Michigan Town Ball

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It took Mackinaw Island 9 tries to win its first game of the season, thanks to Jason Lanaux's grand slam homer, giving the Eclipse the 4-2 win.

In the Lower Peninsula, the Fricano Pizzeta's are in the basement with a 2-7 record in spite of having their slugger, Heath Bone, back in the lineup. The champs are last in the entire league in Runs Scored.

Fan Favorite Adrian Brujan, the Grand Rapids native, is once again proving his worth to the Waveriders as he starts the year with a 3-0 record.

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It's inexplicable that both finalists continue to occupy the cellar in each Peninsula League. The Pizzeta champs are on a 9-game losing streak, and rumor has it that even pizza sales are down on the north side of town.

Meanwhile, the Paradise White Pines are riding the arm of the youngster from Detroit, 24 y/o Ryan McCarter. His stats have been lights out. The White Pines have flown under the radar but have had winning seasons every year except the inaugural in 1980.

Veteran 33 y/o sparkplug Rich Dewey (ZBB) had a torrid weekend against the Joe's, going 8 for 12, and now assumes the lead in the batting average category with his .468 avg. Matt DePasquale (Ironwood) had held the lead until this week.

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There are only 18 weeks in the Town Ball Season, so we are at the 1/3 mark now. There were two three-game sweeps this weekend. Copper Harbor swept the Grand Haven Whitecaps, plunging them into the cellar of the Lower Peninsula, and Iron Wood Mad Katz rolled over the Town Ball Champions of last year, Fricano's Pizzeta's.

Two games in a row, the Pizzeta's outhit the Mad Katz, only to experience two blown saves, with one coming in the bottom of the 9th.

Andy Jenkins is our featured player this week. He leads the Town Ball League in runs scored. An amazing athlete, he combines speed with the ability to get on base and not K. Last year, his 39 walks were more than double the amount of K's for the season.

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The Ironwood Mad Katz, winners of 8 of 10, are striving to separate themselves from the rest of the Upper Peninsula. The perennial team to beat, Iron River Gulls, is beginning to heat up, now with an 11-11 record and the second-best RD in the league.

Matt DePasquale, the early batting leader, has regained the league and is raking at a .456 clip. Rich Dewey of ZBB is checking in at .438 after surrendering the lead.

Morgan Gantt, Drummond Island Lucky Clovers, has an active 22-game hit streak, while Rich Dewey has a 19-game run of his own.

The Lower Peninsula is hotly contested, with four teams within 1.5 games of each other. Remember, in the Town Ball league, there are no wild cards.

The weekend series is posted below. The two Ann Arbor teams will go at it with the Barn Owls taking on Zing's Z's located on the south side.

The Traverse City Bears take on the Pizzeta's with an opportunity to widen their lead. Oft-injured Heath Bone will be back in the Fricano lineup playing manning his usual position, CF. Fricano's have dropped 8 straight.

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In the 8th week of play, we saw the Iron River Gulls extend their win streak to 5 as the 5-20 Freedom were no match for the weapons in the Gulls' lineup.

Two hitting streaks are still active. Morgan Gantt of the Lucky Clover is now at 25, and Rich Dewey extends his streak to 22. Dewey has never hit above .290, so it's surprising to see him leading the league at .433 at about the 40% point in the season. Matt DePasquale is hitting .431, and Gantt at .396 is hovering around the coveted .400 mark.

Mike Knuckles led the Fricano's Pizzeta's to the promised land last year with his 3.2 WAR on the mound and his league-leading K's at 92. It's a different story in 1985 as Knuckles is 0-8 and his Pizzeta's are 4-20.

The showdown in Ann Arbor saw the Ann Arbor Barn Owls lose three straight to Zing's Z's on the southside of town. The final game on Sunday saw the Z's rally for three in the bottom of the 9th to walk it off in front of a paid of attendance of 307. Half those fans were Barn Owl followers who arrived from the north side of A2.

The League races are getting tighter, and the Iron River Gulls are on their way to the top, having shed their early-season malaise just in time. They will face the Upper Peninsula, leading Mad Katz, in the middle of July.

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The Traverse City Bears are making news in the Lower Peninsula after sweeping their series against Chelsea and now own a 20-8 record. The final game of the set required a 3-run 11th inning homer by light-hitting David Gillian to give the Bears a 5-3 win. Gillian had two dingers in the game, batting in the 9th spot.

The other team that swept their series was the Ann Arbor Barn Owls, as they rolled over the Jiffies, knocking them down to third in the standings. The Barn Owls are in second, trailing TC by just two games.

Iron River Gulls finally lost but still won 2/3 and are trailing the Ironwood Mad Katz by 3 games.

Both +20 hitting streaks came to an end this weekend, and Matt DePasquale still leads the league in batting at .412.

Traverse City starting pitcher John Roberts has 9 straight Quality Starts for the Bears.

The league had a triple play this week (see graphic below).

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Muskegon native Jorge Calderon took out his frustration of the nightmare season on the Z's in Ann Arbor as he raked for the cycle and led the Pizzeta's to an easy 7-1 win.

Jorge is the 5th player in Town Ball history to pull of the cycle and the first to do it with the Fricano's Pizzeta's.

