Week 19 - July 28, 2007

Marching Through Georgia

We're about a month from the end of the DMBL regular season! The division leaders appear to be all but guaranteed their post-season berths, but technically no team has clinched a playoff spot yet. For that matter, no team has been mathematically eliminated from contention either. But the playoff picture comes into sharper focus with each passing week as we bring you yet another edition of This Week in the DMBL.

The Newark Sugar Bears (6-2) and Philadelphia Endzone Animals continued to rack up wins as they look to lock up their respective divisions and then start resting players for the post-season. The Sugar Bears, who won 6 out of 8 this week, will clinch a playoff spot with their next win; the Animals, who went 6-1, will have to wait a bit longer as their magic number to clinch no worse than the #6 seed is 16. Newark's magic number to clinch the Hanover Division for a league-record sixth straight year is 14; their magic number to clinch their third straight Commissioner's Cup as the team with the best regular season record is 20. Philly's magic number to clinch their first-ever division title is 21; they're 12½ games behind Newark for the league's best record.

The big story this week continues to be the teams fighting for wildcard spots. Matthew's Mighty Men of Marietta went a perfect 7-0 this week -- and have won 10 straight overall -- to open up a 6-game lead over their pursuers for the top wildcard seed. Meanwhile, the D.C. Bushslappers managed to split their eight games this week to hang onto 4th place overall and the promise of home-field advantage in the first round... The Hillsborough Hired Hitmen continue their funk, going 3-4. After riding an 11-game winning streak that shot them back into playoff contention, the Hitters have slumped recently, going 7-8 since the streak ended. They're now as close to 4th place as they are to 6th place -- 1½ games... The ever-changing final playoff spot is in new hands again. The Vancouver Iron Fist went 5-2 to jump from 8th into 6th. The Fisters have won 8 out of their last 10.

The Honolulu Sharks and Hoboken Cutters each dropped one rung in the standings -- from 6th to 7th and from 7th to 8th, respectively -- after each team went 2-5. Each team has had a brutal month -- the Sharks have gone 10-18, while the Cutters went 11-17...  The Carolina Mudcats had been plodding along toward a .500 record if not a playoff berth, but took a step backward this week after going 2-5... Could this be the first year since 1991 that the Arkansas Golden Falcons don't reach the post-season? The Arks went 2-6 this week to fall 7 games out of the final playoff spot. If they can't get it together, their league record streaks of consecutive playoff seasons (14) and consecutive winning seasons (15) could each end this year... New Jersey Team Buddah held onto 11th place after going 4-3, while the tenacious South Boston Gang went 5-2 to remain in 12th. The Buddahs are 10½ games behind Vancouver, while the Gang are 12½ out... The Sardine City Straphangers continue to rack up losses, going 1-6 this week including five straight defeats. But they still have a 4½ game lead over the Las Vegas Rat Pack, who went 2-6 -- including three straight losses -- to hang onto the league's worst record. The Rats will be eliminated from playoff contention with any combination of 4 losses or wins by Vancouver; the Straphangers, meanwhile, have a "tragic number" of 9 before they're out.

Mauer Power

Las Vegas may be having a historically bad season -- they're on target to lose 113 games, which would tie for fifth-most all time -- but you can't blame Joe Mauer. The 24-year-old catcher finished sixth in the Rookie of the Year balloting last season and he's having an even better sophomore campaign, hitting .356 (.989 OPS) with 27 2B, 23 HR and 86 RBI while playing sold defense behind the plate, but no one's noticed because his team is just so terrible. This week, Mauer had another huge week wasted as he hit .536 (1.451 OPS) with 2 HR, 5 R and 8 RBI, but the Pack went 2-6 anyway. Mauer led the league in BA, OBP, hits, RC, RC/27 and total average; on the season, he's second in hits (185) and in the top 10 in BA, OBP, RC and RC/27, all for naught. Well, not exactly naught, as his huge week earned him a box of cigars as our JRCigars.com Smokin' Batter of the Week Award winner. "I appreciate the award but this has been a difficult season for everyone involved with the Rat Pack organization," Mauer said. "We were in the playoffs last year, and we intend to be back next year. This is just a bump in the road for Las Vegas."

