BoS Regular Season Comes to Wild End!

The 5th season of the Boys of Summer APBA Baseball League (BoS) came to a wild end, as we had our league's first tie-breaking Game #163. The King Road Kings forced a 163rd game, by winning their last game at home against the Seattle Rainiers, and had to play those same Rainiers for sole victory of the N.L. West Division; Both teams are going to continue in the postseason regardless of who wins.

Winning the game is a big deal though... not only a Division Championship is at stake, but a first-round bye... Whoever loses will have to play the N.L. East Division Winner (who happened to be the Traverse City Panthers at 82-80). Traverse City was a combined 8-16 against Seattle & King Road (5 of those from Seattle).

King Road had to play game #163 on the road, due to Seattle having more Home victories for the season; Both King Road and Seattle have 101 wins for the season.

Game #163 & N.L. Setup

King Road's J.A. Happ would get his 20th win of the season, by helping the Kings defeat the Rainiers, 6-1 in Seattle. Chase Headley was huge with a three-run HR during the top of the 1st off of Masahiro Tanaka. Justin Smoak (Kings) also had a home run, while Seattle could only muster up 5 hits against the Kings' great pitching.

King Road will have a 1st Round-bye, while Seattle will play the Panthers, while Panthers will host the first two games of the series at home.

American League Playoff Setup

Meanwhile, over in the American League, the South Side Spartans won the A.L. East Division with a 103-59 record, while the Fairgrove Tigers (93-69), the defending World Champions won the A.L. West Division; The two-time champion Tigers have shown vulnerabilities of late, after a strong start to the season. The Corktown Tamales (94-68) will play Fairgrove in a best-of-five, with Fairgrove (division champs always own home field-advantage, despite records).

Season Statistics

Panthers' Prowl

The Traverse City Panthers' offense is what carried them to the postseason, as they led both leagues in team Batting Average (.267), On-Base Percentage (tied at .326 with Vancouver), Slugging (.474), OPS (.800), Hits (1,524), Home Runs (253), Runs (846 / 5.2 RPG), while being effective stealing bases (82.4% - 2nd in N.L.).

Their pitching on the other hand, 2nd to last in the National League (4.70 ERA) while teams batted .262 against them, while their defense (.979 fielding pct) was in the bottom three of the BoS; They allowed 830 runs, while only having a run differential of +16 for the season, which resulted in 82 wins.

All Roads Lead through King Road?

King Road Kings topped the entire BoS in pitching (3.05 ERA) with their remarkable pitching staff (107 Quality Starts & 1,545 strikeouts), led by J.A. Happ (20-8, 3.23 ERA & 171 K) & Chris Sale (15-9, 3.17 ERA & 237 K)... Along with top rookie & 2017 1st Overall draft pick Michael Fulmer (17-6, 2.58 ERA & 148 K), Ervin Santana (11-12, 3.47 ERA & 184 K), while Rich Hill (8-6, 2.98 ERA & 152 K) & Clayton Kershaw (11-3, 2.95 ERA & 162 K) were both stellar in limited play this season.

The Kings held opponents to an impressively low .207 batting average... that's insane!

Some questioned if they should trade some pitching for offense, but their offense did just fine, ranking 2nd in the BoS in Batting Average (.266), while their 4.6 runs per game outranked 10 other teams.

If the team has a weakness, it would be their fielding (.981) which ranked 11th in the BoS, while it ranks the worst among playoff contenders, but with that stellar pitching & good offense, that may be all they need, as they plan to make a serious run for the BoS World Title.

The Legion of Boom

The Seattle Rainiers are no slouches, they lost Game #163, to finish 101-62. They were tied for 4th in Batting Average (.255) while their 237 HR & 835 Runs only trailed the Panthers in the BoS. They also were among the top in pitching (5th / 3.56 ERA), fielding (.985 - Tops among N.L. Playoff teams) & have a tough bullpen led by their closer Kenley Jansen (31 SV, 2.52 ERA)... They are pretty solid all across the board.

The team was once again led by their team leader Jose Altuve (.315, 22 HR, 94 RBI, 115 runs & 39 steals), with big help from Nelson Cruz (.247, 49 HR & 129 RBI); Cruz's 49 homers was tops in National League, as he spoiled Miguel Cabrera's Triple Crown bid.

Wil Myers also had a big year for Seattle, as he batted .283, 29 HR, 95 RBI with 23 steals -- while Kyle Hendricks (16-10, 3.39 ERA & 164 K) was pretty much the ace of the club.

The National League feels it might be their year to land a title, they have only one World Championship in the Portland Microbrewers.