Week 16 - July 9, 2006

Get Muddy

The Carolina Mudcats finally claimed a firm grip on the league's second-best record, winning six out of eight games this week -- and 10 out of their last 14 -- to improve to 20 games above .500. The Vancouver Ironfist went 5-2, including an active four-game winning streak, but that wasn't enough to avoid falling another half-game back from the Morris Division lead. It was good enough, however, to inch a half-game closer to 3rd place overall... The Philadelphia Endzone Animals went 4-3 and are becoming a dot in the rear-view mirror for Carolina and Vancouver, but that was good enough to maintain their 5th place overall record... Battling it out for 7th place overall -- but just a game out of the final playoff spot -- are the Arkansas Golden Falcons, who went 4-3, and Hillsborough Hired Hitmen, who went 3-4, to meet at .500... A half-game behind them are the South Boston Gang, who went 3-4 to fall into 9th... Bringing up the rear are the D.C. Bushslappers, who went 1-7 -- including seven straight losses at one point -- to reclaim last place overall.

The Newark Sugar Bears are apparently on cruise control, going 4-3, but that was enough to add a half-game to their lead over the Las Vegas Rat Pack, who went 4-4. The Rats were as close as 4½ games back at mid-week, but then they dropped four straight and the Sugar Bears won three out of their next four... The  6th-place Hoboken Cutters went 4-3, leaving them a half-game behind Philly and a game ahead of the two-way tie for 7th... The Marietta Mighty Men couldn't keep up the pace, going 3-5 to fall into 10th, though they're still just 2 games out of the post-season... The 11th-place Phoenix Dragons failed to capitalize on last week's winning record, going 2-5... The Westwood Deductions remained in 12th place with a 3-4 week... That leaves the hottest team in the Hanover Division, the Honolulu Sharks, who bounced back from a 10-game losing streak to go 5-2 and emerge from last-place overall. They're now in 13th place, just a game behind the Ducks.

Georgia on My Mind

The weather is heating up in Marietta, and so are the bats of the Mighty Men. This week, the team scored a league-high 61 runs (.314 BA, .939 OPS), including five players who hit over .300 and three who posted four-digit OPS's. But while Brian Giles (.389, 1.199 OPS, 3 HR, 10 R), Victor Diaz (.385, 2 2B, 8 RBI), Gary Sheffield (.333, 1.158 OPS, 9 R) and Derek Jeter (.323, 2 2B, 6 RBI) all had fine weeks, it was 30-year-old third baseman Morgan Ensberg taking home the case of steaks, hitting .438 (1.482 OPS) with 5 HR, 11 R and 8 RBI. Though it's the second time this season Ensberg has won the OmahaSteaks.com Batter of the Week Award, he's had the kind of year that teaches you to take the good with the bad -- a .495 slugging percentage but a .250 batting average, 87 runs batted in but 88 strikeouts. "I don't think of myself as a slugger, so I'm unhappy about that batting average," Ensberg admitted. "This week I worked a lot with Ryno (batting coach Ryne Sandberg) on going the other way and it really paid off." We'll say -- the Ensberg/Sandberg partnership resulted in Morgan leading or tying for the league lead in hits (14), runs (11), home runs (5), runs created (16.6) and total bases (31).

Ensberg wasn't the only guy at the hot corner to be en fuego this week. Also posting tremendous numbers were Arkansas's David Wright (.500, 1.406 OPS, 4 2B, 6 RBI); Hillsborough's Alex Rodriguez (.357, .879 OPS, 6 R); Newark's Chipper Jones (.500, 1.591 OPS, 2 HR, 10 RBI) and Westwood's Bill Mueller (.310, .920 OPS, 2 HR, 4 R).

This week's other top batters: Carolina's Travis Hafner (.481, 1.457 OPS, 3 HR, 6 RBI); Hillsborough's Adam Dunn (.387, 1.194 OPS, 3 HR, 7 RBI); Hoboken's Mike Sweeney (.448, 1.210 OPS, 3 2B, 8 RBI); Honolulu's Johnny Damon (.370, 1.155 OPS, 2 HR, 7 RBI); Newark's Milton Bradley (.450, 1.250 OPS, 2 HR, 6 RBI) and Bobby Abreu (.421, 1.213 OPS, 3 2B, 7 RBI); Philly's Adam LaRoche (.500, 1.274 OPS, 1 HR, 6 R) and Frank Catalanotto (.400, 1.021 OPS, 5 2B, 5 RBI); Phoenix's David Eckstein (.500, 1.287 OPS, 1 HR, 5 R); South Boston's Vlad Guerrero (.393, 1.199 OPS, 2 HR, 7 R) and Vancouver's J.D. Drew (.400, 1.283 OPS, 3 HR, 10 R).

