SBL Notebook, Week 7

The first week of the first month of pure interleague play this season went to the American division, 21-15. Nothing particularly unusual about that; the AL has been the dominant force in cross-divisional competition for at least the past decade, with the exception of last year when the National division turned the tables. What was unusual, just a little bit, was the identity of the team that did the heavy lifting for the AL with a scorched-earth 6-0 sunburst. The team in question are the Batfaced Girls, one of two AL franchises that have never appeared in the SBL postseason. The other of those longtime down-on-their-luck clubs, the Puny Pontiffs, had served notice the previous two weeks that it just might have the personnel to make a serious run at its first playoff berth, and this time it was the Batfaces’ turn in a no-doubt-about-it performance that featured one 11-0 whitewash, a 10.5-0.5 thumping, a 9.5-1.5 win and three 9-2 triumphs. Talk about dominant: the BFGs’ offense, heavily dependent on the Baltimore Orioles (of all teams) with Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy and Matt Wieters, and spiced up by MLB batting leader David Wright, led the SBL this week in RBIs (42), TB (42) and OBP (.396) and was second in runs (35) and third in HRs (10) and SBs (7). If that wasn’t enough, they also had perhaps the league’s best pitching, topping the week with a 2.06 ERA and posting the second-best BR stat (1.10) -- thank you, Roy Halladay, Ted Lilly, Colby Lewis and James McDonald. . . . The unbeaten week lifted the BFGs alongside the Pontiffs as legit factors in the AL race – the Girls now occupy third place at 24-20, a game ahead of the PPs (who backslid with a 2-4 ledger after going 11-2 in weeks 5-6), four behind the pacesetting Zero’s and one back of the Badgers, who went 5-1 and moved up to second. The bottom of the AL deck features the somewhat jarring sight of the Moaners and the Bammers, who between them claim a dozen SBL championships, holding down the next-to-last and last spots, respectively. . . . Nothing much happened in the NL race, where the top three teams – the Cherry Valley Bombers, DamianUnited and the Inmates – all went 4-2, leaving the top of the standings unchanged. The CVBs, however, did nose ahead of the Zero’s for Best Record In Ball, by one game, while maintaining their three-game edge in the division. Another mildly jarring sight – the Derelicts, a playoff team last year, continuing their residence in the NL basement, an 0-6 week dropping them to 15-29.