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Mike Hampton, taking the mound for the first time as a Punxtawney Groundhog, was a bit nervous. He knew that he had big shoes to fill, replacing Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez as the staff ace. The young lefty focused in, and threw an excellent game, showing his new team that his stats are no fluke. He pitched an excellent game, leading his team to a 10-2 victory.
This win gave the Hogs a series sweep of the Washington Sea Dogs. "An excellent series for our team," said OGGM Dan Shapiro. "After they got 2 of 3 from us back at our place, we swept them in XRAY." This game was actually a low scoring affair until the late innings. Punxtawney struck first, tallying 2 runs in the 3rd and another in the 4th to take a 3-0 lead. They held that until the bottom of the 6th when the Sea Dogs scored twice to make it a 1 run, 3-2 game. However, Punxatawney piled up 7 unanswered runs over the last 3 innings to finish with a comanding 10-2 victory. They had only 11 hits but received 10 walks from the Sea Dogs pitchers as well.
In this game, there was no real single offensive star. There were only 2 extra base hits in the entire game. Jason Giambi, who went 2-4, doubled and drove in two. Scott Rolen was 2-3, scored twice, and drove in two runs with a homer. Rondell White, Tony Batista, and Greg Myers also had 2 hits a piece. However, the Washington offense didn't produce very much, collecting just 5 singles and 2 walks in their losing effort.
Mike Hampton is easily the game MVP as he went 7 innings, giving up 5 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, and striking out 8. The Punxtawney bullpen was again strong, finishing with 2 scoreless, hitless innings by Curt Leskanic and Bobby Munoz. Each also had 1 strikeout. The win made Mike Hampton 4-3 and dropped his ERA to 2.41. "I'm just happy to get some run support, finally," the starting pitcher said. "A 2.41 ERA, 8 quality starts, and only 4 wins to show for it? Hopefully my new teammates can keep up the offense, and I'll hold my end of the bargain."
Leskanic was happy to get some work in this game. He's thrown 1 2/3 innings over the last 2 games as he is finally getting back to a more important role in the bullpen. His ERA has dropped to 3.86 and he has been very dominant other than one poor outing. Bobby Munoz continued his excellent season and his ERA has descended to 2.51 over 32 1/3 innings.
The Sea Dogs pitching did not fare quite so well. Starter Todd Stottlemyre went 4 innings, giving up 3 runs, before he was pulled. He ended up taking the loss and went to 4-3 on the year. Reliever Brian Bevil gave up most of the runs, allowing 7 runs, 6 earned, over 4 2/3 innings. He walked 8 men as well. Bobby Ayala got the final out of the game for Washington.
With this series sweep, the Hogs are now 36-20 (.643) and are now over .500 (11-10) in out-of-division competition. They have increased their lead on the Tampa Bay Mets to 10 1/2 games. Their next opponents are another strong team from the Data Division, the Chicago South Siders. This will be the first meeting of these two clubs since the franchise moved to Chicago. The South Siders are 18-11 out of division and trail the Phoenix Gila Monsters by 1 1/2 games for their division lead. Bobby Thomas and Rocky Coppinger will go against A.J. Sager and Fernando Valenzuela.
Written by Dan Shapiro