[mikev]

Down The Stretch They Come...

As September begins, the Crusaders have chiseled down the LA Quakes lead to 4 games in the MBBA Pacific, and have also moved into second place in the MBBA Wild Card race, one game behind Green Bay.

The team had to play without the services of superstar first baseman Jakob Forest, who fractured his foot in a game against Chicago, causing him to miss the last week and a half of August. The 26 year old slugger leads the MBBA in, well, pretty much everything. It's probably a little early, but barring some sort of collosal collapse in the last month of the season it's likely that Forest has the MBBA Batter of the Year award all but locked up.

Thankfully, Enrique De Jesus stepped up in Forest's abscence, and was awarded Rookie Of The Month honors for August. It's his third R.O.M. award, previously winning it back-to-back for the months of May and June.

In pitching news, the Crusaders rotation has some pretty remarkable numbers: Four ten game winners, and McHaney with 8, and he should return in time to make a push for double digits as well. Pretty neat, and the team's ERA has dipped below 4.00 for the first time in quite awhile.

The team faces a fairly serious dilemma in regards to lefty Hsin-ta Jin. Since being aquired for Yat-sen Xing at the trade deadline, the pending Free Agent has been nothing short of dominant in the bullpen. In his 9 games as a Crusader, he's tossed 13.1 innings, struck out 12 batters, only walked 3, and has only given up 3 earned runs. His tidy 0.90 WHIP and 2.03 ERA look awfully nice, especially when paired with the other two aquired arms, Jesus Diaz and Turk Lopez. The problem is that California is already well over budget for 2007, but fan interest is rocketing and a possible playoff run would bring in some much needed revenue. Retaining Jin would give the team quite a monster of a bullpen for the next several seasons, and GM Mike Voelker is well aware of that.

"Look, I know I've got a number that I have to work with financially, but sometimes the checkbook needs to open a little bit. There is only so long that we can keep these guys around without paying them. I've done what I could to get guys that weren't making a ton of money, but we've got to supplement that with a couple veterans, and that's going to cost money."

Looking onward, the Crusaders are getting locked in and making a serious playoff push. Securing a berth in the postseason would be huge, both for fan support and willingness of ownership to loosen the purse strings a little bit.

The Next Crusade

9/2 - v. Baltimore
9/3 - v. Baltimore
9/4 - v. Baltimore

9/5 - v. Birmingham
9/6 - v. Birmingham
9/7 - v. Birmingham

9/8 - @ Los Angeles
9/9 - @ Los Angeles
9/10 - @ Los Angeles