SBL Notebook, Week 16

The SBL can be a cruel mistress when she wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, and she certainly spiked the BGoff Bammers’ scrambled eggs with something foul this week. Consider these Week 16 numbers for the BBs: 8 HR, 38 RBIs, 34 runs, 28 TB, .371 OBP, 2.76 ERA, 4-2 WL, and an outrageous league-leading .85 BR stat. Now, take a good look at those stats and have a guess at what they might yield on the score sheet for a seven-game week in this season of diminished expectations on the offensive side of things. Hmm, solid offense pretty much across the board . . . excellent pitching . . . so you’re thinking, 6-1, maybe 5-2 at worst, right? Uh-uh. Think again. All those lovely numbers got the Bams was a big fat goose egg – quite possibly the most undeserved 0-7 week on record. We looked at the numbers again and again (thinking, “I’d take those numbers into battle any ol’ week”), even replayed the games a second time. It still came out to 0-7. It’s almost inexplicable -– the Bammers were weak in only three stats (2 SBs, 1 save, .73 Ks), good everywhere else -– just not good enough. Certainly one factor was a sharp spike in offense league-wide, with four teams getting into the 40s in RBIs, three getting there in runs, five double-digit homer totals (plus three more at a near-miss 9), and six OBPs of .369 and higher. Also, it was the Bams’ misfortune to play the two best teams in the National division –- the only two with winning records, in fact –- Dan’s Cherry Valley Bombers and JP’s Whiteskins. The ’Skins, in particular, were rakin’ to the max, benefiting from the prescient insertion of Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel in their lineup to pile up 16 HRs, 48 RBIs, 44 runs and a preposterous .429 OBP, a league record in that first-year stat. But the Bombers are an interesting case, when you compare their numbers to the Bammers’. The CVBs certainly had a nice hitting week, particularly their 10 SBs and 43 RBIs. But by and large their stats -– including 9 HRs, 37 runs, 31 TB, .353 OBP –- were in the same range as BGoff’s. And their pitching was, in the main, pretty awful, with Dan’s starters doing enough damage to drop a 6.59 ERA (the league-worst), 1.56 BR ratio and 3-4 WL in his punch bowl. The Bammers pitched much better, in terms of the fundamental objectives of getting outs, keeping people from crossing home plate (or getting on base at all) and, you know, winning games. Yet the Bombers –- employing the time-honored Patton Inmates approach of utilizing steals (the aforementioned league-high 10), saves (league-high 7) and strikeouts (killer 1.12 ratio) to stay competitive in an otherwise rocky week -– went 6-1. That would be six more wins than the Bammers logged, despite their having had a week that in many ways could be objectively judged as statistically superior, overall, to the Bombers’. Sometimes life just isn’t fair, eh? . . . The Bammers paid a stiff price their hard-luck week, giving back all five games they’d gained the previous week on American division pacesetters Paulo’s Zero’s, whose lead has been restored to a cushy 11 games. In fact the Bammers have fallen into a second-place tie with surging, pitching-rich Dennis’ Puny Pontiffs, in an AL wild-card race that has grown almost impossibly tight. A mere two games now separate second place from fifth in the division, which currently sports five teams with winning records. Take a snapshot of that; it doesn’t happen often. . . . The NL race remained the same, only more so -– the Bombers and Whiteskins both going 6-1, the rest of the division going a combined 6-22, the gulf between the top two haves and bottom four have-nots continuing to grow. There’s Dan (63-37), JP (57-43, six games back) -- and no one else within 11 games of .500.