With the much-awaited September callups in the Valencia corner of the BBA universe, there were five new faces in the Valencia lineup and a new closer in the pen, all of which have 0 major league experience -- until now.
The Stars travelled to Hawaii to play the playoff-bound Tropics who at the time was 32 games better than Valencia. After the four game series was done and the dust from the infield dirt was settled, the series ended at 2-2.
Although closer Dave Furman allowed a run in the series opener were the Stars lost 6-5, Furman came back and recorded a save in each of the next two games where he pitched a scoreless ninth inning in each of those games. Furman currently has registered 3 saves in 4 appearances with an ERA of 2.45 over 3.2 innings.
On the offensive side of things, first baseman Gabriel Bacaloglu led the new faces hitting .467 with a .529 on-base percentage in his first 15 at bats adding a homer and 8 RBI. The highlight of the week for Gabriel was in a 12-10 victory where he went 3 for 5 while knocking in 5 runs and scoring 2.
Another new face making waves in his first week was left-fielder Bill Nesbitt. Bill spent his first week hitting .306 with an on-base percentage of .400 against Hawaii while launching 2 home runs in 13 at bats. Bill also cranked out 2 triples which gave him a slugging percentage of 1.077 for the week.
Catcher Bernd Helwich also made a contribution hitting .250 with a .333 on base percentage while gunning down 50% of the runners trying to steal a base although the sample size is really small.
The other two callups, Santiago Dieguez and Ismael Ramirez had a slow start during their first week hitting .214 and .071 respectively. The locals will need to reserve judgement on those two for a few more weeks.
Although not a September callup, catcher Bradley Russel who was called up in mid August after Luis Gonzales was traded has hit .220/.303 with 3 homers.
Things are not all rosy however, sources around the clubhouse are saying 22 out of the 34 players are unhappy due to disruptive influences. There are no players listed as disruptive on the roster so it is unknown at this time if the drama is due to the new players coming in or the previous players losing their starting spots.
