Down to the wire in the Boys of Summer APBA League

The Boys of Summer APBA League is down to the wire with just five games left in the 2015 season.  First of all, congratulations to Stray Corrado and his Chicago Nine and Brad Stark’s Portland Microbrewers who have both already clinched, not to mention totally dominated, their respective divisions. Those two can just sit back and relax till playoff time. 

Boys of Summer League standings with 5 games left

There are still a couple races to watch though.  The South Side Spartans are probably pretty comfortable in their first place spot four games up on the Swatara Eliminators in the AL East.  The Eliminators themselves are a full three games up in the AL Wild Card race. 

But take a look at the NL East… it’s still a race.  My Urbana Locomotives barely survived two six-game series in a row with the first place Traverse City Panthers managed by Shawn Baier.  At home, we lost five of six but once we went to Traverse City, we went 4-2.  As a result, my Locos are only three games back.  To complicate matters, Steve Ruder’s Holland Hitchhikers are just one game back of us. 

Wild standings in the NL East

The Locomotives have one edge.  We’re facing last place King Road for the last five games of the year.  My two rivals, Traverse City and Holland are facing off against each other. 

I’m hypothesizing all kinds of scenarios.  Bottom line though is my magic number is 5 to get the NL Wild Card spot.  With Shawn’s tough Panthers up against the Hitchhikers, that can only help. 

Cole Hamels (MG grade 16) has picked the right time to start pitching well for us.  Going into our home series against the Panthers, he was 8-15.  He then won his next two starts including a shutout.  For my money, Tanner Roark (go Illini!) has been the most reliable pitcher with a 14-7 record and a 2.83 ERA.  However Mike Fiers (8-1, 2.83 ERA) who was somewhat limited, had an eight game winning streak which helped get this team back on track.  We won’t be seeing much of Mike the rest of regular season though.  He has been pretty used up.  His Ruse factor is down to 1%. 

Adrian Beltre doesn’t have the MVP-type numbers he had in Season 1 but he pretty much leads the Locomotives in all meaningful categories including average (.277), HR (28), runs (82), rbis (85), and walks (54).  Tied with Beltre with 54 walks is Nori Aoki and that’s precisely why he batted leadoff for me.  He  is also batting .255 which is second on the team among starters.  

My last series against Charles Evans’ King Road Kings Justin Morgan’s Kingley Brownbeards is on the road so he’ll be playing the games.  My lineups and rotation has been set and my file has been sent away.  Now, all I do is wait to see what happens. 

Good luck to all BoS managers!!