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Punxatawney kept their winning streak going, now 8 games long, with a sound 10-2 victory of North Spokane. It was the first game for Rondell White as a Groundhog and he made a great impression on manager Dan Shapiro as he went 3-4, scoring 3 runs and stealing a base. "Not quite sure what he was thinking when he got picked off, " added Shapiro. Ryan Klesko had another incredible game, hitting his 18th homer while going 3-5 and driving in 5 runs. Scott Rolen also homered, going 3-5 with 2 RBI.
Pitching the the Groundhogs was Roger Clemens, who at 5-0 had been tied for the league lead in wins. After throwing 7 innings allowing just 3 hits and 1 earned run while striking out 7 and walking none, Clemens watched Butch Henry and Terry Adams finish up the game. He is now 6-0, the best record of any pitcher in either league. His ERA dropped even more, now down to 2.13. "Roger can't do much better than he is now. As long as we keep giving him runs to work with, he'll keeping winning."
Pete Schourek, 4-1 with a 1.97 ERA, goes tommorow against Scott Karl who is 0-5 with an ERA of 7.88. "We are very worried about the game. Karl is a far better pitcher than he's shown so far and he'll end up breaking out of this slump. We just hope its not against us."
This win, along with a Hartford loss and a Spokane win has made the Groundhogs the best team by 2 1/2 games over Spokane and Hartford with Cockeysville just another 1/2 game behind them. In their own division, however, Punxatawney has a commanding 7 1/2 game lead over San Diego who overtook LA today with a 7-4 victory. Their winning percentage of .769 is simpy too good to last and Shapiro recognized this. "We're a good ballclub but we're not this good. Simply not this good. If we keep this up, I'll be amazed. That doesn't mean I don't expect to win the division by a large number of games. But for us to stay over .700 for more than another week would be incredible."
Written by Dan Shapiro