2035.26 TWC River Monster's Set Single Season Wins Franchise Record and Clinch Wild Card Spot

[Spiccoli]

It was a grueling August stretch... 20 Days, 20 Games. With the Staff Ace lost for the year, an inexplicable rotation error that caused a series of pitchers to have to pitch on short rest, leading to a 5 losses in 7 days. Twin Cities had a solid a grip on the #1 Wild Card Spot most of the season, even tying Yellow Springs for the Heartland Division lead a couple of times... however all that quickly evaporated after 9 days into that 20 day grind. Punctuated by an embarrassing 18-1 loss to Calgary. Fans (and Management) started gripping. Was it all going to slip away in the final weeks?

The Frick League Wild Card race at the time was a car wreck, 6 teams within 4 wins of each other vying for three spots. All of sudden, there was the real chance Twin Cities could find itself on the outside of the playoffs.

The rotation pulled itself together, winning 7 games in the next 11. Young Jerry Coyle even produced the front end of critical shutout of Rival Yellow Springs on the road to postpone their eventual Division Champ Celebration.

With 4 games left in the season, Twin Cities finally clinched a Wild Spot after splitting a double header with Des Moines. While at the same breaking the previous Team Franchise record for wins, which was previously 90. Twin Cities is currently sitting on 92 wins and even with 3 games to go adding to that total seems completely unimportant to that the fact that a Wild Card Spot was secured.

The whole pitching rotation is stretched and exhausted. And while it would be great to give staff a break, there's still the Home Field Advantage of the First Round of Playoffs to be decided. With only a 1.5 game lead over the the Seattle Storm for the 1st Wild Card Spot, it's a tough decision to rest any starters now. Especially with the discrepancy of the River Monster's records in Home vs Away Games.

Home Record 50-29
Away Record 40-38

Yes, that's a 12 win differential.

The good news is that while the lead over Seattle is 1.5 games, Twin Cities is up two games in the Win Column. Therefore, it's likely that one win in the final games against Madison may lock up the top spot. However, it appears the the now #1 starter, Josh Brown, will get rested and primed for the playoffs.... So stay tuned.

[RonCo]

Win at home, play .500 on the road. Seems like TWC followed that recipe pretty well.