SBL Notebook, Week 4

We're guessing that the proprietors of DamUnited did not go into the draft this year thinking, "Hey, let's see if we can assemble one of the great pitching staffs in SBL history" . . . because really, who ever does? Pitching is such a crap shoot, so difficult to predict year to year, more often than not, great SBL rotations tend to be happy accidents, rather than the result of brilliant planning and astute drafting. Witness the Moaners' experience two years ago, when they just kind of stumbled into a championship-winning rotation that featured 20-game winner Adam Wainwright as No. 3 starter (the year before he blew out his arm) and 19-game winner David Price as a No. 5 (!). While it's way too early to conclude that something similar is happening in the DamU clubhouse, we can say that things are shaping up quite nicely over there, and that the two-week run of sparkling pitching Damian's boys just completed might rank with any comparable stretch we've seen in our 30 years as a league. Following up last week's lights-out 1.12 ERA and microscopic .72 BR ratio, DamU checked in with an almost-as-good 1.71 and .84 this week. And, with their offense finally springing to life as well, the result was a 6-0 week that, combined with last week's 5-1, catapulted United into the thick of the National division race at 16-9, two games behind the pacesetting Inmates. Pitching must've been on Damian's mind to some extent on draft day, because he went fairly early for his ace, Cliff Lee at No. 33, the fourth SP taken. But, under the heading of isn't-that-always-the-way, Lee has been the one disappointment on the staff, logging only three starts before landing on the disabled list. It's been the later-round picks -- rock-steady-as-always CC Sabathia, as-good-as-advertised rookie Yu Darvish, good-and-getting-better Gio Gonzalez and wait-a-minute-where-the-hell-did-THAT-come-from-isn't-he-washed-up-retired-or-dead Jake Peavy -- who've made Damian's staff the envy of the league at the moment. The Damu bullpen looked shaky on paper when the season started, but it too is taking shape after the GM picked up newbie closers Fernando Rodney and Scott Downs in the first two supplemental drafts. And if the DamU hitters can stay warm after waking up from their April hibernation, this team could make a lot of noise in the NL race. . . . Also suddenly making noise are the Godfathers, who after a dismal first three weeks went 5-1 and escaped the NL cellar, replaced there by the Derelicts. The G-Daddies actually got off the schneid last week, although most of the league's owners are learning of this fact only now as they read this. To explain: Due to a statkeeping malfunction, the numbers from the second game of a Texas-Detroit doubleheader last week were not recorded before official Week 3 statistics were submitted to the commissioner's office. Once the error was discovered -- unfortunately after results had been published -- and stats from that game were added to Vic's totals, what was reported last week as a 6-5 victory for the Whiteskins over the Godfathers became a 6-5 win for Vic -- his first W of the season! The retroactive defeat dropped the 'Skins from a first-place tie into second, and this development so discombobulated Whitekins players that they apparently went into a snit and let it affect their play this week, when they rolled over and went 0-6, dropping the team all the way to fourth place. . . . The American division witnessed what could be called a return to normalcy this week, as 2011 pennant winners and perennial contenders, the Zero's, moved into first place, where they spent most of last season. The Z's have been doing it with pitching as well (2.66 ERA, nine saves, 1.14 K-rate this week), and the realization that they were able to go 6-0 and build a best-in-ball 19-6 record despite minimal input from slow-starting sluggers Jose Bautista, Mark Teixeira and Kevin Youkilis, and with red-hot Chris Young on the DL, is a disquieting, discomforting thought indeed for the rest of the AL.