Young streaker!

Vancouver's Michael Young is marching toward history. He's now riding a 29-game hitting streak, putting him just four games away from tying the record set last year by Ichiro Suzuki.

10 Longest DMBL Hitting Streaks
Batter	Year	Games
Ichiro, PHX	2005	33
Eisenreich, NWK	1997	32
Renteria, TIJ	2004	31
DeShields, HIL	1998	30*
M.Young, VAN	2006	29+
M.Ramirez, NWK	1998	27
Abreu, NWK	2005	26
Mora, LV	2005	26
John Valentin, LOU	1998	26
Two tied	2001	25
+Streak still active *Streak was active when season ended

It's actually Young's second streak of more than 20 games this season -- he had a 24-game hitting streak earlier this year. His current streak tops that one for the longest of the season, followed by a 22-game hitting streak earlier this year by Honolulu's Johnny Damon. The second-longest active streak is an 11-game ride tied by Hoboken's Mike Sweeney and Phoenix's Shea Hillenbrand.

Where'd HE Come From?

Last week it was Brad Penny stealing the thunder from Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez by claiming the Pitcher of the Week Award. This week, the award is going to Arkansas again -- and not to Rocket or P.J.! Danny Haren, a 25-year-old right-hander taken last year in the 12th round (#167 overall) as an ineligible prospect, turned in two performances so dominant this week that even the anti-Arkansas contingent of voters, loathe to give the Falcons the award two weeks in a row, had no choice but to recognize his efforts. In his first start, Haren shut down the Cutters, scattering 7 hits while allowing just 1 run, 1 walk and striking out 8 in 7.1 innings. Then, on Saturday, Haren breezed past the Dragons, allowing just 5 hits, no runs, no walks and striking out 8 in 7.2 innings. On the week, that adds up to a 2-0 record and a ridiculous 0.60 ERA, 7.8 R/9 and 16:1 K:BB ratio in 15.0 IP. That's more than enough to earn him the Dirty Hippie Soaps Pitcher of the Week Award! Haren was at began the week 3-7 with a 5.24 ERA, 13.2 R/9, but after those two starts his numbers are suddenly looking respectable (5-7, 4.70 ERA, 12.6 R/9). Meanwhile, once again, Pedro and Rocket just kept doing what they're expected to do -- Martinez went the distance in his only start this week, giving up just 1 run on 4 hits and 1 walk while striking out 9 for the win, while Clemens was 1-0 in two starts, giving up 3 runs (2 earned) on 11 hits, no walks and striking out 10 in 16.0 IP, including a shutout.

Newark's John Smoltz is suddenly four wins ahead of everybody else on the leaderboard. Smoltz is 16-3 after winning both his starts this week (4.85 ERA, 11.1 R/9, 3 BB, 8 K in 13.0 IP)... Haren and Smoltz weren't the only starters to win twice this week. Also doing double-duty were Carolina's Roy Halladay (2.12 ERA, 8.5 R/9, 0 BB, 15 K in 17.0 IP), Honolulu's Mark Mulder (0.67 ERA, 8.8 R/9, 4 BB, 7 K in 13.1 IP), South Boston's Dontrelle Willis (2.40 ERA, 11.4 R/9, 3 BB, 10 K in 15.0 IP, shutout) and Vancouver's Greg Maddux (2.12 ERA, 7.4 R/9, 0 BB, 13 K in 17.0 IP)... Joining Clemens and Willis with shutouts this week were Honolulu's Roy Oswalt (4 H, 1 BB, 5 K) and Las Vegas's Rich Harden (1 H, 3 BB, 9 K).

Philly's Francisco Rodriguez picked up some ground in the race for the Dennis Eckersley Award as the Rolaids Reliever of the Year, picking up 2 wins and a save to give him 6 more relief points. On the season, Rodriguez (4 W, 22 SV, 4 L, 5 BS) has 43 relief points, 3 behind Marietta's Mariano Rivera (4 W, 22 SV, 3 L, 3 BS for 46 RP), who picked up 4 points with a win and a save this week. In 3rd place is Las Vegas's Arthur Rhodes (4 W, 17 SV, 2 L, 2 BS for 38 RP), who didn't have any points this week, followed by Hillsborough's Chad Cordero (2 W, 20 SV, 5 L, 5 BS for 34 RP), who took a big step backward with two losses and a blown save for a -3 RP.

