A 20-6 month of June has us solidly in 1st place. With a record of 45-26, we are 5-1/2 games up on Philadelphia. Dawson won Batter of the Month award as he went .327 with 3 HRs, 25 RBIs and 28 Runs in the month of June. SS Rafael Furcal was Rookie of the month. We have both Keating and McMahon back so we have lots of starting pitching.
I finally spent some time looking at why our pitching statistics did not look as good as I thought they should. What especially confuses me is how our Runs Against can be 3rd in the league when our Starter ERA is 7th and our Defensive Efficiency is 7th. When I looked at the Pitching statistics, I see that it is actually our defense's ability to not make errors that is causing the anomaly. We have the fewest errors in the league and the highest Fielding PCT. And while our Def EFF is 7th, our Zone Rating is 2nd best. We have 63 Unearned Runs and the average is 88. That is why our Runs Against is so good but the ERA is not. This is either a positive or a negative. The reason that we're not making any errors could be attributed to the fact that we're not getting to the balls in the first place. But I'd rather look at it as a positive.
