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Week Twelve (June 4, 2001) | |
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Shark Attack! What a difference a week makes for the Honolulu Sharks, who started Tuesday night with the worst record in baseball, 11 games under .500. After Sunday's night game, the Sharks were tied for third place in the Hanover Division and a playoff berth. The Sharks reeled off seven straight wins, sweeping two two-game series and all three games this weekend... The Newark Sugar Bears also went undefeated this week, sweeping a key series against Vatican City. The two teams -- the league's highest-scoring offenses -- combined for 40 runs in the three-game series, including a 15-9 Sunday night slugfest that saw 12 homeruns, 24 hits and 16 walks. The Sugar Bears have opened up a 4 1/2 game lead on Vancouver for the best record in the DMBL... Despite going 4-4 on the week, the Hoboken Cutters find themselves in last place in the Hanover Division, a game behind the struggling Brooklyn Bean Counters, who ended the week on a four-game losing streak. Despite going .500 this week, the Vancouver Iron Fist managed to find some breathing room, inching a game up on the Arkansas Golden Falcons and 1 1/2 games up on the Vatican City Cardinals... The Kentucky Hillbillies, after going 2-2 on the week, dropped to one game behind Honolulu and Harrison for the sixth playoff spot... The Philadelphia Endzone Animals went just 1-6 on the week to fall to last place not just in the Morris Division, but in the DMBL. But the team ended its six-game losing skid in dramatic fashion when Scott Rolen blasted a 412-foot homerun off the Cutters' Billy Koch in the top of the 12th inning at The Quarry Sunday night to pull out a 5-4 victory. Travis Who? Fittingly enough, the Pearl
Harbor: Now A Major Motion Picture Pitcher of the Week award will go to a pitcher from Honolulu,
whose staff allowed just 11 ER and went 7-0 this week. But which one? Freddie Garcia
(2-0, 1.50 ERA, 1.25 WHIP), Phoenix's Nomar Garciaparra was the consensus choice as the
OmahaSteaks.com Player of the Week after hitting .440
(11-25), with 3 2B, 3 HR, 9 R and 12 RBI. He added another five points to his league-leading batting average,
a robust .374... Although Nomar got the award -- Playing between Carl Everett and Manny Ramirez, Newark's Bobby Abreu often goes overlooked. Last week he sent a message to All-Star voters, hitting .471 (8-17) with 3 2B, 2 HR, 7 R and 9 RBI. His season numbers include a .357 batting average, .459 on-base percentage and .733 slugging percentage -- the only player in the league to be in the top 3 in the three categories... Stanhope's Derek Jeter is showing signs of life, hitting .333 (6-18) with 2 2B, 2 HR, 4 R and 7 RBI this week... Despite hitting just .252 on the season, Harrison's Tom Goodwin has the league's longest active hit streak at 14 games. Vancouver's Darin Erstad had his streak snapped at 22 games when he went hitless Thursday -- and he hasn't had a hit since, going 0-12 in his last four games. Erstad was stopped trying to tie Vatican City's Luis Castillo's mark for longest hit streak of the year (23 games). The team that stopped him? Vatican City... It was a strange week for Hoboken's Brian Giles, who hit just .200 (4-20), but three of his four hits were homeruns -- good for 7 R and 8 RBI. Jumping For Joe The Brooklyn Bean Counters are overjoyed to get 3B Joe Randa
back after nearly two months on the disabled list. On Tuesday, Vatican City's Richard Hidalgo smashed two home runs and drove in four RBI to power the Cardinals past Kentucky, 7-5. But two days later, before the scheduled game with the Vancouver Iron Fist, he wandered into the opposing team's locker room and started knitting a sweater for hitting coach Mike Greenwell. Hidalgo then started yelling at backup 1B Sean Casey to put on a clean pair of underwear before wandering on to the field, where he took a dump on second base. Team doctors are baffled but hope to have the outfielder straightened out in time for this week's games... Phoenix