Up in smoke, 2013 version

This season, perhaps more than any other in which the Wild Things played in the Frontier League, showed how the blown save statistic can be flawed.

Sure, a blown save shows that a relief pitcher inherited a lead and squandered the advantage. There's no getting around that fact. But does a team having a lot of blown saves necessarily mean that its  bullpen is worse than that of a team with only a few blown saves?

There are various kinds of blown saves. There is the blown save that comes in the sixth inning when a reliever enters the game with two runners on base, no outs and a one-run lead. The reliever gives up only one run in the inning, but it's considered a blown save. Then there's the blown save when a closer enters in the ninth inning with a two-run lead and promptly gives up two singles and a walk-off homer.

The reliever in the first example can still help his team win the game. The reliever in the latter takes a loss.

Another way to see how a team's blown save total can be misleading is by simply looking at the standings. Teams that win a lot of games generally have many more save opportunities than teams at the bottom of the standings. This leads to more opportunities for blown saves for the good teams. The 2013 Frontier League is a great example of this. That's why you find league champion Schaumburg at the top of the blown saves list and Joliet at the bottom.

Of course, being a traveling team that never bats in the bottom of the ninth inning can get you at the top of the blown saves list, too.

This list, however, does show some important things about relief pitching and the standings. Do you think Southern Illinois and River City would like to have a few of those blown saves converted to saves?

The six blown saves for Washington was its fewest since 2007 (5). Also, the six blown saves came from six different relievers. Nobody had more than one blown save.

2013 Blown Saves
16 - Greys
16 - Schaumburg
16 - Southern Illinois
15 - River City
15 - Rockford
12 - Florence
12 - Normal
11 - Gateway
11 - Lake Erie
10 - Evansville
10 - Traverse City
  8 - Windy City
  6 - Washington
  4 - Joliet

Boomers win title in 2nd season

The Scahaumburg Boomers won the Frontier League championship Tuesday night when they defeated the Lake Erie Crushers 3-1 in Game 3 of the finals. Schaumburg swept the best-of-5 series and won six consecutive postseason games.

The playoffs continued a trend from the regular season for the Boomers in that they were very good on offense late in games. Schaumburg scored the winning run in each of the six playoff games in the seventh inning or later, including three in their final inning of batting. We mentioned in an earlier post that the Boomers tied for the league lead by scoring the game-winning run in their final at-bat 16 times during the regular season.

The championship series was a rough one for Lake Erie, which committed three errors in each of the three games. The Crushers also ran into three outs at third base in one of the games. Lake Erie outhit Schaumburg 10-5 in Game 3 but scored only one run.

Schaumburg is the 11th different franchise to win the Frontier League championship in the 12 seasons the Wild Things have been in the league (Windy City won the title twice). Washington is the only team that has played in the league every year since 2002 -- the Wild Things' inaugural season -- and hasn't won a championship.

Quality control

Starting pitching.

Winning or losing in baseball always comes down to starting pitching, doesn't it?

The Wild Things had plenty of starting pitching this season -- if we're talking about the number of starting pitchers.

Washington set a franchise record by using 14 starting pitchers. That was at least two more than in any other season.

There were several reasons for the multitude of starting pitchers. Among them were injuries, ineffectiveness, several doubleheaders that caused relievers to make spot starts, etc.

Washington was leading the Frontier League in team ERA as late as June 28. But the starting pitching started to fall apart in July, during which the team ERA was 4.90. As a result, the Wild Things finished eighth in the league with a 4.06 ERA.

Of the five starters who began the season in the rotation, only two (Gary Lee and Shawn Blackwell) were there at the end. Opening day starter Shawn Smith was released in July, Shawn Sanford was traded in August and Justin Hall was 2-0 after two starts when his shoulder gave out. Don't underestimate the significance of Hall's loss on this pitching staff and team.

Because of the rotation being in a state of flux in the second half of the season, Washington's number of quality starts (at least six innings pitched with no more than three earned runs allowed) dipped in 2013.
The Wild Things had at least 50 quality starts in each of the two previous seasons. Sanford led Washington in quality starts with 11, followed by Lee (10) and Blackwell (5).

Three of the four playoff teams finished among the top 5 in the league in quality starts. The fourth playoff team (Florence) somehow made the postseason with the fewest quality starts.

2013 Quality Starts By Team
51 - Lake Erie
49 - Normal
47 - Gateway
46 - Traverse City
45 - Schaumburg
44 - Southern Illinois
43 - Rockford
43 - Windy City
40 - Washington
39 - Evansville
39 - Joliet
39 - Greys
38 - River City
28 - Florence

Crushers-Boomers final

The Lake Erie Crushers will face the Schaumburg Boomers in the Frontier League championship series that begins Saturday.

The Crushers came from behind to defeat Traverse City 5-4 in the deciding Game 5 Thursday night/Friday morning. The game was delayed by rain three times and ended after 1 a.m. Lake Erie scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh -- immediately after a rain delay of 2 hours and 25 minutes -- to take the lead.

The championship series will match two people with ties to the Wild Things. Lake Erie is managed by Jeff Isom, who was Washington's original manager in 2002 and '03. Schaumburg has pitcher Shawn Sanford, who appeared in 18 games with the Wild Things this year and had an 8-5 record. Schaumburg also has a player on its roster who will be traded to the Wild Things after the season to complete the player-to-be-named trade for Sanford.

Traverse City-Lake Erie highlights

Here are some highlights of last night's Lake Erie at Traverse City playoff game that was won by the Beach Bums, 5-0. Traverse City leads the series 2-1.

