SIM COMPLETE - 1994 - SIM 12

[Delandis]

Washington Bats (44-32; 1 GB)

Haven't seen one of these in a while. I think its as good of a time as any to get back started.


Baltimore Bulldogs, 41-35

1-2 at Morgantown
3-0 at Washington

We end our tour of the Stout relatively unscathed and have turned things around after a terrible start to the month of June.

The Good
-The Kubota train looks to have finally got on track after starting his worst season ever in Baltimore. Hitting .429 for the week, the Japanese star has compiled 22 BB in June to drive his .459 OBP and the good month we are having.

-Dewitt Michael was back up from AAA last week after spending most of the season in Annapolis. I believe he learned a bit of humility going 6.3 innings with just 1 ER in a 2-1 win against Washington.

-The platooning 3B force of veteran Joe Ovando and rookie Sze Zhu has been great of late as well. Ovando is a switch hitter and has started to play well hitting from the left side of the plate, while Sze is learning how to punish lefties. In 20 AB last week the two combined for 7 hits, 4 doubles, 5 RBI and team leading .350 batting average.

The Bad
-Loren Wallace has had one hell of a down year. He's had months like this before but never an entire season. He's not striking out and the walks and homeruns are there. Plus we are still fighting for first place, so I'm not too worried. However, we could really use his normally, consistent performance at the plate.


The Ugly
-In the two losses against Morgantown we allowed a combined, 13 runs in the first 3 innings of both games. Grady hasn't been his normal self this year and I expect fits like this from the FA rookie, Don Shilling. If we plan to keep up with Batavia and Philly we will have to find an upgrade to the starting lineup.

The Week Ahead
-3 vs. Davenport, then we close out the first half the season with the defending champs in Los Alamos. Should be interesting.

[Ryan]

Fake baseball weeks are the real world...

[liquidcrash]

Carolina Tobs- 4-2 this week (37-39 overall)

3-0 vs CAL, 1-2 @ MOR

Solid week overall. We don't get many sweeps, so it's always nice to actually win all 3 in a series.

It looks like we'll have 3 players voted into the all-star game that we're hosting this year. I don't remember the last time that happened for my team. Ismael Reyes hit 2 HRs this week and had an OPS over 1.000, Masaoki Matsumoto hit .391 and Turi Soto pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings, lowering his ERA to 1.56 on the season.

Reyes leads the IL in HRs with 20, is 2nd in RBI, 4th in OPS, 1st in ISO and XBH, and is 2nd in Total Bases. He's a late bloomer, but he's turning into a pretty decent power hitting first baseman. It looks like the BLB record for ISO is .323 set by Sergio Lumar back in 1983. Reyes is matching that so far this season.

Matsumoto has never been considered one of the top 12 or so prospects in my system, but he's hit at every level and has a .320 BA this season. Not a power hitter, but he puts the ball in play.

Soto is a good reliever who's just having a career year so far. Not sure he can keep this pace, but he's been great so far. Along with Phil McSwain, I've been pleasantly surprised with my 8th and 9th inning guys. A big reason why we're #2 in bullpen ERA in the IL.

Recent callup Val Aparicio has made 2 solid starts to begin his BLB career. In 13 IP, he's struck out 15 and walked 4, only giving up 3 runs. I wasn't sure he was ready for the BLB and I'm sure he'll have some rough outings but so far he's looked good.

Next Week: 3 @ Batavia and 3 at home against the Colonials. I'm hoping for 2 wins.