News and Notes: Friday, May 5, 2017

Around SLB this week:

- Although LON's SS J Reyes was struggling to start the season, the Knights certainly didn't want to be without him for any length of time. But in Wednesday's win against PAR, Reyes fractured his hip sliding safely into second base (his 3rd double of the game). Reyes, a career .302 hitter with 496 SB's, is out for 2-3 months. "Not what the team needed right now," said Reyes. "And I'm a free agent after this season and really wanted to put up some numbers to help the team win." Look for Knights GM Sean O'Hallaran to explore the trade market rather than go with 24 year-old T Hernandez, a career .218 hitter with a .267 slugging percentage.
- TAI has the second worst team ERA (5.49) due to horrible, and not entirely unexpected, showings by pitchers T Unger, T Redding, J Palm, P Tsamis, J Davis and T Johnson, all of whom have ERA's 5.40 or greater. "That makes it tough to win ballgames," said Manager Billy Heywood. "But when you get shutout twice in the last four games, that doesn't help either." The Tai Fong scored a total of 6 runs in their past 4 games.
- TAI has hit 25 HR as a team. OSA's C Rockwell and T Montana have hit a combined 24. The Ronin, 6-4 in their last 10, are just a half game back of KYO in the Far East.
- As expected, KYO's LF A Mule is raking for the Bushido (.328, 8 HR) but he can't make up for the miserable performances by SS B BooYa (.234), 3B E See (.225) and RF J Reed (.246). The bench players aren't providing any help either, and KYO is 14th in runs scored.
- BAL's slide (6 straight losses) has coincided with SJ's hot streak (8-2 in their last 10). SJ is now a game up in the South. The Senadores have a huge lead in the SB department, with 69. CHNG and LON are tied for 2nd with 39 apiece.
- Despite a whopping 5.82 ERA, PAR is tied for 1st in the Euro. The Pimpernels have scored the most runs in SLB (188) and are second to OSA in HR with 51.
- Last in runs scored so far is .... ATL (111)? The 9-21 Flyers (last in the South) are getting a monster season out of CF D Lemming (1.137 OPS) who may still be a candidate for MVP even if the Flyers continue to flounder.
- BED continues to mash (46 HR and 4th in RS)and now has a 1.5 game lead in the North. CF T Johnson is the only player to appear on both the HR leader list (T-3rd) and SB leader list (T-7th). In fact, the only categories where Johnson doesn't appear are: doubles, RBI's, walks and strikeouts.