Schaumburg in finals

The West Division champion Schaumburg Boomers punched their ticket to the Frontier League championship series last night with a 9-8 win over the Florence Freedom in 10 innings. Schaumburg swept the best-of-5 semifinal series, 3-0.

Florence had won five of the six regular-season game against the Boomers.

Schaumburg erased a three-run deficit in the ninth inning, getting a two-run homer from Brian McConkey and scoring the tying on two passed balls. The Boomers then scored the game-winner in the top of the 10th on a run-scoring hit by McConkey.

It was the second game in the series that Schaumburg won by scoring in its final inning of batting. The Boomers won Game 1 when Steve McQuail -- the Frontier League Home Run Derby winner -- hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth.

The wins in Games 1 and 3 were very Boomer-like. Schaumburg had been able to overcome tying for the league lead in blown saves (more on this in a later post) by scoring the winning run in its final inning of batting -- either the bottom of the 8th, top of the 9th, bottom of the 9th or extra innings, depending on if at home or on the road and the length of the game. The 16 last-at-bat wins tied for the most in the league.

Schaumburg's ability to pull out wins late in games, even after blowing a lead, shows the confidence the Boomers played with all season. This is a team believes it can win, no matter how desperate the situation. That reminds me of something Washington manager Bart Zeller said late in the season about his team. Zeller mentioned that his team never quit and played hard to the end of every game, but added that when something bad happened to the Wild Things during a game, they seemed to expect to lose. Maybe that is showed in the number of last-at-wins this season:

2013 Last-At-Bat Wins
16 - Lake Erie
16 - Schaumburg
13 - Windy City
12 - Evansville
12 - River City
11 - Normal
11 - Rockford
10 - Gateway
 9 - Southern Illinois
 7 - Florence
 7 - Joliet
 7 - Washington
 6 - Traverse City
 2 - Greys

An interesting note about this statistic is Windy City had six of its last-at-bat wins during a six-game stretch in August. Three of those wins were in a series at Washington.

All-league team

In case you missed it, the Frontier League announced its all-league team and award winners Sunday. Washington's C.J. Beatty was named the all-league second baseman. He is the first Washington player since 2009 (designated hitter Jacob Dempsey) to be named all-league and the first Wild Things second baseman to be so honored since Brian Stoecklein in 2003.

Beatty is batting .311 with 26 doubles, 18 home runs and 65 RBI. He also has drawn a team-high 41 walks and leads the league in total bases with 192.

"He far exceeded what our expectations were for him," Washington manager Bart Zeller said. "We didn't expect him to come in and hit (18) home runs. He has been just tremendous. He's a great leader in the clubhouse and on the field."

Zeller also said that Beatty will play third base during the upcoming three-game series against the Greys.

The rest of the all-league team and award winners:

1B – Russell Moldenhauer, Lake Erie Crushers
2B – C.J. Beatty, Washington Wild Things
3B – Jacob Tanis, Florence Freedom
SS – Patrick McKenna, Normal CornBelters
OF – Jon Myers, Gateway Grizzlies
OF – Nick Akins, Joliet Slammers
OF – Daniel Bowman, Lake Erie Crushers
C – Landon Hernandez, Gateway Grizzlies (also 2011 and 2012 selection)
DH – Steve McQuail, Schaumburg Boomers
SP – Scott Dunn, Traverse City Beach Bums
RP – Eric Massingham, Evansville Otters

Morgan Burkhart Award (MVP) – Jacob Tanis, Florence Freedom
Brian Tollberg Award (Pitcher of the Year) – Scott Dunn, Traverse City Beach Bums
Jason Simontacchi Award (Rookie of the Year) – Danny Canela, River City Rascals
Roger Hanners Award (Manager of the Year) – Jamie Bennett, Schaumburg Boomers
Fran Riordan Award (Citizenship) – Cannon Lester, Southern Illinois Miners
Bob Wolfe Award (Executive of the Year) – Joel Padfield, Evansville Otters
Coach of the Year – Boots Day, Evansville Otters
Trainer of the Year – Geof Manzo, Gateway Grizzlies
Groundskeeper of the Year – Mike VerSchave, Windy City ThunderBolts
Newspaper of the Year – Observer-Reporter
Broadcaster of the Year – Tim Calderwood, Schaumburg Boomers
Clubbie of the Year – Matt Mooney, Southern Illinois Miners
Organization of the Year – Schaumburg Boomers
Umpire of the Year – Joe Harris

Deep sixed

The Joliet Slammers performed the rarest of feats Saturday night as six pitchers combined to throw a 10-inning no-hitter at Traverse City. The Slammers won the game 4-1 by scoring three runs in the top of the 10th.

It was the second no-hitter in Slammers history.

Chase Doremus, a relief pitcher, made his first professional start for Joliet, going 4 1/3 innings and giving up the lone run. He walked five and struck out six.

Lucas Goodigon followed and retired the only batter he faced. Jason Sullivan, Cory Kimes and Matt Dillon each threw one inning. Brett Zawacki (6-7) was the winning pitcher, throwing the final two innings.

That six-pitcher performance sparked one question: What is the major league record for most pitchers used in a no-hitter?

The answer is 6.

It happened only one time, on June 11, 2003, as the Houston Astros used six pitchers to no-hit the New York Yankees. Roy Oswalt started the game but left only two pitches into the second inning after suffering a groin injury. He was followed by Pete Munro (2 2/3 innings), Kirk Saarloos (1 1/3), Brad Lidge (2), Octavio Dotel (1) and Billy Wagner (1).