League Talk: Thunderchickens playing the waiting game

The 2013 Illowa APBA League season isn’t quite over yet but my Twin City Thunderchickens finished a month early.  The week before Christmas, we played our last series of the year against cross-town rivals, Rising Bamm Beanos. 

It was a little bittersweet since my good friend John Brandeberry will be moving to Montana soon and it’s likely that it was the last time that we would be playing an IAL series in his Champaign house.  Never fear, Brando isn’t leaving the league.  He’ll still be managing under a new name, the Missoula Rattlesnakes. 

The series was made a little less bittersweet by virtue of my 8-1 series win over Brando.  That gave my Thunderchickens an 83-79 record for the 2013 season.  According to league rules, the top four teams go to the postseason. 

Current standings, not including my 8-1 series for January…

Essentially, the Three Rivers Gamblers need to go 6-3 against the Chicago Highlanders in January to tie with my Thunderchickens for the last playoff spot.  If memory serves, a one game playoff breaks a tie if that happens.  Go Highlanders!!!

In 2013, we really came on towards the end.  Before the All-Star Weekend, were 44-52.  After that, we went 39-27.  A more telling stat, we were 18-30 after the first three months.  It took some good pitching and timely hitting to dig us out of that hole.  We ended up with a 3.99 team ERA in the strong ten-team IAL. 

We definitely had some key series during the year.  In addition the 8-1 shellacking of the Beanos mentioned above, we experienced two series sweeps in 2013.  That’s something I’m not sure we’ve done before.  We swept the Gamblers 6-0 in June and did the same to the Highlanders in September.  Had we simply gone .500 for those three series instead of 20-1, we be in a different state, that’s for sure. 

So now we just sit and wait.  While we wait, here are some of our team leaders for the 2013 season:

Hitting Leaders

Note: Albert Pujols led among starters with a .290 batting average. 

Pitching Leaders

Thunderchicken Co-Players of the Year:  Ryan Zimmerman and Jose Reyes

Thirdbaseman Ryan Zimmerman really came on at the end to embellish his numbers.  He led the team in homers, doubles and tied Albert Pujols in rbis.  He batted all over the place for me sometimes batting second, fifth and occasionally sixth. 

Newly acquired Jose Reyes was another key asset despite his .251/.385/.319 numbers.  He led our team in games, at-bats, runs scored, triples and stolen bases.  He was the only player to surpass 100 runs with 105.  After Pujols, he had the second most hits with 161.  APBA fans would be interested to know that he hit 8 homeruns in 642 at-bats with his 3-5-6 power combination. 

Thunderchicken Pitcher of the Year: Scott Diamond

There’s really no question who gets this award.  Rookie Scott Diamond (pictured above) led the way with a 12-4 record and a 2.97 ERA, both team bests.  He also led the squad with two shutouts. 

There wasn’t much doubt as Scott won his first five decisions which really made that lean period at the start of the season that much more bearable. 

Okay now, Go Highlanders!!!   ;-)

[photo credit]