Good, bad & the ugly
The Wild Things have played 24 games, exactly one-quarter of their 96-game schedule. The returns on the first quarter have not been good. Washington has an 8-16 record -- exactly the same as this point last season -- is riding a five-game losing streak and has lost 14 of 17. Only Kalamazoo, which rolls into Consol Energy Park tonight, has a worse record than Washington.There have been very few signs that things will turn around for the Wild Things. Last year, at least, Washington had a dangerous offense, capable of popping multiple home runs in an inning. It kept the team in many games. This year, well, Washington hasn't hit a home run since June 6.
To find out what the Wild Things have going for them and what isn't working, let's play "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly."
The Good
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- Chris Sidick - After having his batting average dip to a career-low .240 last season, Sidick is off to a good start. He is batting .319 and is on pace to tie his career high in stolen bases.
- Adam Amar's defense - For a big guy (6-4, 250) Amar is surprisningly good with the glove. Perhaps only Bill Greenwell was better among Washington first basemen. Amar's glove has saved at least a dozen throwing errors for his infielders.
- The catchers' offense - Nobody should have predicted that catchers Billy O'Conner (6 career at-bats above rookie ball) and Alan Robbins (career .215 batting average) would be leading the team in hitting at this point, each with an average of at least .325. And their throwing has been good, too. There are a lot of things wrong with this team, but the catching hasn't been one of them.
The Bad
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- Too many errors – Playing its home games on a natural grass infield, Washington wasn't going to lead the league in fielding percentage. But being tied for 9th among 12 teams in fielding isn't going to get this team to the playoffs either.
- Can't win at home - I don't have the statistical information to support this, but I'd be willing to bet that over their first eight seasons the Wild Things had the best home winning percentage of any team over that period. This year, the Wild Things are 3-9 at Consol Energy Park and have been swept at home twice in doubleheaders. What was once the toughest place for visiting teams to win is just another ballpark. Attendance has fallen off and the neat atmosphere for a game is gone, as is the home-field advantage.
The Ugly
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- The pitching - This has been the biggest disappointment so far. Washington has the fewest quality starts (5) in the league and their five blown saves are surpassed by only Lake Erie (7). The pitching was supposed to be improved over last year as manager Darin Everson made it his priority to sign pitchers with histories of low walk totals. The Wild Things, however, are on pace for 412 walks, which is only 15 fewer than last year's walkathon staff issued.
- Jacob Dempsey vs. lefties - The left-handed swinging Dempsey has never been a guy who tears up lefty pitching, but the designated hitter is off to a slow start this year. He is only 2-for-20 (.100) with 11 strikeouts against the southpaws. Combined with Denny Duron and Chris Raniere, the trio are 8-for-56 (.143) against lefties.
posted by Chris Dugan at
2:40 PM
26 Comments:
So, what do most of you think ought to happen with these Wild Things? Should the season ticket holders be upset? Should we run them out of town? Should we allow these jokers to steal – ooops, I mean use, taxpayer money to put turf on the field of a dying Frontier League franchise?
These people have taken their loyal fans for granted for far too long now. Until we can clearly see that they intend to stay here in Washington, which I VERY seriously doubt they will do, I say let them pony up their own damn money for the turf that nobody really wants! It is more than time for these WT owners to pull their heads out of their As**s and stop thinking they can rob us blind both at the concession stands and, with the very poor quality of baseball being played. Even by Frontier League standards this team STINKS!!
We want and deserve better than the ragged treatment the Wild Things have presented this year. We have
stuck with this team through thick and thin. Now that things have not been going too well they expect to ride our backs and make up their losses with higher concession prices. I guess that’s their way of saying “Thank You”. Sounds to me more like they are saying “screw you”!! Actions speak much louder than words. Their actions have been speaking very loudly lately.
Demand that the owners sell the team to any ownership group that doesn't include a guy named Nutting. New owners. That's what we need.
Sure, better pitching and defense would be nice, but the bats need to get back on track if this team is going to make a run at a playoff spot.
