Week 6 - April 30, 2007

First Impressions

The first quarter of the season is in the history books as every team has played at least 40 games. But it's still early, right? Should we even bother talking about wildcards at this point in the season? Well, at this time last year, the two division winners and three of the four wildcard teams were in the top 6, so maybe not...

Still in first place and pulling away from their division, the Newark Sugar Bears tied for the league's best week with a 6-1 mark, including an active four-game winning streak. Overall, the Sugar Bears have a 2 game lead over the Philadelphia Endzone Animals, despite the fact that Philly went a respectable 5-2. In fact, the Animals actually lost ground to the team now behind them in the standings -- the Vancouver Iron Fist, who tied Newark with a 6-1 record. Philly and Vancouver each won their last three straight to close out the week. The Fisters can now claim the top wildcard seed, jumping over the Honolulu Sharks and Arkansas Golden Falcons, who each went 3-4. The Sharks haven't had a winning week in two weeks, while the Falcs have had three straight losing weeks... The  Hoboken Cutters held onto 6th place overall after a 4-4 week, 2 games up on the competition.

Battling it out for 7th place, Matthew's Mighty Men of Marietta and the Hillsborough Hired Hitmen fell a game below .500 after each had a losing week at 3-4. Each has had identical records for their last nine games, in fact, but in reverse: Marietta dropped four straight, then alternated wins and losses over their next five; Hillsborough alternated wins and losses for five games, then dropped four in a row... In 9th place, 3 games behind Marietta and Hillsborough and 5 games behind the final wildcard spot, sit the South Boston Gang, who went 4-3 to move up from a three-way tie for 10th place... Just a half-game behind them sit the Sardine City Straphangers, who went 3-3 and are still looking for their first winning week in the DMBL... The league's other new team, New Jersey Team Buddah, are in 11th place, a half-game behind Sardine City after going 2-4, including four straight losses to end the week... The D.C. Bushslappers went 3-4 to fall into a tie for second-to-last with the Carolina Mudcats, who went 4-4... Still in last place, and now 15 games under .500, sit the Las Vegas Rat Pack, who went 1-5, including an active four-game losing streak. It's the second week in a row they've won just one game.

The Week Ahead: The preseason sims didn't think much of Vancouver's chances to repeat as Morris Division champs, ranking them as the worst team in the division and in 10th place overall. But the Iron Fist are holding onto the league's third-best record. Are they for real, or will the sims have the last word? We'll find out this week as the Fisters have a rough week, playing three games against the division-leading Endzone Animals, three games against the league-leading Sugar Bears and two games against the 6th-place Cutters... Meanwhile, the Golden Falcons and Sharks face off in a key three-game series, while the back-of-the-pack gets sorted out with a doubleheader showdown Sunday between D.C. and Las Vegas.

Enter Sandman. No, the other Sandman

When fans hear the opening riff of Metallica's Enter Sandman, they know they're about to see one of the league's all-time great closers. No, not Marietta's Mariano Rivera. We're talking about Vancouver's Billy Wagner, who led the team to a 6-1 week despite the fact that the starters had just two wins and four no-decisions. Wagner picked up four saves in five nearly perfect appearances this week, giving up no runs and just 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 5 in 5.2 innings. Chris Britton also had an excellent week for the Fisters, picking up two wins in relief (0 R, 3 H, 2 BB, 2 K). Wagner's strong performance earned him TheBurgg.com Pitcher of the Week Award. It also vaulted him to the top of the DMBL saves leaderboard, with 13. However, it hasn't been a great season for Wagner, who has looked somewhat hittable this year (3.70 ERA, 11.8 R/9, 2 losses, 5 blown saves). Most distressing of all is the fact that he's allowed half of his inherited runners to score (7 out of 14). On the other hand, Wagner is holding opposing batters to a weak .597 OPS. "I've had a couple rough games here and there but for the most part it's been a good season," Wagner said. "As long as we're back in the post-season and get another chance at winning the World Series, I don't care about all these awards and whatever. Although this Burgg site is fun. What is that... The Black Hole, right? Yeah! Nailed it!"

This week's other top relievers: Carolina's Justin Speier (2 W, 1 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 6 K in 5.0 IP); Marietta's Chad Qualls (2-0, 0 R, 2 H, 0 BB, 4 K in 5.1 IP); Newark's Cla Meredith (2 W, 1 ER, 9 H, 0 BB, 2 K in 7.0 IP); and South Boston's Huston Street (3 SV, 1 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 4 K in 4.2 IP).

