Johnson League Roundup Sim No.1

[Fat Nige]

With the crack of the bats the MBBA is in season once more and the Johnson League starts the long road to produce a challenger in the Landis Memorial Series

ISSUE 1: APRIL 1st – 16th

Last year’s losing finalist, Washington started as if they had never been away going 9-3 to lead the Johnson league but top teams Valencia (8-4) and Louisville (7-4) are hot on their heels. Madison finished 1994 24 games out of first in the Midwest Division but an 8-3 start this time rounds give their fans hope that their time is coming. Early cellar dwellers are Hawaii (3-7), Phoenix (3-7) and Baltimore (2-9).

Atlantic Division Round-up

Washington’s strong start needed the strong arms of Oscar Acosta who logged five saves and Frank Phelps who added a save and a win. While Shane Christen, Jeff Schwarz and John Doherty all recorded two wins, the bats were hot too, cranking out 130 hits for a team average of .312.
Louisville followed them up but spread the wins around a bit more, Steve DiBartolomeo was the star though; his first start produced a complete game shut-out of Baltimore striking out 13 along the way and he added another 9 K's in his second start. Hottest bats were Manny Cosenza (5g, .625)and Kenare Sobah (11g .419) while Roosevelt Johnson sent three over the fence.
Greenville’s Jay lee left the season opener at Louisville cursing his luck, having pitched 8 scoreless innings he watched Sluggers’ David Smurf hit one out of the park with one out in the ninth to win the game for the home side. The bullpen was an early weakness for the Moonshiners with four of the relief crew posting double digit ERA’s while their bats were silent hitting just 38 runs in their opening 10 games. CF Aaron Hayes was a stand out in the final game of this period as he stole four bases and scoring three times in a 10-3 win over Monarchs.
Baltimore were happy with an opening day 7-1 win at Washington but their fans were less than pleased as Monarchs then won just one of their next 10 games. The bullpen grew cobwebs in the opening three games, pitching just 1/3 of an innings but when let loose against Louisville gave up five runs in the last four innings in a 0-9 loss. Masuichirou Bunjiro was the one bright spot, sending four into the bleachers.

Midwest Division

Madison’s opening day 10-3 win at Chicago set the tone for the opening period as the Wolves scored 67 times in the opening 11 games of the 1995 season. Hipolito Pichardo forgot his 18-36 career record as he pitched three complete games; two for shutouts, in fact only two of the Madison pitching staff had ERA’s over 5.00, allowing just 35 earned runs.
Chicago muddled along behind the Wolves going 5-5 as their opening six games read LWWLWL. Daniel Marquette had a big say in their record going 1-1 with 3 saves in seven appearances. The Black Sox’s bats tried to do their bit with 93 hits in the 10 games but only 6 left the yard and just 49 runs were scored. Their staff ERA of 4.98 was the second worst in the league with only Baltimore (5.55) having a worse start.
Omaha included two 1-run losses in their opening seven game road trip and spit the series at leaders Madison 2-2. A two game sweep of Phoenix in their opening home series was tempered by losing the next two to Chicago. Michael Malkowski led the offence with 17 hits and four long balls in the first 11 games but as a whole the Barnstormers could only manage a .250 average. Russell Vanness spent 25 innings on the mound in his three appearances but only came only away with a 1-1 record.
Phoenix won their opening series 2-1 against Omaha but only won one game after that. The pitching staff managed to keep the staff ERA down to 4.45 but with the Talons batting in just 38 runs (41 runs overall) it was always going to be hard for them. Joe Belinda provided most of that offence with 3 out of Talon’s six long balls and 11 RBI’s while the best of the rotation were David Chappel (1-0) and Andy Nebraska (1-1) both with a 3.86 ERA.

Pacific Division

Valencia, last year’s division winner led the way again despite being swept in California in the opening three game series. They shrugged that off, returned home and reeled off six straight wins including a four game sweep of Vancouver. Three separate pitchers recorded shutouts as the Stars’ staff recorded a team ERA of 2.27. Meanwhile the offence sent 10 out of the park amongst 105 hits and got 57 of those to score.
California opened with that sweep of Stars including shutting them out in the first two games but then lost series at home to Hawaii (1-3) and at Valencia (1-3) finishing up 6-6. Eight of their first twelve games were decided by three runs or less, just as well for a team that plated only 36 runs that the staff ERA was only 3.58 striking out a JL best 107 batters.
Vancouver joined the 50/50 crew with a 5-5 record. Opening day joy at an 8-3 win over Tropics was followed by five losses including a four game sweep at Valencia before the Mounties recorded four straight road victories to close out the first period. Allen Bartlett was the pick of the pitchers going 2-0 in three starts with a 2.86 ERA. Tony Lawnmeirer hit 4 home runs and had 14 hits (.378 avg) as Vancouver went yard 14 times.
Hawaii plumbed the depths of the Division with a 3-7 record. Opening with series splits at Vancouver (1-1) and California (2-2), they lost their way then. Vancouver sweeping them 3-0 in their home opening series and Valencia rolled into town to shut them out 6-0. The rotation managed just two wins and a staff ERA of 4.42 failed to cover for a offence hitting just .236 with just 11 home runs and 36 runs plated.

It’s my mound and I’m not leaving: JL teams pitched 19 complete games in the first 130 games.

Keep on running: Three teams stole ten bases or more as the JL racked up 78 stolen bases.

It’s outta here !!: JL teams sent 115 balls into the crowd with Louisville living up to their nickname contributing 16 of theose while Baltimore managed just 5.

[clashcity]

Nice Bobby Manc!

[elligator]

Sweet! Great feature!

[Fat Nige]

I hope to do one each sim, Statslab makes it relatively easy but with 3 sims a week I might have to miss a few issues. By the way several teams are missing their box-scores in statslab which made it a bit more difficult

[Afino]

Man, Manny Cosenza had a great 8 AB's this sim.

[recte44]

I hope to do one each sim, Statslab makes it relatively easy but with 3 sims a week I might have to miss a few issues. By the way several teams are missing their box-scores in statslab which made it a bit more difficult

Yeah, I'm not sure quite why that is but I've asked the creator to take a look into it. I'm sure it has something to do with OOTPX vs OOTP11.

[c-mitch]

Yeah...my offense is shit right now, but we also got hit with a couple of injuries that really killed the run production, namely Feinkohl and Osorno, and a 5 game suspension to that shit=head Guerrero. 1/3 of my offense. Also lost my only real backup OF. Not much depth in Hawaii, it seems. We have nowhere to go but up, and we shall.