Sim #11 Completed

It's nearly the end of May and the league races continue to evolve.

In the Platonic League, the Ministry of Silly Walks now has a two game lead over the Poedamnedmonium in a battle of my two least favorite team names to type. The Black Bears are a game behind Maryland. Stockholm is still in the race, just 5.5 out of first and 3.5 out of the wild card. More importantly though, Pittsburgh has crawled out of the cellar. Magic Mona advises that while things look astrologically better for the time being, the Pisces shouldn't get their hopes of of a late season title run.

The Socratic League is absurdly tight, with only 2.5 games separating first and fifth. Brooklyn has the lead for a time being with both Winninpeg and Helena only a half-game back. Marietta is two behind the leader and Jersey City 2.5 back. Sounds like there may be a lot of teams who could use some shoring up. Remember:

"To strengthen the bench and the back end of the rotation, where division titles can be won or lost, come to Pittsburgh where everyone can and must go!"

Ahem. Anyway. On to the miscellaneous news and notes.

Two very, very remarkable games on May 23. In the first one Sylva shut out Brooklyn for 13 innings. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough as Brooklyn scored in the 14th to grab a 1-0 victory. Great pitching guys! The hitters though reported for extra batting practice early the next morning.

In the other remarkable game, Maryland and Marietta were tied 3-3 at the end of the fourth. That's where it stayed until Maryland pushed across the winning run in the bottom of the 18th inning. The Maryland bullpen threw 14 shutout innings, which is really impressive even if it's against Marietta. (Just kidding, Nate.) Long reliever Robert Newland threw 6.1 innings for the win to lower his ERA for the year to 0.51. With his 3-0 record and throwing 7 shutout innings in his only start, that must be one heck of a rotation if Newland can't break into it.

On the same day, Platonic League also-ran Pittsburgh wiped out Socratic League's second-place Helena 12-2, establishing the dominance of Plato's wisdom once and for all.

On May 24, Stockholm scored runs in the bottom of the eighth and ninth to come back and nip New York 2-1.

On May 25, Pittsburgh scored two in the ninth to beat Helena 8-6.

On May 26, Helena came back and beat Maryland in a 1-0 thriller.

On May 27, Marietta took my comments about their hitters personally and pasted Cairo 12-0.

The only notable injury was the loss of Sylva catcher James Dominy to a strained achilles tendon for 1-2 weeks.

Jersey City's Steven Hawn threw a complete game three-hitter, giving up only a single run for the sixth best starting performance of the season. Pittsburgh's Tracy Snider had the third best hitting performance of the season in Pittsburgh's May 23 blowout of Helena.

That's the report for now. Nate has the next sim on Monday. League file is up and the web pages are on the way.