April 14, 2003  

'Boken Blasts Off

After being mired in last place for the first three weeks of the season, the Hoboken Cutters have hacked and slashed their way back into playoff contention after winning a league-best six out of seven games this week. After a 4-9 start, the Cutters have won nine of their last 12, including an active four-game winning streak, and are now tied for the fifth-best record in baseball... Despite splitting their eight games this week, the Newark Sugar Bears held onto first place in the division formerly known as Enron. The Sugar Bears have gone .500 every week except one -- Week 2, when they went 7-0... Just a half-game back sit the Stanhope Mighty Men, who had briefly held the top spot before ending the week with back-to-back losses... The Brooklyn Bean Counters slipped below .500 for the first time since Week 1, going 3-4... The Honolulu Sharks keep slowly rising in the standings, winning four out of seven for the second straight week. They're now tied for fifth with the Phoenix Dragons, who fell two games below .500 after a 3-5 week... The Harrison Rats continue to struggle, going 3-4 to remain in seventh.

The Arkansas Golden Falcons, who set a record last season with an astounding 120 wins, once again have laid claim to the best record in baseball after going 5-3 this week. After a 2-4 start, the Falcons have gone 16-6... The Vancouver Iron Fist lost two games in the standings after going 3-5. They've lost 6 out of their last 10 and are now just a game ahead of the Carolina Mudcats, who won 3 out of 5 to move into third place in the division, tied for fifth overall... The Philadelphia Endzone Animals started the week 1-4, but bounced back by closing out the weekend with three straight wins. The Animals haven't been able to crawl above the .500 mark, despite a third-best run-differential of +19 (behind Newark at +38 and Arkansas at +35)... The Hillsborough Destroyers split their eight games this week to remain two games below .500, while the Columbia Rattlesnakes fell behind them in the standings after a 3-5 week... The Tijuana Banditos continue to struggle with long losing streaks. They snapped a seven-game skid on Monday with a heart-pounding 7-5 win over Newark on a pinch-hit two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth, then followed it up Tuesday with a thrilling come-from-behind 7-6 win over Phoenix. But the momentum fizzled as they dropped their next three straight to fall to 10 games below .500, by far the worst record in baseball.

A-mazing A-Rod

It doesn't matter if he's playing in Norfolk, Vatican City, Wanaque or Hillsborough -- the superstar of this oft-moved franchise has always played shortstop. Alex Rodriguez took another step toward the DMBL Hall of Fame with a tremendous week, leading the league in batting average (.469), slugging percentage (1.125), hits (15), RBIs (12), runs created (16.5), total bases (36) and OPS (1.610), to name just the major categories. But A-Rod clinched his free steaks as the OmahaSteaks.com Batter of the Week by slamming an amazing 7 HRs to more than double his season total and move within one of the league lead... Note to Arkansas fans: Stop with the hate mail! I know Barry Bonds is putting up huge numbers, but once again he's a close second to an even hotter hitter. Bonds keeps mashing, though, hitting .423 (11-for-26) with a .528 OBP and .923 SLG (1.451 OPS), with 4 HR, 11 R and 7 RBI. At this rate, he'll win the only award that matters: His second straight Kevin Mitchell Award as the league's most valuable batter, as he leads the league in batting average, on-base percentage, hits, runs, walks, runs created, total bases... Hoboken's great week comes courtesy of two great hitters: Brian Giles, who hit .563 (9-16) with a 1.542 OPS, 5 R and 5 BB, and Mike Piazza, .345 (10-29) with a 1.217 OPS, 4 HR, 9 R and 9 RBI... With all the hype surrounding Jim Thome's hot start (.377, 1.543 OPS, 14 HR, 32 RBI), no one has paid much attention to teammate Manny Ramirez and his 23-game hitting streak, the longest in baseball this season. He's nine games shy of the all-time mark, set by former teammate (and current batting coach) Jim Eisenreich in 1997. On the week, Ramirez hit .355 (1.218 OPS) with 4 HR and 9 RBI in seven games... Todd Helton, who leads the Mighty Men in just about every offensive category, had another monster week, hitting .379 (11-29) with 2 HR, 9 R and 9 RBI... Columbia's Troy Glaus recovered from a slow start, hitting .379 with a 1.250 OPS (2 HR, 8 R, 8 BB) this week... With Sammy Sosa, Jeff Kent and Edgar Martinez combining to hit .120 with 1 HR and 3 RBI on the week (and all three, plus Jeff Bagwell, below the Mendoza line for the season), the Iron Fist have been thrilled with the production of rookie catcher Brian Schneider, who hit a team-leading .542 (13-24) with 4 2B, 4 R and 5 RBI for a 1.375 OPS. On the season, he's hitting .303 with a .852 OPS, while playing solid defense.

