Stanton eclipses career strikeout record, breaks into top 10 career HRs

Giancarlo Stanton supplanted Alex Rodriguez in the record books, setting a new DMBL mark for career strikeouts.

Miggy joins 500-HR club

Miguel Cabrera became the 5th player in DMBL history to reach 500 home runs, doing it as a member of the Empire City Trojans after bouncing around the league the past few seasons.

2017 Mitchell Award winner: Miguel Cabrera

In one of the closest votes in recent memory, Miguel Cabrera picked up the first Kevin Mitchell Award of his 14-year career, edging Gary Sanchez, playing in his first DMBL season, by just three points.

2017 Mitchell Award candidates

Here are 12 candidates, and then some, who could be worthy of your support on the ballot for the annual Kevin Mitchell Award honoring the league's most valuable batter.

Cutters force Game 7 behind Scherzer

For the first time since 2010, there will be a Game 7 in the DMBL World Series.

Pederson homers twice to back Kluber

Joc Pederson smacked 2 solo home runs to back Corey Kluber's 4th win of the postseason, leading Sardine City to a 5-2 win in Game 3 over Hoboken.

Hoboken edges Sardine City in Game 1 behind error, Kershaw 1-hit shutout

The Hoboken Cutters left 11 men on base but managed to score one run on an error. That was enough for Clayton Kershaw, who limited Sardine City to one hit in their World Series debut, facing the minimum 27 batters in a 1-0 Game 1 victory that was almost the first perfect game in playoff history.

Scherzer shuts down Tucson in Game 7 win

There will be a new champion crowned in DMBL this season.

Cruz clubs two homers for Tucson

Reigning postseason MVP Nelson Cruz went 4-for-4 with two home runs to help Tucson beat Hoboken, 5-3, evening their semifinal series with Hoboken at 2-2.

Tucson opens defense of title with Game 1 win

Defending champion Tucson used three home runs and a sharp outing from top pick Rich Hill to take Game 1 over Hoboken, 6-4, in their Best-of-7 semifinal series.

Hoboken comes back to beat Hopatcong 5 in games

Can a 1st-round series be epic even if it's not a Best-of-7? Third-seeded Hoboken and No. 6 Hopatcong tried to find out in the opening round.

2017 batting leaders

Two rookies polished off historically good years in 2017 amid the usual stalwarts in the league's batting leaders while the batting race saw a dark horse take over down the stretch.

This Week In DMBL

Week 2 of the 2017 season (games of April 14-19 on the DMBL calendar) had plenty of two-homer games, more grand slams and a few pitching gems.

Helton becomes 6th player to reach 2,000 games

It will be a year full of milestones if Todd Helton keeps this up. On Tuesday night, the longtime DMBLer became the sixth player in league history with 2,000 games played, and now only two other players stand ahead of him in career doubles.

Helton, drafted by the Hoboken Cutters in the 7th round this year, smacked two doubles in Monday night's win over Marietta, passing Edgar Martinez to move into third all-time. He started the year tied for sixth with Barry Bonds (487), and also passed Ivan Rodriguez (490) along the way. The only players left ahead of Helton are Chipper Jones (535), who is chasing Manny Ramirez (538).

A career-high 63 doubles in 2001 -- his first with Stanhope/Marietta -- kicked off a stretch of eight straight seasons of at least 38 doubles. That stretch also included eight out of nine seasons with at least 159 games played.

Helton has but one home run so far this year, 286 for his career, good for 26th all-time, although he recently was passed by current teammate Miguel Cabrera. The lefty slugger also overtook Jeff Bagwell (2,047) for 13th in career hits, and moved into 15th all-time in RBIs, passing Jim Edmonds (1,129), as he tries to compile a Hall Of Fame resume.

Bailey, Cabrera take prizes

This week's JR Cigars Smokin' Batter of the Week goes to Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera hit .483 (14-29) with a .545 OBP and .897 slugging. Cabrera hit 4 homers, scored 7 runs and drove in 10 runs. Hoboken recently had a tough 7-game losing streak, but salvaged the week by winning their last three games. Cabrera got most of his big numbers toward the end of the week getting hits in 13 of his last 18 at bats.

