2061/2062 Season - October
Notable Performances
3 Oct: Greg Ahern was number 3 in Sydney’s rotation to start the season, but said before today’s game against Brisbane that “it doesn't matter what spot in the rotation I pitch, it’s all about winning the game.” And he did a fine job of that, leading his Blue Sox teammates to a 7-0 shutout win, allowing only 5 hits and 2 walks, and doing the ‘Buzzard’ 8 times.
4 Oct: Angelo Spear started 2061 off in winning fashion, allowing 3 earned runs across 7 innings in Melbourne’s 10-6 thrashing of Newcastle. That win gave Spear 215 for his career.
4 Oct: Adare Subadio was quickly worming his way into the affections of Hobart’s fans. He went 4-5 in Hobart’s 11-inning 6-5 victory over Auckland, winning the game with a walk-off HR.
5 Oct: Rowan Reardon cleared the fence for the 1st time in an AUNZBL regular season game. His 2-run blast in the bottom of the 1st gave Sydney an early advantage over Brisbane but the game would slip from their grasp, the Bandits scoring 4 in the top of the 9th to steal it 9-7.
8 Oct: Arthur Hammer's 2nd start of 2061 was a pearler, Central Coast only managing 3 hits and 1 walk off him. He struck out 3 and Melbourne cruised to a 5-0 win. The shutout was the 4th of the 32 y/o’s career.
8 Oct: In a rugby score, Christchurch smashed Darwin 20-10, 3 Cowboys’ players managing 4 hits. On the losing side, Angel Rivera went 5-6.
9 Oct: Hobart got thumped 14-5 by Cairns, but amongst the carnage Aguirre became the 1st-ever AUNZBL player to drive in 2000 runners. Number 1999 came in the top of the 1st via a 2-out single to shallow centre. RBI number 2000 was also a 2-out effort, in the 2nd, this one a double over the head of the CF. The 2 hits Aguirre recorded put him only 15 shy of 3500. He needed another 32 dingers to make 700.
9 Oct: Like his 1st effort, this wasn’t totally convincing, but a win was a win and Spear now had 2 on the season. He gave up another 3 earned runs in 6 innings but his bullpen held on to keep Central Coast scoreless and see Melbourne to a 4-3 victory. Win 216 for the 38 y/o all-time wins leader.
10 Oct: Rivera earned the season’s 1st PotW with a .529/.543/.706 showing. His 18 hits included only 3 of the extra-base variety: 1 double, 1 triple, and 1 HR.
13 Oct: Brisbane put on a clinic to destroy Darwin 14-0. Hitting at 7 in the lineup, Martin Boston had a 5-hitter, the 6th time he’d managed that feat in his big-league career.
13 Oct: Aguirre’s Prospects were struggling, tonight dropping their 9th straight, falling 11-6 to the vaunted Venom, but Aguirre at least was finding some form. He was 2-3, with a double and 2 walks, putting him on 3491 hits. The countdown to 3500 was on.
14 Oct: Hobart managed to avoid the dreaded 10-loss streak, downing Adelaide 11-5 in the last game of the series. Aguirre contributed 2 singles, 3 runs, 1 walk and 1 RBI. Just 7 hits to go!
16 Oct: 35 y/o Justin Auger had a poor 2060, but had started 2061 like he was 25 again. He played a defining role in Central Coast’s 8-7 win over Canberra, thundering his way to 5-5, with 2 doubles and a 2-run HR included. This marked his 2nd 5-hit game and 1st since 2051.
16 Oct: Aguirre’s 4th-inning RBI-single in Hobart’s tight 2-0 victory over Wellington gave him 3494 hits.
17 Oct: Auger took out PotW, hitting .591/.679/1.227, his 13 hits including 4HR.
17 Oct: Hobart could only manage 4 hits in their 8-1 shellacking by Wellington. One of those hits came courtesy of Aguirre, a double in the 4th, his 7th of the season. 3495 hits!
18 Oct: The Aces were going great guns, today winning their 4th straight and heading to the top of the Southern. A big part of the 10-4 victory over Brisbane was Caspar Purcell, who went 5-5, including a HR. He also scored 3 and drove in 3. This was his 2nd career 5-hit game.
19 Oct: It wasn’t often a game in the AUNZBL went 14 innings without a run scoring, especially not when a team stacked to the rafters with offense like Adelaide were involved. But that’s exactly what happened today, Adelaide and Newcastle tussling for 14 scoreless innings before the Venom scored the go-ahead and eventual winning run in the 15th.