Schilling Is Money, Baby

Teammates Pedro Martinez, Kevin Brown and Roger Clemens already have won the Ben McDonald Award as the league's top pitcher, so maybe this will finally be the year that Curt Schilling takes the trophy home. The fourth ace in Arkansas' winning hand takes his second Pitcher of the Week Award on the young season by going 2-0 with a 1.69 ERA, 0.81 WHIP and a ridiculous 22:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio. On Tuesday, Schilling notched his second shutout in a row, blanking Harrison on five hits and a walk; his scoreless streak was ended in the first inning of Sunday's game when Tijuana rookie Josh Phelps slammed a two-out, two-run home run off him, but Schilling would give up just one more run en route to a 6-hit, 1-walk, 14-strikeout 6-3 win. On the season, Schilling is 5-1 with a 1.84 ERA and a league-leading 61 Ks... It wasn't pretty, but Stanhope's Tim Wakefield became the league's first six-game winner this week, going 2-0 despite posting a 6.23 ERA in his two appearances... Hillsborough's Bartolo Colon notched his second shutout of the season, a four-hit masterpiece that dropped his ERA to 0.64 and his BR/9 to 7.0 -- he leads the league in both categories, as well as in hits per 9 (5.5) and home runs per 9 (none), plus he's gone the distance in four games this season -- every start except his first, when he was pulled in the eighth with a 7-2 lead. Needless to say, he's five-for-five in quality starts. Teammate Kevin Millwood was also sharp, winning both his starts and giving up just 1 ER in 15 IP... Yes, this is the same Brian Meadows who had spent just one week in the majors over the last five seasons -- retiring the one and only batter he faced during his cup of coffee with the Hawaii Volcanoes in 1999 -- before resurfacing this year with the Sugar Bears in spring training. After another astounding week (2-0, 4 ER, 0 BB, 10 K in 15.1 IP), Meadows is 4-1 with a 2.68 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP under the careful tutelage of pitching coach Mike Grace. "I don't know why it took them five years to get me back to the majors," Meadows said after throwing a three-hitter against the Dragons on Sunday. "After all, I did get that one guy out in 1999!"

Philadelphia's bullpen has been outstanding this season, with two pitchers -- Armando Benitez and Valerio de los Santos -- who still haven't given up a run, 26 games into the season. Darren Holmes finally gave up his first earned run on Saturday -- a home run to Tijuana's Vladimir Guerrero -- after 17.1 innings of scoreless work. Those three, plus Mike Remlinger, Alan Embree and Scott Williamson, have combined for an 0.88 ERA, 0.70 WHIP and 59 K in 70 IP, and they've stranded all but three of 29 inherited runners... Hoboken, the only other team with a reliever who hasn't given up a run (Steve Kline, scoreless over 4 IP), also got excellent bullpen support this week as Francisco Cordero, Jayson Durocher and Jason Isringhausen combined for two wins, four saves and no runs in 11.1 innings... Newark's John Smoltz (0 R, 1 H, 0 BB in 3.2 IP) and Stanhope's Mariano Rivera (0 R, 2 H, 1 BB in 5.2 IP) each notched three saves this week to remain tied for the league-lead with eight. But the only fireman to record four saves this week was Ugueth Urbina, who had just one save opportunity in the first three weeks of the season. The Sharks gave him four chances this week and he converted them all, giving up no runs and striking out seven.

Dead Again

Apparently, it's never too late to mount a comeback. The late Darryl Kile made several starts for the Sugar Bears last year after his untimely mid-season death but was finally laid to rest and buried in left-center field after his reanimated corpse started getting shelled on the mound and trying to eat his teammates in the clubhouse. But last week, the Banditos -- desperate for pitching help after injuries to Justin Speier and Ramon Ortiz -- dug up the 33-year-old righthander and gave him a shot against the Dragons. The results weren't pretty as Kile was shelled for six earned runs in 5.1 innings, then was ejected after he took a bite out of the third base umpire. Kile's corpse was shipped C.O.D. back to Newark and the Banditos signed veteran lefty Chuck Finley, cut by the Falcons in spring training... Other comings and goings: The Mudcats released minor leaguer Michael Restovich to sign perennial prospect Gabe Kapler, but then cut Kapler four days later to sign another former phenom, Richard Hidalgo... The Endzone Animals activated pitchers Scott Williamson and Paul Byrd off the D.L. and dumped Armando Almanzo and Andy Ashby.

Life Without Lieberthal

Mike Lieberthal, after missing all of 2002 with a serious knee injury, is back with the Mighty Men franchise and off to a terrific start (.316, .395 OBP, .526 SLG) but is having trouble squatting for the full nine innings. He'll spend two weeks trying to rebuild the strength in his balky knee by chopping wood and hauling haybales at his summer cabin in Wyoming. "The orthopedic surgeon said this isn't the best way to rehab a bum knee," Lieberthal said, "but what does an orthopedic surgeon know about knees, anyway?"... Honolulu's Jason Giambi and Jason Kendall will miss a couple days as each tries to convince former POW Jessica Lynch to marry him... Vancouver's Dave Berg, a Lubavitcher, will be out all of next week to observe Passover. Meanwhile, teammate Roderigo Lopez is off to a bit of a slow start (2-2, 5.17 ERA), so Bud Black told the first-round pick to sit out his next two turns in the rotation and do some sight-seeing in the Big Apple. "I'm going to see all New York has to offer," Lopez said. "The Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, the crack whores..." Hillsborough's Carlos Delgado will miss two weeks mourning the loss of his prize parakeet, Mr. Snookie... To add to Harrison's woes, Gary Sheffield signed an autograph for a Chinese guy with the sniffles and now thinks he has the dreaded Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. "I'm feeling pretty SARS'ed out," Sheffield said. "I'm not coughing or sneezing or anything like that, but just to be on the safe side I better quarantine myself for a few weeks."

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.