SBL Notebook, Week 3

Getting the standard disclaimers out of the way right off the top: It’s early in the season . . . It’s only one week . . . Blah . . . blah . . . blah. Now then, it must be said with considerable conviction that some good things are happening in the long-suffering National division. The NL, winner of only two SBL titles over the last decade and 0-8 in playoff series since we adopted the wild-card format in 2006, appears to be mounting a comeback. Leading the charge is the new Best Team In Ball, the Patton Inmates, whose potent blend of across-the-board offense and power pitching (particularly from the bullpen, a Mental Defectives trademark) has carried them to a 16-3 record. In fact, all that separates the ’Mates from a perfect 19-0 start are three oh-so-close 6-5 defeats, including two particularly perverse losses to Mikee’s Moaners. The Frontal Lobotomizers’ 6-0 Week 3 performance catapulted them out to a five-game lead, partly because several other quality teams in the division keep beating each other up, with DamianUnited, tied for first a week earlier, suffering a particularly hard-luck 1-5 dive despite solid numbers. More telling, perhaps, than the Inmates’ hot start was the way the NL manhandled the American division this week, winning five of six interleague tilts by scores of 9-2, 9-2, 8-3, 7-4 and 7-4; the only AL victory was a 6-5 squeaker for Bristow’s Batfaced Girls over struggling JP’s Whiteskins. A look at the stat sheet provides a clear-cut explanation for the NL’s dominance. All three of the week’s double-figure home-run totals, all three of the 40-plus RBI counts and four of the six 30-plus run totals were logged by NL teams. The Nationals averaged 8.8, 37.0 and 33.2, respectively, in those stats, the Americans a paltry 5.2, 23.0 and 26.8. The NL also claimed five of the top seven OBPs. The AL was puny as it’s been in recent memory; no team in the division had more than 30 ribbies and three failed to even drive in 20. On the pitching side, NL teams recorded three of the five sub-3.00 ERAs, the only two sub-1.00 BR stats and the three highest save totals (cumulative score in that stat: NL 26 saves, AL 14). All in all, a statistical, and head-to-head, butt-kicking. (Hmm, can a butt-kicking be head-to-head, anatomically speaking?) Even the defending division champion Cherry Valley Bombers awoke to partake in the NL feast, rebounding from their 2-11 start to go 5-1 behind a 12-HR, 43-RBI, 38-run onslaught. . . . The big question, of course: Can the NL keep it up? Is this just a one-week aberration, or is the division in this for the long haul, with an eye on that elusive first playoff series triumph and maybe the first league championship for an NL aggregation since Vic’s Godfathers won it in 2004? Time will tell, but the numbers so far are encouraging, and a look at the rosters suggests that the pieces are in place for an NL renaissance -- there are a lot very good players, off to very good starts, in that neck of the SBL woods. Meanwhile, two traditional AL powers, the BGoff Bammers and Paulo’s Zero’s, continued to struggle -- the Bammers going 0-6 and falling to a shocking, WTIB 3-16, already a dozen games behind front-running Andy’s Badgers, and the Z’s just a couple ticks north at 5-14. The Badgers and the surprising Batfaced Girls were the only AL success stories this week, each going 5-1, leaving the ’Girls just a game out of first place.