The Sullustans netted 5 Great Gloves again this year:
Simmons (3B, 3rd year in a row)
Aparicio (SS, 5th year in a row)
Kevin Pillar (LF, 3rd year in a row)
Brandon Belt (1B, 2nd year in a row - he also hit 27 homers?!?)
Tony Pena (C, 1st year!)
Yokohama's Kiermaier beat out my Kiermaier. Here's their fielding stat lines:
And here's Len Barker's fielding stat line, just in case you want to know what it takes to win a GG in pitching. Now that I've finally won a GG in catching, the pitching GG is the only one I've not won.
Overall, the defense committed 68 errors, an improvement from 2027's 71 but a far cry from the 58 in 2025.
But we really improved in preventing the stolen base. There were only 43 SB attempts (compared to 62 the previous year), and Tony Pena and Charles Johnson threw out 24 of them. That's only 19 successful stolen base attempts in the entire season. Last year, there 30 successful stolen bases (32 for 62).
The air-tight defense, coupled with the off-season/Sunday night acquisitions of both Cy Young and Whitey Ford, resulted in a real attempt at breaking the 100+ year MLB record of 32 shutout wins. We ended up with 28. (Another PT, the Gladstone Glovemen, got 30 shutout victories ... and that's before picking up their own Whitey Ford!)
I was actually a bit surprised that our opponent's batting average went up to .212. In 2027, we actually held our opponent's to .199. I had thought the additions of Young and Ford would at least match last year's effort. Perhaps I should not have jettisoned Kyle Freeland so quickly?
As for results on the field ... the Sullustans, who won 112 games, lost to the New Jersey Moose, an 82 win team who beat two 112-win teams to win the WS and advance. But at least we didn't lose because of an error ... which was the case the previous two times we made it to the playoffs.
On to Silver!!!