2063/2064 Season - November
Notable Performances
1 Nov: John Zglinicki came out on top in a pitchers’ duel, holding the Pioneers scoreless while conceding only 4 hits and walking none. He struck out 9, Central Coast winning 1-0, the game’s solitary scoring shot a HR off the bat of Alan Sneddon in the bottom of the 1st. The shutout was the 9th of 27 y/o Zglinicki’s career, putting him only 2 back from all-time leaders Jay Cummins and Keiran Tennant. Eddie Rayner was the only active pitcher ahead of him, with 10 shutouts, though Rayner’s last one came in the 2061 season. As a comparison, when 33 y/o Rayner was Zglinicki’s age he had 6 big-league shutouts to his name.
1 Nov: 37 y/o Manuel Alou went 3-5 in Christchurch’s narrow 8-7 loss to Auckland. His 3rd hit, a leadoff single in the 8th, was the 2000th of his career. Alou had been a big-league regular since 2049, and said after the game, “Yeah, to be honest, it feels like I should have at least another 500 hits by this stage of my career, doesn’t it?" Across 7911 plate appearances, Alou had a stat-line of .296/.388/.493, with 352 homers.
4 Nov: Nick Waterson beat up on the hapless Fury, his team of last season. He no-hit them until the 6th, only allowing 2 singles and 2 walks across a scoreless 9 innings. He fanned 8. Sydney went on to win 8-0.
5 Nov: Callum McCabe took out PotW. The 23 y/o was in fine fettle in 2063, this week’s effort of .577/.645/.885 catapulting him to the top of the season BA leaderboards (.423).
6 Nov: Everybody loves an extra-innings walk-off Grand Slam. Substitute RF Gary Woods delivered the goods for Wellington to give them a 6-2 win over Kununurra. Wellington had already scored in the 8th to level things before Woods had his hero moment in the 12th, launching an 0-1 fastball 429 feet over centrefield for the win.
7 Nov: Rich Steedman struck out 2 in a scoreless 9th to ensure Brisbane defeated Newcastle 4-2. He’d now successfully completed 47 consecutive save opportunities, a streak which tied him for 7th-best all-time. 32 y/o Steedman had been a closer for the Canberra Capitals in the ABC from 2058-2060, winning the league’s first 2 Golden Relief Awards. His current save streak had begun near the beginning of the 2062 season. After blowing his first opportunity of that campaign, he went on to save 39 games in a row. So far this season he had 8 saves.
7 Nov: In a low-scoring contest, typical of Central Coast this season, the Thunder scored 2 in the 7th to come back and beat the Sluggers 2-1. In the bottom of the 1st Alan Sneddon singled to left with 1 away. 6 pitches later, with the count 3-2 on Auger, Thunder skipper Reginald Reddick initiated a hit and run. Auger swung and missed but Sneddon dived into 2B without a throw, the catcher unable to get the ball out of his mitt. Career stolen base number 700 for the soon-to-be retired right-fielder. He’d stolen 253 more bases than any other player in AUNZBL history, the closest active competitor Stephane Lecomte, who had 412 steals. Lecomte, who’d not stolen less than 50 bases a season since debuting in 2056, was a good chance to catch Sneddon (though he’d only swiped 6 bases, from 8 attempts, so far this year) but for a wee while yet the record would remain Sneddon's, and nobody could ever take away the fact he was the first to get there.
Sneddon, hitting .290/.418/.363, with 1HR, for the season, was pumped to get to the mark. “Man, it’s taken me a while, hasn’t it, my old bones creaking every stride of the way. I spent the rest of the game thinking about it, and I’ll be honest, it’s a big achievement. Now to tick off that other goal: winning the Championship this year.”
9 Nov: Christchurch was generally batting 37 y/o Rowan Reardon at number 9 in their lineup but he didn’t seem too bothered, contributing at a much better clip than he had last season. In today’s 7-4 win over Canberra he hit in the 7 spot. He also cycled. It began with a triple in the 2nd, a triple which was only a triple because of a couple centimetres of CF wall and an awkward ricochet. He led off the 5th with a double before crunching a 2-run homer in the 6th. A single in the 8th completed the feat.
