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So with 3 games left in the regular season, let's step away a moment to take a quick tour of the Moonlight Graham League and get a quick introduction to each team (leaving, for the moment the Los Angeles Spinners, who we know a bit already and who will get plenty of attention soon) and at least one player on each team who stands out, particularly those players the Brewers have come to fear and respect.
And we will start with the Brewers closest geographic rival, the Phoenix Speed Devils. Coming into the last few games of the season the Speed Devils have moved into 3rd place, just a game behind the Brewers.
The Speed Devils have a fairly balanced team as they would finish the season tied for 5th in the league in runs scored and alone in 5th in runs allowed. In terms of their pitching staff, their bullpen was a bit stronger than their starting staff. Overall, the real strength of their pitching was the ability to strike out opponents, as their staff strikeout total of 1045 was best in the league. On the other hand, they were 6th in the league in HR's allowed (147) so that was a relative weakness.
On offense, the Speed Devils earned their nickname as they stole 126 bases, second only to our Brewers. Their team batting average was an anemic .223 (8th in the MGL) but their SLG and OPS were both 4th in the league. A key contributor to this was their 22-year old star Left Fielder, Joe Esman.
The Brewers split the season series with Phoenix, 9-9. It probably helped that for some reason Esman was relative quiet against us.
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