How good were your firemen?

The Southern Illinois Miners won their first Frontier League championship Sunday night by defeating the Florence Freedom, 4-3 in 12 innings, at Rent One Park. The Miners won the best-of-five series, 3-1.

One reason for the Miners' success was their bullpen. No team in the Frontier League had fewer blown saves than Southern Illinois, and late-season acquisitions Brandon Cunniff (River City), Nick Cicio (Washington) and Steve Grife (Washington) were so reliable that the Miners' opponents were forced to forge a lead before the seventh inning or the game was essentially over.

That Florence was in the championship series was an impressive accomplishment when you consider that the Freedom tied for the league lead in blown saves, going almost wire-to-wire atop the list. Florence gave up six runs in the top of the ninth inning of a July 24 game against Lake Erie and lost 8-7. That loss might have been the turning point in Florence's season. From that point on, the Freedom's bullpen starting protecting leads and was a key to Florence's late-season charge to the postseason, going from fourth place in the East Division to a second-place finish and the top wild-card spot.

Washington's bullpen had 11 blown saves, which was three off the team record. The 11 blown saves came from eight different pitchers. No reliever had more than two blown saves. Washington was 2-9 in games when they had a blown save.

2012 Blown Saves
16 - Florence
16 - Joliet
12 - Rockford
11 - Washington
10 - London
10 - Normal
10 - Traverse City
 9 - Evansville
 9 - Gateway
 9 - Schaumburg
 8 - Lake Erie
 8 - Windy City
 7 - River City
 6 - Southern Illinois
 4 - Road Warriors

Useless information, midseason edition

With the All-Star break at hand, it's a good time to clean the notebook of some statistical drivel that reveals some interesting, and some rather predictable, things about the season's first half.

We know that starting pitching has usually been the Wild Things' strength. This year is no exception, though, as expected, the numbers have fallen off following last year's record-setting performance. Here's a look at the number of quality starts (at least six innings pitched and no more than three earned runs allowed) for each team:

Quality Starts
27 - Evansville
27 - London
25 - Schaumburg
23 - Washington
23 - Windy City
22 - Gateway
22 - River City
20 - Lake Erie
20 - Southern Illinois
20 - Traverse City
19 - Florence
19 - Joliet
18 - Normal
10 - Rockford

You can see why Rockford is last in the league in team ERA (note that two of the RiverHawks' 10 quality starts have come against Washington), but it's surprising that Lake Erie has the lowest ERA yet is in the middle of the pack in quality starts. This is mainly because Crushers manager John Massarelli, more often than any other manager, goes to his bullpen at the start of the sixth inning. Despite being tied for the lead in quality starts, London is in the bottom half of team ERA, which has been caused by its bullpen. As you can see below, the Rippers' relief pitching has been shaky when given a lead.

Blown Saves
10 - Florence
9 - Joliet
9 - London
8 - Washington
6 - Gateway
6 - Lake Erie
6 - Rockford
5 - Southern Illinois
5 - Traverse City
4 - Schaumburg
4 - Windy City
3 - Normal
2 - Evansville
2 - River City

One note about Washington's blown saves: the eight have come from seven different pitchers.

The standings in the West Division today show Schaumburg holding a one-game lead over Windy City and a three-game advantage over River City. As you can see above, the Boomers have gotten there with solid starting pitching and, despite what happened over the weekend against the Wild Things, some dependable relief pitching. But another aspect of Schaumburg's game is its ability to come through offensively in the late innings. The Boomers lead the league in wins in their final at-bat. We're not talking talking walk-off wins, but simply scoring the game-winning run in you team's final inning of batting (extra innings, ninth inning, bottom of the eighth for a home team). The statistic shows a team's ability to keep a game close and then find a way to win late.