9 Nov: Umashankar Meenakshi had an excellent outing for Cairns against Hobart. He went the whole game, giving up just 3 hits while striking out 4 and allowing no earned runs. Hobart did score, though, getting across home-plate in the 6th thanks to an errant throw from the catcher on a steal attempt. Meenakshi was philosophical when asked later about what happened: “Hey, we won, didn’t we? That’s more important than personal accomplishment.” Cairns eased to a 7-1 victory.
12 Nov: Rowan Kimpton hit .588/.611/1.294, with 3 doubles and 3HR, on his way to PotW.
12 Nov: Auckland overcame the Diggers 7-4 thanks to a 3-run walk-off homerun from Reginald Puckeridge in the bottom of the 9th. Puckeridge, Auckland’s 25 y/o backup catcher, who scouts said had a high power ceiling but was still growing into it, started off the at-bat trying to bunt the runners ahead a base. His 2 bunt attempts went foul, after which he watched 2 balls pass. Then he got a fastball in the zone and let his wrists do the rest, pulling it over left field and into the bleachers.
14 Nov: Richard Moore was on a homerun tear in the first half of 2063. He slugged number 20 for the season in Adelaide’s 5-2 loss to Central Coast and was currently on another 4-game streak.
16 Nov: Greg Kent rifled the ball to all parts in Whangarei’s 11-inning 10-8 victory over Wellington. The result was a 5-6 performance, including 2 doubles.
17 Nov: Sydney put together a hit show against Christchurch, 20-7 in that category. However, that didn’t translate to runs on the board, the Blue Sox trailing until the 4th and never able to really pull away despite all the basepath pressure. The final score was 7-4 in their favour, both Cain Donaldson and Axel Nankervis going 4-5.
17 Nov: Rich Steedman became only the 7 pitcher in the history of the AUNZBL to go 50 saves without blowing 1, and the first to that mark since the recently-retired Rhett Thurley in 2051. He didn’t have too much cause for tension this game, coming to the mound with the Bandits leading Central Coast by 7-4. Alan Sneddon was his usual frustrating self, drawing a 2-out, 9-pitch walk but Miguel Ibanez could only strike out looking to give Steedman the save. Steedman didn’t really know how to put his accomplishment in words, umming and ahhing his way to, “Yeah, definitely special but I hope I’m not done just yet.”
Before signing with the Canberra Capitals for the ABC’s inaugural season in 2058, Steedman had been working as a tiler, having given up his baseball dream 12 years earlier when, as a 15 year-old, he couldn’t secure a transfer from his low-decile school to one with a decent baseball program. He tried out for the Capitals, in his words, “Because, why not?” and suddenly found himself signed up and in their first-grade bullpen. The next season he became their closer and was wooed across to the AUNZBL Bandits upon the conclusion of his contract.
A scouting report found on a popular baseball site said of him at the time of his entry to the AUNZBL, “Has great stuff, blows a lot of guys away, but good hitters will drive him a long way and has a tendency to miss the plate when under pressure.” He was going at greater than 1 homer per 9 innings in his AUNZBL stint so far and was certainly prone to giving up walks, having surrendered 10 already in 22.1 innings this season, but he trusted his stuff and so far that wasn’t letting him down.
17 Nov: Cairns tied the game up against Melbourne in the bottom of the 9th, and then Reginald Pickhills made them walk-off winners with a 3-run jack in the bottom of the 10th. 11-8 Cairns, Melbourne’s Oliwa Lomu blowing his 3rd save of the season as well as getting tagged with the loss.
18 Nov: Steedman picked up his 2nd loss of the season as Brisbane surrendered 2-1 to Central Coast in 10 innings. Still, he’d come in with the game tied so the save streak was still alive.
18 Nov: Baskoro Subagja was having an otherworldly 2063 so far. He threw 8 scoreless innings in Whangarei’s 3-0 win over Wellington, which gave him 21.1 scoreless innings on the trot. In fact, in 69.0 innings across 10 starts he’d only given up 9 earned runs for 4 wins and 1 loss. He had a league-leading 1.17 ERA and 0.94 WHIP. He’d obviously had some things go his way but his FIP of 2.91, third-best in the league, suggested not too many.
