San Juan Earn 100 for the Season
With five games to play, San Juan is sitting at 100 wins, a new milestone for the franchise. It has hit triple digits in losses before, once in Kawaguchi, once in Rio Grande (123!) and once in San Juan, but 90 in wins it only has passed twice, the year of the Cinderella championship run in 2031 (95) and the last season in Rio Grande in 2023 (91).
Other new territory sees the team being second in the PEBA power rankings on the late date of September 26. At 123.6, it sits just ahead of Havana at 122.2, which has yet to clinch the Trans Atlantic division title, leading the Coqui by four games.
“We’ve been plugging holes and adjusting matchups all season but stayed steady,” says General Manager Mike Best. “And now we seem to be playing our best baseball of the year.”
Rookie António Àvila, who has shored up a shallow bullpen, got his first PEBA start last week, pitching two-hit shutout ball for seven innings. San Juan staggered its staff to set up a couple pitchers in its two-game series with Havana that starts tomorrow. Three starters have fared well against the Leones this season, all lefties, although likely coincidental. Two of them, Seong-chae Somun (11-1) and Masaru Kouki (9-4), are due to start in the series.
Kouki, who has reached 8 wins by August in each of the past four five seasons, has failed to finish in double figures in the last four.
The 100 wins have brought another unusual occurrence as five pitchers have passed that mark: Fernando Castro (15-5), Marcel Osterhout (14-9), José Gómez (11-3), Tetsuzan Shimada (11-6) and Somun.
San Juan has also set an attendance record with 4.3 million tickets sold, the third consecutive year over 4 million. However, the team stands to lose close to 22 million this season and reports are that, at the moment, the team is unable to negotiate deals with Manager Sergio Manetti and upcoming free agents Castro and Kelvin McDonald, the team’s best pitcher and hitter this year.