Bayou Brief - Playoff Look

[Reg]

By Scott Plack, Sportswriter

The question on everyone's mind as we face the last week of play in the regular season is: Who gets who in the playoffs? The Trendsetters who played took two from the Statesmen last week would not complain to see them again. The Calzones who have struggled against both division rivals, Charleston and New Orleans, have surprisingly faired well versus the Hitmen, including winning two out of three recently. The Hitmen have fared well versus both the Statesmen and the Trendsetters.

As far as the race goes, currently the Trendsetters lead the division by four games over the Statesmen, and six over the Calzones. New Orleans magic number is five and so in all likelihood this race will go down to the wire. The Calzones have been particularly hot with Pei winning player of the week and helping the team win 6 of 7. The Statesmen have gone cold and struggled, and face a tough schedule to finish the season including having to face off against the Hitmen. It looks like we will have to wait until the final inning is played before the playoff picture can be developed.

The Trendsetters have played consistently well down the stretch and as always have leaned heavily on their pitching staff. Over the past week the team posted an ERA of 1.89, allowing 13 runs in 62 innings. McCullough continued to shine pitching once and striking out 12 in 6 innings. Jorge Sanchez also pitched well going seven strong innings allowing only one run. Offensively the Trendsetters struggled, although Deschamps drove in 5 and Valdez hit 3 homeruns with seven runs batted in.

To finish the season the Trendsetters have two games versus Connecticut, three versus division rivals Coal Sox, and finish the season with three versus the Maulers. If nothing else, the final week should be full of excitement to see who will be division champ and who will take the top wild card spot.

[Matt]

Correction, we OWN Charleston, 10-5 on the season. In fact, it was a sweep of Charleston that propelled us back into the race at a time when we were on the bubble between buying or selling at the deadline.

[Reg]

yep, my apologies