As we head into the final few weeks of the 1978 WPK regular season, I'm going to shift to day-by-day reporting, particularly to follow along with the unfolding pennant race in the Shoeless Joe League.
The Denver Brewers:
Veteran left-hander
Erik Sloan has a tremendous outing against the Phoenix Speed Devils in the final game of the three-game series.
Sloan works 8 innings, and while he allowed 2 runs it was on just 1 hit- a 2nd inning home run by Kyle Larsen following one of the three bases on balls issued by
Erik in this one- and he struck out 5 batters.
Joe McPhillips went 3 for 5, scoring twice and driving in a run, and also picked up his 20th stolen base of the season.
Brett Taranto went 3 for 4 and hit his 27th double.
Brett also increased his lead in the batting race in the MGL, as he is now sitting at .342 with Baltimore's Robert Mustard next at .330. In addition, he and teammate
Val Guzman, who went 2 for 5 in this one, stealing his 22nd base but also being caught for the 11th time, are tied for the MGL RBI lead at 94 apiece. (
Guzman drove in one run in this game.)
The Brewers are now 102-45 and their magic number to clinch the MGL is down to 3.
In other MGL news, Brooklyn got a narrow 2-0 victory over Baltimore, with the Aces Jose Hernandes throwing a 3-hit shutout as he improves to 14-3 with a league-leading 2.08 ERA. Next best ERA in the MGL belongs to Sadahige Kawasaki at 2.26.
Shoeless Joe League Pennant Race:
Of the five teams in the pennant race in the SJL, only Boston got a win, defeating the first place El Paso Dawgs behind starting pitcher Bryan Coupal, who went the distance, allowing just 1 run on 6 hits.
It was a rough start for Columbus 2-time SJL Pitcher of the Year, Jim Norris, who gave up 8 runs (5 earned) on 10 hits in his 8 2/3rds innings pitched against the Washington Night Train.
And former Brewer Harry Lyerly took the loss for San Antonio against the Milwaukee Cadets.
This is what the pennant chase looks like at the end of the day:
