Wednesday, August 5, 2009

New Seals Off to a Slow Start

In the last dozen days, the Seals have added four players to their roster. Let's take a look at how each has fared so far.

On Tuesday night, Aaron Trolia got rocked in an epic fashion. He gave up 11 (yes, 11) earned runs on 11 hits and 5 walks in his 4 2/3 innings of work. And work he did. Manager Darrell Evans left him in long enough to throw 107 pitches in those 4 2/3 innings. Trolia's record is 0-1 with a 14.00 ERA after his first two starts with Victoria.

Dane De la Rosa has bounced back after giving up a pair of walk-off hits in his first two appearances. He has an 0-1 record with one save and a 2.70 ERA in his 3 1/3 innings of relief. He struck out a pair of Roadrunners in his one inning on Tuesday night, so he appears headed in the right direction with his new club. If all goes well, De la Rosa will be the Seals' closer for the rest of the way.

The two recent additions to the outfield, Gabriel Riley and Billy Krause have not fared so well at the plate, to say the least. In fact, their performance has pushed shortstop Bret LeVier out of his customary ninth spot in the batter order and up into the seven hole. Riley is batting .171 in his 35 at-bats with 1 homer and 3 RBIs. Krause, on the other hand, has been a total bust offensively. He's batting (and slugging!) a paltry .154 in 26 at-bats. He has zero homers and one RBI. Most alarming is the fact that he has struck out in 10 of his 26 at-bats.

Based on Victoria's 7-14 record in the second half and the direction this team seems to be heading, August could be a very long month for the Seals. They also have 9 games remaining against Calgary, the team with the best overall record in the league (37-20, or a .638 winning percentage). Let's hope the team rallies and ends the season on a high note.

Seal Blubber Bits
  • St. George beat Victoria on Monday and Tuesday by identical 15-9 scores. Scoring 18 runs in two consecutive losses must be a tough pill to swallow for the team's hitters. Unfortunately, this kind of thing isn't out of place in the Golden League.
  • This tells you how much better the Golden League hitters are as compared to the pitchers: Carlos Arroyo of the Yuma Scorpions is batting .357 on the season. Amazingly, that's not a high enough batting average to get him into the league's top ten!! On the other hand, only 10 pitchers in the league (min. 0.8 innings per team-games) have an ERA under 4.38.
  • After being second-last in the league in home runs in early June, the Seals have been hitting taters at an amazing clip. They now lead the league in homers with a whopping 69 round-trippers. Jamar Hill is tied for the league lead with 14 and Sergio Pedroza is tied for third in the league with 13 homers.