Cabrera's big competition this week came from Vancouver's Ryan Ludwick (.444/.474/.917, 5 HRs, 13 RBIs). Other top batters: Marietta's Adrian Gonzalez (.391/.545/.913, 4 HR 8 R), Blue Ridge's Jason Bartlett (.500/.542/.727), Sardine City's Evan Longoria-Parker (.407/.515/.852, 3 HR, 11 RBI), New Jersey's Joey Votto (.458/.536/.833) and Franklin Gutierrez (.455/.478/.864, 3 HR), and Carolina's Aramis Ramirez (.379/.471/.793, 3 HR, 8 R, 7 RBI).

This week's Lost Pitcher of the Week Award goes to Philadelphia's Homer Bailey. Bailey, a perpetual future star prospect, finally shows some glimmer of all the hype he's received over the years. Bailey was 2-0 with an 0.69 ERA and 0.92 WHIP this week, striking out 12 in 13 innings. Not bad for an injury fill-in, huh? That's right, Bailey is only in the rotation because of a month-long injury to Philly ace Roy Halladay.

Other top hurlers: Carolina's Barry Zito (2-0, 1.29, 16 K, 1.00 WHIP), Newark's Ted Lilly (1-1, 1.93), Arkansas' Cliff Lee (2-0, 3.55), and Marietta's Mike Adams (0-0, 1.42, 11 K, in 6.1 IP, 0.32 WHIP). The hardluck loser of the week is Vancouver's rookie Mat Latos who was 0-2 despite a 2.63 ERA and 1.02 WHIP.

Sardine City suffers big losses

Hoboken scored five runs in the first inning against Arkansas and then kicked it into auto-pilot the rest of the way. Luckily for them, it was enough, escaping with a 5-4 win. Hanley Ramirez was 4-4 with two doubles and two RBIs. Miguel Cabrera was 0-5 and ended his league-high 16-game hitting streak. He may not be on top for long as David Wright extended his 15-game streak with a 1-4 night.

Sardine City took a tough 16-3 loss, but they ended up losing even more. Rookie hurler Phil Hughes was lost for a month with an undisclosed injury. Scott Baker seems to be the likely replacement, but the Straphangers haven't issued a public statement yet.

Mariano Rivera made his 800th appearance for the Mighty Men. Unfortunately for them, he ended up taking the loss - a 5-4 squeaker to Hillsborough. The Hitmen have now won six straight and have moved up to second in the Morris Division and fourth overall (though in a weird scheduling quirk, they actually are percentage points behind 5th place Tampa Bay).

The Buddahs took out their offensive frustrations on Blue Ridge yesterday. Tied up at five and going into extra innings, the Buddahs scored six runs in the top of the frame and won 11-6. It was the second highest-scoring game of the season for New Jersey. Kazuo Matsui, entering the game for starter Ty Wigginton, was 3-3 with 3 RBIs, and Shane Victorino was 3-6 with 2 doubles.

Rat Pack looks invincible

Carolina continued crushing the Morris Division leaders, this time abusing the Bushslappers 11-5. Paul Konerko hit his second homer in as many days and Dustin Pedroia hit a 2-run dinger and drove in 3 runs to lead the Mudcats. It was the third straight loss for D.C. and their sixth in their last seven games.

The Rat Pack has been mowing down the competition all season, except for the short speed bump when they played at Newark. Otherwise, the Rat Pack has been perfect this season. Yesterday the Pack won their 5th straight game by an 11-3 margin over the Straphangers - the second straight game by that score. Break up the Rat Pack? If they beat Newark the next time...maybe!

Miguel Cabrera went 2-3 with a home run and extended his 14-game hitting streak, leading the Cutters to a 6-2 win over the first-place Endzone Animals. Aaron Cook, the starter for Hoboken, left early with an injury and will miss the next two weeks. Hoboken is unsure yet who will replace him in the rotation, but is thinking about reaching back into their own history for a replacement. Joel Pineiro and Carlos Silva have both gotten calls to their agents, but Hoboken Cutters owner Mark Hrywna said that Jae Seo should not get his hopes up just yet. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on Seo" said Hrywna in a phone conversation.

Beckett, Schmidt come up Aces

Well Miguel Cabrera's hit streak came to an end at 22 yesterday after the Cutters were shut down by Brad Penny and Team Buddah. Penny didn't give up an earned run, but the numbers show that he was more lucky than good. Penny walked four and gave up six hits in seven innings, while only striking out one. The Buddahs also had three errors, so that may have contributed to it. Penny improved to 4-2 on the season.