Last At-Bat Wins
8 - Schaumburg
7 - Evansville
7 - Florence
7 - River City
6 - Gateway
4 - Lake Erie
4 - London
4 - Traverse City
4 - Washington
3 - Joliet
3 - Windy City
2 - Normal
2 - Southern Illinois
2 - Rockford

The interesting note about Washington's four last at-bat wins is three of them came in the first six games of the season, and they didn't have another until Sunday, the final game of the first half. Washington went a stretch of 40 consecutive games without a last at-bat win.

If you study these three statistics, the one question you might have is this: How is Evansville first in quality starts, have the fewest blown saves and is second in last at-bat wins, but yet is 11 games out of first place in the East? The answer is Otters simply don't score enough (12th in runs) to carry many leads into the late innings.

Best Game by a Hitter in the First Half: Rockford outfielder Javier Herrera, June 28 vs. Evansville. Herrera was 5-for-5, hit for the cycle and drove in 7 runs.

Best Game by a Pitcher in the First Half: Windy City's Mike Recchia, July 2 vs. Evansville. Recchia threw a 9-inning shutout, allowed only 3 hits and 3 walks. He struck out 16 and threw 146 pitches. In his next start, Recchia, had a 2-hit, 10-strikeout shutout of River City.

Up in smoke, 2011 version

The championship series is set for the Frontier League. It will be the Joliet Slammers, champions of the East Division, against the West Division champion River Ciy Rascals.

River City will be trying to become the third franchise to win back-to-back Frontier League championships. The others were Richmond (2001-02) and Windy City (2007-08). River City is in the finals for the third year in a row, having lost to Lake Erie in 2009.

Joliet swept Lake Erie in the East Division finals, and River City would have swept Southern Illinois had it not been for a ninth-inning meltdown by its bullpen in Game 1. The Rascals squandered a four-run lead in the top of the ninth, giving up six runs and losing 9-7.

Which begs the question, how good is River City's bullpen? The Rascals certainly have some impressive arms at the back of the pen, with three relievers having ERAs under 2.22. The Rascals tied with Joliet for most saves in the league with 34. However, River City had several more blown saves, and many of those came in the second half of the season.

Is that simply a byproduct of River City playing more games with late leads than Joliet, or do the Slammers have a more reliable bullpen? It's probably a little of both.

Here's a look at the blown saves for each team (note that Washington's blown saves totals were 14 in 2010, 15 in 2009, 15 in 2008 and 5 in 2007):

2011 Blown Saves
15 - Florence
12 - River City
12 - Rockford
12 - Southern Illinois
11 - Gateway
11 - Washington
11 - Windy City
9 - Joliet
9 - Lake Erie
9 - Normal
9 - Traverse City
8 - Evansville

Up in smoke

Here is another unofficial statistic from the 2009 season: the much-debated blown saves.

The numbers aren't official because there was one game involving two West Division teams that might have had a blown save that I was unable to confirm with the radio broadcasters.

For the second year in a row, Washington led the Frontier League in blown saves.
It's interesting that many of the teams with the worst records in the league were at the bottom of the list for blown saves. Traverse City had the fewest blown saves, probably in part because of Jeff Williams being so good as the Beach Bums' closer in the first half of the season and it being so hard to score at Wuerfel Park. Gateway, the fifth-place team in the West, had the second-fewest blown saves. When the Grizzlies won, they usually won big because they led the league in home runs and runs scored.

Blown saves totals for 2009:

15 - Washington
14 - Southern Illinois
13 - Kalamazoo
13 - Rockford
12 - Midwest
11 - Evansville
10 - Florence
10 - Lake Erie
9 - River City
9 - Windy City
7 - Gateway
5 - Traverse City

NOTES: Washington also had 15 blown saves in 2008. In 2007, the Wild Things had only five blown saves. ... In the 15 games with blown saves, the Wild Things had a 4-10 record. They had two blown saves in an Aug. 4 game against Lake Erie that was won by the Crushers. ... Seven different Washington pitchers had at least one blown save. ... Washington's four losses when leading after eight innings and seven losses when leading after seven innings were each league highs. ... Most of Southern Illinois' blown saves came in the middle innings. The Miners were 45-0 when leading after eight innings.