To me, the most telling statistic is the team leaders in home runs are tied with just two. Think about that: 24 games, 1/4 of the way through the season, no one has more than two home runs and no one on the team has hit one in ten days.
Maybe they can get things started against the weak Kalamazoo pitching with an offensive explosion that will carry over beyond this series.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
I posted this as the above deleted comment but forgot to log in and too quickly hit the OK button. As a result, it originally appeared as from Anonymous.
I'll try again.
I thought some of you might be interested in an email I received Thursday. I won't mention who it was from because it wasn't intended for this forum and I don't know the writer, but there are parts in it that might spark some discussion.
Here goes:
I am writing this e-mail because I am angered by your views towards your views on the Washington Wild Things baseball team. In your blog dedicated to the team entitled "Wild about Things" all you do is constanly bash and complain and make childish sarcastic comments about the Wild Things whatever it's the pitching, batting, attendance whatever you do it and it's getting very tiredsome, drawed out and quite annoying.
You constanly list attendance as the Wild things problems but Mr. Dugan is you look at the attendance for all twelve Frontier League teams, outside a couple of teams attendance isn't very hot around the league. Out of the twelve teams, only one team is averaging over 4,000 (Southern Illinois Miners). Two teams are only averaging over 3,000 (Gateway Grizzlies and Traverse City Beach Bums). Two teams barely alive in the Florence Freedom and Kalamazoo Kings averaging 1,747 and 1,567 I would count Oakland County but they have hardly played at home due to their new ballpark still not being completed, so their a non-factor. So my point is attendance isn't all for the most part in the league as only three teams are averaging well, two are averaging very poor and the rest is in the middle including the Wild Things who currently rank 8th in attendance with a average of 2,265 and with this team that's not bas so get off their case already with that since everyone else isn't getting fans either.
You said that "The neat atmosphere for a game is gone". Mr. Dugan with all due respect, that is complete BS and you know it. Despite the losing season so far, the game day expierence at Consol Energy Park is good. The tickets are priced cheap, the food is good and reasonable priced for sports standards and there lots of promotions and actvities for the kids to due so don't come your blog and say it's not fun to come to a Things came because Mr. Dugan your wrong, it's still a great atmosphere for people young and old to come out and enjoy a ballgame.
You sound like a man who really hates covering this team, you sound like a guy who rather cover a WPIAL sporting event this this team. You make it sound in your blog and in your headlines about this team that there a burden for you to cover. What is so horrible about the Wild Things that makes you loathe covering them?
All I want is for you to ease up on the team that's all. Yeah the team is going through a rough patch but you going on constanly mocking and complaining about the team certainly won't help matters, it just might make them worse. Believe it or not Mr. Dugan, this team isn't bad to follow.
Please write back and have a good day Mr. Dugan.
Also received this email from Steve Tahsler, Deputy Commissioner of the Frontier League:
I was reading your latest blog entry this morning and wanted to provide with you with the home records for the Wild Things since they joined the Frontier League:
2009 24 24 T-9th
2008 32 22 4th
2007 35 15 3rd
2006 32 16 T-2nd
2005 35 15 1st
2004 33 16 2nd
2003 31 14 2nd
2002 30 12 1st
Overall:252 134 0.653
I did not run the numbers for all clubs, but by scanning through the lists (available in the FL media guide) I couldn't find any club that would challenge the Wild Things for the best overall home record in this span.
Whomever post the glowing comments is obviosly a "plant"! Too bad they didn't predict the WT were going to be the League champion.
This guy is a terminal nut job. The darn food stinks, the team stinks, and so does the ownership group. I don't doubt the the writer works for the Mylan Labs group.
If the Frontier League has ANYTHING to say we should treat their remarks as if Joe Biden were speaking. In other words, they are either lying, or they are just plain STUPID!!
Whoever was complimenting the them obviously works there.
First the product is horrible. bad baseball= bad environment.