19 Nov: Wellington were still a rabble but at least Carlos Aguilar had a good week, taking home PotW. He hit .538/.647/.885, his 14-26 including 3 doubles and 2HR. He also drew 8 walks.
19 Nov: Aguilar celebrated his tribute by going 5-6 in a high-scoring encounter against Central Coast. Unfortunately for him, the Thunder prevailed over Wellington by the score of 13-10. Aguilar’s hits included a double and a HR. He also scored 3 runs and drove in 3. 28 y/o Aguilar now had five 5-hit games in his major-league résumé.
19 Nov: Eddie Rayner joined Jay Cummins and Keiran Tennant atop the all-time shutout list. He got there by 3-hitting Christchurch to help Kununurra to a 3-0 win. He walked 2 and struck out 4, combining his 5 pitches to great effect.
19 Nov: Rayner’s performance wasn’t the best of the day, however. That honour went to 27 y/o Auckland ace Domenic Jones. He hit a batter in the 2nd and allowed a walk the same inning but other than another walk in the 3rd and 8th he was lights out.
No-hitter! Auckland won 3-0, Jones punching out 8 batters and accruing a game score of 92. He’d come a long way since 2060, his first full campaign in a big-league rotation, when he lost 19 games and walked a league-leading 108 hitters.
20 Nov: The Metros and Crocs battled it out in a high-scoring affair, the Metros eventually walking off 10-7 winners. Behind 7-4 heading into the 7th, Auckland eked a run back in that inning and in the 8th, to be just 1 in arrears going into the bottom of the 9th. Randall Oeltjen and Tommy Worsfold both struck out looking, Aaron Fingleson strutting around the mound like a peacock. Then Callum McCabe singled. Rich Downes also singled. Fingleson plunked Terence Murdock to juice the bases. Only 1 out needed but Fingleson wasn’t strutting anymore. 25 y/o Rob Carson came to the plate, getting a rare start. Prior to today’s game he was hitting .174 from 27PA with 1HR. He’d singled home a runner in the 6th already. He watched a fastball nick the zone and then a splitter miss low. Fingleson threw another fastball but this one crossed the plate belt-high. Carson crushed it, lofting it deep, deep, deep to centre. He stood for a couple moments to watch it go before starting on a slow trot, his head suitably lowered but his grin still visible. Walk-off Grand Slam, 10-7 Auckland!
21 Nov: Zachariah Pond bamboozled Canberra, leading Darwin to a 7-0 shutout. He allowed only 3 hits and 2 walks, fanning 6 and getting 17 groundball outs.
21 Nov: Adelaide were really struggling to get going in 2063, falling 9-7 to Brisbane today to take their overall record to 23-26. Moore did slug his 23rd HR of the season to score 3 in the 9th with 2 out, making it look like a game. Steedman then came to the mound to face Gary Young, who’d only returned to the big-league side after injury yesterday. With the count 2-2 Young hit a deep fly to centre but it was caught at the wall to end the game. Steedman’s save streak thus extended to 51, equalling the record of Robin Lightfoot, who’d put together 51 consecutive saves over the 2019 and 2021 season (it seems he missed the entire 2020 season with injury; the archives are spotty here). Next on the list was Rhett Thurley, with 52 saves.
22 Nov: Sydney 1B Nigel Anderton was quietly having an excellent first half. Today he went 5-5 in a 7-5 win over Melbourne. His hits included a solo HR. He drove in 2 as well as scoring twice. For the season Anderton had 15 homers, tied for second in the league, and 33 extra-base hits, 7 more than any other player.
22 Nov: This Crocs-Metros series had been an exciting one, with a no-hitter and a walk-off Grand Slam already. Both of those times Auckland had triumphed and they did so again in spectacular fashion today to clinch the series, Rich Downes handing Aaron Fingleson his second blown save of the match-up when he blasted a walk-off 3-run dinger in the bottom of the 9th to give his team a 7-5 victory. All up Downes was 3-5 with 4 ribbies and a run. Fingleson (3-3, 8 sv, 7.08 ERA) was not in a happy place after the game. “I really feel like I’m letting my new club down,” he said, “and with Sterling* pitching so well, I wonder how long before our roles get switched around.”
