Season recap

Here are the final standings for the Pac-Man Division for the fall season:

Tuesday Night Pac-Man Division	W	L	T	PTS	HR	RUNS FOR	RUNS AGNST	GB
Grass Kickers	6	1	0	12	2	52	18	0
Ctrl/Alt/Del	4	2	1	9	0	41	29	1.5
Flying Muskellunge	3	3	1	7	1	37	42	2.5
Mighty Milfoil	3	4	0	6	3	46	56	3
Fire Escape	2	5	0	4	1	29	38	4
Blue Balls	2	5	0	4	0	19	41	4

Allow me to geek out with some analysis of these results.

- It's all about "run differential" -- the difference between runs scored and runs allowed. When you subtract the number in the RUNS AGNST column from the number in the RUNS FOR column, you can pretty much predict what a team's record would be, within a margin of error.

Grass Kickers have a run differential of (52 - 18 =) 34, which is pretty high for a seven-game season, and that's why they're in first place. Blue Balls have a differential of (19 - 41 =) -22, which is why they're dead last.

As for us, our run differential is -5. Since that's a negative number, you might almost expect us to have a losing record, but since -5 is pretty close to zero, it fits with our even record of 3-3-1. That said, it's kind of disturbing that we gave up more runs than we scored, which wasn't true until two weeks ago.

Our negative differential also reflects the fact that the scores of the games we won (14-10, 4-2, 4-3) were summarily a little closer than the scores of the games we lost (7-6, 10-3, 7-3). We had a little luck in the beginning, and a little bad luck near the end, but ultimately we broke even in nearly every way.

- We had the fourth-best offense and the fifth-best defense, but still came in third. Weird. But the Mighty Milfoil's last-place defense was so bad that it canceled out their second-place offense.

- Grass Kickers, the division champions, lost only one game. To us. Just remember that.

Now, compare our fall performance with our spring stats:

Monday Night Smurfs Division	W	L	T	PTS	HR	RUNS FOR	RUNS AGNST	GB
Uptown Ball Stars	7	0	0	14	4	80	26	0
Rubber Toe	5	2	0	10	0	57	35	2
Dusty Balls	3	3	1	7	1	32	27	3.5
Fighting Muskellunge	2	4	1	5	0	42	55	4.5
Paste Eaters	2	5	0	4	0	35	82	5
Dangerous Machines	1	6	0	2	0	33	54	6

- Whoa. The biggest surprise here is that we actually scored more runs in the spring than we did in the fall -- 5 more runs, in fact. This reflects the fact that in the fall, we scored only 3 or 4 runs in four of seven games (although we won two of those).

- But the good news is that we allowed 13 fewer runs in the fall than in the spring. Our run differential was -13 in the spring, so our differential improved by 8 runs between seasons. That was good enough to improve by one game from spring to fall.

- Comparing two different seasons is not perfect. Our opponents were mostly different. Uptown Ball Stars were extremely dominant (with a differential of +54) and Rubber Toe (+21) were no slouches either. And in the spring playoffs, we faced (and beat) the #5 and #6 teams, while in the fall playoffs, we faced (and lost to) the #2 and #5 teams.

- The most-improved award has to go to Dangerous Machines a.k.a. Ctrl/Alt/Del, whose differential improved by 33 points, while their defense improved from 54 in the spring to 29 in the fall. I don't know entirely how they did it, but I think using ponytail guy at pitcher made them a lot tougher to get hits off of.

Overall, these stats make it look like we only improved a little from the spring to the fall. But in reality, we were playing really well over a period of six games between June 21 and Sept. 28. Once October hit, we kind of lost our focus and choked a little bit. We had a bit of a problem with girl attendance. But our defense got better and will continue to. Our offense can only get better. It's way to early to talk about the spring, but the next time we put on the red shirts, I think we'll be primed for more competition.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the season in that "Comments" link down there.

Comments

[Chris]

I am part of my highschool freshman kickball team. We are looking to defeat the senior team at the end of the year. We are looking for any suggestions or possible scrimmages with a team in our area. We would also love coaching advise. Send me an e-mail if you think you can help.