SHL American Atlantic: Weekly Overview

Checking in with the American Atlantic division.

Phi-KC-Oak Athletics-Mickey ‘Black Mike” Cochrane continues to be the offensive force carrying the Athletics so far this season.  Cochrane has a .380 batting average, a .477 on base percentage and is slugging at a .620 clip.  He leads the team in hits (35), total bases (57),  home runs (4), RBIs (20), and intentional walks (2) while also making appearances in the the same categories in the league leaders department.  On the pitching side of things, Chief Bender leads the A’s staff with a 1.76 ERA, good enough for 4th in the league.  Rube Waddell leads the staff in wins with 6, which is also tied with 3 others for the league lead in that category.  The Athletics hold a 3-game lead in a division where all teams are playing better than .500 baseball  and is considered one of the top teams in all of baseball.  They’ve remained healthy through out the season with only Billy North showing up on the injury report with what is considered to be a cold.  North remains listed as day-to-day.  The A’s will have to rely on their strong pitching staff to keep them in first.

Bal-NY Yankees-  Despite having names like Gehrig, Jeter, Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio, and Rodriguez coming to bat for this team every game, the Yankees rank a disappointing 2nd in their division, a full three games back of the Athletics. Hitting isn’t the problem for the Yankees as they rank 3rd in the SHL in runs scored and are among the tops of nearly every offensive category.  Pitching has been this team’s Achilles heal, ranking 15th in ERA (4.55), 22nd in bullpen ERA (5.54), and 15th in runs allowed (146).  It says a lot about a team’s pitching when its closer leads the staff in wins.  Yankees pitchers have issued a whopping 117 free passes ranking them 26th in the SHL. If this team wants to take over the division lead, it’s going to have to do it through improving its arms.

Bos Red Sox-Coming off an impressive 5-0 shut out against the strong hitting Yankees in which pitcher Pedro Martinez improved his record to 4-0,  Martinez gave up just 4 hits, 1BB and 10K’s in his outing while lowering his ERA to 3.45.  It was Martinez’s second complete game of the year and his first shutout.  Boston currently stands tied for third place in a 4 team division.  With what looks to be an above average offense, a middle of the road starting rotation and an awful bullpen, improvements will need to be made if they hope to compete with the A’s and Yankees.  One area that stands out to be a major concern for Boston is it’s bullpen.  Boston’s bullpen ERA is a whopping 6.38, ranking 28th in the league.  Jonathan Papelbon, Bob Stanley, Mel Parnell, and Dick Radatz can only improve at this point and with it the team should too.

Was-Min Twins-  The Twins have been hanging around with the Red Sox at the bottom of the American Atlantic division but have been hot as of late, going 7-3 in their last 10 games.  The American Atlantic’s slow starters have made up ground on the division over the last few days and managed to gain some ground in the standings.  At first glance, the pitching staff looks average at best, but if you take a closer look you can see that many of the arms have been under performing.  Bert Blyleven has just 1 win and 5 losses with an ERA of 5.95 while Walter Johnson has 3 losses already despite a 3.88 ERA.  Luck hasn’t been on the Twins’ side but we can expect a regression  back to the mean as the season goes on.  On a lighter note, after 28 games Tony Oliva is still batting over .400 and ranks 3rd in the league in batting average.  Oliva has had a good start to the week, putting up 5 hits and 4 RBI’s in 11 AB’s.  If the Twins can keep their momentum going, they should continue to climb the ladder in the American Atlantic.