Shorebirds first half standings report

Sunday it came to an end. As the SAL turns its attention to tonight’s SAL All-Star Game (featuring Shorebirds Jeff Moore, Brad Bergesen, Chris Vinyard, Brandon Tripp, and trainer Patrick Wesley), both West Virginia and Augusta punched their ticket to the SAL playoffs in September by winning first half titles in their divisions.

But after a pretty bad start, the Shorebirds finished the first half quite well. Even with dropping three in a row at Lakewood over the weekend, the 12-1 stretch to begin June gave the Shorebirds a first half mark of 34-33. They finished in a virtual dead heat for third in the SAL North, sharing the spot with Lakewood – the BlueClaws technically garnered third by one percentage point as they finished 33-32. (It was a tough first half for rainouts – only Greensboro, Lake County, and Lexington got their full 70-game slate in among SAL North teams. In contrast, just one game was lost among the South squads.)

But West Virginia was clearly dominant in the first half, finishing 48-20 and wrapping up the title with a week or so to spare. The Power easily outdistanced 38-32 Greensboro, with Lakewood and Delmarva rounding out the first division. Lake County and Lexington both finished the half identically at 31-39, with cross-state rival Hagerstown stuck in seventh at 29-38 and the Hickory Crawdads bringing up the rear at 27-40. Meanwhile, as noted above the Augusta GreenJackets won the South with a 50-20 mark. On the other end of the scale, Savannah finished with a horrid 20-50 mark. In between it went Asheville, Columbus, Charleston, Kannapolis, Greenville, and Rome.

One thing I like to look at is the second half schedule and who it favors based on first half results. The odd scheduling that the SAL is known for means that certain teams do not face each other whatsoever in the second half (or at all, for that matter.) For teams on the northern and southern fringes of the league this can put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Along with Hagerstown, Lakewood, and Lake County, the Shorebirds will not see Columbus, Charleston, Rome, or Savannah this season while the other four SAL North teams play a total of 16 games – 4 each – against those foes. All SAL North teams have the other four South teams (Augusta, Asheville, Kannapolis, Greenville) on their second half schedules. There’s also a few extra North vs. South games between some of the North Carolina teams as noted below.

So based on the total number of games above or below .500 a certain opponent is, here is the strength of second half schedule for each SAL team (ranked easiest to most difficult):

1. Columbus (-388). It helps to play hapless Savannah 16 times.
2. Charleston (-184). They play the next worst South team, Rome, 16 times themselves.
3. West Virginia (-174). Not having themselves on the schedule is their biggest help.
4. Augusta (-168). See West Virginia. They both play 10 times against the sixth place squad in their division.
5. Asheville (-86). An “extra” four interdivision games against Hickory helps ease their second half.
6. Lakewood (-66). No Savannah on the schedule = lower ranking. They play Hagerstown 16 more times this season.
7. DELMARVA (-62). Like Lakewood, no Savannah. 16 games against a slightly better team (Lake County) factored into our ranking.
8. Greensboro (-34). Their “extra” interdivision games occur against Kannapolis, who was close to .500 in the first half.
9. Rome (-12). The most “even” schedule, as they play the horrific Savannah squad 12 times, but balance that with 26 games against decent Columbus and Charleston teams.
10. Lake County (+102). They play essentially the same schedule as Delmarva and Lakewood but we’re helped by the Captains’ poor first half mark.
11. Hagerstown (+112). Same as Lake County above, substitute “Suns” for “Captains”.
12. Kannapolis (+116). They get “extra” games against a solid Greensboro team, their most-played opponent (8 times.) Along with Asheville and Hickory, these four teams have the most ideal schedule in terms of variation, playing no one more than 8 times each.
13. Hickory (+164). As you may guess, last place teams get no break because they play all better teams above them. And playing a good Asheville team 4 “extra” times is no break either.
14. Lexington (+186). Their schedule is made difficult by playing West Virginia 10 more times and Augusta 4.
15. Greenville (+242). The anti-Lexington, they play the mighty GreenJackets 10 more times and West Virginia for 4 dates.
16. Savannah (+252). The only good thing I can say about their schedule is that they have just one real long roadtrip, to West Virginia/Lexington. The other road games are short hops as they don’t come to the northern reaches of the league.

I’ve decided to break up the other part I planned on doing regarding where the 2006 Shorebirds of the Week are currently playing. That will be tomorrow’s post, followed by a close check of the second half roster to see if my Shorebird of the Week is still on it. If so, he’ll be announced Thursday as usual. With Aberdeen getting its season underway, some of the Shorebirds may be transformed into IronBirds this week.

And the final is in, our SAL North wins the All-Star Game 3-1. Chris Vinyard and Brandon Tripp were 0-1 and 0-2 respectively, all K’s. That’s okay, save the hits for the games that count. Brad Bergesen pitched a scoreless 4th inning, giving up a hit and walk but fanning two. Jeff Moore did not get into the game.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer. View all posts by Michael