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Traverse City seems like a team on a mission. They are playing consistently well, and they also have the Rookie of the Month for May (see below). The 25-year-old OF from Novi, Michigan, Grant Mitchell elevated all his offensive numbers in securing the award.

In the Upper Peninsula, it's clear that the Mad Katz are looking in the rear-view mirror, and what they see are the Iron River Gulls, winners of 8 out of 10. With the best RD, the Gulls are no fluke, and it would be a surprise to see them not take first place.

The hitter and pitcher of the month are featured below. No one is hitting above .400 for the first time all season. Interesting that the Drummond Island Lucky Clover captured both awards yet has a 14-17 record going 6-7 in May.

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The two teams are going at it head to head this weekend. Can the Mad Katz stand up to the heavy artillery of the Gulls? We will see.

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An exciting contest that began with the Mad Katz threatening to go wild early on. But, leaving the bases juices, having a runner thrown out at the plate, and a poor defensive choice (going for the wrong force out) ultimately led to their undoing. The Mad Katz were tattooing the ball but most of them were right at the Gull fielders.

LOB: Gulls 3; Mad Katz 10

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The broom was out in Ironwood, and the Mad Katz were on the receiving end. The powerful Iron River Gulls won all three games and leapfrogged over the White Pines to grab a share of first place in the Upper Peninsula.

In the L.P., the Traverse City Bears maintain a firm grip on first place with their 24-10 record, having won two of three from the Saugatuck Joes.

Matt DePasquale is now hitting .407 in spite of being swept by the Gulls. Thirty-year-old Melvin Carillo of the Barn Owls is the other .400 hitter, despite never hitting .300 in his career. It's Carillo's fifth season with Ann Arbor.

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This week, we have an active save streak going of 21 by Eddie Correll of Ypsilanti (21).
Cameron Kettell, loyal only to himself, has won 3 straight games after beginning the season with a 0-2 record. Kettell is from West Ishpeming, MI.,
and ranks third in ERA with a 1.83 rating.

Traverse City continues to march toward the Lower Peninsula championship, while the Upper Peninsula is open to several teams.

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Can the high flying Gulls come back against Grand Haven's Ace, Adrian Bruhan? We will see.

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Brujan strolls into Iron River and gets it done. Adrian with 66 K's is the new Town Ball leader in strikeouts.

15 LOB for the Whitecaps (4 for the Gulls) made the contest closer than it needed to be.

[RMc]

...but where the heck do the Zing Z's play...?

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Zing's play in Ann Arbor. Named after the famous Zingerman's business that launched as a deli in Kerrytown somewhere around 1980. Zing's has expanded into high-end breadmaking, desserts, cheese-making, roadhouse restaurant, coffee, etc., always done with quality and panache. I figured they deserved a franchise for all the good things they've brought to Ann Arbor.

So, Ann Arbor has two teams. I used to live there so, yeah, I opted for cross town rivals. With Ypsilanti just up Washtenaw Ave all three are pretty natural rivalries based on geography.

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The short version of Week 13 is the Gulls stay red hot in the Upper Peninsula, the Traverse City Bears are running away from the pack in the Lower Peninsula, and Iron Rivers Ricky Uraine is the first and only player to reach double figures in homers (10). Steve Vincent has the record with 23 and is the all time Big Fly Swatter with 75.

The Bears have a magic number of 14. The Gulls have a magic number of 18. But, not so simple for the Gulls because flying under the wire, as usual, are the Paradise Pines with an identical 23-14 record.

The Gulls have won 7/10. The Pines have won 7/10.

Iron River bashes the ball and leads all of the Town Ball with a .774 OPS.

On the pitching end of things, it's the Paradise Pines with the lowest Upper Peninsula ERA (2.48), second only to the powerhouse Bears in the Lower Peninsula (2.14).

One of the big cogs in the pitching wheel of the Pines is Ryan McCarter who is 9-2. He's a three time All Star and has won POY.

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This is the first Who is Hot, Who is Not for the Town Ball thread. The numbers speak for themselves.

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A couple of things to note midway in the Friday night action.

Adrian Bruhan, ace for Grand Haven, is on his way to another W vs Ironwood. Last week, it was Iron River who got knocked back in the opener of the Gulls vs Waverider series. Bruhan is in a bit of trouble (two baserunners) here, but with the cushion provided, it's doubtful he's not going to get the win.

Could the Iron River Gulls lose to the lowly Fricano's Pizzeria? Hard to imagine with those two teams going in opposite directions.

There will be an update later.

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Grand Haven and Brujan cruised to an easy shutout win as Gary ups his record to 7-2. If the Waveriders had one more Brujan in the 3-man rotation, who knows what they might accomplish. They win 10-0.

Brujan is 7-2, and the other starters combined are 7-14.

The box score indicates the Gulls doubled up the Pizzeta's 4-2.

The 7th inning was costly for the Pines as the Z's rallied with a 7-run inning, effectively knocking Paradise out of first place while picking up a game on the front-running Traverse City Bears.

With the Zing's game complete we will be turning the page to Saturday's action. Tomorrow, Saturday, right? :-)