Rolling into August, the Valencia Stars were exceeding expectations sitting in the third wild card slot with a record of 60-50 and a full 5 games ahead of the teams outside of the wild card race.
Then along came the month of August. The Stars’ record for the month was an anemic 9-18 with the collapsing crescendo being a 1-5 performance this past week including an 0-3 stint against Hawaii who is currently in possession of last place in the Pacific.
This collapse has the oddsmakers going crazy as the Stars’ playoff probability went from 81% on August 1st down to its current probability of 40%. The woes in the Valencia dugout are plentiful. Starting pitcher Peter Dean (8-6, 3.34 ERA at the time of the injury), went down for two and a half weeks, reliever Hao- Hing Huang went down for the season and Siua Hooheno (7-2, 1.85 ERA) went down for a month. The front office made a deal for Jose Barron to help shore up the staff but he promptly went day-to-day with a strained abdominal muscle – hopefully he will be recovered in 4 days.
On the offensive side of things, Kenny Blackwell hit .158 for the month compared to his season batting average of .242. Qadir bin Gamal (.221 in August versus .284 for the season) has not fared much better.
Now sitting at 69-68 and being 2 games out of the last wild card slot behind Des Moines and Vancouver, Valencia has 25 games left to try and turn things around. As luck would have it, the final series for the Stars is a four-game stint against Vancouver. With the Mounties being the home team and Valencia being 2-8 so far this season against Vancouver, it would be a tall task even if Valencia somehow stays within striking distance.
