The W.P. Kinsella League random update thread

[BirdWatcher]

Seriously, how appropriate is it that Dan Chatagnier plays for the Montreal Royals?
(Even if he is a native of San Antonio, Texas. And, if you haven't noticed the kid is 6'6". Because they make 'em big down there.)

(Then again, that's nothing compared to this 6'8" behemoth out of Bamako, Mali:



Just a bit of WPK flavor- two guys that I hadn't been aware of until right now.)

[BirdWatcher]

So naturally, the day after we spotlight Russell Fleming he once again leads the Brewers to a win, this time hitting a 3-run homer (his 6th) to erase a 3-run deficit in the 6th inning, then giving the team the lead with an RBI single (with 2 outs, naturally) to give the Brewers a 5-4 lead in the 7th and then scoring from first on Val Guzman's double (35) with what proved to be the winning run. Sure, he also committed an error (his 13th for the season but 2nd in right field). But hey, nobody's perfect.




Speaking of perfect, the Boston Berserkers' 27-year old second baseman Jeff Munoz was nearly perfect in yesterday's 11-2 win over the Philadelphia Mud Hens. Well, okay, that's a bit of exaggeration, but he did go 5 for 5 in the game, scoring twice and driving in a pair of runs. The 5 hits were all singles. But the real story is that this long-time minor league player in the Boston system has only 14 hits as a big leaguer, and the 5 he hit yesterday are his total in the WPK this season. Last season, his first in the bigs, consisted of 16 games (7 as a starter) with 33 plate appearances and he had a slash line of .281/.303/.312. He's a decent defensive second baseman, reportedly has a high baseball I.Q. and is a good teammate, and he profiles as durable. Though he lacks raw speed, he is a smart baserunner and is capable of stealing a base occasionally. But as a prospect, well, he's not one. And while we wish him more good things in his future, there is every reason to believe that yesterday might end up being the most glorious day of his WPK career.

[BirdWatcher]

The Brewers took another step closer to capturing the MGL West pennant with a come-from-behind extra inning victory over the Phoenix Speed Devils in Phoenix and a big contributor was 27-year old infielder Rico Perez. Perez came to the Brewers in a June 1st (of this season) multi-player trade with the Los Angeles Spinners, in which he was the least promising of the three minor leaguers the Brewers received.

Perez is an excellent defender and has good speed but his contact skills with the bat are suspect and he has very little power. On the plus side, he does possess a good eye and can work a walk to take advantage of his above average speed and excellent base stealing savvy. And he's reportedly a good guy and durable. And he's a switch-hitter who is considerably better hitting left-handed than right. Anyway, long story slightly shorter, he's the kind of guy you bring up late in the season as a defensive replacement, pinch-runner, etc. And every now and then you give him a start just for fun.




And, of course he goes 4 for 5, scoring twice, driving in 2 runs, and gets the biggest hit in the 3-run 10th inning which caps the come-from-behind road victory. Because of course he does.

[BirdWatcher]

The Brewers conclude their final series with the Phoenix Speed Devils of 1982 with a resounding win. Among the many offensive heroes the foremost was our man Val Guzman (.309/.395/.501) who went 2 for 3, scoring 2 runs and driving in 4, walking 3 times to get to 69 on the season, and hitting his 6th triple of the season.
And of course, having earned another start with his exploits the day before, Rico Perez was once again on fire, going 3 for 5, scoring twice, driving in a run, and hitting his first triple of the season.




On a less happy note, veteran starting pitcher and possible MGL Pitcher of the Year for 1982, Sadahige Kawasaki, was forced to leave the game after allowing the only hit he would give up in his 3 1/3rd innings pitched and word has not yet been received how serious the injury is. It would be a real blow for the Brewers if they lost Kawasaki for the post-season, which it is seeming inevitable they will reach. Prospect Jose Corpeno, in his 8th appearance since being brought up from AAA in mid-August, was masterful for 4 2/3rds innings to get his second big league victory.

[BirdWatcher]

The Denver Brewers went into a 3-game series in San Francisco with the chance to clinch the MGL West title, and instead got swept by the second place Velocity who are now 4 1/2 games behind the Brewers.

Here is how that looked:






It should be remembered that Bank of the West Ballpark, home of the Velocity, is the most extreme pitcher's park in the MGL. And in game 1 the Brewers 22-year old 20-game winner Eric Maisch was denied win number 22 in spite of hurling 8 scoreless, 6-hit innings, striking out 3 (to get to a WPK-best 200 K's) and walking just one batter. Denver's left-handed stopper Jeff Mariani, who has 29 saves on the year, 11 of them since joining the Brewers as a result of a trade with Seattle in early July, was victimized by a one-out error by shortstop Rico Perez and then seemed to unravel, giving up a single, walking the next batter to load the bases, and finally taking the loss when San Francisco pinch-hitter Brent Coley hit a walk-off sacrifice fly.

