H'ville, Tn - For the 3rd straight year the Hitmen win the Marvin League Ford Division and are in the playoffs. This year they face off vs league friend Mike Brouillette and the Los Angeles Bruins as they look to recreate the "EPIC" 2010 MLCS.
That year the "Evil Empire" jump out to a commanding 3-0 lead, but watched in shock as the Bruins battled back to win the next 3 games and force a game 7. The Hitmen won game 7 behind a strong pitching performance by Louis Genest and went on to defeat Pocatello Boccabellas in 5 games to claim the VBL6 World Series title.
This year the Bruins and Hitmen flipped flopped and battled down the stretch for the #2 seed in the playoffs with the Hitmen winning it on the last day of the season. This is a HUGE victory for the Hitmen due to their average play on the road, 54-27 at home and a mere 42-39 on the road. The Bruins on the other hand will come to Agent 47 Field sporting the ML best road record at 46-35.
Here's a quick breakdown of the two teams:
Hville - L.A.
A SP A+ I might have Hill/Bamber, but LA's a lot deeper than I am
A+ MR A A-Gon, Whitehead, Were, Donahue, and Hassan are tough to beat
A+ SU A Tommy Smith might be the best SU guy in the game, love that guy!
A+ CL A+ Griffen and Morales are lights out and 1-2 in saves this year
A Pwr B+ Padilla/Prowse/Burk loses 42 HRs, but Cop, Green, Vazquez and Valdez have pop
B- Avg B- Inj has brought Hville's avg way down giving the teams fairly even matchup here
D- Spd A+ Not even close, L.A.'s speed is game changing! Hville has no speed!
B+ Fld A Even though Hville had better overall def, I think LA has better defenders
Hays has told several owners around the league that he doesn't think he will win this series. "I just don't know what team will show up! Will it be the team that got swept by NFF when they were 3-18 or will it be the team that shutout hated division rival Orlando in the last series of the season when they needed it the most?"
These two teams are very similar and this should be a great series, but with the Injuries to key bats in Hville and to Parson's in L.A. it's not a legit, best team on the field match up. In the end I think L.A. gets the better of me in what could be a short series. The Hitmen are coming off a losing month while L.A. was 18-8 in September, is pitching lights out, has the #1 road record and has a deeper bench, game changing speed and the best range fielders in the league.
With that said, If Hill and Bamber can pitch like they did in the Orlando series then Hell, yea we have a shot, but that was the first time all season they both pitched great in back-2-back games. We need to match their pitching from SP to CL and get some timily clutch hitting while not letting the gap hitting Bruins rack us and keep the speed demons OFF the base paths. That's a lot of "we need to do this.." talk. Only time will tell...
Playoff PR 2
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