SBL Notebook, Week 2

It was another jailbreak week for the mighty Inmates, who have leaped out of their cage and fired a shot across the collective bow of the SBL with a scorching 13-0 start. Just eyeballing the ’Mates’ hitting numbers these first two weeks, you might think they’d been playing full seven-day schedules while the rest of the league was playing half-weeks. Led by fast-starting Matt Kemp, David Ortiz, Ian Kinsler, Corey Hart, Alex Avila and others too numerous to mention, the Inmates' ball-busters mashed 11 HRs this week – bringing their two-week total to an astonishing 23 – and accumulated 36 runs, 34 TB and 33 RBIs . . . all in 174 plate appearances, fewer than all but three other teams in a truncated five-day schedule. All that offense papered over some truly gruesome pitching – it’s hard to envision any SBL team this season throwing up an ERA as bad as the 8.01 the Inmates just left splattered on the dugout wall – and kept the Mental Defectives unbeaten, with a three-game lead on the Whiteskins. And, good grief, look down there at the poor Godfathers, winless and already 13 games out of first place in the National Division – after TWO WEEKS! Things are more competitive in the American Division, where the Badgers went 5-2 to supplant one-week wonders the Moaners at the top of the heap – but at a mere 9-4, one game better than quick-recovering Zero’s (who went 6-1) and two up on the Moaners, who experienced a 1-6 stumble after their 6-0 start. . . . Statistically, only the Z’s (33 BI, 30 runs, 7 HRs) and the Puny Pontiffs (8 HRs, 33 BI, 32 runs) were able to hang out anywhere near the Inmates’ high-rent neighborhood in a semi-short week when the league average for PAs was about 50 to 60 shy of what a typical SBL team would get in a typical SBL week.