20 Oct: “This is gonna be a good year for this team,” Angelo Spear crowed after Melbourne’s 6-1 victory over Kununurra. “I can just feel it.” Spear took home the W, giving up Kununurra’s 1 run in 6 innings of 2-hit, 2-walk ball. He went to 3-0 on the year and 217-155 for the career. And the experts agreed with him about Melbourne’s fortunes. Most had picked the team to do well preseason, saying ‘the new management had given the place a new look without actually changing all that much.’ The one strange thing new skipper Brett Rawnsley insisted on, though, was to play aging OF Rob Lane at SS, a position he was just plain awful at. But as long as Melbourne kept winning it’d be difficult to persuade Rawnsley to do anything else.
20 Oct: From the same game... Clint Aitcheson had been relegated to the bullpen as a long reliever this season, a move he’d already publicly said he was not a fan of. Today, he recorded a career first: his 3.0 scoreless innings in Melbourne’s 6-1 win over the Pioneers gave him a save. This wasn’t just a first for his professional career, but his entire recorded baseball career. “I’ve always been a starter,” he said after the game. “Before this season I’d never worked out of a bullpen. Never, not once. But I guess we get paid to do what we’re told, so I’m doing what I’m told.”
20 Oct: After 2 days off with a sinus infection, Aguirre returned to Hobart’s lineup for their 9-7 win over division rivals Sydney. Aguirre went 1-2 before coming from the field clutching at his hamstring. Nothing major, team medical staff assured worried fans, just a bit of tightness. 3496 hits...
21 Oct: Nick Ahern put on a light show to bring the Aces’ 6-game winning streak to an end. ‘Pirate Face’ socked 3 homeruns, solo efforts in the 1st and 7th followed by the pièce de résistance, a Grand Slam in the 8th. It was in the 7th and 8th that Kununurra blew the game out, scoring 13 runs to run out 15-3 winners.
22 Oct: Struggling Hobart got involved in their 2nd bench-clearing brawl of the season, Connor Chapman beaning Rodney Ellison in the 3rd inning of an eventual 9-8 loss to Sydney. The league came down hard on the 2 offenders, banishing both to the stands for 8 games...
22 Oct: ...Aguirre went 1-3 in the loss, his 8th double of the season moving him to 2nd on that ladder. 3 hits to go!
24 Oct: After an injury-interrupted 2060, Tadakuni Sasaki was, in his words, “out to make a statement” in 2061. He’d certainly done that over the past week, the Perth catcher hitting .462/.481/1.038, with 3 doubles and 4HR in his 12-26. Good enough for PotW? You betcha!
24 Oct: Aguirre’s 3rd-inning double in Hobart’s heartbreaking 10-inning 7-6 loss to Whangarei was career hit 3498.
25 Oct: Just 1 to go! Aguirre went 1-3 in Hobart’s morale-boosting 4-1 defeat of the Sluggers.
29 Oct: “This rooster's not dead yet!” Lance Ralston told journalists after shutting out Whangarei 7-0. While not quite as dominating as the Ralston who’d led Brisbane’s rotation with a swagger nearly as pronounced as his curveball back in the early 2050s, today’s Ralston was in some ways even better to watch. He worked batters over beautifully, feeding them something different, and just as inedible, each time they came to the plate. He allowed only 2 hits and 3 walks, dealt gracefully with 2 errors, and struck out 7. That last number was also how many career shutouts he now had.
29 Oct: “Well,” one fan said in the carpark after the game, “he made us wait for it, didn’t he?” And indeed he had. But it was worth the wait. Hitless on the 26th and 27th, and following an off-day,
Aguirre reached 3500 with a bases-loaded 7th-inning double that very nearly went the distance, stopped only by the top of the CF wall. 2 runs scored, the away crowd cheered, the Hobart fans who’d make the trek all the way from Tasmania to Darwin shook the seats, yelling “Izzy” over and over again. He was out in a fielder’s choice at 3B soon after and was grabbed by a sideline reporter on the way back to the dugout.
“How did you feel as the ball left the bat?” she asked.
“Good,” he replied, “then a bit annoyed it didn’t go out of the park.”
He came up again in the 9th, this time with 2 on base. After fouling a couple off he ripped one to centre and nodded. He knew where it was going. It landed with a splash in the pool next to the dugout behind the centrefield wall. 3-run HR and what a way to celebrate! Hobart won 8-4, Aguirre responsible for 5 of those runs. His next goal? 700 dingers. After today’s effort he needed another 31. He was also closing in on 700 doubles, needing only 16 more to be the 1st AUNZBL player to that mark.
