9-News: 26.060 – YS9 Wins Lucky 11

[RonCo]

LaLoosh Makes Wolf and Hassenpfeffer Stew


After a tough opening, the Yellow Springs Nine are hitting on all cylinders, and it’s ace is looking…um…acely. The Nine, leveraging a nice little home stint have now won 11 games in a row, and are 16-1 in July. Yes. 16 wins against only a single loss.

The bats are batting and the arms are arming. For the month the ball club has used 35 homers, and a .301/.381/.560 slash to score 127 runs…all of them best in the Frick league by a wide margin. It’s staff has allowed only a .204 batting average against, and 55 runs total, both also best in the Frick. Perhaps no one shows this better than ace pitcher Lawrence Columbus LaLoosh, who is in the middle of completing a comeback of monstrous proportions, and who beat both Edmonton and Madison this past week to edge back into the top 10 lists for Wins (4th) and WAR (5th) among pitchers qualified for the Nebraska. We probably don’t need to mention that the guy already has three of them—he’s been through the WARS—but we will anyway.

LaLoosh went seven innings to beat the Jackrabbits, allowing only 5 hits. Then beat division rival Madison in a tight 4-3 margin, going 6 and a third innings and yielding only two runs. The pair of quality starts put him forth in the league in that category. His 4.39 FIP places him 6th.

“It’s been a long haul for Crash to get here, but you had to know he was going to be able to do it” said Bret Richards, referring to the ace’s rugged two-game start to the season. “He’s Crash LaLoosh, you know?”

The hot streak has seen the team capture a three game sweep in Hawaii, take three of four from Vancouver, beat Charm City twice away and twice more at home, and sweep both Edmonton and Madison. These are, admittedly not teams at the top of their divisions, and in the case of Vancouver and Edmonton are teams undergoing some turmoil at the top of their organizations…but 16-1 is 16-1., and the streak has brought the team even with Omaha for top spot on the Heartland table.

DES MOINES, CALIFORNIA NEXT

With this wind beneath their wings, the Nine will host Des Moines for three games, and Pacific division leader California for four games. They have had considerable difficulty dispatching Des Moines this year, and the Crusaders are always a difficult team. With infielder Angel De Castillo aching in the knee once again, the team is wondering how much longer the streak can last.

“One day at a time,” said first baseman Lucas McNeill. “That’s how you deal with it.”