Lava Flow for October

As provided by John McMillan:

Saving their best for last, the Volcanoes surged to 15 October victories, second place in the Northbound division, and the presumed No. 4 playoff seed.  The Volcanoes opened October play taking 4 of 5 from the Bushwood Gophers, won 3 games (out of 5) against the Hypnotoads and Beach Bums, and then closed the month with a 5-0 sweep of the Beach Bums.  The offense continued to roll, batting .312 and hitting 49 Home Runs while scoring 137 runs.  With at-bat usage limiting Chris Yelich to 44 at-bats, Sam Hilliard filled in with a Yelich-esque .400 BA, 5 HR’s and 13 RBI’s in 30 at-bats.  Other October batting stars included Charlie Blackmon’s 30 hits (18 extra-base hits) in 74 at-bats (.405 BA) with 20 runs and 24 RBI’s, Wilmer Flores and Jordan Luplow left-mashing for .400+ BA, 6 combined HR’s and 14 combined RBI’s, and Mitch Garver and Francisco Lindor each hitting 6 HR’s.  Shane Bieber and Luis Castillo had good months, each going 3-0 – Bieber with a 1.52 ERA and Castillo with a 2.63 ERA.  Deadline pickup Scott Oberg was 1-0 with 2 saves and a 0.00 ERA in 4 games; Daniel Hudson and Rowan Wick also posted 0.00 ERA’s on the month.

The game of the month was the second game of the Bushwood series.  The Volcanoes opened October play with an 8-1 loss to Justin Verlander (Oh, I hate that guy)

and Volcano fans were dreading the possibility of an October slump and playoff lock-out.  Game 2 of the series matched Volcano ace Shane Bieber against Yu Darvish.  Both starters pitched shut-outs through their 5 innings of work, Bieber allowing 4 hits, no walks and striking out 8 while Darvish allowed just 2 hits, no walks and struck out 5.  The bullpens took over, with the Volcano quartet of Urias, Wendelken, Means and Oberg continuing Bieber’s shut-out, while the Gopher trio of Montero, Baez and Pressly shut down the Volcanoes through 9 innings.  While the Gopher pitchers had commanded the strike zone through 9 innings – allowing only 2 walks, one of them intentional –  their control abandoned them in the 10^th inning.  Wilmer Flores led off the 10^th inning with a ground out, but Lindor and Straw followed with singles to put runners on first and third with 1 out.   Bushwood manager Gopher Dave brought in strike-out ace Brandon Workman whose plus 9 hold immediately yielded a stolen base to Straw putting runners on second and third.  Workman got the desired strike-out of Mitch Garver (2-outs), but walked Yolmer Sanchez (4-3 roll) to load the bases.  Fearing the walks on Workman’s card, Gopher Dave made a pitching change to Alex Colome, who yielded bases loaded walks to Christian Yelich (3-8 roll) and Tim Anderson (4-7 roll) to give the Volcanoes a 2-0 lead.  Scott Oberg’s drama-filled bottom of the 10^th inning included allowing a 2-out double to Nicholas Castellanos (he can’t hit righties, can he?) but then retiring potential game-tieing Yordan Alvarez (he can hit righties) on a 2-11 roll to end the game as a 2-0 Volcano victory.

