The Cowtippers wrapped up Chapter Two with a
THE GOOD:
We managed to split a series against the legendary Los Altos Undertakers -- on the road. We walloped them by a score of 12-3 in the first game, and then barely eked out a series tie in the final game. Since this is the "good" section, I won't mention how we lost the other two games.
Our offense performed extraordinarily well in Chapter Two. We hit .290/.350/.444 as a team, and scored 154 runs (ranking third in the OL as of this writing.) After a rough start, Elvis Andrus really came into his own in Chapter Two, hitting .343/.405/.507. Carlos Ruiz (.471/.571/.882), Jayson Werth (.438/.526/.813), Jose Ramirez (.362/.402/.491), Odubel Herrera (.333/.398/.369), Trea Turner (.316/.328/.491), and our Chapter Two MVP Miguel Cabrera (.322/.410/.552) all did a tremendous job for us.
On the pitching side, newly-acquired Liam Hendriks (1.04 ERA in 8+ IP) provided some much-needed bullpen depth. Stephen Strasburg (2-0, 1.44 ERA in 31+) had a terrific chapter. Matt Shoemaker (3-1, 3.00) and Stephen Matz (2-0, 3.32) weren't bad, either.
THE BAD:
Our pitching staff was just atrocious in Chapter Two. We posted a 4.21 team ERA, and walked 109 batters in 246 innings. As I mentioned last chapter, the walks are killing this team, and there isn't any explanation as to why it is happening.
Jon Gray (3-2, 4.68 ERA in Chapter Two) should be a MUCH better pitcher than what we've seen so far. His BDBL ERA is now higher than it was in Colorado last year. That is just plain ridiculous. He allowed 18 walks and four home runs in 32+ innings last chapter. That's just stupid.
Junior Guerra (1-1, 4.88 ERA) was equally disappointing last chapter. We traded a budding young perennial all-star to acquire what we thought would be half a season of borderline Cy Young-caliber pitching. Instead, Guerra is just 2-3 on the season, with a 4.46 ERA -- nearly two runs higher than his MLB ERA.
Although we technically traded Amed Rosario for Jose Altuve, we wouldn't have made that trade if we hadn't been able to trade Neil Walker for Mike Montgomery. Monty was supposed to be a valuable long reliever for us this year, and possibly a member of our starting rotation in 2018. Instead, he won't be starting for us next year, and he's been less than useful (4.14 ERA in 37 IP) for us this season. He was solely responsible for at least two of our losses last chapter.
When we acquired Kyle Seager in a winter deal last winter, we really thought that we had strengthened our lineup against right-handed pitching. Instead, Seager hit just .245/.336/.383 with one home run in Chapter Two, and is hitting a modest .268/.354/.475 on the season.
THE UGLY:
We went 4-4 against the Granite State Lightning and Myrtle Beach Hitmen last chapter. Those two teams currently own winning percentages of .231 and .313, respectively. Both are projected to lose 100 games this season. Yet, the best we could do against both teams was split.
We lost a game to Granite State because our offense couldn't get anything going against the bullpen committee of Matt Cain, Jeanmar Gomez, Blake Wood, and the legendary Vance Worley. We lost another when the Luis Perdomo out-pitched Jon Gray. In that game, Jay Bruce hit a three-run homer off of Gray that eventually decided the game. Had Gray not hit the pitcher, Perdomo, with a pitch two batters earlier, that wouldn't have happened. It's the little things that get you.
In the entire BDBL, only three teams have averaged fewer runs per game than Myrtle Beach. They are hitting just .238/.295/.365 as a team. And yet somehow, some way, our Salem Cowtippers pitching staff could not contain the offensive juggernaut that is the Hitmen. We managed to allow eight runs to the Hitmen in the second game of our series, and then topped that by allowing NINE runs in the third game. We very nearly lost that series if not for a come-from-behind victory in the final game. Myrtle Beach has scored eight or more runs in only six games this season -- one-third of which were against our pitching staff.
When we acquired Clay Buchholz, it was for the sole purpose of filling innings. Every calculation we performed suggested that Buchholz would pitch much better in our ballpark than his MLB numbers implied, so we rolled the dice. As a reward for our faith in him, Buchholz managed to not only injured himself in MLB, making him useless for next year, but he also went 1-2 wth a 7.13 ERA in his three starts as a Cowtipper. Thanks, Clay.
Offensively, no one in the BDBL sucked more than Travis d'Arnaud (.175/.214/.200) in Chapter Two. And Jorge Soler (.179/.273/.359) has been so useless against left-handers that we are now looking to fill that glaring hole in our lineup.
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Well...given the number of "uglies" above, I guess I failed in my mission not to be too negative. But once this team gives me a reason for optimism, I'll take advantage of it!