Game two saw Bryant Cox (11-10, 4.20) once again struggle as rumors grow that he is the most likely odd man out in the rotation heading into the off-season, what with the emergence of top prospect Mike Costa joining the big 3 (Atwell, Kawasaki, Maisch, in whatever order you prefer) and reliable lefty Austin Bond. (Not to mention the handful of other lesser, but still quite good, prospects who are now heading into the top levels of the Denver minor league system.) San Francisco veteran Jim Anast pretty much shut down the Brewers hitters to earn his 16th victory, matching his 1981 total.

And in game three, young Mike Costa, the #6 (as high as #3 earlier this year) prospect in all of the WPK, was outdueling veteran star Dan Knauff, and carried a shutout into the 9th inning. Costa does still struggle with command, and walked 5 batters, while striking out 6 (his strikeout totals going forward should rival teammate Eric Maisch before long), and he had run up a high pitch count (he has good stamina but this was also only his 7th big league start), and after getting two quick outs in the bottom of the 9th he gave up a pitch-hit single (to Brent Coley, of course). With 130 pitches thrown and San Francisco having announced a left-handed pinch-hitter with prodigious power (Costa's movement is only a bit above average), the decision was made to once again bring in lefty stopper Jeff Mariani. Huge mistake! Mariani promptly walked the first batter he faced, allowed a single off the bat of the second, and finally handed the game, and the series sweep, to the Velocity when he gave up a game-ending 3-2 count, 3-run double off the bat of Brian Paul. Costa was denied a well-deserved victory. And Brewers manager Barry Allen was furious at Mariani but mostly at himself for having trusted Mariani to finish out the game successfully.



To be fair, it isn't just Mariani. The Brewers bullpen as a whole, which had been a relatively strong group in the first half of the season, have turned into the Achille's heel of the club and seem to be getting worse with each passing day.



Now before anyone in Brewers nation hits the panic button, the magic number is only 3, there are 7 games left in the regular season, and the teams' chances of winning the pennant are still listed as 97.6%.
They do travel home now to face arch-rival Los Angeles, a team that has won 4 straight and have managed to climb back to within a game of .500. And then they travel to Portland for the last 3 games of the season. Portland, the reigning WPK champs, have now been mathematically eliminated from the race. But in case you are missing the subtext here, well, yeah, this really isn't a cakewalk. The Brewers could easily let this thing slip away, particularly if San Francisco stays as hot as they've been for the past few weeks.
The Velocity, meanwhile, have a 3-game series at home versus the lowly St. Louis Redbirds and then finish with 3 more at home against the even lowlier Phoenix Speed Devils.

Am I nervous? You bet I'm nervous.
Might just have to avoid the bullpen as much as possible the rest of the way.

EDIT: Oh, and I was so disgusted by the Brewers performance in this 3-game series that I forgot to deliver the good news, which is that Sadahige Kawasaki's injury wasn't serious, but a day-to-day stained back situation and the hope is that he can pitch again one more time before the end of the regular season (and hopefully in the post-season!?).

[BirdWatcher]

Here is where the races stand as the final two series for every team get underway today or tomorrow:



The most up for grabs division is the weak MGL East, but no division is decided and we could be in for a wacky final week of the season.

Oh, and I probably have been remiss in not making more of a deal of this, but Denver's Brett Taranto is hitting .414 going into the final 7 days of the season. It is almost inevitable that for the first time in WPK history a batter will end the season (one with enough plate appearances to be eligible for the batting title that is) with a .400 or better batting average. The current single season best is Bud Lindsay's .394 in the 1979 season. Taranto has collected 220 hits, so he'll fall well short of the record of 266 set by Nick Johnson just two seasons ago. Still, a very impressive, and likely MVP, season for our veteran first baseman.

[BirdWatcher]

Yesterday, with a 3-2 victory over the Boston Berserkers, the Washington Night Train became the first team this year to clinch a post-season berth as they take the SJL East pennant and go to the post-season for the first time since 1971, when they won their second WPK championship (having won the first in 1967.)




Meanwhile, both the SJL West San Antonio Keys and the MGL West Denver Brewers see their magic number currently at two, with the Brewers now having lost 5 of their last 6 games. I
In the MGL East, Brooklyn holds onto the narrowest of leads (1/2 game) over the Oklahoma City Diamond Kings, with Baltimore still technically in the race, but a distant 4 games out.

[BirdWatcher]

This is not how you play at the end of a season if you are trying to clinch a pennant and go to the post-season:







Fortunately for the Brewers the San Francisco Velocity finally suffered a loss in the final game of their series with St. Louis.
So the magic number is down to 1 with 3 games to play for each team.

BTW, Brett Taranto is now hitting .407 so while he should maintain his .400 plus batting average, it isn't a guarantee. And with the Brewers still looking for that pennant clinching win he isn't going to get to rest yet.

[BirdWatcher]

Perhaps the Brewers just want an early vacation?



The Velocity are pretty committed to continuing this season:

[BirdWatcher]

With just one regular season left in their season, the Denver Brewers finally got the elusive win they needed to clinch the MGL West division pennant.



And they just barely got that win, with the bats continuing their late-season slump. It was the Brewers 100th win of the season, which makes it an incredible nine straight 100 plus win seasons for the club.