*Sterling Boston - 1-1, 2 sv, 0.87 ERA
25 Nov: Tristan Agar had come back from the torn labrum suffered in October of 2062 without missing a beat. He pushed his record to 7-3 by shutting out Hobart on the back of 4 hits, 0 walks and 3 strikeouts. Whangarei eased to a 9-0 victory, battering 16 hits along the way. 34 y/o Agar, who’d also injured his shoulder during the 2061 season, said, “I’ve just got to back myself. Yeah, I guess I’m always worried about hurting the shoulder again but all I can do is prepare well and make sure I throw with my whole body. Whatever happens after that happens.”
25 Nov: John ‘Mr. Dependable’ Zglinicki threw his second shutout of the season, blanking Perth to the tune of 6 hits, 0 walks, and 6 strikeouts. Central Coast won 5-0. Zglinicki now had 10 career shutouts, 1 off the all-time mark.
25 Nov: No other hitter was anywhere near Richard Moore. He hurtled to 26 homeruns with 2 blasts in Adelaide’s 6-4 win over Cairns. The second of those was the 300th of his career. He now had 11 more homers than any other AUNZBL hitter in 2063 and, incredibly, only 1 double.
26 Nov: In what seemed more an insult than an accolade, injured Carlos Aguilar (see Notable Injuries, 22 Nov) was awarded PotW despite playing only 3 games. In those 3 games he hit .750/.750/1.583, 9-12, with 4 doubles and 2HR.
26 Nov: Another shutout. This time Carlos Yanez easily subdued Sydney across 9 innings, allowing only 4 base hits and 2 walks. He struck out 4, Auckland winning 7-0 and moving to the head of the NZ division.
27 Nov: Steedman held Wellington off to see Brisbane to a 4-3 victory. Consecutive save #52, giving him the 5th-equal best streak in AUNZBL history. Number 4 was 55 saves, recorded by Travis Mullens back in 2020-2021.
28 Nov: Gustavo Sosa went 5-5 in Darwin’s 8-1 trouncing of Sydney. He drove in 5 of the Blue Sox’s runs, 4 coming courtesy of a Grand Salami in the 8th.
30 Nov: Andre Wiltshire was instrumental in Auckland’s 12-inning 4-3 victory over Kununurra. Not only did he hit the walk-off RBI-single, he also picked up 4 other hits in a 5-6 performance. Wiltshire was a potential free agent at season’s end and he was sure to attract a lot of interest if he went to market, especially as, at only 26 y/o, he would just about be entering his prime.
Notable Injuries
7 Nov: Allen Jiang (1-0), one of Adelaide’s offseason trade acquisitions, would play no further part in the season. He required RND surgery. He was one of the reasons Adelaide’s bullpen was ranked 2nd in the AUNZBL.
8 Nov: Adelaide CF Andrew Benbow (.268/.340/.402, 3HR) would be out of action for the next 5-6 weeks with a strained MCL.
11 Nov: Wellington’s Gilberto Soberon (.307/.368/.450, 4HR), one of the few bright spots in Wellington’s offense, was expected to miss around 5 weeks thanks to an ACL strain.
14 Nov: The Crocs were bouncing from one injury to the next. Claudio Lara (.297/.411/.435, 4HR) was the latest to head to the DL. He was expected to be out 5 weeks with a herniated disc. Brent Dwyer was still a week or so away from returning (bruised foot), while Javier Rodriguez’s return wouldn’t be for multiple weeks.
17 Nov: Offseason Hobart trade acquisition Rod Albury (.211/.253/.328, 5HR) sprained his wrist and would be on the DL 4-5 weeks.
20 Nov: Neil Bellett (.277/.399/.554, 13HR) separated his shoulder while making a diving catch in CF in Canberra’s 6-5 win over Darwin. He’d be gone at least 3-4 weeks.
21 Nov: 26 y/o rookie Fury 1B Harold Pryor (.266/.387/.392, 3HR) was gone for the season with a ruptured MCL.
22 Nov: Carlos Aguilar (.313/.398/.439, 4HR) was cruelly struck down with a torn quad. “Really gutting,” he said. “I feel like I’m in career-best form right now, too.” He’d been hitting .440/.505/.690 through November, all 4 of his HR coming in the month.