catcher Jorge Posada just couldn't take it anymore after this week's gruelling game schedule: Three games in Phoenix, two games in Brooklyn, two games in Phoenix, three games in Newark, two games in Phoenix -- with just one off day in between. "I just can't take this ridiculous travel anymore," Posada confessed between bouts with the barf bag. "They could at least get us a jet, instead of making the entire team drive around the country in this VW Love Bus." Columbia 2B Placido Polanco will be out until after the All-Star break with an extremely upset stomach. Polanco, hitting just .268 (.617 OPS) on the season, reportedly fell ill when he saw his competition at second base in the Morris Division: Arkansas's Fernando Vina (.293, .399 OBP, 15 2B, 41 R, 21 HBP), Philadelphia's Jose Vidro (.318, 13 HR, 56 R, 54 RBI), Vancouver's Jeff Kent (.301, 21 HR, 61 R, 61 RBI) and Vatican City's Luis Castillo (.314, 50 R, 13 SB). Carolina's Delino DeShields (.266) and Kentucky's Mark Grudzielanek (.254) probably don't feel too great either. Who should represent Hanover at second base in Sunday's All-Star game? Don't forget to vote! Votes will not be counted after Friday! TWIB may have Ozzie Smith, but we have the better Smith! Zane Smith, former pitcher for the San Antonio Slingers and Sacramento Seahawks, now writes this column exclusively for the Diamond Mind Baseball League. Click Here for past articles. | |
Rick Helling (2-0, 1.76 ERA, 1.04 WHIP) and
Glendon Rusch (1-0, 0.00 ERA, 0.63 WHIP) all provided tremendous starting pitching;
relievers Dave Veres (1 SV, 0.00 ERA, 0.60 WHIP) and Doug Brocail
(0.00 ERA, 0.45 WHIP, 5 K in 6.2 IP) put out the fires. The honor will be shared by the entire pitching staff,
but the free movie passes go to unheralded middle reliever Travis Miller: 4 G, 1 SV, 0 R,
5 H, 0 BB, 9 K in 6.1 IP... Speaking of relievers, Carolina's Bob Wickman notched three
saves this week, allowing just 1 BB, 0 H and 0 R... Vancouver's Greg Maddux (9-4, 3.32)
tied Harrison's Osvaldo Fernandez and Newark's Darryl Kile for the
league lead in wins. Maddux got his ninth Sunday, breezing past the Rats in a 14-1 laugher...
His teammate, Brad Radke (5-2, 3.96), continues to have a feast-or-famine year.
After going the distance against the Mudcats on Tuesday, Radke has an astounding five complete games in
eight starts. In the five games he's finished, Radke is 5-0 with 1.00 ERA and 0.64 WHIP (29 H, 0 BB) in 45 IP.
In his other three starts, he's 0-2, 12.12 ERA, 2.14 WHIP... Newark's Randy Johnson
(8-3, 3.14) stifled the powerful Vatican City lineup Saturday afternoon, throwing his league-leading third
shutout on the season.
and its accompanying six free burgers -- the vote was one of
the closest this season. Garciaparra just edged Vancouver's Jeff Kent, who hit .357 (10-28)
with 1 2B, 3 3B, 2 HR, 7 R and 7 RBI, and hit for the cycle in Sunday's 14-1 pasting of Harrison. Kent became the
second player in league history to pull off the feat... Honolulu's David Justice also
drew strong support from the sportswriters this week, hitting .520 (13-25) with 4 2B, 2 HR, 6 R and 11 RBI.
He leads the league with 89 RBIs and is two off the HR lead, with 26. Justice's tear means Jason
Giambi is finally getting some protection in the lineup, and opposing teams are paying for it. Giambi was
"only" walked 8 times this week, and he responded with 3 HR, 5 R and 8 RBIs.
Randa, hitting .295 with 8 HR and 30 RBI in 46 games,
is sure to provide a lot more punch than the woeful Luis Alicea (.240, 0 HR) and
Denny Hocking (.228, 3 HR) combination the team had been using. Alicea was given his
walking papers, but Hocking will try to work through his slump after getting moved back to his natural position,
second base... The Arkansas Golden Falcons re-acquired some heavy firepower of their own when
Barry Bonds and Will Clark returned from the trainer's table
this week. Benny Agbayani and Pedro Feliz were cut to make room.
In other Falcons' news, the AA Birmingham Buzzards signed Jay Witasick, who was 3-2 with
a 1.20 ERA with the St. Paul Saints.