SML playoff preview: Brewers and Pirates

Three months of Saipan Major League baseball have come down to a first round showdown between the Miller Lite Brewers and the Pirates tomorrow night at Francisco M. Palacios baseball field at 6:30pm.

It will be one heck of a battle as the second and third place teams fight it out on the field in a best-of-three to determine who will have the opportunity to unseat the defending champion Northern Yankees next week in the finals.

The high-powered Brewers feature an offense that has accounted for 156 runs in only 12 games, for an average of 13 per contest. Their defense isn’t too shabby either, allowing just fewer than seven runs in each nine-inning performance for a total of 83, which is rather good in the SML. Pitcher Bobby Castro is leading the way in the earned run average category for the Crew, and Byron Kaipat and go-to guy Roy Celis round out a solid staff

The Pirates are an evenly balanced team that doesn’t bulge in the stats, crossing the plate 103 times, just 11 more runs than they’ve allowed. At last count, they have the league’s top hitter in Jerome Delos Santos, hitting a rather impressive 23-for-39 for an average of .589. They also receive solid hitting from Peter Tomokane, Jason Gay, and Joey Dela Cruz.

Craig Sanchez, Kevin Kapileo and Norman Tenorio look to silence the screaming bats of the Brewers as they have so far, but the outcome of the game will have more to do with which Pirates team shows up to the ballpark on Wednesday than who starts on the mound.

The Pirates are a team confident in their ability to become the champions, the problem for them is that they often wait too long to take their game to the next level. In four games with the second place Brewers this season, the Pirates split the series, with only three runs separating the teams. The black and gold however dropped all four of their contests with the Yankees by a combined score of 40 to 24.

The Brew Crew seemingly has more weapons to deal with the Yankees, having split their season series with them, but they cannot look past a hungry Pirates squad that is looking for a title.

Game 2 is set to be played Friday night and a third game will be played Wednesday, June 9, if necessary. All games are set for 6:30 starts at the Francisco M. Palacios baseball field.