Hoboken fans were teased for much of the last year, watching their team challenge for a wildcard through August, only to fade in the final two weeks of the season to a disappointing 9th-place finish. But the Cutters have a great "now and later" thing going with young stars leading the team to a solid 6th place record. The team's top pitching prospect has really blossomed this season, as Scott Kazmir had the top week of any starting pitcher, going 2-0 (1.08 ERA, 7.6 R/9). Kazmir allowed just 2 earned runs in two starts and struck out 23 batters in 16.2 innings against just 3 walks. So far this season, the 23-year-old lefty is 4-4 with a 2.93 ERA, 11.2 R/9 and an astounding 10.6 K/9 (72 strikeouts in 61.1 innings)... This week's other top starters: Arkansas's Daniel Cabrera (1-0, 2.45 ERA, 7.4 R/9, 2 BB, 15 K in 14.2 IP); Carolina's Roy Halladay (1-0, 3.60 ERA, 8.4 R/9, 2 BB, 12 K in 15.0 IP); Philly's Erik Bedard (2-0, 3.38 ERA, 10.1 R/9, 5 BB, 18 K in 13.1 IP); and South Boston's Aaron Harang (2-0, 1.98 ERA, 15.8 R/9, 3 BB, 14 K in 13.2 IP).

Rampaging In Newark

The Sugar Bears had another one of those weeks that just makes you feel sorry for starting pitchers. Newark scored 74 runs in just 7 games -- an average of 10.6 runs per game. The team collectively posted a .399 batting average, .449 on-base percentage and .731 slugging percentage. The only player who did not hit was utility infielder Mark DeRosa, who went 0-for 5. Everybody else had a .300+ BA and an .800+ OPS. In fact, 11 of the 14 batters had OPS's over 1.000, and six hit over .400. "It is kind of ridiculous," admitted team captain Chipper Jones, who hit .464 (1.460 OPS) with 3 HR, 11 R and 11 RBI. "What's really amazing is our pitching staff has been getting slapped around (4.67 ERA, 14.0 R/9) by the other 13 teams in the league. Imagine if they had to face us!" The Sugar Bears, with 382 runs in their first 46 games, are averaging 8.3 runs per game. At this rate, they would score 1345 runs, breaking the DMBL record the team set in 2005 with 1263 runs scored. They also are on a pace to set league records for most team home runs, most team RBIs and highest team OPS -- all records, by the way, also currently held by the Sugar Bears... Just as in Week 3, you can pretty much pick a Sugar Bear at random to receive this week's top batter award. We decided to go "Hollywood" and give it to veteran Jim Edmonds, who hit .481 and led the league in OPS (1.665), SLG (1.148), runs (12), total bases (31), runs created (16.3), RC/27 (31.4), isolated power (.667) and total average (2.357), and tied for the league lead in home runs (5); he also has a 9-game hitting streak. On the season, Edmonds is hitting .438 with a 1.372 OPS, and is second on the team -- behind only Manny Ramirez -- in HRs (14) and RBIs (37). All that despite the fact that he has just 125 plate appearances, 18 short of what he'd need to qualify for the batting title. (If he qualified, he'd lead the league in BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, RC/27, isolated power and total average.) But he does qualify for our JRCigars.Com Smokin' Batter of the Week Award. "JRCigars.com is the ONLY address you need for buying cigars on the web." Edmonds, who turns 37 this season, is in his first year with the Sugar Bears after playing six solid seasons with the Mudcats; before that, he was a key contributor for three seasons on the Lousiana Lightning and for one season on the Keystone Gamblers. But after a disastrous year with Carolina season (.214, .730 OPS, 181 Ks in 592 AB), many wrote off Edmonds as washed-up and he slipped all the way until the 12th round (#158 overall) of this year's draft. So far, he's proved to be one of this year's biggest bargains.

With Edmonds just short of qualifying for the batting title, that honor would currently go to Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera, who is off to the best start of his young DMBL career. Cabrera had a huge week, hitting .500 (1.423 OPS) with 5 2B, 2 HR and 9 RBI; on the season, he's hitting .411 and leading the league in hits, with 72... Carolina's Travis Hafner leads the league in almost everything else. Last week's Smokin' Batter Award winner still hasn't cooled off, hitting .333 (1.266 OPS) with 3 HR, 9 R and 5 RBI, and on the season, he leads the league in OBP (.475), SLG (.778), runs created (63.8), RC/27 (16.6), isolated power (.430), total average (1.567), total bases (126), OPS (1.253) and secondary average (.648). And last week's runner-up for the award, Justin Morneau, had another big week for Arkansas (.333, 1.271 OPS, 4 HR, 7 RBI)... We mentioned a couple week ago that Marietta's Wes Helms is not only leading the league in triples, but is on pace to set a new modern era record for three-baggers. Yes, Wes Helms!  Well, Helms banged out two more triples this week, giving him 9 in his team's first 45 games; at that pace, he'd have 32 triples, eight more than Jose Reyes had last year.