D.C.'s Jose Reyes is having a most unusual year. While he's hitting just .268, and his OBP sits at a disappointing .322, he also leads the league in both triples (22) and stolen bases (46). In fact, Reyes needs just two more three-baggers to tie the DMB Era record he set last season, which would make this the third straight year that the modern record for triples is broken. At his current pace, Reyes would have 27 triples this season. (The record also could be surpassed by Marietta's Wes Helms, who shockingly has 21 triples this season; he projects to 26 triples.) The numbers aren't in Reyes favor when it comes to breaking the stolen base record of 78, set by Kenny Lofton (then with Vancouver) in 1997. At his current pace, Reyes would have 56 stolen bases. This week the speedy shortstop added to both his triples and stolen base totals as he hit .448 (1.259 OPS) with 4 3B, 5 SB (0 CS) and 4 R in 29 AB.

Frankie and Johnny

It looks like the race for the Ben McDonald Most Valuable Pitcher Award is going to go right up until the end of the season as Marietta's Francisco Liriano and Philly's Johan Santana are each having sensational seasons. This week Marietta's Liriano -- who also has to be considered one of the favorites for the Pat Listach Rookie of the Year Award -- picked up a win in two starts while allowing just 3 runs (2 earned), 7 hits and 5 walks while striking out 16 in 11.0 innings. Liriano deserved to win both games but his offense let him down in his first start -- he left after 5 innings (and 101 pitches) with the score tied 2-2, even though Marietta was playing the slumping Mudcats and starter Roy Halladay was lifted in the first inning after feeling a twinge in his elbow that turned out to be a false alarm. The Mighty Men eventually scratched out a couple more runs for the win, but it was credited to the 'pen. Liriano could have no complaints about run support in his second start as the Mites pounded out 17 runs against the hapless Straphangers. But the fact that he could just pick up one W opened the door for Santana to win the Crazy Old Lady Pitcher of the Week Award as he went 2-0 with a 2.35 ERA and 8.2 R/9. Santana allowed just 13 hits and 1 walk while striking out 20 batters in 15.1 innings. Even more impressive was that his wins came against the Hitmen and the Sharks, both teams in the thick of the playoff hunt. So who is leading in the Big Ben race? Liriano leads the league in ERA (2.55), H/9 (7.5), K/9 (11.7), QS% (.739) and OPS (.625), and is 13-2 on the season; Santana leads the league in strikeouts (208), wins (15), W% (.882), R/9 (10.1), shutouts (3) and complete games (6). He's also second in ERA (3.46), quality starts (17) and innings (182.0). It really comes down to whether Liriano's big lead in ERA (2.55 to 3.46) is enough to overtake Santana in wins, Ks and R/9. Stay tuned, these two are likely to keep battling it out all the way 'til the votes are cast!

Billy's Back

Now let's take a look at the relief points leader board to see who's ahead in the race to win the Dennis Eckersley Rolaids Reliever of the Year Award. Remember, pitchers get 2 points for every save or relief win, and -1 points for every loss or blown save.

Relief Points Standings
Reliever	ERA	W	SV	L	BS	Pts
B.Wagner,VAN	2.94	5	31	6	9	57
F.Rodriguez,PHI	2.98	4	29	5	6	55
M.Rivera,MAR	2.66	5	20	2	4	44
Fuentes,CAR	1.91	3	25	6	9	41
Meredith,NWK	2.23	11	14	4	8	38
Papelbon,DC	1.46	7	13	1	4	35
Otsuka,SAR	2.33	6	14	3	5	32
Rincon,HBK	4.69	1	20	7	4	31
Street,SB	4.14	3	21	9	10	29
Saito,HIL	2.19	3	16	4	5	29

