SBL Notebook, Week 5

One of our veteran owners (who shall remain nameless, but whose initials are P.O., and who lives in Abu freakin’ Dhabi), dredged up a couple of interesting stats the other day—the cumulative MLB batting average for April was only .250, the OBP a meager .319. Which seems like a reasonable jumping-off point for our annual at-around-this-time-of-year musing about the continued shrinkage of offense in the majors. It’s certainly being felt in the SBL, which after a hot (three-day) start in Week 1 has witnessed steady downward pressure on hitting numbers. The league averages this week: 7.6 HRs, 28.6 RBIs, 28.5 runs, 25.6 TB (the latter skewed by two teams that combined for 81 TB; take them out of the mix and the other 10 teams averaged 22.7). Plus, there were only two OBPs above the .340. threshold. And, oddly enough, there was some pretty terrible pitching going around this week, with five SBL ERAs above 4.5, four of those above 5.40--including one hideous 6.69. Apparently those SBL pitchers didn’t get to face enough SBL hitters. . . . For years now, it hasn’t been unusual to see these kind of pedestrian numbers on offense for a week or two in April, but now it seems like we see them all month, and it bleeds over into May and when will it ever stop and are we going to HAVE TO ENDURE THIS TRAVESTY ALL SEASON???!! . . . OK, take a breath . . . and we now return you to our regular SBL programming. Quite suddenly, we have the makings of actual competition in the American division. For the first three weeks, the Bammers were well-nigh unbeatable, starting 18-1 and conjuring memories (fears?) of 2006, when the Bams started 19-0 and 37-1, were 77-10 at the All-Star break and generally made a mockery of the AL race, coasting to the pennant by 19 games before winning the SBL Series 17-9. But the last two weeks they’ve come back to the pack a bit, and their hard-luck 2-5 performance this week left them only two games ahead of the rock-steady Badgers, who have posted five straight winning weeks en route to a 22-10 record. Oh, and a third team has entered the picture -- the Zero’s, 7-0 this week, 13-0 the last two weeks and only four games out despite their unsightly 7-12 start. (As an example of how little offense it takes to win these days, the Z’s went unbeaten and almost unchallenged with 28 runs, 22 TB, 32 RBI and a .336 OBP -- though nine saves, a 1.07 BR stat, 4-1 WL and 3.04 ERA certainly didn’t hurt their cause.) And, even the struggling defending champion Moaners dragged their sorry butts back to .500 with a 6-1 effort, their first winning week since W 1. . . . The frenzied scramble in the National division showed no signs of abating, with three teams now tied for the top spot and a fourth, DamianUnited, only two games back. Special citation to the Godfathers, who continue to weather an injury wave that claimed top picks Evan Longoria and Josh Hamilton and slugging 2B Aaron Hill among others. After a 6-1 week, the G-Daddies share first place with the Inmates and the Derelicts, and a couple of their missing stars are due back any day now. . . . Kudos, too, to the Whiteskins, who just last week inserted the Rays’ Ben Zobrist into their starting outfield, then sat back and watched him produce one of the greatest single-player boxscore bonanzas in SBL history -- 7 for 10, 5 runs, 10 RBIs, 2 homers, 3 doubles and a stolen base in a Thursday double dip against the Twins. Hope you enjoyed that; miracle stat lines like that are why we play this game, and are also as rare as dodo birds. BTW, the Z-propelled ’Skins went 5-2, arresting a 1-18 slide the previous three weeks.