It was a busy Saturday night in DMBL as the 2020 season comes down to the final 15 games -- or less -- for most teams.
Where to begin?
* The closest division race remaining just got closer - tied in fact. San Francisco dropped Allentown, 4-2 on the road, behind 12 strikeouts from Chris Sale (10-11). Meanwhile, in El Paso, Alex Bregman's 3-run homer off Shane Greene broke a tie in the bottom of the 9th, handing Hopatcong an 8-5 walk-off loss and yielding the lead the Floating Fish had in the division for most of the season. The Experience (80-71) and Floating Fish (79-70) are now tied for the Bonds Division at .530, with 11 games remaining for San Fran and 13 games for Hopatcong.
It was the 4th straight win and 7 of their last 10 for San Francisco, who hadn't been at .530 since June (30-26, .536) since June, stumbling along the .500 mark most of the summer. Meanwhile, Hopatcong was 48-26 (.649) in July before suffering through a 16-game losing streak in August and still managed to hold the division lead.
Currently, the Bonds Division winner would be the No. 4 seed, with Clemente Division-leading Tucson sitting at No. 3 (81-66, .551), 2 games ahead. It's the division or bust for either team as the wild card is out of reach thanks to Hillsborough (89-60, .597), some 10 games ahead.
San Francisco is 4-1 to start a 14-game road trip, getting a day off today before facing Hoboken for 3 games, followed by a two-game set at Hopatcong, who holds an 8-4 edge in the season's head-to-head matchups. Then it's two more at Marietta and Blue Ridge before ending the season at home versus Arkansas.
* Mired in what's surely the worst season of his career, Clayton Kershaw came within 6 outs of his first no-hitter. The Hoboken veteran struck out 11 and had walked only 1 before giving up a single to Austin Meadows leading off the 8th in Vancouver. He got the hook after that, and the bullpen gave up a run with the help of walks and a wild pitch, but managed to keep the win for Kershaw (5-18, 6.13) in a 5-1 victory over the Iron Fist.
The 11 strikeouts pushes Kershaw's season total to 208, and 2,536 for his career, leaving him 17 behind Curt Schilling (2,553) for No. 5 all-time, with 2 starts likely remaining in his season.
* The league's home run leader, Jorge Soler of Poovey Farms, launched his 60th blast of the season, making his case for The Kevin Mitchell Award and matching the most homers in a season since Giancarlo Stanton also hit 60 in 2016 for Marietta. No. 60 was a solo shot in the 3rd off Philly's Spencer Turnbull during a 7-4 win.
Soler, who twice this season has homered in five straight games, leads Hillsborough rookie Pete Alonso, who has 53, for the home run title at a clip of 1 per 9.7 ABs. At his current pace, Soler is projected to crack another 5+ home runs in the remaining 13 games (3.89 AB/game * 13 games = 50.57 AB / 9.7 AB per HR = 5.21 HRs).
* Joey Gallo of Hillsborough went 0-2 with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts in an 8-2 win over Tucson. The two punchouts on Saturday night give him a season total of 259 strikeouts, passing Pedro Munoz, who struck out 257 times for Norfolk in 1996.
Gallo, who also has 33 homers on the year, now has the 3rd highest strikeout total ever in a season, behind Jack Cust's 269 in 2009 for Newark and Rob Deers 357 in 1993 for Waikiki. He also ranks No. 5 for most strikeouts in a season (tied with Cust in 2008) when he whiffed 253 times last year.
The Hit Men have 13 games remaining and at 89-60 (.597), are all but assured no worse than the No. 6 seed but are still technically alive for the Piazza Division, 6 GB of Sardine City, and 1/2 GB of No. 5 seed, Livingston.
No comments :
Post a Comment