The squad in Valencia is still managing to hover around the .500 mark as they finished last week with a record of 36-37. The Stars were actually sitting at 36-33 before dropping the last four games in the series finale against Yellow Springs and three straight against Twin Cities. So far Valencia is 17-14 against teams from the Heartland.
Thomas Turner was the pitching star of the week starting two games and pitching 12 innings. Although Thomas did not register a win in either of those starts, he did have an ERA of 2.25. Thomas' stats for the season include a 7-4 record with an overall ERA of 2.71 and a WHIP of 1.10. Thomas is currently on a 3.3 WAR pace for the 2062 season.
In the bullpen, the quartet of Luis Perez, Rashid Umrani, Bob Loblaw and Manny Hernandez did not allow a run over this past week. They combined for 9 innings of work allowing 3 hits and 3 walks while registering 2 saves.
On the cold side of the mound, starter Alvin Anstey ended his magical runs of four quality starts after being called up since the Juan Garcia trade. Alvin allowed 5 runs with 12 baserunners in 3 innings during his 6-0 loss to Twin Cities. His season stats still are respectable with an ERA of 2.36 on the year. This was helped by his previous 4 stars only resulting in 2 earned runs over 23.2 innings.
Looking at the bats last week, catcher Luis Gonzales was on fire slashing .467/.438. Not too often you see someone's average higher than his on-base percentage. Zenobius Kazantziakis also had a productive week with a .385 average and a .529 on-base percentage.
On the power side of the lumber, Koray Kapkin and Bailey Sang knocked out two homers apiece.
Looking onto next week the schedule does not get any easier, the Stars play their series finale in Twin Cities before playing 4 in Chicago against a vastly improved Black Sox team and then head south to play in Nashville.