30 Oct: Dean Brewster was settling in well to his new surrounds in Brisbane, at least if his on-field performance was anything to go by. His 2-4 in a 9-3 loss to Newcastle gave him a 20-game hit streak, the 1st time in his career he’d achieved that feat.
31 Oct: Gu Luo hustled his way to PotW, hitting .423/.423/.923, 4 doubles and 3HR included.
31 Oct: The Venom kicked into high gear to dispatch the Blue Sox 21-0. Amongst the carnage, Malcolm Pickhills went 3-3 with 2 walks. His 3 hits were a 2-run double, a 3-run HR and a Grand Slam. That gave him 8RBI, tying the Adelaide team record Axel Nankervis had set in 2058. The Venom hit 8HR in today’s demolition effort.
Notable Injuries
9 Oct: Canberra SS Nathaniel Bowden (.238/.304/.238, 0HR) would miss the next 3-4 weeks with a herniated disc in his back. His was the 1st injury of the AUNZBL season expected to last longer than 2 weeks.
10 Oct: Carlos Aguilar (.440/.464/.680, 1HR) wouldn’t be seen again for Wellington in this campaign. He had a ruptured MCL and would be on the DL at least 7 months.
21 Oct: Roos’ SP Rodney Bashford (0-3, 8.41 ERA, 6.98 FIP, 1.92 WHIP) would miss at least 3 months with biceps tendinitis.
22 Oct: 40 y/o Jayden Pye (.293/.417/.345, 0HR), who’d somehow found himself batting cleanup for Perth - perhaps an indication of the financial difficulties Perth were in - had fractured his thumb and would miss about a month.
His replacement, interestingly, was 39 y/o Rick Clohessy, notable for his drug suspension in 2049 and then his 47HR, 150RBI season in 2051. 2 seasons after that he left the AUNZBL for the Americas, saying it was “too hard to have everything I do looked at with suspicion.” He’d made his way back in 2059, playing AAA-ball for Wellington’s affiliate and getting 8 at-bats in March, which were barely noticed by the public. He’d played in the NABA again last season but the pull of the AUNZBL was too much and he’d signed a minor-league deal with Perth 2 days before the season began. Now he’d got himself a call-up to the bigs and was determined to avoid media, saying only, “Just here to play, that’s all.”
28 Oct: Kununurra would be without star signing Maurice Clemens (.191/.301/.427, 7HR) for the next month or so while he recovered from an intercostal strain. A few analysts were of the opinion that batting Clemens at 6 in the lineup was a mistake Kununurra needed to rectify. One said, “He either needs protection or needs to be the protector. The way Kununurra’s lineup is built, where he’s hitting he’s neither.”
30 Oct: Whangarei’s Tristan Agar (1-3, 4.26 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 1.39 WHIP) was looking at a return sometime in February from a partially torn labrum.
Notable Trades/Signings
12 Oct: Sydney moved to ensure 29 y/o Raymond Eykelbosch (1-1, 5.06 ERA, 4.46 FIP, 1.31 WHIP) would remain a Blue Sock for a while longer, today announcing he’d agreed to 5-year extension.
25 Oct: Another member of the Blue Sox rotation signed an extension with the club. 33 y/o Cody Watts (3-0, 4.26 ERA, 4.53 FIP, 1.04 WHIP) would be a Sydney-sider for another 2 years.
26 Oct: Melbourne made a move that strengthened their offense still further but weakened their pitching. Adelaide, the other party of this deal, strengthened their pitching and dealt away a guy who’d started the season in AAA. The particulars? Adelaide sent 29 y/o CF Rory Delaney to the Aces, along with a decent 2B prospect, in return for 32 y/o Arthur Hammer (2-1, 2.84 ERA, 4.00 FIP, 0.98 WHIP) and a wad of cash.
Month Awards
Rookie of the Month: 20 y/o Whangarei CF Edgardo ‘Crash’ Rico had been spotted by Sluggers’ scouts in 2057, started playing A-ball at the tender age of 17 in 2058 and 3 years later had forced his way into Whangarei’s big-league roster as their everyday CF. He took out the season’s 1st RotM, hitting .331/.372/.424, 39-118, with 16 runs, 7 doubles, 2 triples, 14RBI, 8BB and 7SB.
Hurler of the Month: 6-0, 2.51 ERA, 3.13 FIP, 0.94 WHIP, 34 strikeouts in 46.2 innings pitched. Those were Umashankar Meenakshi’s October stats, and those were what won him HotM. The 6’6” southpaw still looked innocuous on the mound, but he was getting through innings even more efficiently than in seasons past, and while hitters returning to the dugout commonly looked more frustrated than bewildered, perhaps that worked in Meenakshi’s favour. As one analyst said, “Frustration typically leads to more frustration. ‘Why can’t I hit this guy?’ you’re asking yourself and then next at-bat you’re too aggressive or overly watchful or otherwise pushed outside of your normal hitting routine and before you know it you’ve gone 0-4 and it’s the bottom of the 9th and you’re 6 runs in the hole.” Meenakshi led the league in wins, and was 2nd in WHIP, WAR (1.5) and IP (46.2).
