It always comes down to starting pitchers

The Frontier League semifinals begin later tonight with Southern Illinois playing River City in one best-of-3 series and Traverse City facing Normal in the other. If it comes down to starting pitchers -- doesn't it always come down to pitching? -- then you have to favor the Miners in a landslide and give a slight edge to the Beach Bums.

At least that's what the regular season indicated.

When it comes to producing quality starts -- at least six innings and no more than three earned runs allowed -- Southern Illinois and Traverse City were among the best in the league. Both teams are helped by having home parks that are considered pitcher-friendly, but each team got the job done on the road this year. River City is near the bottom of the quality start list, but that can be attributed to playing in a hitters ballpark with a short right-field line and a lightning-quick grass infield. You can pitch a very good game at T.R. Hughes Ballpark and give up a lot more than three runs.

Evansville led the league in quality starts with 59, which is believed to be the second-most in league history. Washington finished in the middle of the pack, though in the bottom half of the league.

Here are the number of quality starts generated by each team this season (does not reflect any scoring changes more than 24 hours after a game was completed):

No. - Team
59 - Evansville
55 - Southern Illinois
49 - Traverse City
47 - Rockford
45 - Greys
44 - Normal
44 - Windy City
42 - Washington
41 - Gateway
39 - Schaumburg
35 - River City
33 - Joliet
30 - Florence
20 - Lake Erie