In 11th place with 28 relief points is D.C.'s Joe Nathan (5 W, 14 SV, 6 L, 4 BS), followed with a tie at 27 between Honolulu's Tom Gordon (4 W, 19 SV, 8 L, 11 BS) and New Jersey's Todd Jones (4 W, 19 SV, 9 L, 10 BS)... Vancouver's Billy Wagner had a terrific July to take over the lead in both relief points and saves. Wagner started the month 5 points behind Philly's Francisco Rodriguez, but now the Iron Fister leads by 2 as we head into the final few weeks of the season. Billy the Kid went a perfect 3-for-3 in save chances this week to pick up 6 points; K-Rod also had three saves, but was stuck with a loss after giving up 2 runs in the 10th inning of a tie game against Honolulu, for 5 points... Marietta's Mariano Rivera also had a big month, jumping up from 11th place to 3rd place with 22 relief points since July 1st -- 2 more than Wagner had in July. However, it appears Mo is too far behind to catch up with just a month left in the season, leaving The Eck race a two-man battle between Rodriguez, last year's winner, and Wagner, who won it in 2000.

Ouchies in Arkansas

We mentioned earlier that this could be the first time since the inaugural season that the Golden Falcons aren't in the post-season; it also could be the first time in their history that the Falcs don't post a winning record. The outlook certainly didn't get any better this week as three key members of the squad went down with injuries. In fact, the only injury this week that didn't happen to an Arkansas player was Team Buddah's Austin Kearns, who says he "sprained his chakras" attempting to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Whatever, hippie.

First up is Arkansas starter Roger Clemens, who is the biggest name of the three but also is likely to miss the least amount of time. The Rocket -- who is 12-8 with a 4.19 ERA and 12.6 R/9 this season -- reportedly got hurt when he came to the rescue of Britney Spears, who got into a fight with a photographer. Clemens punched out the shutterbug and got a grateful kiss from Britney for his efforts. Initial reports were that Clemens had hurt his hand from the punch, but it turns out he caught a disease from the kiss. He's likely to miss one start in the rotation... The news is worse for the other two players injured. Chris Coste, who is hitting .312 as the team's primary catcher, isn't sure if he's coming back for next season and figures with the team so far out of contention, he ought to just hang 'em up right now. Coste is a 34-year-old rookie who finally made the bigs the hard way -- four years at a Division III school, four years in the independent leagues, five years bouncing between AA and AAA for four different organizations, and finally last year just enough plate appearances (213) to qualify under the "catcher only" rule. "After all that, I finally make it to the DMBL, I'm hitting over .300, and we're 7 games out of a playoff spot? This sucks!" Team psychologists are hoping to convince Coste to come back to the Falcs for the final month.

Finally, there's Bob Wickman, who was reclaimed from the scrap heap after giving up 7 earned runs in 7 innings with New Jersey to start the season. Arkansas claimed the 38-year-old reliever off waivers and he became a pet project of bullpen coach Mike Schooler, who said he offered just two pieces of advice: "Throw strikes and eat whatever you want." Wickman said Team Buddah's strict policy of making all players eat vegetarian meals had caused his weight to drop below 300 pounds. Schooler immediately hooked him up with some brats and beer and Wickman has been terrific for the Golden Falcons, picking up 12 saves in 13 chances while striking out 27 and walking just 7 in 30.1 innings. But now Wickman says he has to leave the team, saying he's actually from a parallel Earth. "I have to return to my own Earth, where Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa were banned from baseball because they were accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. Next they banned all the players who had performance-enhancing laser vision surgery. That started a series of banishments where players were kicked out for any kind of performance-enhancing activity, including exercise, getting a full night's sleep and eating healthy foods. It turns out me and David Wells are the only two eligible players left. We're going to play wiffle ball to determine the league champion and then I will return to this Earth, hopefully sometime in the middle of the month." Good luck, Bob!

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.