The highest hit streak now is Marietta's Todd Helton, at 16. Teammate Matt Diaz also has a 15 game hit streak, so I'm guessing there's a little sidebet going on in that clubhouse as to who stops hitting first.

Josh Beckett pitched a gem yesterday - a complete game, four-hit shutout of Arkansas, which means Barry Bonds will have to wait another day to hit his 600th homer. Beckett has not had a good DMBL career to date. He is 3-2 with a 4.70 ERA on the year, which if he continues on this pace would be a career year for him. Expectations are low for Beckett this year and being the number five starter should alleviate a lot of the pressure he might have felt in previous seasons.

Beckett's line was impressive, but Jason Schmidt had an equally impressive start against Sardine City. Schmidt and the Sharks blanked the Straphangers 2-0 as Schmidt went the distance and allowed a mere two hits and three walks while striking out eight. Schmidt is now 4-2 on the season. The Sharks begin their big series with Newark today.

Down and Out in D.C.

It was a light day in the DMBL yesterday, but Honolulu kept on truckin'. The Sharks have now won ten in a row. They are now tied for the third best record in the league and only one game back of the first place Sugar Bears! Consider that when they started the streak they were a mere 8-10 and somewhere in the middle of the pack and now they are in the elite. After Weaver's brilliant start and Jason Schmidt's excellent outing yesterday, you'd think they did it all with pitching, but look further and you'll see that their offense is gelling right now. In fact, the Sharks have scored 45 runs in their last five games - a Sugar Bears-like 9 runs per game. In case you were wondering, the current record is 16 set by Arkansas in 1993 and tied by Vancouver in 1996.

And our other featured streak continued yesterday as Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera extended his hitting streak to 19. He's almost halfway to the record now, we'll check in on him if he gets a little closer.

D.C. just can't seem to break out of their funk. It looked like it might happen after they won back to back games against Arkansas earlier in the week, but they fell right back down after that. Carlos Beltran (.190/.301/.343) has been taking a lot of the blame - he was benched in the vs. right handers lineup - but it's not just him. Matt Holliday (.177) and Jose Reyes (.226) have struggled and Kelvim Escobar (0-3, 5.51) and Bronson Arroyo (0-3, 9.10) have been brutal. They have several games scheduled with fellow slumpee South Boston next week, so this could be their chance to turn things around.

Streaking

The Honolulu Sharks kept their winning streak alive (at eight), just barely against Team Buddah last night. The Sharks ran up a quick 7-3 lead, scoring a whopping seven runs in the third inning. But it didn't last long. Team Buddah narrowed it to 7-5 and then later tied it at 8 in the seventh inning. Thanks to Ryan Freel and some small-ball the Sharks were able to manufacture the winning run in the eighth. Freel had led off the inning with a single and then stole second base. He tagged up after Johnny Damon flew out, then scored on a Jamey Carroll sac fly. Tom Gordon and Mike Myers nailed down the ninth inning to preserve a narrow 9-8 victory and keep the Sharks' streak alive.

Meanwhile another streak continued and another one ended. Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera extended his hitting streak to 18 against the Sardine City Straphangers. Cabrera was 3-5 marking his second straight game with three hits. Meanwhile, Chase Utley who was right behind Cabrera at 16 went 0-fer against the Endzone Animals.

Great game down in South Boston where the Mudcats edged the Gang 10-9. The scoring started right in the beginning with the Gang scoring two in the first and the Mudcats responding with four in the second. The Cats eventually built up an 8-3 lead on the Gang, but the Gang wasn't finished. Relievers Scott Linebrink and Justin Speier proceeded to completely blow the game, surrendering a combined six earned runs in just one third of an inning. With the six-run inning, the Gang now held onto a shaky 9-8 lead. Closer Huston Street was already in from the previous inning. He was able to retire the first two batters, but after Jose Vidro hit a pinch-hit single, manager Sid Fernandez decided to go with recently recalled Nate Robertson to face Johnny Estrada. Estrada lined a single and Ramon Hernandez allowed a passed ball allowing both runners to advance into scoring position. Pinch hitter Jeff Francoeur lined a single to score both runners and take the lead back.