Down in Arizona, Roy Halladay (16-9, 3.47) outlasted new Thunders starter Gavin Floyd, and Ryan Zimmerman whacked his 19th long ball of the season as the Western champion Firebirds geared up for the playoffs, holding off sibling rival Arizona by a 4-3 score and in the process sending the Thunder (four games back in the Central) to the point of elimination.
Floyd (9-15, 3.69) pitched OK (6 IP, 3 ER), but Halladay proved why he’s an ace among aces, enduring long enough to earn the win with help from the bullpen-by-committee used so effectively by the Firebirds.
With just four games remaining, Arizona GM Ronald Melkonian will need a sweep of the rest of his schedule plus a collapse of the Central-leading Horned Toads to earn a playoff spot, as their loss on Game Day 148 eliminated them from the wild card race.
By the way, Ryan Zimmerman's secret is....muscle!
MADTOWN HANGS TOUGH
Meanwhile, in the crazy world of Madtown, the Murlocs scored seven times in the first two frames against Fausto Carmona (4-8, 5.69), sending the visiting Pottsylvania Creepers to their 75th loss of the year, and (more critically) removing any hope of a playoff berth for last year’s Central champs.
Pottsylvania was unable to hang on in the pennant race because Hideki Kuroda (17-7, 3.48) went all the way, a complete game and a tie of the league lead in victories. Kuroda was given the option of going long (he would need 123 pitches) because of the heroics of reserve IF Alex Gordon (who had three hits in a rare start) and Dan Uggla’s 24th HR of the season. With the win, Madtown (81-68) has three games left on the schedule, hanging by a thread in the wild card chase.
FINCHES ELIMINATED
Darwin---Mark Reynolds’s 40th HR of the year, a team record, was also a grand slam off Scott Kazmir (0-1, 12.00) as part of visiting Los Angeles’s seven-run fourth, a one-sided affair and the last straw for the desperate Finches, who were officially eliminated from any possibility of post-season play with four games left in the regular season.
Every Flyers starter drove in at least one run in the affair as Los Angeles built an 8-0 lead, more than enough run support for Scott Downs (7-4, 3.22), who got the win with two-plus innings of scoreless relief for Tom Gorzelanny, and the Flyers would go on to win 10-5 despite some late fireworks from C Ryan Doumit, who doubled and homered to spark a seventh-inning rally.
Darwin (76-72) is guaranteed at least a .500 finish, but will finish at least eight games out in the West behind Yuma, and at least four games off the wild card chase still in play for Brooklyn, Frostbite Falls, Madtown and Worcester. That there could be two teams from the East moaning about ‘what might’ve been’ is news in and of itself, as the wild card winner usually comes from this super-competitive division.
But, beginning last year with Darwin and this year with the Murlocs, things haven’t been the cakewalk that the West-dominating Yuma Firebirds are used to. While GM Chris Melkonian’s club has clinched yet another divisional title, it took until the final month of play for them to put distance between themselves and two of their divisional rivals.
NEXT TIME: RESOLVING THE EAST?
3 comments:
Wow can we get some updates. This is kind if ridiculous. NFL is over in a month. Im questioning whether we can finish our league before the end of an entire other sport. I realize being commissioner of a league like this is time consuming but that should be incentive to finish it on time so you can have the maxium break in between seasons. I doubt whether we will even have a break.
If we even have another season...
I have to agree with Matt here... These long breaks were going through are becoming common with each season and it makes it to where people lose interest in BARB and stay with it. At times I even forget BARB is still around and have lost interest in even updating my blog. We must re-jumpstart this league and regain the interest it once had!
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