August 19, 1920
As the Salt Quarter Penguins walked it off against the Unicorn Point Athletic Club, the Saffron Turtles found themselves useless against Jaxon Darnall's slider as he pitched a complete game shutout against them. The pair of results meant that the Penguins and Turtles were tied for the last wildcard spot at 69-59 apiece. Also lurking was the Northlands Polar Bears at 67-62.
Remaining games for the teams are:
Saffron Turtles (69-59)
3x games @ Crimson Falcon (42-86)
3x games vs Spice District (86-42)
3x games @ Port Magnolia (56-73)
3x games @ Unicorn Point (62-67)
4x games @ Salt Quarter (69-59)
Salt Quarter Penguins (69-59)
3x games @ Hadestown (54-75)
3x games @ Sugar Factory (74-54)
3x games @ Dustland (76-52)
3x games vs Amelia City (58-70)
4x games vs Saffron (69-59)
Northlands Polar Bears (67-62)
3x games @ Unicorn Point (62-67)
3x games @ Port Magnolia (56-73)
3x games vs Spice District (86-42)
3x games @ Hadestown (54-75)
3x games @ Whiskeytown (57-71)
The Salt Quarter-Saffron matchup at the end of the season is looking very promising!
August 20, 1920
An incredible comeback victory for the Hadestown Broncos against the Penguins was mildly undercut with the news that they had been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.
Down 6-2 going into the bottom of the 9th, the Broncos stunned the Penguins when SS Luke Boyer -- with a 55 OPS+ for the season -- blasted a three run home run into the crowd. The next guy gave it a swing and miss for the second out but the final out remained elusive and a series of singles eventually resulted in winning runs for the Broncos.
But alas, walk-off heroics aside, the Broncos become the second team to be eliminated. Pre-season predictions were never high on them, only predicting a 64-80 season, a mark that's still within reach if they end the season well. Losing ace Dalton Deschenes for 4 months killed the season for them before it barely begun. #2 Jackson Woods put in a stellar season for them, and was rewarded with a trip to the All-Star game for it but no one else on the staff stepped up.
The top contributor with the bat was 3B Lenny Johnson who hit .323/.378/.496 with 16 home runs over the season. Good enough for a 114 OPS+. He's popular with the fans and management have signed him up until the end of the 1926 season, so we can expect a lot more positive contributions from him for the Broncos in the coming years.
August 23, 1920
Two more teams achieve mathematical elimination: The Amelia City Metropolitans and the Port Magnolia Dolphins.
The Dolphins were predicted to get a 64-80 record -- still technically possible but unlikely to happen at this point. Their bats simply failed to fire this season as they sit near the bottom in all the offensive categories. SS Max Roberts tried his hardest with a contribution in about everything: Offensively (141 OPS+), defensively (+0.4 ZR at Shortstop), and on the basepaths (13 stolen bases with a 1.0 BSR) -- good enough to lead the league in WAR for a significant part of the season. But baseball is about more than one guy, and the losses piled up around him.
Pitching was a bit better but still only middle-of-the-road. They got an all-star performance out of Kellan Sullivan who put up a 16-13 record, 2.88 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, with 241 strikeouts. They also did well without closer Kirk Swinson, who spent most of the season injured. 24 year old Matt Leiker stepped up to the plate and got a trip to the all-star game as a reward.
Hopes were a bit higher for the Amelia City Metros, pre-season predictions put them at 71-73 but they'd need to win everything from here on out to achieve that.
They got a good contribution out of 2B Doug Dale -- when he wasn't injured -- he went .356/.444/.599 with 13 home runs and 30 doubles. As a bonus he walked (45) more often than he struck out (31). Unfortunately he won't even get to 100 games for the season and when he was missing, it was a big hole to fill.
Jeremiah Hinton put in some good on the pitching side with a 13-13 record, 3.52 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and 313 strikeouts. Though there is a strange story about the guy currently #3 in the Metro's rotation: Emmanuel Seward.
Seward was a 21 year old minor leaguer in the Dustland system but Crimson Forest acquired him as part of the Zeke Reynolds trade. He played one game -- against the Metros -- before being traded to the Metros. Supposedly they were impressed. The young player has then gone on pitch some brilliant complete game shutouts and then get completely shelled in the next. Time will reveal if he can harness that ability.
Here's where we sit right now. The Roosters are the first to secure a playoff spot. Dustland and Sugar Factory can't be too far behind. The Turtles swept the Falcons while the Penguins got swept the Broncos in their latest series so a decent gap has opened up for the final wildcard spot.
