ABL 2026 Season - Year #15 - UPDATE!

DUKE POWERING UP

Duke leads the OSA's Power Ranking over perennial juggernaut SoCal.  Duke and SoCal are both plowing thru the competition.  Both are tied for first and best overall record in the ABL.

ALL TIED UP
Yes, it's early.  But to have 3 divisions tied at 1st place, and the other division having a 3 way tie for 2nd place, competition is fierce in the early goings of 2026.
Duke and Socal, Portland and Mile High, Jacksonville, Maple and San Francisco.  The 3 way tie for second see's Havana, Minnesota, and New York.

ON PACE FOR 73
Kiyonobu Yamasaki and Sal "Easter Egg" Ostendorf both lead their respective Leagues in HR's with 9 and are both on pace for 73 at year's end.

EARLY RETURNS IN
Look for Wiley Smith, HOU (taken from Manhattan Beach) to win the April Rookie of the Month Award for the TML.  He's only leading 10 of the 18 tracked stat categories.

Ramon Ooyendijk, CHI (taken from Jacksonville) is probably the RCL winner, as he's leading 7 of the 18 categories.
Of course Seattle's Diego Pena might be looked upon too, going 3-1 so far with a 3.86 ERA with a week to go.

ABOVE WATER
18 teams are playing at .500 or better, with 10 of them coming from the Thurman Munson League and an astonishing 6 (of 7) from the Sparky Anderson Division.

TO SWEEP OR NOT TO SWEEP, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Thru San Francisco's first 5 series so far (Houston, Maple, Mile High and Cabo & South Carolina).  They've swept Maple and Cabo, yet lost series to Houston and Mile High, 1-2.  South Carolina and 1-2 where they didn't.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
I would have included this from the first two SIM's but deleted the email.  Whoopsie.

Jong-min Kim, SOC and Julian Martinez, SOU grab their respective league's POTW Awards.

ANOTHER 1-HITTER
Chicago strings out 11 hits, and manages to get JUST 1 run, and wins the game 1-0 over Seattle.  If not for Song Wa, CHI, ranks as only the #3 Player of the Day (4/20) when he throws a complete game 1 hit shutout...but he did.  Add in 2 BB's and 8 K's and this is, in my opinion the #1 star of the day...sorry Tom Cassidy, SD.  Tough luck loser was Dan Lewis.

SPEAKING OF SHUTOUTS...
Expansion Chicago gets a 1-0 win.  Well, Houston also gets a shutout, 4-0 over Jersey

DOUBLE TROUBLE
Carlos Campos tied a TML record for most doubles in an extra inning game with 4.  Georgia also had 11 extra base hits, out of 20 in this 15 inning affair but it still wasn't enough for Jacksonville's 6-3 win in 15 innings.

2 TD's and a SAFETY
Eureka scores 16 unanswered runs in their pasting of Maple taking them down 16-0.  Maple only managed 2 measly hits.  San Francisco also put up a 16 spot on South Carolina, but at least the Bombers managed to score though.

LETS WAIT
Both San Francisco and Quebec had 3 consecutive walkoffs. (4/23-4/25)  SF took the first two from Quebec on consecutive days.  Then on the 25th Quebec won in walk off fashion against Kansas City, while San Francisco lost to Portland.  Both games on the 25th went extras.

LETS NOT
Quebec, tired of losing, losing and winning games in the 9th tries a new tact.
Quebec after being very gracious hosts, and spotting Kansas City to a 2 run lead in the top of the 1st, got snarly and took the wind right out of the Tornados, scoring ONLY 10 runs in the bottom of the first, on their way to a 13-4 victory on 4/26.

THE HANDLE IS ON THE TOP
Georgia had their troubles with Maple on 4/26, scoring runs (none) and making errors, 4.  The kicker, pardon the pun, all 6 runs in the Maple 6-0 win were earned.

CROSS TOWN PASTING
Brooklyn's woes continue so far this season.  Most pundits anointed the Brooklyn a playoff spot come season's end, but so far they haven't lived up to the love.  They might have even bottomed out losing to New York 15-0 on 4/24.

MORE BLACK WITH THE KNIGHTS
Brooklyn, 6-14 and sitting in last place, are currently taking their lumps and hard.  They're 7 games behind Montreal and 4 games out of a playoff spot and on a 6 game losing streak and 2-8 in their last 10.  Offensively, they're ranked 11th to 13th (of 14) in the big offensive categories.  At least they're doing a little bit better offensively!

GOULD AGAIN
Another start, and another complete game.  This time gives up 3 runs, but only 2 were earned against Washington.  So far, the ageless Gould is 2-0 and a 2.57 ERA in 4 starts, non lasting less than 8.1 IP so far.  He's thrown 35 of a possible 37 innings his team has played for him.

PLAYER OF THE DAY  (POTD)
The POTD for the 22nd was Tetsu Yamada, who went 4-4 with a 3B, 5 RBI a R and a BB in Maple's 19-10 trouncing of Jersey.  Of course it's a good news bad news scenario for Jersey as they did score 10 runs which would have been enough to win any game..except this one as they gave up 19!

On the 25th, POTW winner Jong-min Kim only went 5-6 with 2 2B and a HR, 5 RBI's and 4 RS vs Washington in SoCal's 13-3 victory.

WALK OFFS
Jacksonville 3-2 over Portland, 4/22
Duke 7-6 over Seattle (11), 4/22
San Francisco 9-7 over Quebec, 4/23
Mile High 5-4 over Eureka, 4/24
San Francisco 3-2 over Quebec, 4/24
Manhattan Beach 7-6 over Brooklyn, 4/25
Cabo 4-3 over Eureka (12), 4/25
Quebec 6-5 over Kansas City (11) 4/25
Portland 6-5 over San Francisco (10), 4/25
Washington 3-2 over SoCal, 4/26

Addendum to SIM #1

SAN FRANCISCO SCORES 3 IN TWIN BILL
And wins both games vs Maple, 1-0 and 2-1.
This salvaged the SIM for SF as they dropped the first series of the season to Houston, losing 2 of 3, including the first 2 games of the season.  Which means, Houston was in 1st place for at least 4 days.