kind of brought some life to the game, we made a little comeback. You never want to get shut out.”
Following their home stand against the Boulders, the Titans head to New Jersey next week for a return series with the Jackals followed by a three-game set next weekend against the Tri-City ValleyCats in Troy, New York.
The Titans play at home next on June 3 against the Massachusetts-based Brockton Rox, the first of three games against the Atlantic-North team formerly known as the New England Knockouts. Ottawa hosts the Atlantic-East Sussex County Miners, another New Jersey-based team, June 6-8.