The Warwick Tree Post American Legion baseball team is wrapping up its regular season and is primed for a big playoff run starting in this week’s opening round.

Tree Post wrapped up the season with a 13-4 record which is good for the second seed in the playoffs. Warwick had a big meeting with first-place and defending champion Upper Deck last week at McCarthy Field and fell in a 5-0 shutout.

Although the Warwick bats were held in check with just four hits and no runs, pitcher AJ Ferreira was strong on the mound, pitching a complete game and allowing just two earned runs while striking out six.

Each defense struggled, as Upper Deck finished with three errors and Warwick two.

Upper Deck swept the regular season series between the two clubs, but Warwick manager Mike Fratus still believes his team has what it takes to knock off the reigning champs.

“They are a well-oiled machine, but so are we, they made just as many errors as we did tonight” Fratus said after the loss. “The only difference is they capitalized on them and we didn’t. At the end of the day, you can’t give good teams like that extra outs and if they gave you extra outs, you have to capitalize. We didn’t have any timely hitting tonight.”

Fratus continued: “They’re a great team, but we had it. We’re as good as they are in my mind talent-wise. AJ had them off-balanced, he had them popping up when he needed them to, grounding out when he needed them to. We just have to sharpen things up now.”

The opening round of the playoffs will be on Thursday night and with the second seed, Warwick clinched a home game to begin the postseason. Its first round opponent was not established at press time.

Warwick has been on an upward trajectory the past two seasons and returns a seasoned lineup with plenty of 18 and 19-year-olds leading the way.

“We’re ready. These guys know what we need to do. They’re prepared, we’re an old team, we’ve been here, they know what it takes to get to where we want to go and we have what it takes to get it,” Fratus said. “We can get it, even against a team like this.