SBL Notebook, Week 9

As Clint Eastwood, portraying the cold-blooded killer William Munny, said in “Unforgiven” -- “We’ve all got it coming, kid.” And it’s safe to say the American division has had this coming for a while now. Long dominant in interleague play, the AL got a taste of its own medicine this week as the National division dished out a 24-12 whuppin’, giving the senior circuit a 58-50 overall edge with one week to go in this four-week cycle. Every NL team posted a winning record except the Inmates, whose 2-4 stumble cost them their grip on first place, now occupied by the Derelicts (4-2), though by only one game over the Mental Defectives and three over the Godfathers (5-1). On the other side of the standings, the Zero’s and the Moaners were the only teams to carry the AL banner high this week; while they were going a combined 12-2, the other four clubs were conspiring to go 2-22. The Zero’s’ 6-0 week, combined with twin 1-5s by the pace-setting Bammers and the (former) runners-up Badgers, catapulted the 2009 champions into second place, six back of the Bams and three up on the Badgers. The Z’s did it with some better-than-fair offense (10 HRs, 33 RBI, 9 SBs, .351 OBP) with a pitching week that can best be described as pristine -- a 1.37 ERA, a league-best this season, built on the back of a rotation that in five starts surrendered only 3 ER in 31.2 innings. . . . There was a noticeable uptick in offense this week, and we’re wondering whether there’s a correlation between that and an apparent decrease in strikeouts. Much has been made of the soaring strikeout rate among major league hitters the last two years, as the balance of power has shifted toward pitchers. But Week 9 in the SBL was the worst all season for K-rates, with no team getting to 1.00 (only the second time all season that’s happened), and seven checking in with rates of .80 or lower. Perhaps not coincidentally, increased contact translated into better hitting numbers. Still nothing like we saw in, say, the late ’90s, but a lot better than last week. The average HR total was 7, almost two more than in Week 8, and the average RBI count was 31, a damn sight better than last week’s 25. Leading the way were the revived Godfathers, who finally have their team back together with the return from the DL of sluggers Josh Hamilton, Evan Longoria and Aaron Hill, and this week put up some crooked numbers that reflected the infusion of hitting talent –- 39 RBIs, 38 runs and 38 TBs. Kudos, too, to the Derelicts for their 47 RBIs; it’s the first time all season any team has even gotten into the 40s in that stat, believe it or not. And condolences to the pitching staffs of the Bammers and the Puny Pontiffs, which seemed to absorb the lion’s share of the damage, combining to give up a staggering 73 earned runs, resulting in ERAs of 5.75 and 6.89, respectively.