SBL Notebook, Week 25

Congratulations, first of all, to Paulo’s Zero’s, who clinched the American division pennant with a 5-2 Week 25 performance that catapulted them over the 100-victory plateau -- the first and, as it turns out, the only SBL team that will break through that magical threshold this year. It is the second division title for this perennially competitive but ultimately hard-luck charter franchise, and, though the team's ownership no doubt would insist otherwise, it was a steady and not particularly nerve-racking march to the championship. The Z's have been the best team in ball for most of the season; they acquired first place in Week 11 and never gave it up . . . and in fact were never seriously threatened. From Week 13 on they never led by fewer than six games (and it got that close for only one week), and from mid-August on their lead never shrank below nine games. Not a cakewalk, exactly, but not quite 1978 Red Sox-Yankees-Bucky-Effing-Dent, either. So, a respectful tip o' the SBL cap to the Zero's, and let's move on to more pressing matters -- namely, the wild-card races, which this week underwent upheaval on the order of a Samoan tsunami. Andy's Badgers, riding the crest of a 17-2 three-week surge, went 7-0, and this coincided with an 0-7 face-plant by the BGoff Bammers to produce . . . that's right, Einstein breath, a seven-game swing that deposited the Badgers in second place and dropped the Bammers to third, three games out of the AL's No. 2 playoff slot with six to play. A similarly breathtaking reversal occurred in the National division, where Vic's Godfathers, culminating a long, steady climb, jumped from third place to second and all but clinched the NL wild-card spot in the bargain, the 6-1 swath they cut through the division combining with an 0-7 plunge by JP's Whiteskins to leave the G-Daddies with a five-game bulge. The 'Skins had been ensconced in second place since Week 9 (can that be right?), but they'd also been ripe for a fall, having posted only one winning record since Week 16, and this week it finally happened. . . . The week itself saw a major (by 2009 standards) revival of offense, after the near-microscopic numbers of Week 24. Five teams reached double figures in homers (that'd be five more than last week); another five had at least eight. Five teams had at least 40 RBIs (last week the league HIGH was 32), five also attained that benchmark in runs, and OBPs kinda went through the roof, with half the league getting into at least the .380s and two teams topping .400. Apparently most of this damage was done at the expense of two SBL pitching staffs in particular, those of Mikee's Moaners and the Patton Inmates, who sported morbidly obese ERAs of 7.63 and 7.18, respectively. The Ms did pop out a league-high 52 RBIs, but it was a pyrrhic victory in an otherwise mundane 3-4 week. The other statistical theme of the week: Strikeouts. Apparently SBL hitters were swinging for the fences and either hitting the ball a long way or missing it entirely, with the latter scenario playing out often enough for seven teams to post K-ratios of 1.00 or better, led by the 1.17 recorded by Dennis' Power-Armed Pontiffs.