Chico-Reno Rivalry Hears Up

The Sox-Outlaws rivalry continues to be a good one. Chico has established themselves as the best team in the league and took the most recent series at the Net 2-1 over Reno. After taking out Chikazawa in Reno, the Outlaws felt a couple hit batsmen by Dusty Bergman was retaliation and let him know by charging the mound and starting a bench clearing brawl. I think this is a natural rivalry and one that will only continue to build. If Reno can do well in the 2nd half, look out come championship time.

The Sox came home this weekend and swept St. George keeping the Roadrunners winless against Les Lancaster's boys. Of course, beating the Roadrunners doesn't mean the ship has been completely righted. There is still a lot of work to be done. It also looks like most fans skipped the series due to the heat (triple digits) and all the smoke in the valley from the various fires going on. I, too, skipped them do do other stuff but I probably needed that weekend to clean up around the house and get ready for vacation next week. So hopefully the Armada series will see more than the 1000 fans they averaged over the last three nights.

First, the bad news. The errors continue to mount and Reno now has a league leading 71 through 30 games. The first half ends in a little over a week so hopefully there is some re-tooling to be done. Here are two guys I see as close to getting cut:

-- Mike Peck. 0-0 with a 12.71 ERA over 8 games. He has 3 strike outs to 10 walks and a WHIP of 3.16. Recall that Peck was already released once this year by a GBL team. If you take his total stats, he is 0-2 with a 15.38 ERA in 9.2 innings with 18 walks and 10 strikeouts.

-- Joe Melton. Do we really need 3 catchers? He has only had 7 at bats since being acquired on June 29. And he has only hit .143 in those at bats.

There is another player who won't get cut because he is also a coach but he needs to step up his game:

-- Mike Done needs to step it up defensively. He now leads the team in errors and is just average on the offensive side with a .223 average with 1 HR and 9 RBIs in 103 at bats. He is also second on the team in strike outs with 29, well on pace to break the century mark. Not good.

As for good news, it comes with two groups...the veterans and the newcomers of the 2007 season. First the veterans:

-- Victor Hall is by far my vote for first half MVP. He is hitting .278 with 4 HRs, 18 RBIs, and a league leading 18 stolen bases. He is also the only player to start and play in every game this season.

-- Jose Rodriguez has a .315 batting average along with 6 dingers and 21 RBIs. And he wasn't even a starter at the beginning of the year. Awesome.

-- Carlos Madrid is a guy who has made it in this league on heart and determination. This undrafted player checks in with a .351 average,3 HRs, and 18 RBIs. Glad to see him do well for the second year in a row!

-- Dusty Bergman. How does a guy with a 3.25 ERA and a 3:2 strikeout to walk ratio end up with only 1 win? 13 of the 29 runs he gave up were unearned. Talk about no defensive support. But, he is our workhorse racking up a team-leading 44 innings (10 more than another positive suprise in Matt Parris) and 30 strikeouts.

And the newcommers:

-- Kane Simmons. Last year he was a college student. Now he is player of the week and the hottest Silver Sox player with a team high .357 AVG, with 5 HRs and 13 RBIs. And, did I mention that he has done that in just 42 at bats?

-- Juan Senreiso. His offensive numbers remind me of Alfonso Soriano. Hits for Average (.313) with a mix of power (4 HR, .625 SLG) and speed (5 steals). Solid outfielder as well.

-- Shawn Balteff. He just joined the team but across 5-1/3 innings he has allowed just one hit and one run in three appearances. His 1.69 ERA is only bested by the .059 average he allows opposing hitting. Hopefully he can keep it up because we need it! I don't think any Sox reliever has had three consecutive solid performances (Josh Evans and Adam Nikolic are close) so it is nice to see

That's all for now. Long Beach comes to town for a 2-game stint with the famous chicken coming in tomorrow. I have a dinner engagement tonight so I won't be at Peccole but you know you'll find me there tomorrow.

See you at the yard.