The San Francisco Velocity did everything they could, winning the second of three games against the Phoenix Speed Devils, 6-3, but with the lead the Brewers had built with their torrid start to the month of September, it was just a bit too little, too late for San Francisco.

Brett Taranto is hitting .403. Will the Brewers sit him for the last day of the season to preserve the chase for .400? (Honestly, I don't know. He could use the rest before the post-season, but I'm not sure a sparkplug like Taranto would want it to end this way, making it look like maybe he didn't think he could make it across the finish line.)


Over in the SJL West, the San Antonio Keys repeated as the division champs. getting their 103rd win in a 9-8 slugfest with Chicago, in which superstar second baseman John Mussaw hit his 30th homer of the season.



And in the MGL East, the Brooklyn Aces and Oklahoma City Diamond Kings are battling it out and Oklahoma City, with wins of 11-2 and 5-2 in the first two games of this season ending series, have now overtaken the Aces for first and are going to try to put them away with a win tomorrow. If they don't get that, they still have a makeup game to play the following day against the Baltimore Lords, so this could come down to the day after the original final day of the regular season. (Brooklyn only has the final game of this series left, unless they make the post-season.)

[BirdWatcher]

And the Oklahoma City Diamond Kings are the surprise pennant winners in the MGL East, having completed the season ending sweep of the Aces in Brooklyn.

[BirdWatcher]

In the end Brett Taranto did indeed play in the Brewers 162nd regular season game, going 1 for 4 with 2 RBI and held on to his .400 season, finishing at .402.




Over in the SJL, Nick Johnson of the Pittsburgh Roadrunners gets his second batting title in the past three years (he led the league at .383 in 1980).

[BirdWatcher]

In the Shoeless Joe League:




And in your Moonlight Graham League:

[BirdWatcher]

In the first game of the MGL LCS the Denver Brewers recent batting woes continued as did the Oklahoma City Diamond Kings hot streak.




Meanwhile, over the SJL, Washington won a squeaker over San Antonio, and therefore both of the underdogs prevailed in the LCS series openers.



EDIT: Apologies for the spoilers in here- didn't notice that since I was capturing these screenshots after already playing the second games in the LCS those results would be given away here.

[BirdWatcher]

Things went a bit better for the Brewers in Game 2.
Just a wee bit better:





So, Jim Atwell gets his second career no-hitter and also tosses the first postseason no-hitter in WPK history. Not that he really needed to be all that fine, what with the offense giving him 15 runs on 15 hits.


Over in the SJL, San Antonio also drew even, with a big boost on offense from veteran center fielder Zach McClelland who sparked things from the leadoff slot with his 5 for 5, 3 runs scored, 1 RBI game.

[BirdWatcher]

And then the Brewers blow a 2-0 lead to lose in the first game in Oklahoma City as the scene shifts in the series, as does the momentum.
Stupid bullpen.



Over the SJL, Washington also wins their first home game of the series, as San Antonio is now behind also one game to two.

[BirdWatcher]

The Brewers blow another lead, see their possible future Hall of Famer closer implode again, lose again. On the plus side, the only need one more loss to be put out of their collective misery.
(Okay, I'm going to confess something. The post-season, especially when my team is in it, is not one of my favorite parts of the WPK season. Mostly it is just a series of false hopes and frustrations. I always kind of just want to get it over with and skip to the post-season awards. Which I love. So if we are going to lose this series I'd prefer to just go ahead and get it over with in Game 5 so I can move on.)



Better news for the San Antonio Keys over in the SJL as they win to even the series with Washington.

[BirdWatcher]

Well, the Brewers manage to stay alive to take the series back to Denver, though just barely.





And over in the SJL, San Antonio now has the upper hand as they play host the rest of the way.

[BirdWatcher]

Well, if only Jim Atwell could just pitch every inning for the Brewers in the post-season. Atwell follows up his 11-K no-hitter in Game 2 with a pretty strong Game 6, carrying a shutout nearly the entire way, giving up the lone run the Diamond Kings would score with two outs in the 9th, striking out 8, walking none, and giving up just 6 hits. So the Brewers force a Game 7 in Denver.




While over in the SJL the Washington Night Train score a run in the top of the 9th to break a 4-4 tie and hold on to get a road victory in San Antonio to send that series to a 7th game as well.

[BirdWatcher]

In the end it took another great pitching performance, this time by Eric Maisch, who celebrated his 23rd birthday just 5 days ago, for the Brewers to take Game 7 in the MGL LCS and move on to the Kinsella Classic Series.




Unsurprisingly, and absolutely correctly, Jim Atwell was named the MVP of the MGL LCS.





And since the San Antonio Keys also won in Game 7 of the SJL LCS, the teams with the best records in their respective leagues will match up in the KCS.
On a team loaded with superstars who usually dominate the spotlight, it was the outspoken but often overlooked 30-year old center fielder Zach McClelland who was named the series MVP.





If the Brewers thought that LCS against Oklahoma City was taxing, they haven't seen anything yet. Going up against the Keys, with all of their offensive firepower, and with San Antonio having homefield advantage for the series, will be a supreme test.