That's What Cheesehead: 36.43 - Raiders Return Creates Spark

[7teen]

At 56-62 on the season, there is little hope left in Madison. However, the club's recent up swing in play has put them as the first team out of the wild card and despite sitting 7 games behind Long Beach for the third and final post-season spot, there has been a little life brought back to the Wolves ball club. The positive momentum has been generated thanks to an 8-3 start to August and a 10-4 record in the club's last 14 games. The spark has likely been ignited by the return of Mons Raider (.356/.459/.417, 1 HR, 17 RBI) who has returned from the disabled list full of fury and is attempting to single handedly get the Wolves back in the post-season race.

Since his return from the DL on July 30, Raider has played in 13 games and has hit successfully in 12 of the 13 contests. In 9 of those games he's had 2 hits and in another had 3. So in 10 of the 13 contests, he's had multiple hits. He's drawn 13 walks as well and has watched his batting average climb from .313 prior to the injury to .356 at the moment. His on-base percentage has also risen from .413 to .459.

"I'm just trying to make up for lost time" said Raider after the Wolves' 10-8 win over Yellow Springs this week. "The team struggled when I was out of the lineup so I'm trying to do what I can to see if we can perhaps make a last minute run at this thing. It's going to be tough and there isn't a lot of room for error at this point but we'll see what the rest of the season holds."

Despite only playing in 49 games this season, Raider has climbed the team leaderboard in WAR and is currently 2nd now on the team in WAR with a 2.0 mark. He trails Jon Mick (.284/.345/.581, 38 HR, 115 RBI) by just .6 despite the fact that Mick has played in every game this season and leads the Frick League in both homeruns and RBI (yeah, this WAR stuff is wonky).

Of course it wouldn't be a TN about Raider if I didn't update everyone on how Raider has done on the base paths since his return. In 13 games he has stolen 15 bases, giving him 37 on the season. That puts him just 3 shy of climbing into the top 5 in the Frick League. He trails teammate Steve Dempsey (.306/.337/.381, 0 HR, 52 RBI) by 18. Demspey currently leads the Frick with 55.

"I think I can still get to 100" Raider said with a shy grin. "We have what, 45, 46 games left on the season? Yeah, I can still do it."

He did steal 4 in one game against Calgary in his 3rd game back from the DL, so, I wouldn't put it past him....

[RonCo]

Raider is another one of those guys in the Heartland who is good for the league. I assume Madison will make it to the post season, then knock us out.