Hartford takes a hard look, now 14 games in April 22, 1998
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well, in Hartford anyway.
While it's offense has been anemic, struggling at the plate with a combined
.241 average as a club it's pitching has been phenomenal. The Whalers' top 3
starters are 7-1 and each with an ERA under 2. Maddux (2-0) is currently at
1.71 while Kevin Brown (2-1) and Tony Saunders (3-0) are at 1.80 and 1.27,
respectively. These tremendous arms have been anchoring a staff that has
opponents hitting even worse than the Whalers at .215 with 100 strikeouts. But
Manager Jeremy Chrabascz isn't comfortable with his club living and dying with
its pitching, "I'm appalled. I'm totally shocked and, frankly, a tad angry.
Fourteen games into the season and we're hitting .241?!? Give me a break. We
don't have a single guy hitting over .250, not even Junior (.184)! Your
pitching staff can only take you so (expletive) far!" Yes, the offense has
been struggling but in his club's defense, the Whalers are currently 9-5 and
1.5 games up on second-place Edmonton in the McCoy Division of the Enterprise
League. And, although they've lacked some punch, they've come through in the
clutch by winning 6 of 7 1-run games. However, Chrabascz sees this as an
unimpressive statistic and, in fact, symptomatic of their difficulties, "6-1 in
1-run games. Sure. But the point is that 14 games into the season we
should not have already played 7 games that were decided by only a run! I'll
have no hair left by the end of the season if that trend continues. No, I'm
not impressed with that statistic. I think our pitching has been superb and
our offense has gotten extremely lucky. Personally, I don't think we could
keep that up. Some of our team leaders need to step into the batters box and
show everyone how winning and winning DECISIVELY is done."
Chrabascz was clearly elluding to veteran All-Stars Ken Griffey Jr., Matt
Williams and Rafael Palmiero who have all struggled:
CF Griffey .184 0 RBI 9 SO
3B Williams .240 4 RBI 12 SO
1B Palmiero .200 5 RBI 6 SO
Hartford players have struck out a total of 93 times, only 7 better than their
opponents and DH Joe Carter leads the team with 17 of those 93 K's. Of course,
in his defense, Joe also leads the team with 8 RBI, followed by catcher Mike
Stanley (.220) with 7 RBI on 3 HR.
Hartford is hoping their stars' slump doesn't continue long but Chrabascz
s patience is clearly wearing thin. He doesn't plan any major restructuring of
the lineup, however, as his star players had success in their current spots in
the batting order last season.
TRANSACTIONS
-Cal Edlred, after weeks of bitching finally got his chance to start. In that
start, he pulled a bicep tendon (30%) after recording only 1 out. He was
placed on the DL earlier today. Meanwhile, the man he campaigned to replace
and DID replace, Carlos Castillo, came in to replace him in that game and
picked up the loss in relief after getting shelled yet again. Oh, the irony
of it all...
-RHP John Burke was recalled from AAA Glastonbury (CT) and immediately assigned
to fill the 4th spot in the starting rotation in place of Eldred. Burke was
Hartford's 4th starter last season and went 9-7 with an ERA of around 4.50
SAUNDERS STEPS IN
With Ben McDonald history and the weight of the world on his shoulders,
youngster Tony Saunders has stepped in and out-performed both Greg maddux and
Kevin Brown thus far this season. Saunders, the only lefty in the rotation, is
3-0 with an ERA of 1.27 in 21 1/3 innings of work. After going 5-5 in his
rookie season with an ERA of over 4.50, Saunders has taken his opportunity to
share the spotlight and has instead stolen it this season.
