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SSLI Gets Rolling
Braintree, MA 11/08/01
There was a special meeting between the Tallywackers and Cookies (on 11/2) in order to get C4 caught up with the rest of the league. TW and C4 squard off in five games and Cookies came away with a slight edge winning the series 3-2.
Last Thursday the SSLI met on it's regular day with one team seemingly pulling away while the remaining three fought it out for #2. The season is still very young and anything can happen.
First the Tallywackers and Porcupines met for a three game set in Palucaville. PSP came away wih two wins in the series lead by Kevin Brown (3-1) and Chuck Smith (3-0). The biggest bat of the series belonged to Travis Fryman who went 4-11 with two homers and seven RBIs.
During those contests the Gremlins headed over to Chatanooga to face the Cookies. The first game was much like the last game these two teams played. C4 jumped out to a big early lead, only to have their bull-pen, specifically Mariano Rivera, implode again and lose 11-10.
The second game was a blow-out from the start with Mike Mussina notching his third loss of this young season 17-4.
Next the Gremlins headed home to face the Porcupines while C4 stayed put to greet the Tallywackers.
The Gremlins were triumphant in their two contests with the Porcupines, with Pedro Martinez getting his fourth win in game one. In game two the EGG bats exploded for the second time of the night, specifically Gary Sheffield, who went 4-4, with a homer and four RBIs. Chan Ho Park ran his record to 3-1 in the victory.
Over in Chatanooga, TW took two of the three games from the Cookies to creep closer to the .500 mark. The noticable drop in offense from the Cookies was evident in Charles Johnson's cooling off, going 1-12 in the series.
Gremlins, Tallywackers Split Four
Abington, MA 10/29/01
In what turned out to be a light week in the SSLI the Tallahassee Tallywackers played four in East Grenich against the Gremlins.
Before the first pitch was thrown a major trade between the two teams was announced as the Gremlins sent recetly ousted from the rotation Roger Clemens, shorstop Rafael Furcal, the struggling Kazuhiro Sasaki, and as a thrown in so TW wouldn't be short a player, catcher Wiki Gonzalez to the Tallywackers. In return the Gremlins received A much needed upgrade at catcher and second base in Mike Lieberthal and Luis Castillo, along with reliever Rich Garces and short stop Deivi Cruz to round out the deal.
Clemens was pressed into duty immediately as he took the hill for the first game of the series, and in expected fasion, shut the Gremlins down completely, surrendering only two unearned runs. Kris Benson made his second start of the season and got the tough luck loss on an error by Nomar Garciaparra and a fly ball that Gary Sheffield failed to reach which sealed the TW win 3-2.
Game two saw the bats come alive for the Gremlins as their 6-8 hitters combined to go 7-11 4R 6RBI HR in a 9-6 victory. Picking up the win was Tom Galvine, even though he was shelled pretty good by the TW offense. Jim Edmonds went deep in the losing effort.
The third game was a blow out from the start as the Gremlins scored six times in the first inning off TW starter Jeff D'Amico en route to a 15-3 laugher. Pedro Martinez pitched his third complete game of the season upping his record to 3-1.
The offense was lead by Jason Giambi (2-4 3R 3RBI HR), Andruw Jones (3-3 2R 4RBI HR), and Troy Glaus (2-5 2R 4RBI GS). For TW Jim Edmonds and Jorge Posada each hit a homer to prevent a shut-out.
The final game of the night had a mix of everything, offense, defense, errors, and some late inning dramatics. In the end TW took the game 6-5 with Robert Person getting his first win of the season in what was an entire staff effort.
Cookies and Gremlins Run Away In Week Three
Braintree, MA 10/24/01
Week three of the SSLI saw great games for two teams and not so great for the other two. The Gremlins came in with first place on the line and went 3-1 for the week. The Cookies, who missed last week, came in with their 0-3 start to show for and promptly went 3-0.
Obvioulsy with all those wins, someone had to take the losses. The Porcupines had easily the toughest week, going 0-4. First they lost in extra innings to the Gremlins, before heading over to play the Cookies for the first time. In the three games, all decided by one run, PSP was on the short end, and two of the three losses were blown with the lead int he final inning.
The Tallwackers, though with not as bad a week as PSP, did at least win a game, going 1-2. Though the final game of their set was a 15-3 thwarting at the hands of the Gremlins.
Hitters of note for the week were Andruw Jones of East Grenich who hit three homers in one game, including the game winner in the top of the ten to defeat the Porcupines. Jones also had six RBIs for that game.
In the Cookies three wins the bats finally woke up as they belted seven home runs as a team in the three games and managed two bottom of the ninth victories with three of those seven homers.
Notable for the Porcupines was Mike Piazza, who went 8-18 with four homers and eight RBIs. But just as notable, was the Porcupines bullpen who blew four late inning leads, all by the pen and two of them from their closer Trevor Hoffman who is now 0-3 on the season.
