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CHAPTER THREE NEWSLETTER
May, 2009

To: Salem Cowtippers fans
From: Salem GM Mike Glander
Regarding: Chapter Three Newsletter

Dear Salem fans,

Another 28 games in the record books, and we are still waiting for the performance of this team to represent some semblance of our pre-season expectations.  After a 14-14 chapter, we now sit two games under .500, and seven games behind in the division.

With each and every upcoming series, I believe the numbers will finally begin to make sense, and that the long-awaited regression to the mean will finally take place.  Yet series after series, I am disappointed to discover that this team has discovered yet another creative new way to lose ballgames.

To wit:

• On March 16th, we had a five-run lead in the seventh inning.  We handed the ball to Justin Hampson (2.93 ERA in MLB), and -- with two outs in the inning -- he allowed six runs to cross the plate, despite facing such mediocrities as Garrett Atkins, Jason Hammel, Jason Bartlett, Doug Mientkiewicz and Aaron Miles.  We lost by one run.
• In the second game of that series, Brandon League (.200/.297/.231 vs. RH batters in MLB) allowed a pair of singles to two mediocre right-handed hitters (Atkins and Ryan Shealy), blowing the lead and handing yet another one-run win to the Sylmar Padawans.
• On March 17th, we lost a game to Ravenswood in which Josh Beckett (pitching in relief) gave up a walk-off home run to Maicer Izturis -- the same Maicer Izturis who hit all of 3 homers in 290 AB's in MLB.
• On April 6th, we held a one-run lead over the Irish Rebels heading into the eighth inning.  But Aaron Cunningham (1 HR in 80 MLB AB's) hit a two-run homer off of Manny Delcarmen, giving the Rebels a one-run win.
• On April 10th, the feeble-hitting New Hope Badgers clubbed three home runs off of Beckett, giving us another one-run loss.
• On April 11th, we were on the verge of winning a series against the New Milford Blazers when Beckett suffered a random injury in the very first inning.  Since we had used our long reliever in the previous two games, this left us with a patchwork bullpen of short relievers.  League gave up a few more RBI hits to medicore right-handed batters, and our "LOOGY" Scott Eyre gave up yet a few more hits to mediocre lefties, resulting in a 10-5 loss.
• Finally, on April 26th, we lost three one-run games to the last-place Bear Country Bunters.  One of those games was lost on a walk-off infield bunt with two outs and the corners playing in.

So that's at least seven easy wins we could have had.  But instead of being tied for the division lead right now, we're seven games in the hole.  Despite fielding our best team, and using our best players in the best possible situations, we went 2-6 in one-run games this past chapter.  It happens.  It's baseball.  And there is still a lot of baseball remaining on the schedule.  But we cannot afford another chapter like this one.

In Chapter One, our offense inexplicably suffered through a team-wide slump.  We hit just .238/.308/.405 as a team, and scored just 119 runs -- ranked 11 out of 12 OL teams.  We turned that around in a big way in Chapter Two, as we led the league in runs scored (174) and hit .299/.365/.469 as a team.  Jody Gerut (.366/.381/.602), Derek Jeter (.344/.413/.475), Matt Kemp (.333/.371/.526), Melvin Mora (.327/.363/.577), Josh Willingham (.293/.408/.569) and Mark Teixeira (.278/.393/.431) all had big chapters.  And even Ian Kinsler's bat (.276/.341/.431) has begun to come around after a disastrous first chapter.

That's the good news.  The bad news is that our pitching staff continued their inexplicable, season-long slump in the second chapter, posting a 4.93 team ERA and allowing 157 runs (the third-highest total in the Ozzie League.)  Justin Duchscherer (2-1, 1.62 ERA in 33+ IP), Manny Delcarmen (1.93 ERA in 18+ IP) and Grant Balfour (2.16 ERA in 16+ IP) were the lone bright spots.  The rest of our pitching staff was, quite simply, atrocious:

• Justin Hampson: 6 IP, 11 H, 0 BB, 0 K, 13.50 ERA
• Aaron Harang: 12.1 IP, 24 H, 8 BB, 5 K, 12.41 ERA
• Edwar Ramirez: 11.1 IP, 18 H, 7 BB, 9 K, 7.94 ERA
• Josh Beckett: 27.1 IP, 27 H, 4 BB, 35 K, 5.93 ERA
• Scott Eyre: 8 IP, 12 H, 1 BB, 10 K, 5.63 ERA
• Boof Bonser: 27.2 IP, 28 H, 13 BB, 22 K, 5.20 ERA
• Felix Hernandez: 44 IP, 48 H, 17 BB, 46 K, 5.11 ERA
• Brett Myers: 44 IP, 48 H, 17 BB, 46 K, 4.78 ERA

Note, however, that the peripherals for Beckett, Hernandez and Myers weren't bad at all.  For the most part, they were just incredibly unlucky, giving up key hits at the worst possible situations.  This problem should correct itself with time.

Rather than just sit back and wait for the numbers to correct themselves, however, I took some action this past chapter by acquiring Scott Rolen to replace Mora at third base.  While we'll certainly miss Mora's bat in our lineup, we're hoping that Rolen's Ex glove has a profound affect on our pitching staff.  Specifically, we hope to see a big improvement in Felix Hernandez's numbers, as he tends to give up a lot of bleeding singles.

Another major acquisition this past chapter was Ryan Dempster, who will take Duchscherer's spot in our rotation.  The most important reason for his acquisition is that he fills innings that would have gone to Harang.  And the more we can keep Harang off the mound, the better.

Along with Dempster, we also acquired reliever Billy Wagner.  Throughout the first two chapters, we were forced to overuse Delcarmen and Balfour, as they were our only reliable relievers (and even they weren't always reliable.)  Wagner gives us a third option, and will hopefully take some of the weight off of Delcarmen's and Balfour's shoulders.

To the best of my knowledge, only one team in BDBL history (the 1999 Massillon Tigerstrikes) has ever come back from a seven-game deficit to win a division title.  We hope to become the second team to do so.  Despite the recent acquisition of Roy Halladay by the New Milford Blazers, we believe our biggest competition right now is ourselves.  Either we "right the ship" -- and quickly -- or this season is over.  Assuming it will take 95 wins to win this division, we'll need to go 68-36 over the final four chapters of play.  That's a .654 winning percentage, which means we'll need to play as well as the Southern Cal Slyme the rest of the way.  Not impossible, but certainly a challenge.

Warmest regards,

Mike Glander
General Manager
Salem Cowtippers