SBL Notebook, Week 6

There's some kind of magic happening out in the wilds of Cherry Valley, where Dan's CV Bombers keep losing players but winning games and influencing the National division race in a big way. The Bombers seemed primed for a fall in Week 6, having lost four of their top hitters (Manny Ramirez, Aramis Ramirez, Kevin Youkilis and Jorge Posada) to injuries and (in Manny's case) idiocy. And the CVBs' offense did crater predictably with three of their top four draft picks on the shelf, producing a mere five home runs, 24 TB, 26 runs and 31 RBIs. But, as good teams do, they found another way to win, with excellent pitching (1.93 ERA, 1.07 BR, 2-0 WL, 4 SVs) taking up enough slack to carry them to a 4-2 week that added two games to their burgeoning NL lead, now a cushy eight games. It hasn't hurt the Bombers' cause to be playing in a division in which none of the other teams has been able to put together back-to-back winning weeks, and none is currently over .500. Poster children for the bipolar brigade among NL also-rans are Derek's Derelicts, whose 0-6 ledger this week gave them a 1-18 record in even-numbered weeks, to go with a glossy 16-3 combined mark in weeks 1, 3 and 5. The Double-Ds have somehow gotten locked onto the same wavelength as Mikee's Schizoid Moaners, who are 15-4 in odd-numbered weeks but have flat-lined to the tune of 0-19 in the evens. Their latest 0-6 -- a global thermonuclear meltdown in which only one of the games was closer than 9-2 -- plopped them into the cellar, whose welcoming bosom now embraces both 2008 division champions, the Patton Inmates having occupied the NL basement for three weeks now. The 'Mates, at a dismal 9-29, are already 18 games off the Bombers' pace, while the 15-23 Chronic Complainers trail the AL-leading BGoff Bammers by 17. Looks like both the M's and the I's could be active sellers at the trade deadline, eh? . . . Four weeks of strict interleague play begin with Week 7. Might be time for the NL to step it up to another level, as the AL holds a commanding 33-15 edge in the 48 cross-divisional games contested thus far. . . . We apologize for our tardiness in distributing Week 6 results; the commissioner's home office is undergoing a semi-extreme makeover -- new floors, new kitchen, fresh paint -- rendering the living-room computer inaccessible and the fumes in the room too toxic to work there anyway. We are currently burning the midnight oil here on the computer in Mrs. Commissioner's office in beautiful downtown Redlands. Next week, hopefully, everything will be back to normal.