SBL Notebook, Week 6

In honor of the Mother’s Day we just celebrated, all we can say is “WOW.” Which is MOM, upside-down, and also succinctly conveys our astonishment at the continued shriveling of offense in baseball and, by extension, the SBL. Acknowledging right from the top that we’re starting to sound like a broken record on this topic . . . we’re seriously starting to wonder if this season is going to end up breaking records for offensive futility. You can’t spell “puny” without “P.U.,” and hitting numbers don’t get much tinier, or stinkier, than what we saw this week. There was a time not long ago – even as recently as last year – when, if you went into battle with 26 runs, 26 RBI, 6 HR and 24 TB, you held little hope of success. This week, those were the league averages—26.2, 26.2, 5.75 and 23.9, to be exact. The average on-base percentage in MLB is down to .319, and many of our SBL “all-star” teams are struggling to reach even that benchmark -- five teams failed to get there this week, and three couldn’t even make it to .300, the OBP version of the Mendoza Line. Only one team reached double figures in homers -- the Derelicts, with a mighty 10. The trio whose stats are compiled by Paul Oberjuerge was monumentally feeble -- the Zero's, the Puny Pontiffs and the Batfaced Barristers combining to average 19 runs, 20 BI and 3.6 HRs. Elsewhere in the American division, the Moaners raked to the tune of 29 runs, 23 RBIs and 6 HRs -- and went 5-1. Good times! . . . We’ve speculated ad nauseam about the causes of the Incredible Disappearing Offense. But it can’t just be post-steroids shrinkage (both anatomical and statistical), can it? If, let’s say, 30% of MLB players were juicing and are now off the stuff, why is it that the malaise seems industry-wide, affecting even the 70% presumed to have been clean in the first place? Plus, weren’t some pitchers on the needle too, and wouldn’t those pitchers be more hittable now? Yet it seems like nobody’s hitting much of anything, or anyone. The ever astute Mr. Oberjuerge suggests that the massively underperforming Red Sox lineup, in which numerous SBL teams are invested, is a meaningful factor in this; the Bosox were expected to be a run-producing machine after adding Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to an already potent lineup, yet here they are in the bottom 10 in MLB scoring six weeks in. Another owner, Gregg Patton, theorizes that the primary culprit is simply better pitching—bigger, stronger athletes with harder, nastier stuff—and more specialized pitching roles, with one strong, fresh arm after another marching in from the bullpen from the sixth inning on . . . and all of these guys throwing to less-disciplined free-swinging hackers. If that’s true, then perhaps we’re in the early stages of a new, pitching-dominant era. Are we heading back to where the game was in 1968, the year of Drysdale’s 58 straight scoreless innings, McLain’s 31 wins and Gibson’s 1.12 ERA? Baseball lowered the mound after that season, to reduce pitchers’ advantage. Will this season be remembered as the one that compelled MLB to do away with the mound entirely and have them pitch off flat ground, like in softball? . . . OK, enough of our complaining about crappy offense, for, like, the rest of the season. On to the races: The Inmates put together a HUGE week by new-era standards (34 runs, 34 BI, 38 TB, .372 . . . fuggetaboutit), combined that with the week’s finest pitching (1.96 ERA) and cruised to a 6-0 week that left them alone atop the National division—though by only one game over the Double-Ds and two over the Godfathers, with whom the ’Mates were locked in a three-way tie a week ago. In the AL, the Bammers rebounded from last week’s 2-5 blip to also go 6-0 and inflate their lead from two games to five over the second-place Badgers. . . . The Bombers and the Whiteskins announced a trade Monday: C Santana to the Bombers in exchange for C Ruiz and the No. 3 pick in that day’s supplemental draft. . . . Four weeks of interleague play commence this coming week. Is the NL really, finally the stronger of the two divisions this year, as early-season indicators hint? We’ll find out what’s what.