Week Seventeen: Summary of Series

Sass...tie?
Tough series comes out with a tie
By Beth Sass/ hereforthesass.blogspot.com

On Monday, the Here for the Sass team was feeling a little down-hearted to be losing again. After facing some of the top teams in the division to start the season, the Sass realized that they only had one series left before going back to fighting with the top teams. Unfortunately, the last team had to be the fourth place HoyaDestroya. Early in the week, it seemed a clear-cut case that the Sass would lose…again. Dawn was looking forward to checking out the BFL Wine Cellar again.

The final result was a 6-6 tie, with the scores broken down as follows: runs (38-33), home runs (9-11), RBI (44-37), stolen bases (8-1), walks (18-20), batting average (.333-.294), wins (3-4), saves (2-4), strike-outs (39-69), holds (5-1), ERA (4.13-4.90), WHIP (1.47-1.42).

“Hitting clearly was our strong point this week again,” Dawn said, “But early in the week our relievers kinda sucked. No, they completely sucked. They were subpar. But the hitters were clearly picking each other up--a guy with a low batting average stole bases, hit home runs, scored runs when he was on base. They all made every at-bat count in some way.”

The individual leaders in hitting were: runs, Adam Dunn (8); home runs, Jermaine Dye (3), RBIs, Jermaine Dye (8); stolen bases, Little Nicky Punto and Adam (2); walks, Adam (6); and batting average, A.J. Pierzynski (.591)--although Adam’s .550 deserved mentioning. Mark Grudzielanek played well from the bench, hitting .600 with a run and an RBI.

“It was a great week for Jermaine and I,” Adam said, “He’s catching up with me in home runs, but I swear I will keep the lead.”

Jermaine just laughed gleefully, pointing out that he still had the batting average advantage, which made Adam point out the runs, RBIs, walks, and stolen bases that he leads in. Beth then sent the two off to count the number of stitches in the batting practices balls that had just been received.

The starting pitching actually performed very well, pulling off a couple of quality starts, including an eight-inning shut-out by Aaron Harang earlier in the week. Aaron was the only starter to make two starts. Kristin Benson and Chan Ho Park both found them injured before they could make a second start.

The individual leaders for the starters were: wins, Aaron H. and Chan Ho (1); strike-outs, Aaron H. (15; two starts) and Tomo Ohka (5, one start); ERA, Aaron H. (2.79); and WHIP, Aaron H. (1.29). Unsurprisingly, not a single starter had a Hold or Save. Among the relievers, the leaders were: wins, Darren Oliver (1); saves, Ambiorix Burgos (2); strike-outs, Jon Rauch and Brad Halsey (3); holds, Justin Duchschererererer (2); ERA, Ambiorix and Darren (0.00); and WHIP, Jon (0.90).

There were plenty of upsets this week in the BFL, with low-ranking teams taking over high-ranking teams, so the Sass didn’t make front-page headlines with their tie, but they were quite pleased with the results.

“I was quite shocked as our boys started hitting and pitching…and didn’t stop. We were actually beating the HoyaDestroya briefly,” Beth said, “So to hold on and keep it a tie in the face of stiff competition was fantastic.”

However, despite tying, the Sass fell to 13th place, out of playoff contention. This week thy are facing the DrewHIO Dreadnaughts who defeated the Sass 8-4 to start the year.

“We’ll need to keep fighting our way along,” Beth said, “This is a remarkably different team than the one that faced the Dreadnaughts earlier this year. I have no idea what changes he’s made to his roster, since it’s entirely irrelevant to me.”