Nobody wants to got see that
Second the atmosphere is way worse. The onfield stuff was atleast entertaining in the past. It's not the emcee, he's doing an average job, except the stuff he does on the mic during pitching changes is stupid, but overall he's not the problem.
Whoever put together and changed some of the stuff they did is a complete moron. There is not one good promotion anymore. I don't know if Todd is in charge of the promotions or someone else, but they suck.
So bad baseball and no more fun. Who wants to go see that? I still go to the games so don't make your "well don't go to the games then comments"
I'm just stating the obvious
to the guy who posted above, I would have to agree 100%. Baseball sucks & on filed stuff really sucks.
To the thing the emcee did during the pitching change. Any clue? What was the point of that? That's the second time they did that when I was there. Might have to be the most ridiculous thing i have ever seen at a ballgame.
thanks for the reply Dutch. We sure all really care how you feel.
Although in this case I would have to agree with you. Everything they do sucks
You said that "The neat atmosphere for a game is gone". Mr. Dugan with all due respect, that is complete BS and you know it. Despite the losing season so far, the game day expierence at Consol Energy Park is good.
There is absolutely no way that person has been to a game this season or they couldn't honestly written that.
By sheer chance that they have been to a game, they need quit hitting the pipe
To add to your comments, I'm more of a baseball guy so i could care less about most of the onfield stuff, but when my 8 yr old looks at me and says that was stupid three times last night, then that means there is a problem. Where did they get this guy that runs the stuff.
Whatever happened to using the video board to entertain? I used to like when they made commical pictures of the other guys batters. Now they don't even put them up. That's my main beef. i'd like to see who's batting for the other team on the board instead of the little thing under the scoreboard, because the pa announcer barely announces half of the other team
Nice. all it takes is 2 wins in a row to get people back out on the blog.
I would have to agree though, everything seems to suck this season
because the pa announcer barely announces half of the other team
half is actually a huge improvement for Difabio
One of my best friends runs all of the video and sound and he told me the other day that it won't be entertaining anymore.
In years past, they ran the entire entertainment aspect of the game. Now he says he has that guy that is in charge of the on field stuff always telling him what to do every inning and that the guy doesn't have a clue when to do things to make them entertaining.
So basically, don't expect things to get any better
I know the solution. Do what you people always did.
Just blame jelks
I never thought I'd say this, but boy do i miss Ross
I don't!
I like the new 3rd baseman, Mr. Delaney. He sure is heck is better than Raineri. However, he does seem
to have a bit of a swagger about him.
If the Kings can just Jim Palmer to pitch for them AND have Brooks Robinson playing shortstop at the same time, they just may become a real baseball them – NAW!!!!!!!
I'm sure it was meant as a joke, but it's still one of the dumbest comments I've ever read. From the Wild Things Website talking about the former Pirate pierogi racer and current Wild Things hot dog racer:
“We would be thrilled to have a major-league caliber food item run in our ballpark,” said Todd Marlin, managing director of the Wild Things. “We think his experience as a pierogi makes him more than qualified to race as a hot dog for the Wild Things, and we would love to give him a chance to work his way back to the majors after being released by the Pirates.”
Maybe Barry Bonds will run as a hot dog, he's unemployed.
Now don’t you all get too excited about the WT recent success. Remember the Kings are the worst team
in the Frontier League, if not of all organized baseball. I’m waiting for a while to see how they play during the next two weeks, or so.
Funniest thing I saw this season occurred during the 8 run inning when Everson fell on his fanny while waving a runner around 3rd base toward home.
If I was “calling the shots” at CEP, I’d do away with that entire juvenile between innings stuff, it just bores one to tears. They really need to get someone that knows what they are doing if the must have that manure every half inning. Bring back Dutch aka Swiss Chedda!
I agree we need Dutch back.
Chris sucks.
All he (Chris) needs is big shoes he's already a clown.
Bring back Dutch? These folks didn't even have the good sense not to bring back DiFabio. Now there is one dim bulb! I don't think he has a clue about how clueless he is.
Bring back Ricci Rich.
He was the best on field MC they have ever had. He was really involved with the crowd.
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