In the Tallywackers sole win it was the Philly Connection as Mike Lieberthal and Scott Rolen went a combined 4-7 with four homers and five RBIs in the defeat of the Gremlins. After that Pedro Martinez was able to enact revenge for his earlier loss to TW and in the finally, the EGG bats got revenge on Orlando Hernandez. Chasing him from the game after only one inning as they scored eight times to open the game.
Next will only three teams will return as the Porcupines are heading the Venezuela to play in a charity game, but are expected back the following week.
SSLI Week Two in the Books
South Boston, MA 10/18/01
The SSLI held it's week two meeting over in South Boston this week, and noticably absent from the mix was C4. Were not quite sure if it had something to do with the 0-3 start, or if the Cookies are still just licking their wounds. Regardless, games were played and here's how the action played out.
The first game of the night matched the Tallywackers against the Porcupines in the fourth meeting of the season between these two teams. Emergency starter Rick Ankiel pitched a stellar game for TW in place of the injured Barry Zito. Ankiel went seven strong, only allowing one earned run and struck out nine on the way to a 6-4 win over the Porcupines.
Next, the Gremlins strode into Palucaville for the first time this season. It was a see saw battle, but in the end the Porcupines came out on top in a 6-5 win. Kevin Brown went the distance for the Pines netting his second win of the season and Manny Ramirez and Rafael Palmeiro lead the offense, each with a home run and two RBIs on the night. Andruw Jones and Todd Helton also had a two-run homer each in the losing effort.
The Third battle of the night posed the Gremlins and Tallywackers over at the Talahassee Colliseum. This match-up fetured the best hurler in the game for the Gremlins in Pedro Martinez, but in a rare showing of ineptness, Pedro faltered big time and TW rolled to an easy 7-1 win. The offense was lead by four homers, all off Pedro, two from Frank Thomas, and one each by Brian Giles and Jorge Possada.
Following that match-up the Tallywackers headed back over to Palucaville to again face the arch rival Porcupines. This one didn't come out as well as the first. For the third time this season the Porcupines blew the Tallywackers out, wining this one 12-3. Manny Ramirez continued his offensive explosion cracking two more homes (league leading six) and upped his RBI total to an unheard of 19 thru six games. Robert Person, for the second straight time fell victim to the Porcupines lumber, falling to 0-2 on the season.
The final game of the night stayed in Palucaville as the Gremlins returned to try and gain vengeance on their previous one run loss earlier in the night. It was another back and forth contest between these two teams, but this time the Gremlins ended up on top by a score of 7-5. The score was tied going into the ninth when Trevor Hoffman was brought on to face the ever dangerous Jason Giambi. Giambi promptly deposited the ball into the bleachers for his fourth homer of the season and after an easy three outs in the bottom of the inning the Gremlins went home happy. Bobby Howry picked his first win of the season in relief and Armando Benitez ended the game with save number two.
We Expect C4 to return next week and have all four teams in action.
SSLI Holds Draft and Kicks-off Season
Braintree, MA 10/12/01
The SSLI draft was held last night and after several hours of signing free agents the four team league started to take shape. Upon completion of the 25th round the season was started immediately.
The Talahasse Tallwackers hosted the Palucaville Screaming Porcupines for a three game set. The first two games were blow-outs with PSP, lead by Manny Ramirez (3 HR 10 RBI in 2 gms), scorching out 14 runs in each game en rout to 14-3 and 14-7 wins. A very strong pitching performace was put in game one by Kevin Brown for PSP and the second game was simply a slugfest.
Game three of the series saw the tides turn as the Tallywackers finally got some pitching and routed the Porcupines 11-2. Jeff D'amico went seven strong innings to grab his first win of the year, and Jim Edmonds had the biggest blow of the contest with a grand slam in the eigth.
The second series of the night was held over at Maguwai Stadium as the East Grenich Gremlins hosted the Chatanooga Chocolate Chip Cookies. Game one and two saw stellar pitching put in by the Gremlins staff. Pedro Martinez tossed nine innings of one run ball (12 Ks) in a 4-1 win, and Chan Ho Park went six strong allowing one earned run along with 9 strikeouts while picking up his first win of the season 5-1.
The third game of the series was much like that of the third game in the PSP/TW series, in that the ties were reversed and a pummeling put on... for a while.
The Cookies jumped out to a 10-2 lead thru four innings as EGG pitcher Roger Clemens had his ass handed to him. Richard Hildago and Ellis Burks lead the run barrage for C4 , each collecting four RBIs on the night.
But the Gremlins managed to chip away a little and only allowed a sparse run here and there after Clemens left the game in the sixth. Then in the eigth and ninth innings the Gremlins exploded and scored ten times, capped off by a three-run walk-off homer by Nomar Garciaparra to win the 15-13.
For the second game in a row the Gremlins were able to rack em up against Mariano Rivera. In the second game of the series EGG roughed him up for three runs on eight hits over three innings. In this contest Rivera pitched three more, and allowed twelve hits and six runs during this stint before handing it over to Rob Nen to close it out in the ninth, a close that we never saw.
Next up the the Porcupines host the Gremlins and the Tallwackers will head to Chatanooga, until then, see ya...
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