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Week Fifteen (June 25, 2001) | |
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The Race for Sixth Place The top five spots in the playoff picture appear set in stone. Over in the Morris Division, the Vancouver Iron Fist are on cruise control. Despite a 4-3 week, the team is holding onto its 1 1/2 game lead over the Arkansas Golden Falcons, who bounced back from a 1-2 start to end the week on a three-game winning streak. Now two games out, the once-mighty Vatican City Cardinals went 2-2 last week. As its rivals keep adding new players, the Cards are standing pat... The Stanhope Mighty Men, after going 5-3 this week, are now in a virtual tie with Vancouver for the second-best record in the league. Both teams trail the Newark Sugar Bears, 5-3 this week, by 4 1/2 games. With the same five teams on top of the standings for the first half of the season, the focus is turning to the final wildcard spot, which has been changing hands almost daily. This week, the Carolina Mudcats and Phoenix Dragons are tied for sixth place, with three teams within 1 1/2 games and two more within 2 1/2. The Mudcats -- who were actually 3 1/2 games out when the week began -- went 5-2 this week; Phoenix went 6-2, including three wins in extra innings. The Kentucky Hillbillies, 1 game behind, went 5-3, as did the Harrison Rats, 1 1/2 games back. The Honolulu Sharks, after an 8-game winning streak propelled them into the wildcard hunt, have dropped 7 of their last 8, including 4 in a row, and have fallen 2 1/2 games behind. Breaking Out the Big Guns
Kentucky's Tomokazu Ohka (12-4, 3.90), acquired in a pre-season trade with Newark, continues to be the team's unlikely staff ace. The rookie went 2-0 with a 1.32 ERA this week to claim his first killfrog.com Pitcher of the Week Award. He's now in a three-way tie for the wins lead and ranks 10th in ERA... Ohka's teammate, Roberto Hernandez, picked up three saves and dropped his ERA down to 3.59 after yielding no runs and just one hit in 5 appearances this week... Newark's Darryl Kile (12-5, 4.44) also went 2-0 this week, including a complete-game 6-5 win over the Columbia Crusaders on Sunday... Harrison's Andy Ashby won both his starts this week, despite posting a 4.50 ERA and 1.71 WHIP in 14 IP. On the season, Ashby is 7-9 with a 6.91 ERA... Philadelphia went 2-6 this week -- and Paul Quantrill won both games to move to 3-0 on the season. He didn't allow a run in 5 innings of relief work, dropping his ERA from 6.23 to 3.95... Stanhope's Ray King blew his fifth save of the season this week, but this time his teammates didn't bail him out -- he was handed his first loss as the Hillbillies came back to beat the Mighty Men, 4-3, behind a 7th-inning 2-run homerun by Rafael Palmeiro. But his teammate, Mariano Rivera, picked up the slack, adding 3 saves to his league-leading 24 on the season. Let's Make A Deal! The trades were flying fast and furious this week as teams decided it was time to fish or cut bait on the 2001 season.
The second trade of the week came when Matthew's Mighty Men of Stanhope traded minor-league pitchers Joe Mays and Scott Schoeneweis to the Brooklyn Bean Counters for SP Chuck Smith (6-10, 3.38 ERA) and a 4th Round Draft Pick. The Mighty Men sent down veteran Andy Pettitte (4-8, 6.04) to make room for Smith, who went 1-0 with a 5.23 ERA in two starts for Stanhope this week.
In addition to Andruw, the Iron Fist also added Kentucky cast-off Pote. True to form, Pote posted a 9.00 ERA and allowed 9 hits in 6 IP in his first week as an Iron Fister. He's the fifth reliever (following Rich Garces, Hipolito Pichardo, Bill Simas and Anthony Telford) to assume the dreaded "sixth man" role in the Vancouver bullpen. Their combined line: 1-3, 1 SV, 35 G, 56 IP, 7.39 ERA, 2.0 WHIP. Injuries Ground Falcons "Just when it seems we were putting it all together," said Arkansas OF Lance Berkman, "the injury bug comes along and bites you in the ass!" The Golden Falcons will try to close ground on Vancouver without OF Glenallen Hill (due back June 27), C Gregg Zaun (July 2), RP Scott Williamson (July 8) and OF Larry Walker (July 21). For now, the team has signed RP Dan Miceli and C Bobby Estalella, but more moves are expected; ESPN's Peter Gammons said the Arkansas front office will make "at least two front-page trades" this week Stanhope's Ray Durham will be out until mid-week with a night sweats, muscle aches and a nagging fever... Shortly after the trade of staff ace Chuck Smith, Brooklyn's Mike Lieberthal turned bright yellow and can no longer get into a squatting position. He could be out for awhile... Columbia's Carlos Guillen spent the weekend with his face inches from his computer monitor after discovering Hot or Not?. It'll be about a week before his eyes can focus again. Speaking of "Hot or Not?," Carolina's Tyler Houston was so depressed by his rating that he's refusing to come out in public until his score is better than Hoboken's Richie Sexson's. "Just because he's got 'sex' in his name he thinks he's all that and a bag of chips," Houston pouted from the clubhouse. 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. | |
It was quite a week for offense, as seven games accounted for 20 or more runs. At the front of the offensive
barrage was Stanhope's Moises Alou, who hit .406 (13-32), with 2 2B, 4 HR, 6 R and 13 RBI to take the
The Kentucky Hillbillies opened the busy week, dealing star OF Andruw Jones (.264, 22 HR, 57 RBI)
to the Vancouver Iron Fist and releasing SP Pedro Astacio (0-1, 7.11), RP Lou Pote (2-1, 1 SV, 3.81), 2B
Mark Grudzielanek (.273, 0 HR, 10 RBI) and OF Carlos Beltran (.294, 3 HR, 7 RBI). The Hillbillies got back
1B Sean Casey (.158, 1 HR, 4 RBI) and OF Shannon Stewart (.232, 6 HR, 20 RBI) from the Iron Fist, plucked
2B Delino DeShields (.263, 3 HR, 10 SB for Carolina) and SP Randy Wolf (3-3, 5.06 for Arkansas) off the
waiver wire, and signed minor league free-agent 3B Scott Brosius. Five new players in one week? That's nothing:
So far, 40 players (14 pitchers and 26 batters) have played in at least one game for the Hillbillies in 2001.
Hoboken closed out the swap meet by sending SS Miguel Tejada (.256, 10 HR, 33 RBI) to
Honolulu for 1B Ryan Klesko (.091, 0 HR, 0 RBI). Klesko, who just about set every rookie record with the
Newark Sugar Bears in 1996, can't help but get more playing-time with the Cutters: In his first week, he already
saw more plate appearances than he had in the first half of the season with Honolulu.