This week's other top relievers: Carolina's Jay Witasick (1 W, 1 SV, 0 R, 1 H, 0 BB, 2 K in 1.1 IP); D.C.'s Joe Nathan (1 SV, 0 R, 2 H, 1 BB, 6 K in 4.0 IP); Newark's Matt Wise (1 W, 1 SV, 1 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 6 K in 7.0 IP); Vancouver's David Cortes (1 W, 1 SV, 0 R, 1 H, 0 BB, 1 K in 3.0 IP) and Westwood's Jesse Crain (1 W, 0 R, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 K in 1.1 IP).

Man-Ram and Mag-Or

The latest episode of Manny being Manny has once again put the gifted but eccentric slugger on the shelf for a few more days. Manny Ramirez, Newark coaches found out today, stowed away about the space shuttle during its current mission. "I love it on Discovery. My dreads are doing some amazing things," Ramirez said during a spacewalk. Perhaps jealous, Philly's Magglio Ordonez decided to get in on the act and pull a stowaway act of his own by sneaking aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. He didn't learn until much later that the plane is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and doesn't actually go anywhere.

Honolulu's Sean Casey announced he will sit out some games to preserve his career batting average. Casey is mired in a two-month-long slump, watching his batting average fall from .340 on May 4 to just .282 this week, and pulling his career batting average down from .301 to .299. "A few more bad games and I'll be in Rob Deer territory," Casey whined. "I'm going to work in the cage for a few weeks and get my stroke back."... Arkansas' Antonio Perez and Jose Cruz will both miss some time after an ill-advised dramatic re-enactment baseball's Top 10 most bizarre injuries... Vancouver's Ramon Castro was mowing his lawn this week when he decided to check if it was still working. He reached under the mower and discovered, in fact, it was. Luckily, the grass was short enough paramedics were able to find all his fingers. Still, he'll be out several weeks... Last month, D.C.'s Bengie Molina almost cried himself out of baseball when the fans started laughing when he was used as a pinch-runner. He'd finally worked up the courage to come back to the team with the help of a therapist, only to discover a bizarre side-effect of the hypnosis was he's developed an irrational fear of spiders. "I don't know what could have gone wrong," said his therapist, Glenallen Hill.

Another Dragon has decided to take some time off. Chris Shelton joins Todd Walker, Tyler Walker, Robinson Tejeda and Shea Hillenbrand in what's looking more and more like a massive "sick-out" to protest what's shaping up to be the team's 10th straight losing season.  "Can we at least get a real manager? We've had Chewbacca coaching the team for the last 10 years and nobody has figured out what the hell he's talking about," one player said. "And do you have any idea what a wookiee smells like in July, in Phoenix? This is just cruel!"

Life Is a Series of Hellos and Good-Byes

The trading deadline is this Sunday (July 16), and that's also the deadline to sign free agents who can be protected for next season. But with so many teams still in the hunt, it remains to be seen if anyone will be making any dramatic moves.

In the meantime, teams continued to tweak their rosters to respond to the comings and goings from the Disabled List. From the what have you done for me lately file, Arkansas released Mark Sweeney (.267 BA, .792 OPS, 11 HR, 34 RBI in 240 AB); Newark cut Carlos Pena (.316, .917 OPS, 7 HR, 26 RBI in 95 AB), Las Vegas dropped David Bell (.290, .817 OPS, 8 2B, 7 RBI in 69 AB) and Philly waived Clint Barmes (.247, .665 OPS, 17 2B, 35 RBI in 283 AB). Arkansas also cut 2B/OF prospect Chris Burke, who went 1-for-16 (.063) in his only cup of coffee with the big club this year. And for the second time in a week, Vancouver released Rudy Seanez -- probably for good this time (1-1, 13.06 ERA, 20.0 R/9).

Joining clubs this week: Las Vegas picked up journeyman 1B/DH Scott Hatteberg; Newark added veteran shortstop Orlando Cabrera; Philly got colorful with Emil Brown and Khalil Greene; Vancouver inked catcher John Buck and rookie reliever David Cortes; and Arkansas signed everybody's favorite free agent, Adam Kennedy, who joins the Golden Falcons for a second stint this season. He'd also been signed this year by Philly and Westwood.