The Rocket still on top of SML

Last of two parts

Last year’s champions of the Saipan Major League won the title with a mixture of clutch hitting, smart defensive play, heads up base running, and strong pitching. This season the Miller Lite Brewers will have to try to do more with less, as they lost two of their starting pitchers in the off season to the Ford Rangers and the San Antonio Metropolitans.

The Rangers were able to wrangle away one of the top talents in the SML when “The Rocket” Roy Celis defected from the Brew crew in favor of players formerly known as Pirates.

Pulling off the Celis-coup was huge for the Rangers, as they now have last season’s strikeout king atop the mound. In two outings this season, Celis is among a list of three pitchers tied with a flawless 0.00 earned run average, and leads the trio with seven innings pitched.

So far, The Rocket has fanned five batters, given up three hits, and shows no signs of cooling down, but if he does, the Rangers can always look to Ed Diaz. The big pitcher had a strong showing in the Rangers’ second outing, as he threw eight strikeouts over four hitless innings to propel his squad to their second win of the season, and preserve an unmarred 0.00 ERA.

The Rangers also have the crafty Norman Tenorio that can help them muscle out a few innings, as he has shown through three innings of work that yielded two runs off of five hits for a 6.00 ERA.

While Celis and Diaz lead the league with empty ERAs, they are joined by Frank Hocog of the Brewers. In his three and two-thirds innings of clean up work against the Mets, Hocog gave up four hits and nothing else to help the defending champs notch their first tally in the left side of the win-loss column.

Right behind Hocog in the fourth spot on the list of the league’s top pitchers is up-and-comer Byron Kaipat. Whether it’s in the outfield or atop the mound, Kaipat demonstrates his passion for the game with a mix of discipline and determination. In five innings of work, Kaipat allowed one run off of five hits for a slim 1.80 ERA. The young player shows a lot of promise for the Brew crew, as does teammate Jonathan Camacho.

While Camacho has given up more hits than any of the league’s top aces with 14, he has also thrown for more innings with nine and a third atop the mound. In all of his time on the hill, only three runners have crossed the plate under Camacho’s watch, to give the hurler an ERA of 2.89—good enough for ninth on the list.

The Northern Yankees also possess a pair of slingers that returned from last season, as Chris Camacho and Everette Ngiraidong have combined to fire out nine successful innings for the pinstripers.

Camacho shares Kaipat’s mark of a 1.80 ERA, allowing one run to score off of five hits through five innings pitched, while Ngiraidong also let one slip past him off of four hits in four innings on the hill for an ERA of 2.25. Not yet on the official list of top pitchers is Jonathan Jones, but his big time seven-batter, six-strikeout performance against the Masters on Monday night will certainly elevate him to the league’s upper crust when the new results are released.

The San Antonio Mets landed two of their pitchers on the list of top guns, as Masatoshi Otsuka and Bobby Castro have seventh and eighth slots of elite hardballers. While his defense failed him on a few occasions, Otsuka has only one run charged to him off of three hits through four innings with four strikeouts for the new team. Masatoshi and his 2.25 ERA headlines the new blood in the SML that has a number of people asking questions about acquiring the talented rookies for their squads, but the Mets made a move to land Bobby Castro from the Brewers before their first game.

Castro can become a force in the league once he gets used to throwing from the mound again, but a nagging shoulder pain has limited him to just three and two-third innings in which he surrendered eight hits. Pain or not, Castro still looks strong on the hill with a 2.45 ERA and four strikeouts.