At worst it's bad form for power rankings to mirror the standings. At best it's boring. We'll try not to be boring, but the Wicked Aces 3-0-1 start demands the top spot. Kujawa and Villarreal combined for 0.92 ERA and 1.19 WHIP over the first four games. To bring a storyline to the table: the Aces are 9-0-1 if you go back to July 21, 2018. The last team to beat them was the Stinky Nuts, who swept. The Aces' sweep of the Nuts this past weekend makes for a nice bookend to that chapter. Big test coming up for the Aces when they'll be without Kujawa for their next six games.
King Friday at #2. Told you we'd try not to be boring! Yes, they were outscored 8-10 in their split series with El Diablos, and maybe sound logic says they should be #4. The reason we give the edge to Friday over the other two .500 teams, though, is that they played with a three-man lineup and without the ace of their rotation. El Diablos and Stinky Nuts both had their top two arms in play. Adding Braden to Friday's rotation and lineup seems like the biggest boost for any of the .500 teams, and we're betting futures here.
Slide El Diablos into the third spot, barely behind Friday. Basically touching. Picture the two teams spooning: El Diablos as the big spoon. If we were power ranking players, Chandler would be #1 with a bullet: pitched a shutout, hit like a maniac (.667 AVG, 2.325 OPS). El Diablos offense as a whole is strong, as expected. The concern is with the second arm in the rotation after Brown had a rough outing. Can't depend on Fisher to fill that roll full-time. Of course, given better conditions Brown could turn things around for an impact similar to what Braden brings for Friday. Like we said: big spoon.
The general consensus on Stinky Nuts is that at full strength this team is a force. We tend to agree, but the team was at full-strength, at least with their pitching, when they dropped both games to the Aces. They blew a 1-0 lead in the last inning of that first game, then gave up early runs in the following game and their bats couldn't climb back into it. That's the main point: it's hard to rank the Nuts higher up this board when they have a .129 team batting average.
Back in line with the standings and boring at the bottom: Redux in spot number five. The Dux highlight is the 8 scoreless innings pitched by Strojny. Irwin, in his rookie debut, also pitched two perfect innings. Zeller led the offense with 3 hits, but their two runs scored came on two solo shots. As the old [read: "rather recent"] adage goes, "nothing loses a game faster than solo home runs." So, the preseason predictions seem on point: promising pitching prospects, but bum bats.
At the bottom we have the Islanders. Unable to plate a single run. They did scatter three hits among three players; still, it's hard to draw a silver lining from that. Skinner, pitching in the ace role, surrendered 2 R on 2 H and 4 BB. Not necessarily bad… except when the lineup's not scoring any runs. Their second arm is cause for more concern. Bruen got shelled for 10 R, and Adams threw one pitch, which ended up over the fence for the walk-off mercy. If we're offering advice, 2 steps: 1) find a way to score runs, then 2) sort out the situation with second pitcher.
