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Update: 10-24-26
-2025
Round one of the playoffs is over, and looking over the stats reminded me of an old movie directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie is called “Unforgiven,” and in it is a character called English Bob. Now English Bob is, of course, from England, and the movie is set in the year 1901, and the time is a few days after the assassination of William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States.
English Bob spends a lot of his screen time needling the Americans around him about the barbarity of their newly formed country. The line I was reminded of was this one: “If you were to try to assassinate a king, sir, the, how shall I say it, the aura of royalty would cause you to miss. But, a president, [chuckles] I mean, why not shoot a president?”
So I look at round 1 and I see Colorado, a team that lead our league in homeruns in the regular season, end up with only 3 homeruns in its loss. And then I look at Punxsutawney, a team that lead our league in batting average all year long, hit just .237 in their loss. And I can only think about English Bob’s saying, “If the Eastern teams were to try to eliminate the Western teams from the playoffs, sir, the, how shall I say it, the aura of the Western division superiority would cause them to fail.”
For Colorado, there was K Schwarber, and precious little else. Schwarber batted .385 and only hit 2 homeruns. Nobody else on the team got on base, because even with that batting average, Schwarber only scored 2 runs and had 2 rbi, courtesy of his own homers. The rest of the team hit under .200. And the “Three Amigos,” the three players who I thought were going to put Colorado over the edge were silenced: H Goodman batted .154, M Machado hit .059, and M Olson hit .200.
For the Woodland Hills Chompers, this series win can be dedicated to a fantastic bullpen performance. J Romero, T Santillon, and A Bender collected a 3-0 record with zero runs scoring in their 5.2 innings. A Ashby pitched 3 innings with a 0.00 era, but didn’t collect that 4th win because it went to S Ohtani, who pitched 5 innings of his own with a 0 era. Damn! That’s a lot of zeros from this pitching staff. I guess I also have to mention that S Ohtani batted .364, scoring 2 runs with 4 rbi with his 2 homeruns. It looks like the Chompers will not be denied their trophy this year.
Punxsutawney, meanwhile, saw their .267 batting average drop 30 points to .237 in their 5 games. T Turner hit just .286 with 0 runs and 0 rbi in the first 3 games, and then went crazy in the next 2 to finish at .391. But that gaudy average produced 0 runs and just 1 rbi. P Alonso, who was hoping to move on and play the team that traded him away in the next round, finished with a .353 ave, 4 runs, but just 2 rbi that came with his 2 homeruns. Hollywood hit just .239 in the regular season, but a 1-15 singles ballpark and a slew of lucky rolls pummeled the Groundhog starters: Y Yamamoto was 0-2 with a 9 era; P Lopez had a 8.31 era; and R Ray had a 5.68 era. The entire pitching staff collected a 6.00 era.
The Hollywood Swingers .293 batting average reflected their hot start in the 1st three games where they hit around .390, but then slumped in the next 2. Luckily for them, that 3-0 lead was too strong for Pun to overcome. L Arraez hit .300 with 2 runs and 4 rbi; J Naylor batted .267 with 2 runs and 4 rbi, and A Acuna hit .250 with 3 homeruns and 6 rbi.
While Punxsutawney did indeed have a lot of bad luck on rolls, I feel that the worst break of all was the ‘Hogs drawing Hollywood in round 1. Not that Hollywood is a better team, but that compared to Woodland Hills and Colorado, the Swingers do not need to hit homeruns to win games. I feel that the Chompers and the Reavers would have been stymied in the Punx home park, where homeruns go to die. Hollywood basically is a team that just walks a lot with a few hits here and there, but getting the boost of ballpark singles really augmented the Swinger strengths. It’s just a double dose of bad luck for Mike.
The first round playoff stats are in the folder below!
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NEWSPAPER STYLE RECAP FOR 2026 Emp Lg - Final Date: 10/1/2026
TEAM WON LOST BATTING AVERAGE HOME RUNS RUNS BATTED IN
2026 WHL 98 62 T.Turner PUN .326 E.Suarez BAY 52 P.Alonso PUN 118
2026 HOL 94 66 X.Edwards HOL .311 S.Ohtani WHL 47 E.Suarez BAY 117
2026 FLO 80 80 H.Goodman COL .298 K.Schwarb COL 45 S.Ohtani WHL 116
2026 JER 76 84 A.Bohm PUN .296 J.Soto HOL 43 C.Walker VAT 104
2026 VAT 74 86 H.Ramos LON .291 C.Walker VAT 36 K.Schwarb COL 97
2026 RRK 64 96
WINS SAVES ERA
2026 PUN 94 66 M.Fried COL 17 A.Chapman WHL 41 J.Degrom BAY 2.24
2026 COL 89 71 J.Verland WHL 17 D.Santana HOL 35 P.Skenes VAT 2.49
2026 BAY 87 73 J.Degrom BAY 16 C.Estevez PUN 30 C.Holmes HOL 2.50
2026 LON 73 87 K.Gausman COL 16 J.Duran JER 29 K.Gausman COL 2.73
2026 HKW 70 90 N.Pivetta HOL 15 E.Diaz BAY 28 C.Sanchez LON 2.85
2026 LBB 61 99
CUR HIT STREAK STOLEN BASES STRIKEOUTS
N.Hoerner BAY 6 T.Turner PUN 47 L.Webb JER 233
K.Tucker PUN 6 V.Scott HKW 43 J.Luzardo PUN 209
OTHERS TIED W 5 J.Soto HOL 42 D.Cease RRK 205
E.De La C FLO 42 P.Skenes VAT 203
OTHERS TIED W 40 S.Gray HOL 195
WHO'S HOT - BEST IN LAST 10 DAYS
BATTER TM AVG AB H RB BB HR PITCHER TM IP H ER BB Ks HR WLS
H.Ramos LON .455 22 10 6 3 4 Q.Priester HKW 12 4 0 2 18 0 100
K.Schwarber COL .297 37 11 12 7 5 J.Duran JER 6 2 0 0 7 0 002
W.Smith RRK .320 25 8 6 6 2 H.Greene VAT 12 5 0 2 19 0 100
P.Alonso PUN .371 35 13 6 5 3 K.Gausman COL 6 2 0 0 6 0 100
B.Harper HKW .436 39 17 6 4 3 C.Burns HKW 7 3 0 1 9 0 100
WHO'S NOT - WORST IN LAST 10 DAYS
BATTER TM AVG AB H RB BB HR PITCHER TM IP H ER BB Ks HR WLS
T.Freeman VAT .115 26 3 0 2 0 Z.Littell BAY 12 18 12 5 1 3 020
O.Albies LBB .158 38 6 1 2 0 E.Perez JER 7 11 9 3 8 2 010
W.Adames LON .129 31 4 1 3 0 C.Flexen COL 6 8 6 3 6 3 010
K.Marte COL .125 24 3 0 4 0 M.Boyd COL 10 15 10 3 10 2 020
B.Donovan LON .146 41 6 1 5 0 M.Fried COL 5 7 5 6 8 3 010
INJURY REPORT
No injuries to report
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English Bob baiting Americans