Y-Didn’t they score a run?
This week I’ve been posting on our Twitter account in lieu of the blog, and I can’t believe that the CCBL Championship could be decided this afternoon.
Let’s recap what happened yesterday:
Matt Andriese (Cal Riverside) pitched exactly the game Cotuit needed. He threw a 120-pitch complete game in front of an estimated crowd of 2234. It was a perfect game through 3 & 2/3rds and a no hitter through 4 & 2/3rds. 85 of his pitches were strikes. If Andriese does not win MVP for the playoffs, something incredible will happen today or tomorrow. I absolutely love this picture from the CCBL press release of Andriese that shows the scoreboard behind him (photo credit: swilson).- Sure, Andriese pitched great… but he also initiated a 1-6-3 double play in the 9th that was critical after Y-D’s Joe Panik (St. John’s) had a leadoff single.
- Y-D scored 49 runs and had 62 hits in their previous four playoff games. The wind was blowing in, but Andriese is the main reason Y-D only managed 3 hits.
- I stood behind the Cotuit dugout for much of the game. I love their “keep having fun” attitude. It’s hard to catch Deven Marrero (Arizona State) without a smile. He is having a great postseason, batting .471 with 4 RBIs. Teammate Jordan Leyland (UC-Irvine) is also “having fun” and leads the Kettleers in postseason average (.500), hits (9) and RBIs (5).
- Y-D’s Tyler Hanover (LSU) had a 10-pitch at bat vs. Andriese in the 1st inning. Kids were enjoying all of the foul balls on the 1st base side beyond the picnic area. It looked like the Red Sox knew if they could get through Andriese, they would probably win. The Kettleers bullpen is very, very thin, since a lot of players went home after they defeated the Gatemen.
- Speaking of, there has been a lot of chatter about players leaving early before or during the playoffs this year, but let’s just focus on what matters right now: the Y-D Red Sox taking on the Cotuit Kettleers at beautiful Lowell Park this afternoon. After all, this could be the last game of the year. We have a whole off-season to discuss other things.
- See ya at Lowell Park.
Marcus Stroman must be wondering what he needs to do to win the Russ Ford Award. He outperformed Tony Zych in almost every statistical category: ERA (0.00 vs. 0.89), IP (25.0 vs. 20.1), BB (3 vs. 4), K’s (32 vs. 29), OOBP (.169 vs. .263), OSLG (.143 vs. .289), and OAVG (.120 vs. .227). The only category that went to Zych was Saves (12 vs. 10), but that’s a team-dependent stat. I’d contend that Zych wasn’t even the most effective reliever on his team; R.J. Alvarez was.
I was thinking maybe the powers that wanted to spread the awards around, and they’d already given another award to an Orleans player when Kolten Wong won the MVP Award, but that explanation doesn’t make sense because they gave the Robert A. McNeese Award for Outstanding Pro Prospect to another Bourne player — TONY ZYCH!!!
It seems like the scouts already impact who makes the All-Star teams. Could this be another example of the influence of scouts?
(Sorry to post this under the Playoffs but I didn’t know where else to post it.)
This is an excellent point about Stroman. He is flat out impressive and in my opinion, carried Orleans into the Eastern Conference Finals.
I think the All-Star game had a tremendous impact on selecting Zych. He was very impressive and on the winning team – receiving lots of attention for his performance – rightfully so.
I don’t think the scouts have any impact on the awards. All-Star game…yes….but the awards are chosen by the league.
I don’t have a problem with Zych winning either award by I think I’d have voted for Stroman too.
I think you could have made an arguement on all of the awards in a year that I think resulted in deeper talent than I thought earlier. Wong was deserving of the the MVP but you could easily make an arguement for Jordan Ribera, Drew Martinez, Zach Wilson and maybe Andrew Susac.
Pitcher could have gone to Wood, Tropeano, Verrett, Gagnon or Perlman
I was at the game when they gave the award to Zych. I remember the presenter saying something about using the same formula as the Rolaids Relief Man Award. I looked at that website and here is the formula:
Save=3 pts
Win=2 pts
Loss=-2 pts
Blown Save=-2 pts
Tough Save=4 pts (when tying runner on base when reliever enters game)
http://www.rolaidsreliefman.com/theaward.aspx
If that is the case, the award is objective and the league had to give Zych the two awards.
Cape League Tourist