25 Nov: Whangarei’s James Bacosa (.270/.321/.398, 5HR) would be missing for the next month while he recuperated a fractured rib.
30 Nov: Wellington’s injury list kept growing, adding insult to the injury of their awful season. This time it was Peter Moy (.297/.373/.431, 5HR), who’d be out at least 6 weeks thanks to a fractured rib.
Notable Trades/Signings
4 Nov: Wellington took the opportunity to add some cattle to their farm system, sending 32 y/o C Yin-ti Zhuo (.235/.352/.373, 1HR) to Sydney in exchange for 4 prospects south of 25 years old.
Zhuo would become Sydney’s everyday catcher, relegating Jose Ojeda (.272/.344/.506, 6HR) to the backup role. Ojeda was an interesting fish. With a swing that scouts universally agreed was awful somehow Ojeda had put up decent numbers for Sydney last season after being traded across from Christchurch. Of his 98-353 he hit 14 doubles, 1 triple and 14HR, as well as drawing 40 walks. This season he’d started well, too, but the overall opinion was that he had to fall off a cliff sometime soon. One analyst said of him, “Look, he’s got decent pitch awareness and knows his strike-zone better than the average hitter, and his stroke is surprisingly powerful but really, with that overall cumbersome, slow swing, he should be struggling to hit .200 in the low minors.”
Ojeda had gone undrafted in the BL in 2049 before signing with Managua. Upon becoming a free agent in 2052, having failed to crack the BL top flight, he headed off to the NABA where he participated in 6 seasons. In 2058 he signed with Kununurra’s AAA-affiliate before getting elevated to the majors where he hit .340/.410/.434 in 62PA. He’d gone from Kununurra to Christchurch and then to Sydney, continually confounding the experts. He was no slouch defensively, either, winning a Gold Glove at catcher last season.
New Blue Sox skipper Peter Massingham (yes,
that Peter Massingham who’d underwhelmed for so many years in Whangarei) said of Ojeda, “Sure, he’ll still feature in our lineup, of course. Nothing wrong with having two quality catchers, is there?”
9 Nov: Adelaide moved to cover the hole left in their bullpen by the injury to Allen Jiang. They acquired 26 y/o CL Moeaktola Liao (2-1, 8 sv) from Newcastle in return for 2 prospects. Liao, who threw an excellent fastball and a mesmerizing slider along with an occasional changeup, would immediately displace Bailey Naylor (1-4, 7 sv) as Adelaide’s closer. Currently Adelaide were 18-19, struggling to get out of first gear but only 2 games behind division leaders Cairns and Darwin.
12 Nov: 33 y/o John Foreman (.186/.217/.326, 2HR) was not a happy camper. Kununurra had just traded the out-of-form LF to Wellington in return for 29 y/o Vic Collins (.273/.302/.536, 7HR) and a decent IF prospect. Kununurra currently led the East-West by 3 games while Wellington languished at the bottom of the NZ, 10 games in arrears and doing nothing to inspire confidence that they’d turn their season around. “Look,” Foreman said upon arrival at Newcastle Airfield to join the Fury, who were in the middle of a 4-game set with the Roos, “of course I’ll still give my best every day, no matter which team I'm playing for. But sending me packing because of a slow start? C’mon, look at my career. I’ll come right. To be fair, there’s a few guys struggling at the offensive end in that lineup right now. We, sorry, Kununurra, are ranked, what, 15th in the league in BA. And yet we, they, are still leading the division. Just imagine what might’ve happened once we all clicked into gear. But this is how I see it. They’ll stay competitive until mid-December and then the wheels will fall off and they’ll finish the season below .500. Remember this and check in with me at the end of the season.” Across his career, Foreman was hitting .287/.352/.526, with 351 homeruns.
15 Nov: Adelaide and Cairns engaged in an unlikely swap, the Venom sending 26 y/o CF Todd Riseley (.296/.333/.574, 4HR) plus a minor-league catcher to the Crocs in exchange for 27 y/o OF Ben Murphy (.222/.263/.333, 1HR in 38 major-league PA).
29 Nov: Kununurra, currently with the best record in the league, moved to strengthen their offense and replace the veteran leadership lost in the Foreman trade by acquiring 37 y/o Manuel Alou (.310/.388/.496, 5HR) and cash from Christchurch in return for 2 fringe ML guys.