The 2020 Volcanoes were truly an offensive juggernaut.  Their run total of 1,035 represented the only I-75 team in the 15-team era to break the 1,000 run barrier.  The back-to-back Volcano championship teams scored 996 runs (2017) and 971 runs (2018).  Other I-75 teams to break the 925 run barrier were:  Margaritaville (2013) – 970 runs; Chatfield (2012) – 940 runs; Bushwood (2013) – 938 runs; New New York (2019) – 936 runs; and Applegate (2012) – 930 runs.  The Volcano’s .292 batting average, .541 slugging average and 357 HR’s also set post-expansion team records.  The Volcano’s .902 OPS was the first time a team has broken the .900 OPS barrier.  The Volcano’s had seven players hit 30+ HR’s, led by Chris Yelich’s 56.  Recognizing that the pre-draft Volcano’s had sufficient power and on-base ability, and not wanting to become a “three-true-outcome” team, draft-day additions were targeted mainly for their hit chances.  Five draft-day Volcanoes exceeded .300 in batting average – Arraez, Flores, Luplow, Holt and Hilliard.  A sixth – 2019 AL Batting Champion Tim Anderson – hit .298 for the Volcanoes.  In lineup construction, the Volcano’s got amazing productivity from their #3 slot (primarily Christian Yelich vs righties, and either Jordan Luplow or Mitch Garver vs lefties), with a slash line of .350/.441/.723 producing 69 HR’s and 157 RBI’s.  The Dyersville duo of primarily Matt Olson / Alex Bregman led the I-75 league with 161 RBI’s from their #3 slot.  Displaying the balance of the Volcano offense, 6 lineup slots produced 100+ RBI’s, and none had an OPS of below .800.  Opponents attempted to limit the damage by intentionally walking the Volcano #3 hitter a league-leading 15 times during the season, but the #4, #5, and #6 slots responded with 140, 123 and 121 RBI’s.  Recognizing that several batters were better against righties (Yelich – 5R, Sanchez – 2R, Pederson – 5R, Arraez – 4R, Hilliard – 3R, Holt – 5R), the Volcanoes made sure they had a bench filled with guys who could crush lefties (Luplow – 61.5 RC, Garver – 57.0 RC, Flores – 34.0 RC, Hoskins – 34.7 RC) to at least make teams pause before bringing in their match-up lefty relievers.  The Volcanoes led the league with 22 pinch-hit HR’s and a .305 pinch-hit batting average.  Mitch Garver had 6 pinch-hit HR’s (and batted .357), Jordan Luplow had 5 pinch-hit HR’s (and batted .478) and Wilmer Flores had 4 pinch-hit HR’s (and batted .318).

Flores was one of my favorite “draft-day” finds.  The Volcanoes had him rated a middle 4^th round value, and were happy to take him with pick #80 in the 6^th round.  We loved his lefty-mashing card (34.0 RC), but also liked the fact that while his power went away vs righties (“w” power rating), his on-base did not (42.3 on-base chances, 33.3 hit chances).  We liked the fact that he did not make outs against righties, and if we could match him against enough reverse-righties, he’d deliver some good stats.  Flores’ slash line against lefties of .352 / .386 / .736 was good enough, but when he added .322 / .370 / .420 against righties, he was on his was to producing 2.4 WAR against his MLB war of 1.2.  In proving he wasn’t just a lefty-masher, Flores took the majority (143) of his 268 at-bats against righties.  Wilmer Flores earned his status as Volcano fan-favorite with his memorable pinch-hit HR (for David Ortiz) against the Superior Titans in the 2017 playoffs.  The Volcanoes cut Flores after the 2017 season, but were happy to reacquire the famously tearful Flores for the 2020 season.

The Volcano’s 184 HR’s at home (Coors Field) led the league, but only by 2 HR’s over Boulder (182) and by 8 over Satellite Beach (176) and Bismarck (176).  Surprisingly it was in road games that the Volcanoes had a larger advantage with their 173 road HR’s, second in the league (to West Atlanta’s 188) but leading the Tree Huggers by a margin of 12, and the Brawlers by 13.  Somewhat surprisingly the Volcanoes played only .500 ball (40 wins / 40 losses) at home, but played to a .638 pace (51 wins / 29 losses) on the road.

So that was the Volcano’s “secret sauce” for breaking the 1,000 run barrier:

Hit an ungodly number (357) of Home Runs

Draw enough walks (547) to have a high enough OBP (.361) to make sure enough of them weren’t solo HR’s

Mix enough enough lefty-mashers to keep the platoon advantages

Add enough situational-players who could deliver hit-chances when needed.

We could talk about pitching or defense, but 2020 was all about the offense in Margaritaville.  Volcano fans anxiously await how far the “sauce” will play in November (I-75 lingo for playoff) baseball.