Slugger of the Month: Vern Bull had started off 2061 with a roar. He hit .378/.458/.714 through October, 37-98, with 22 runs, 3 doubles, 10HR, 26RBI and 16BB. He led the league in SLG, OPS, and wOBA (.485) and was 2nd in HR, WAR (2.0), and isolated power (.337). This was the 32 y/o’s 5th SotM award.
In an interesting factoid, both Hurler and Slugger of this month were born and raised on Auckland’s North Shore in New Zealand.
Media Watch
The Defectors: How were the most well-known ABC recruits going?
For Dunedin:
Kane Pond - .267/.309/.543, 9HR
Xuan-ling Wong - 3-3, 3.15 ERA, 2.77 FIP, 1.17 WHIP
For Melbourne:
Si-xun Qiao - .377/.441/.632, 7HR, Golden Rookie of the Month
Eddie Zglinicki - 1-5, 3.67 ERA, 3.06 FIP, 1.19 WHIP
For Sydney:
Zachary Woollett - .215/.234/.289, 1HR
Bradley Boston - 4-1, 1.34 ERA, 3.44 FIP, 1.00 WHIP - Golden Arm of the Month
For Townsville:
Jacob Blanksby - .260/.351/.400, 2HR
Norman Ladds - .257/.358/.362, 2HR
Joshua Angwin - .298/.339/.481, 5HR
Other Notes
Coastal Division: Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide. 21 wins to start the season, putting them 4 ahead of Cairns and 5 ahead of Perth, both of whom had also started strongly.
East-West Division: Central Coast and Kununurra tied up, 3 games ahead of Brisbane.
NZ Division: Christchurch a game ahead of Whangarei, Wellington a further 2 games back and Auckland 3.
Southern Division: Sydney 2 games clear of Melbourne. Hobart and Canberra were both poor, the Cavalry losing 20 games in October.
#
Justin Auger (.319/.398/.655, 11HR) led the league in four-baggers and total bases (74).
Guillermo Julio (.410/.457/.607, 2HR) topped the league in BA and was tied for the lead in triples (4).
Gary Baker (.398/.476/.580, 3HR) had the highest OBP, while Alan Sneddon (.324/.467/.417, 0HR) appeared back to his best at doing what he did best, drawing walks. He had 29 so far, 8 more than anybody else.
Axel Nankervis (.371/.407/.545, 6HR) had recorded the most hits (49) and scored the most runs (27).
Teammate Malcolm Pickhills (.330/.407/.651, 9HR) had the best WAR, at 2.1.
Cain Donaldson (.328/.409/.395, 0HR) and Tomas Zartuche (.273/.341/.331, 1HR) had both stolen 14 bases.
Lance Ralston (4-1, 1.45 ERA, 2.90 FIP, 0.86 WHIP) led the league in ERA, WHIP, H/9 (4.10), and OAVG (.137).
Clint Kline (2-2, 5.46 ERA, 2.47 FIP, 1.50 WHIP) was having an unlucky start to the year. His ERA was high, but his FIP was best in the league among qualified pitchers. He was also striking out 10.05 hitters every 9 innings, another league-best.
Defending HotY Barry Dean (4-2, 3.02 ERA, 2.72 FIP, 1.21 WHIP) was looking as good as ever. He had the highest WAR (1.7) among qualified pitchers and had struck out the most batters, with 46 so far.
Aaron Fingleson had assumed the closer’s role in Adelaide and was going well so far, his 9 saves leading the league.
ABC Wrap-up
Gold Coast led the Northern by 1 game over Alice Springs. Canberra won 20 games to top the Southern by 4, Melbourne and Sydney the trailing teams. Hobart, at the bottom of the division, lost 23 in October. In the Western, Adelaide also won 20 games, their lead over Perth 5. Dunedin did as they always seemed to do in the Overseas, start out fast. They held a 2-game lead over Port Moresby.
Gavin Howell (.339/.402/.617, 9HR) won Golden Bat of the Month, his 9HR tied with Pond atop that leaderboard. Of the former AUNZBL players now active in the ABC, Howell said, "Yes, it's certainly changed the landscape a bit, hasn't it?"
AUNZBL Standings, Nov 1