Month Awards
Rookie of the Month: 26 y/o Jay Watts, traded by Brisbane to Canberra during the offseason, was living up to his potential in 2063. In November, on his way to RotM, he hit .374/.430/.637, 34-91, with 14 runs, 4 doubles, 1 triple, 6HR, 13RBI, and 7 walks.
Hurler of the Month: Blair Norris was pretty good last season, going 17-7 with an 85 FIP-. He was going great guns in 2063 too, finishing the month with an overall 9-1 record, the best in the league. 6 of those wins came during November, where he put up a 0.96 ERA, 3.24 FIP, and 0.96 WHIP. His WAR for the month was 1.4, and he struck out 28 hitters in 46.2 innings.
Slugger of the Month: Once again, there was no going past Richard Moore, who continued to dominate the hitting leaderboards. He wasn’t quite as good in November as he had been in October, hitting only .327/.447/.743, 33-101, but his homerun game continued to be streets ahead of anybody else. He slugged 14 four-baggers during the month, 1 more than he had in October, though he had no other extra-base hits. None. Nada. Zilch. He scored 25 runs and drew 22 walks while only striking out 7 times. For the season, Moore was hitting .362/.477/.752, with 27HR. He sat astride the following leaderboards: OBP, SLG, OPS, wOBA (.494), HR, RBI (61), runs (51), ISO (.390), TB (158), and WAR (4.1). He was second in BA and walks (44) and, despite his lack of doubles, tied for third in XBH (28). His 76 hits were also third-best. It was a given he couldn’t continue this pace the whole season but that didn’t stop a whole lot of analysts gushing about what he might accomplish if he did.
Media Watch
Ismael Aguirre: Aguirre returned from injury on the 2nd, and headed straight into Central Coast’s starting lineup. He went 2-4 in an 8-2 loss to Darwin. The following night he was also 2-4, contributing the 702nd HR of his career in a 7-5 defeat of Newcastle. On the 4th he once more went 2-4, Central Coast again beating the Roos, this time 9-7. On the morning of the 5th he was demoted to AAA in a move universally labelled across baseball TV-land as “disgusting and disrespectful.”
Aguirre wasn’t available for comment, en-route to Glen Innes where he’d suit up for the Joes, but his manager had this to say, “Yes, he was surprised, no doubt about that. But I know Ismael will still put his all in, no matter who he’s playing for. But is this really the way to treat the greatest player of our generation, of our history to-date?”
This, of course, re-sparked the debate as to whether veterans should be allowed to refuse minor league assignment, a right the AUNZBL had removed in 2031. The split amongst fans and analysts was about 50-50.
Manuel Salinas, unsurprisingly, got in on the debate. Now playing for the Capitals in the ABC, Salinas rang a prominent baseball talkback show to say, “Hey, the same thing happened to me, didn’t it, playing for the same team, too, and nobody made a fuss. I think most of you were all like, ‘Yeah, serves the bigmouth right.’ But now it’s all ‘boohoo, respect the rights of the veterans, blah blah blah.' Aguirre just needs to suck it up and got on with it. I’ll tell you what, though, I’ve heard from a few around the Thunder camp who are pretty happy he’s not on their roster anymore.”
When pressed on why that might be, Salinas said, “I’m going to respect their privacy and not say anything else, except it doesn’t matter how many home runs you’ve hit, nobody should demand special treatment above and beyond what the rest of the team is getting. Especially when you’ve reached geriatric status.”
Central Coast management were quick to respond, saying, “Aguirre has been nothing but a true professional during his time here, and not once has asked for or received anything more than any other player on this team. We’re sure he’ll have plenty more opportunities this year to don the Thunder uniform but for now we just have too many hitters competing for a limited amount of roster spots.”
Aguirre started off his AAA stint great guns but by the 27th November had declined to a stat-line of .235/.316/.353, with 4 doubles and 2HR in 20 hits. Aguirre was recalled to the bigs on the 28th, at the expense of 27 y/o Pedro Mercado, who was placed on waivers and snaffled up by Melbourne. The Aces immediately put Mercado in the meat of their lineup, new GM Brendon Benbow telling media he couldn’t believe his luck.
