Weekly Top Five: May 4-May10

This week featured many fine performances, and choosing the Top Five was difficult.

Frank Powers hits two home runs in two consecutive games and wins the Munson League Player of the Week, but he misses out. When Vegas plays Washington on May 4, Colin St. John hits two home runs and drives in eight while Maurice Gould strikes out 11 over seven shutout innings of work, but that doesn't make my cut. On May 5, Cabo's Ed Shannon scores the tying run in the bottom of the ninth, then wins the game with a solo home run in the 11th inning. Two days later, teammate Edward Griffith pitches 10 innings to earn the win. Neither performance ranks among the Top Five.

The best name in baseball, Elvis Sharp, pitches 8 2/3 shutout innings against Kansas City, striking out 11. So Cal's Evan Warner strikes out eight and surrenders one run in a complete game victory over Georgia. Georgia's Pat Everhart and Manuel López return the favor two days later, shutting out So Cal on two hits. Roberto Martínez shuts out Nottinghamshire.

On to the Top Five!

#5: Capitalists Swat the Hornets

May 9: Eureka 5, Washington 17. Soshu Rin hits five singles in five at-bats. Even better for the Capitalists, he scores five runs. Tom Becker hits his third home run of the season: he's off to a slow (for him) start. Joseph McKee and P.J. Baker also homer.

Dallas Crowley

Young Dallas Crowley goes 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles, pair of runs, and pair of ribbies. Only 23 years old, Crowley has already spent parts of the past three seasons in the big leagues, but Washington has to have been concerned that his performance has been declining rather than improving. In 2012, he posted an .861 OPS in 102 at-bats; in 2013, he posted a .662 OPS; in 2014, he posted a miserable .521 OPS. This week comes up big, going 12 for 25 and winning Player of the Week.

Eureka has a rough week, losing five of six. Despite leading their division, they have been outscored 140 to 129. Washington once again has a strong offense coupled with horrid pitching, but they are hanging around just under .500. If they can find some pitching, they could compete with Montreal for the division crown.

#4: Wild One in Ann Arbor

May 8: San Francisco 7, Ann Arbor 8. The Quakes sprint out to an early lead, 7-2, but the Barn Owls chip away, scoring one in the fifth, one in the sixth, one in the seventh, and two in the eighth. Brooks Davis leads the attack, going 3-for-6 with a two-run homer and three runs batted in. Lorenzo Rodríguez and Michael Frost chip in with home runs—for each it's his seventh home run of the season.

Jeffrey Coffman

The game goes into extra innings, tied at seven. Ann Arbor's Jeffrey Coffman leads off the bottom of the 14th. Coffman came into the game with a 19-game hitting, but so far he has gone 0-for-6. He singles, extending his hitting streak to 20 games. Wilfred Schmidt, picked up in the Rule V draft this offseason, lines a ball into the right-field corner. Coffman races around the bases and scores the winning run.

San Francisco, however, wins the next two games. On the May 10, the teams once again go to extra innings. Bill Watson wins the game with a 13th-inning home run.

Coffman gets hits in the final two games of the series and ends the week with a 22-game hitting streak. Like Terry Sterling earlier this season, Coffman is one of the more unlikely players ever to have a 20-game hit streak. A Gold Glove shortstop, he has never been a strong batter. His batting average has declined the past three seasons, from .261 to .253 to .228 last year. Will he be able to extend the streak against this week against South Carolina or San Diego?

#3: Gutiérez Takes Down the Jacks

Gabriel
Gutiérez

May 6: So Cal 4, Jacksonville 1. So Cal has a lot of talented young pitchers in their organization, making it easy to overlook Gabriel Gutiérez. Gutiérez, 25, may not have the strongest arm, but he has impeccable control and a mean sinker. He struggled in his rookie year last season, going 5-9 with a 6.91 ERA, but he has been arguable the best pitcher on the Republic this season.

This evening, he earns his third win and lowers his ERA to 2.31. He pitches eight innings and allows just one hit and one run: Markus Ljunberg leads off the third inning with a double, then comes around to score on a pair of productive ground ball outs.

Jacksonville's Ratko Mladjenovic, meanwhile, has yet to give up more than three runs in a game this season: his ERA on the season is 1.83. But he has been getting little run support, and today proves no different. Despite giving up only two runs over eight innings of work, Ratko gets his third loss of the season.

"I'm sick of losing," said an angry Ratko after the game, "People need to step up around here."

#2: Carolina Clobbers Cabo

May 9: Cabo San Lucas 5, Carolina 16. The Crush score a season-high 16 runs, with several batters having huge games. Scott Andrews goes 5-for-6: he doubles, drives in two runs, and scores four times. He raises his batting average to .323. At age 36, the veteran is having himself a strong season.

Chris Barrett goes 3-for-3 with a double and four runs batted in. With his .355 average and .898 OPS, the Carolina native is once again leading the Carolina offense.

Jeff Everhart

But this afternoon the Carolina offense is led by rookie Jeff Everhart. A first-round draft pick in the 2013 amateur draft, the 24-year-old is a free-swinging power hitter. Until today, he'd been swinging a bit too freely—his average was .194–but he made solid contact all day today. He goes 4-for-5 with two doubles and a home run. He scores three times and drives in seven.

#1: Six for Shields

Tim Shields

May 4: Eureka 4, Montreal 14. Only three times in ABL history has a player gotten six hits in one game, and now Tim Shields has done it twice. Today the hit machine goes 6-for-6 with a double and a solo home run—his first home run of the year. He drives in three runs and scores three times.

Shields went 6-for-7 on May 26, 2013 against the San Diego Hops.

In a rematch of the 2013 World Series, Montreal sprints out to an early lead when they score seven runs in the second inning. Bandit batters pound out 20 hits and score a season-high 14 runs. Montreal goes on to sweep the three game series.