Week Four: Summary of Series

Sass fall after a surprising week
Evenly divided points for offense and pitching
By Beth Sass / hereforthesass.blogspot.com

The Sass lost--again--proving that they’re going for the title of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the BFL. “It seems that the owner of Mmmm…Guinness has made some line-up changes, so we might have amend our title to the Kansas City Royals of the BFL. I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Beth said in a statement released late Sunday night. The final score against Baja Manitoba was 5-7, which is the most points they’ve ever scored in a week-long series.

“It was a good week by most of our team. We’re still deciding what to do with a few members, but for now, we’re pretty good,” Dawn said, sipping champagne to celebrate having only two pitcher with ERAs above 10.00 for the week.

“It's nice to have a positive score, but 7-5 is a little disappointing given the circumstances. Not that I feel like I was owed a walkover win; I just hate to see my team drop two points on the last day of the week,” frightwig told the press.

For the first time since the team has started playing, there was a balance between hitting and pitching--with the batters scoring three of the five points, and the pitching scoring two of the five.

The wins were in: runs (36-23), RBI (40-33), average (.276-.271), wins (5-4), and strike-outs (26-24). The other results were: HR (9-11), BB (17-39), Saves (2-4), Holds (0-4), ERA (5.29-3.06), and WHIP (1.49-1.22).

The offense leaders were: Runs, J. Encarnacion (8); HR, J. Dye (3); RBI, C. Guillen (9); stolen bases, R. Johnson (1); walks, F. Catalanotto and A. Dunn (4); and batting average, A. Pierzynski (.375).

“I steal one base, and I get an award, but no credit at all for being hit by a pitch three times in one game--twice by my own teammate?” Johnson said in amusement.

There were no truly outstanding performances this week, but the only poor performances were by second baseman M. Grudzielanek and E. Brown, both of whom in one game with the Sass this week did not register anything but zeroes. Other Sass teammates who had no hits managed to score a run (utility player R. Mackowiak) or walk (utility man N. Punto).

“It was a balanced effort by the entire team of regulars,” Beth said, “They were all performing up to their expected stellar levels--even though Dunn wasn’t hitting home runs like he did earlier this year, he was still getting hits, and was picked up by his teammates--particularly JEn.”

As for the pitching, there were good performers and bad performers--and there was Kyle Lohse, who was both in his two starts.

The starting staff leaders were: Wins, K. Benson, R. Johnson, T. Ohka (1); strike-outs, Lohse (6); ERA, Benson, Ohka (2.57); and WHIP, Benson (0.86). The relievers countered with: Wins: Duchscherererer, Mateo (1); Saves, A. Burgos, Duchscherererer (1); strike-outs, Burgos (4); ERA, Duchscherererer, Guerrier, Medders (0.00), and WHIP, Duchschererererer (0.33).

“I won the strike-out award?” said Lohse in shock. “How does that happen? Beth gets mad at me when I try to be a dominant strike-out pitcher, rather than the ground-ball pitcher I’m supposed to be.”

Johnson had no comment, as he was sitting in front of his locker sulking, which is not unusual for him.

Both Johnson and Silva had poor outings on Saturday, giving them both ERAs over 10 (10.80 and 30.38, respectively).

“We’re looking forward to this coming week against Mockball Madness. Besides getting to see Loopy [former Sass player B. Looper], we also get to see Nick and the rest of the team, too. We’re looking forward to it!” Duchschererererer said.