Back in a Thunder uniform, Aguirre played the last 3 games of the month, managing a hit in just 1 of them. That hit was a double and ended with him scoring, leaving him needing only 13 more runs to reach 2000.
Marcos Lopez: Lopez was certainly looking like his nickname of ‘Tired’ so far this season, his OPS+ just 76. He was hitting .250/.315/.350, with 45 hits so far. That left him needing 17 to reach 3000.
Jose de la Cruz: He was humming along, hitting .311/.413/.444, his 7 triples tying him for the league lead. The 47 runs he’d scored placed him second on that board too. The only negative was his subpar defence in leftfield, which the Crocs had fixed by moving him to DH.
Other Notes
Coastal Division: In a rough-and-tumble month, Cairns (14-14) finished on top, just, leading Darwin (16-12) by 1 game. Adelaide (15-13) were 3 games back.
East-West Division: Kununurra (16-12) continued to defy expectations, extending their lead to 5. Brisbane (13-15) and Central Coast (14-14) were tied up for second, 1 game below .500.
NZ Division: Whangarei (19-9) had a strong month to rise to the top of the NZ, Auckland (15-13) 1 game behind, Christchurch (12-16) dropping below .500, 4 games in arrears.
Southern Division: Sydney (13-15) did just enough to stay ahead of Hobart (13-15), while Melbourne (13-15) remained 2 games back.
Wildcard: Darwin and Auckland with Adelaide in the rearview mirror, the Prospects just behind them. Brisbane, Central Coast, Christchurch, and Melbourne were all below .500 but only 3 games out of a wildcard spot.
#
Callum McCabe (.382/.464/.560, 3HR) led the league in BA and in doubles (23).
Yoshihito Morimoto (.344/.370/.389, 0HR) had the most hits (84) and stolen bases (21).
Perth’s Angus Beckett (.289/.333/.402, 2HR) was tied with de la Cruz at the top of the triples ladder, with 7.
Alan Sneddon (.230/.374/.293, 1HR) was struggling to put the ball safely in play but he was still the best at picking pitches and judging strikezones. He led the league in walks, with 45, and remained the only player in AUNZBL history to draw more than 2000 free passes. He currently had 2221 to his name. The next-best active player was Justin Auger (.214/.275/.410, 8HR, 14BB in 2063), with 1124.
Nigel Anderton (.301/.365/.594, 15HR) had the most XBH (36).
Baskoro Subagja (5-2, 1.78 ERA, 3.32 FIP, 1.01 WHIP) led the league in ERA, as well as in OAVG (.204), and H/9 (6.56).
Barry Dean (3-5, 2.79 ERA, 2.79 FIP, 1.10 WHIP) continued to be the best pitcher in baseball, even if he played for one of the worst teams. He led the league in FIP, IP (93.2), strikeouts (81), and WAR (3.4).
Marty Okolita (3-5, 5.53 ERA, 4.87 FIP, 1.36 WHIP) was the only qualified pitcher striking out hitters at a rate of more than 10 per 9 innings (10.40).
Domenic Jones (6-3, 2.59 ERA, 3.41 FIP, 0.97 WHIP) led the league in WHIP.
Isaac Canavan was the best closer, with 16 saves.
ABC Wrap-up
Brisbane were unstoppable in the Northern, their record after 2 months 42-14. Canberra (38-19), led the Southern by 3 games over Sydney (35-22), Melbourne (32-25) 6 games back. Perth (32-25) were no longer a sub .500 team, atop the Western by 4 games. Dunedin (36-21) were way too good in the Overseas, their lead now 9.
31 y/o Gao Chin had never really got a fair go in the AUNZBL, ending up backup catcher wherever he played bar the 2060 season, when he had 427PA for 2 teams. He’d always impressed scouts with his power, even if his plate discipline wasn’t great. Now in the ABC, he was getting the chance to play every day and was making the most of it. The Hobart Hammerheads catcher won the November Golden Rookie Award. For the season he was hitting .347/.414/.633, with 14HR.
37 y/o Baden Henderson found himself in the closing role in his second ABC season. The Brisbane Bronco had 20 saves so far, the best in the ABC.
AUNZBL Standings, Dec 1