Pastime Baseball League – Baseball Bi-Weekly
Vol. 7, Monday, June 29, 2009 (cont.)
The Chase Is On
Despite margin, Memphis/New Orleans is race to watch
As we hit summer, the inaugural season of the Pastime Baseball League sees three divisional races within six games. Yet, it's the 11-game margin in the Southern League's Eastern Division that is shaping up as the one watch.
The Memphis Strummers are the best team in baseball right now, playing percentage points shy of .700 baseball. But all eyes are on the resurgent New Orleans Knights, who have gone 23-7 since Walter Alston took over.
The odds are, of course, slim that the Knights can make up such a deficit, as even if the Strummers were to play merely .500 ball the rest of the way, the Knights would need to play .620 baseball just to catch them. Consider how unlikely it is that the Strummers are going to fall off the cliff the rest of the way, and the Knights' task seems insurmountable. For example, in the past two weeks the Knights have gone 9-2. How much ground did they gain? Zero, as the Strummers matched them win for win.
"They're a great, balanced team," Alston said last week. "We're not fooling ourselves into thinking it will be easy. But we also have too much faith in ourselves to think it's impossible."
The Knights are armed - pun fully intended - with the league's top two pitchers in ERA: Jack Chesbro (2.06) and Doc McJames (2.07). New Orleans got a scare when McJames left a start on June 21, but the diagnosis is minor tendonitis, and McJames says he'll only miss a couple of starts.
The teams lock up in Memphis for a 3-game set in Memphis mid-month, before a series the last day of July into August in New Orleans. In all, they play 14 more times this season.
Memphis, however, is riding the best offense in baseball and an underrated pitching staff. Right now, young Oscar Charleston seems to be making his case as best all-around player in the Southern League, playing a sparkling centerfield while raising his season stats to .339-9-56 on the heels of a June that has seen him hit .409 with 6 homers and a whopping 30 RBI.
"What they [New Orleans] have done is impressive," Strummers manager Harry Wright says. "But we're the best team in baseball. And they are the ones who have to catch us."
Not likely...but not imposible.