This Week's Ouchies

Did Jose Contreras not show up to the meeting or something? Earlier this month five of the league's top starting pitchers got hurt -- Marietta's Francisco Liriano, South Boston's Chris Carpenter, New Jersey's Jake Westbrook, Hillsborough's C.C. Sabathia and Honolulu's Jered Weaver. Now a week later New Jersey's Contreras decides to join the sick out. After a rainy week in New Jersey, Contreras said this weekend's sunshine made it "too bright to pitch." He's out until the team can find the pair of sunglasses he says he left on the boat he used to flee Cuba. The veteran right-hander is just 1-3 this season, but that's largely a function of playing for an 11th-place team that has struggled to score runs, and not indicative of his 3.98 ERA, 12.6 R/9 and 0.7 HR/9.

Hoboken rookie Mike Napoli had an interesting line in this week's 12-7 win over Carolina: 0-for-0 with two runs scored. Napoli walked four times and was hit by a pitch, leaving him with no official at-bats in five plate appearances. On the season, Napoli is hitting .250 but with an impressive .429 OBP. "Official at-bat my ass," Napoli growled after getting plunked by a Duaner Sanchez fastball in the 9th. "What do they mean, I never had an official at-bat? See this frigging welt on my arm? Is that official enough for you?" While waiting for the swelling to go down, Napoli says he's going to go mountain climbing in lovely West Sulawesi... In other rookie news, Sardine City will be without second baseman Josh Barfield, who hasn't figured out a way to escape from Lifetime's newest reality show, Cheerleader Nation. "I thought it was going to be like The Dating Game, only with cheerleaders," Barfield said. "But they want me to shave my legs and put on a wig. And it's a blonde wig, too. What's up with that? Everybody knows I've always wanted to be a redhead!"... The Iron Fist have a huge week coming up with games against Philly, Newark and Hoboken. So what's up with J.D. Drew deciding now would be a good time to start working on his new book about Albert Einstein's masturbation techniques? "Hey, the world just can't wait any longer for me to finish Stroke of Genius," Drew said. "This is the most important work on the subject of smart people jerking off since Alan Greenspan's Spanking While Banking."

Mudcat Manuevers

Buried at the back of the standings -- but still thinking they're a legitimate contender -- the Mudcats decided to shake up the roster this week, cutting Tadahito Iguchi, Rheal Cormier and Aubrey Huff, and signing Ronnie Belliard, Mark Loretta and Kiko Calero. "We aren't going to just stand around and watch this season get away from us," rookie manager Mark Carreon said. "If the players we have aren't hustling we won't hesitate to find guys who will." Sure enough, just five days later, the team cut Belliard and Loretta, replacing them with Mark Grudzielanek and David Weathers. Both are former Mudcats and fan favorites. But you have to wonder how long owner Chris Pucci will come to the conclusion that you can't fire all the players, but you can fire the manager.

What's up with Julio Lugo this year? The 31-year-old infielder has been passed around more times than an Alec Baldwin phone message. Drafted by Arkansas in the 10th round (#137 overall) this year, Lugo has since been signed by Hillsborough, Philadelphia and now Sardine City. "Everybody loves a little Lugo," the infielder said. But while everybody wants to sign him, no one wants to use him: He was cut in spring training by Arkansas, went 0-for-4 (with a walk) for Hillsborough, 1-for-8 with Philly and 2-for-8 with Sardine City... Speaking of Lugo, he was cut by Philly to sign -- who else? Khalil Greene. At this point, the infatuation is just getting sad. He'll never say I love you, Philly! Move on with your life!

This week's other moves: Arkansas activated Aaron Hill and released Jose Valentin; Hillsborough dumped Endy Chavez and Kyle Lohse and signed Juan Encarnacion and Bartolo Colon; Hoboken put Mike Napoli on the D.L. and signed Yorvit Torreabla; Las Vegas added Manuel Corpas and Mark Hendrickson, releasing John Patterson and Will Ohman; New Jersey activated Jake Westbrook and signed Matt Morris, and released Livan Hernandez and put Jose Contreras on the D.L.; and Philly activated David Eckstein and cut Todd Walker.