Brassball month two is in the books. With that, some interesting stats and stories may be hidden by multiple months of results. Thanks to Doug, I took a look at the stats for just the month of May to see which players and teams had the most interesting stretch of 28 games.
- Fleetwood rookie Mike Trout led all of Brassball in hitting (.426), on base percentage (.522) and slugging (.734) and still couldn't win Strat-O-Matic's MVP voting. He lost a close race to Metropolis's Andrew McCutchen (.333/.389/.642). McCutchen did have more RBIs, which probably explains the vote. He had 27 to Trout's 26.
- The Portland Steelheads were not quite ready for May, as they were one-hit by Simi Valley aces Clayton Kershaw and David Price in the first two games of the month.
- Parkland's Casey McGehee had himself quite a month - going .368/.467/.842 and also coming through in the clutch with two pinch hit home runs.
- Brooklyn won a 19 inning marathon game vs West Hills, but that couldn't match the 1-0 pitchers' duel (or batters' failure) that Simi Valley won in 20 innings at Metropolis.
- Plaza was a scorching 25-3 in May and two of its losses were by a single run.
- Lancaster's Austin Jackson legged out seven triples in May.
- Outlaw Elvis Andrus got his bunting practice in, laying down 13 sacrifices in 14 attempts. The only other team with more was Cook County, with 16 successful bunts in May.
- Metropolis pitchers and catchers shut down opposing base runners, allowing just one stolen base on three attempts.
- Butte County infielder Joaquin Arias was a threat off the bench, collecting five hits in eight pinch hit at bats.
- On the other side of the coin, Plaza and California each had only three pinch hit attempts all month.
- Plaza hitters compiled an amazing .307/.373/.522 line on the month in nearly 1100 plate appearances.
- With a batting line like that, Plaza should probably give up the bunt - they were successful in just half of their 10 attempts.
- Santa Barbara was by far the most reliable team in the field, making only five errors all month. The next best was the Outlaws' long-time AL rival Cook County, with twice as many.
- The Outlaw bullpen was another key to their 19-9 month, as they allowed just six of 47 inherited runners to score (12.8%).
- Sacramento's Ross Detwiler had a fantastic month, going 4-1 in six starts with a 0.53 in 33 innings.
- Detwiler didn't even get a vote SOM's Cy Young vote, however. Plaza closer Wilton Lopez took home the hardware after recording 13 saves in 14 appearances.
- Several pitchers had four wild pitchers (including staff anchors Felix Hernandez and Tim Lincecum), but Hophead Jason Marquis uncorked five.
- On the other hand, no Avenger pitcher threw a wild pitch and the team had only one passed ball.
- SoCal's Ramon Santiago booted the most balls last month, totaling eight errors.
- Not surprisingly, Plaza had the most players on SOM's all-star rosters.Joe Mauer, Alex Rios, Wilton Lopez and CJ Wilson made the first team while Aaron Hill and Jarrod Parker on the second.
- Three batters went 5-5 in a game: Brandon Belt, Craig Gentry and Alejandro De Aza.
- Superior might be in the market for a new baserunning coach after getting thrown out 10 times in just 21 steal attempts.
- Amazingly, Portland was thrown out just once while stealing 24 bases this month.
- Here's a baserunning tip - don't run on Dwayne Wise or Josh Hamilton. They both gunned down six runners.
- Only once did Metropolis allow more than five runs. Glen Allen gave up 10 or more runs five times.
- North Georgia's Chris Davis struck out 43 times in just 117 at bats. If he doesn't turn that around, he might be out of the league by this time next year.
- Latrobe rode their new ace, Justin Verlander, like a horse. He went 4-2 in seven starts and tossed 60 1/3 innings. No one else threw even 50 innings.
- Springfield "batters" compiled a .192 average in May, nearly 30 points behind Hessville's .227.
