BoS Week 1 (National League)

"Now That's Playing with Power"

Gattis was off the grid with his power display.

The second season of the Boys of Summer APBA Baseball League is underway. The first week of the National League had plenty of storylines, so let's dive into that shall we.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

The Portland Microbrewers (the defending National League Champions) started their season at the Cherry capital of the world -- Traverse City to play the much-improved Panthers (or at least they appear so on paper). Despite losing the first game with a walk-off homer, and the second game on another close one -- Portland blazed back with a 3-2 series victory. Their entire pitching staff ended the series with a 2.62 ERA, while no player had a ERA higher than Cliff Lee (3.86). Hisashi Iwakuma has been working with the pitching coach & appears to be off to a good start this season with a 1-0 record, sporting a 2.76 ERA, with 12 K's in 16.1 innings -- holding the Panthers to a .203 batting average. The team's batting was starting to come around later in the series, as the team batted .249 against the Panthers; Juan Uribe's 2 HR's & 4 RBI in only 8 at-bats was the clear standout in the series.

The Traverse City Panthers had a good start to their six-game series against Portland, with two good wins -- the opener had a walk-off home run by Alejandro De Aza. The third game, Ryan Raburn started for Giancarlo Stanton & racked up three hits (plus his 1st HR & 2 RBI); Stanton would struggle all series with Hunter Pence -- the Panthers must find a way to get those bats going. Raburn played mostly off the bench this series, which he will be used at most of the season (a big weapon off the bench with that .901 MLB OPS). Yu Darvish & Julio Teheran both didn't get past the 2nd Inning in starts for T.C. as they got rocked (Darvish did have good Opening Day), while Corey Kluber's start suffered a called game due to rain, with a 6-0 lead in the 4th. Matt Harvey shined in his 8-inning, three-hit performance that allowed only one run, while collecting 8 K's. The bullpen by the end of the series, started racking up innings. Team is not concerned about its 4.66 team ERA.

A whole lot of whacking home runs a going on! The Holland Hitchhikers were one of a few teams this week that put on such a power display, that it's surprising they didn't knock out a few power grids. Evan Gattis made a rookie statement with 4 HR's in the opening series against Seattle, while batting .346 (9-for-26) with 9 RBI. Martin Prado was a on-base, slugging machine (1.356 OPS), hitting .440 (11-for-25) with a HR & 4 RBI, smacking 3 doubles, 2 triples, while drawing 5 walks. With those two guys' performances, you almost forget that they have Bryce Harper, who hit .273, 3 HR & 8 RBI. The pitching has yet to show it's true colors, and its 4.58 ERA doesn't do it justice; Jose Fernandez shined with his league-leading 21 K's & 2-0 record (3.94 ERA). Oh by the way, the Hitchhikers are batting .323 in it's opening week.

The Seattle Rainiers can be encouraged for better success in the future with their lineup, after their opening series against Holland, considering that players like Jose Altuve, Yoenis Cespedes (batted only .214, despite 2 HR & 8 RBI) & Jonathan Lucroy were overall, relatively absent. Matt Carp was their best overall hitter, batting .467, with 2 HR & 6 RBI. Their pitching had the roughest opening series in the entire BoS with a 6.67 ERA performance; Justin Masterson's 13 K, 3.38 ERA, 8-inning performance was the team's best by a starting pitcher, while Adam Ottavino was the bright spot for the bullpen with 8 K's, 4 hits allowed & 1.13 ERA in 8 innings. Too early to say where this team sits, as much as the rest of the league, but one thing is for sure, Rainiers really don't want to repeat this formula.

The San Diego Heroes opened the season with the most HR's in the season, not surprising since they were only second in the league (as the Sacramento 66'ers) last season with 226 HR (trailing only the Urbana Locomotives); Last season they had the only 50 HR club member in the entire league with Edwin Encarnacion (50, to be exact). San Diego had 10 different players homer against Urbana, two players had 2 HR each (Andrew McCutchen & Chris Davis). McCutchen batted .400 (10-for-25) with 3 RBI to go along with the homers, while he was one of four players with over a 1.100 OPS (the team had 7 players over .900 OPS). The team's concern going into their season was certainly not their offense, but their entire pitching staff, yet you would have not guessed it with a team ERA of 2.67, and shutouts by Andrew Cashner (7 K, two-hitter) and Tyson Ross (12 K, four-hitter); Gerrit Cole also had a great performance, allowing only 4 hits & a earned run (1.29) in his 7 K victory. Kenley Jansen is tied in the league with 3 saves.

The defending N.L. East champs Urbana Locomotives have the unfortunate luxury to be the only team in the BoS to start the season on the road for it's first two series; One at San Diego, the next series in Traverse City -- a double-dosage of the Baier brothers. Urbana won the first game 7-3, with 6 runs in first four innings -- but lost second baseman Aaron Hill to injury for 10 days. They would get shutout in two of the games (Games 2 & 5), while collecting 16 hits in another loss. Adrian Beltre's bat woke up in Game 4, as he went 4-for-5 with 2 RBI -- yet once again they lost. D.J. LeMahieu has done well filling in for the injured Hill, batting .316 (6-for-19). Jonny Gomes, despite batting .200, does have 3 solo HR's. The Locomotives knew entering the season, that the team was going to take a few steps back possibly, but it's much too early to panic in Urbana -- the lineup will certainly improve their .213 batting average. 

The King Road Kings' lineup had a rough series against Hannibal, batting .206 while managing only 42 hits & 18 runs; The silver lining? They played much better in their last three games of the series, in which 29 of their 42 hits came from. 15 of their hits came from Michael Cuddyer (.348, 1, 4) and Billy Butler (.318, 3 RBI). Newly acquired free agent, Justin Smoak (former Rainier) hit 2 HR's & 8 RBI. The team's strength, their pitching, is led by possibly the best two lefties in all of Major League Baseball (and BoS) in Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale. Kershaw went 1-1, 0.53 ERA, and 16 K's in 17 innings, while Sale ended up with no decision, 2.84 ERA in 6.1 innings. The Kings host division rival Seattle next, another team that batted poorly, but the Kings have a far better team ERA of 2.95 compared to Seattle's 6.67.

The Hannibal Cavemen finish the week one game behind Holland in the N.L. East Division race with a 4-2 record; Just like Holland, the team is much improved all-around. The team sported a 2.48 ERA (tops in N.L.), while only one of their starting pitchers (Jhoulys Chacin) had a bad week; Jon Lester (1-0, 1.00 ERA), Travis Wood (ND, 1.13 ERA, 7 K's), Gio Gonzalez (1-1, 2.20 ERA & 11 K's) & Homer Bailey (ND, 2.45 ERA & 6 K's) all looked pretty sharp. The bullpen (1.80 ERA) only allowed 3 hits in 10 innings, despite a little wild (7 walks). The pitching staff also boasts the lowest opponent batting average (.204). The power bats belonged to Dominic Brown (2 HR & 5 RBI) & Manny Machado (2 HR & 6 RBI). James Loney leads the team with a .353 batting average, followed by Troy Tulowitzki (.294) and Pablo Sandoval (.292) -- yet the team only batted a low .227 (which still ranked higher than three teams in the N.L.). The team has no problem keeping opponents off the scoreboard, but must improve their 3.2 runs per game. 

That concludes this week's highlights.