Week Sixteen: Summary of Series

Sass lose by less than they thought
Weekend come-back helps team
By Beth Sass / cheapseatschick.com

CHICAGO -- The Here for the Sass team blinked when the final results of their week-long competition with the Jello Fighters came in early Monday morning.

“We only lost by two?” catcher A.J. Pierzynski was heard saying, rhetorically.

Dawn confirmed it. “We were losing earlier this week by 3-9, and I think it dropped down to 2-10 at one point, but the Sassians rallied and came back to fight. It was surprising.”

Indeed, the final score for Week 16 was 5-7. The final results were: runs (30-34), home runs (2-7), RBI (29-26), stolen bases (3-6), walks (23-14), batting average (.290-.282), wins (2-4), saves (0-4), strike-outs (35-43), holds (5-1), ERA (5.21-5.37), and WHIP (1.57-1.55).

“I can’t believe we won in ERA,” Beth said, “Looking at what our starting pitching did this week, it was very impressive that the relievers could hang on and keep things under control.”

The leaders on the offense were, runs, Little Nicky Punto (6); home runs, Juan Encarnacion (2); RBIs, Michael Cuddyer (8); stolen bases, Little Nicky (2); walks, Carlos Guillen (5); and average, JEn (.500).

“The entire Sass team didn’t have a single home run going into Sunday’s game,” JEn said, “So I figured I could at least prove to the world that we can hit home runs. C’mon, we’ve got guys with 30, 25, and a bunch of us who had 12 and none of us could get one? That was sad.” JEn hit both home runs Sunday afternoon, in the Sass surge to pick up points.

Beth and Dawn were quite pleased to note that their boyfriends, Little Nicky and Michael, were responsible for over one-third of the Sass runs and RBIs.

On the pitching side, the relief corps had a very excellent week. The only allowed one run, and that was a home run given up by Rheal Cormier for the only batter he faced all week, giving him an infinite ERA and WHIP. Amongst the others, they all had three strike-outs, and 0.00 ERAs. Justin Duchscherererer and Ambiorix Burgos had the lowest WHIP of 0.86, while Justin and Brad Halsey both had two holds. Jon Rauch had the only Sass win amongst the relievers.

As for the starting pitching, only Tomo Ohka’s numbers were worth noting. In two outings, he managed a 2.08 ERA, with a 0.85 WHIP, 10 strike-outs, and the lone win among the starters. The other starters weren’t even close to him in any of the categories.

“Well, Chan Ho [Park]’s WHIP of 1.17 wasn’t bad, and his 6 strike-outs were nice, but an ERA of 7.50. I wouldn’t be writing home about it,” Beth said.

The Here for the Sass found themselves retaining their 12th place position, with a .461 win percentage, just ahead of Gassner’s All-Stars, who have a .453 win percentage. Technically, the Sass have 6 more wins and 3 more losses than the All-Stars, but have a league-low 9 ties.

“Honestly, we hate ties,” Beth said, “I’m not sure why the BFL allows ties, what with all the uproar over the tie of the All-Star game in MLB a couple of years ago. I guess SBGF is one of the few people who actually liked that.”

This week the Sass play the 4th place Hoya Destroyas. This will be the last team in the BFL that the Sass have not played.

“We’re hoping for a strong comeback by our starting rotation,” Dawn said, “There were some unfortunate rain delays that affected some of our starters, and it was a bad week in general for them. They’ve been working with Bronson [Aaroyo] so we hope by next week they’ll be ready.”