RECORD: 53-28
APRIL RECORD: 16-7
MAY RECORD: 17-10
JUNE RECORD: 14-8
STANDINGS: 1st (+3.5)
RUNS SCORED: 489 (1st)
RUNS AGAINST: 260 (1st)
DEFENSIVE EFF: .712 (1st)
ZONE RATING: +3.2 (3rd)
Things are moving along now, the guys have settled in, and we’re starting to cook – though, even with our uber-impressive +229 RDiff, we continue to struggle in close games (8-13 in 1-Run games) and seem to run out of gas when the games go long (3-6 in X-Inn games). Basically, we’re either blowing teams out or playing them close and when we find ourselves in a closely contested ballgame the result seems to come down to a coin toss. We’re -9 against the PYT while maintaining a #1 ranking in nearly all the major statistical categories – our +9.4 base running is ranked 4th, +3.2 ZR is 3rd, and we rank 3rd in errors with 49. Those three categories certainly don’t tell the whole tale, you have to add some bad luck in the mix to get the unencumbered view, but we should be better in each, nonetheless.
We had some big wins this month – leaving our fans with plenty to feel good about – a 10-1 over the Yomiuri Giants early in June that featured 3 doubles, a triple, and 3 trucks, a 15-0 win over the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters on June 19th in our park, a 15-2 shellacking over the Chiba Lotte Marines (also in our park) that featured Mitch Haniger’s 9th jack of the season (he’s back….), and we closed out the month with a 17-1 road victory over the Saitama Seibu Lions. That’s sort of been our thing – look unbeatable one night, as the biggest, baddest bully on the block, and then follow that up with a ho-hum performance where we allow our opponents to keep it close enough to get a result.
Of course, with all that being said – I expect that July will be the beginning of the end for our rivals in the NPB… the takeover begins – mark my words.
