June was another very good month for the Jackalope. They maintained a healthy lead of near 20 points throughout the entire month. They continue to lead the league in both batting and pitching points. This is especially impressive since they haven’t exactly had a healthy roster at any point this season. The latest injury will be their biggest challenge to date. Giancarlo Stanton will miss at least a month with a broken hand. A top MVP candidate prior to the injury, Stanton has been just one of several outstanding performers for the first place squad. This injury might give other teams a little more hope though.
Besides the Jackalope maintaining their comfortable lead, the other top stories of June involved a couple pitchers putting up historic runs of starts. One led to a Pitcher of the Month honor, which I will get to in a bit. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Max Scherzer’s incredible run of three consecutive starts with a no-hitter (and near perfect game) sandwiched between two other near no-hitters. Amazingly, that was not enough to earn Scherzer his second straight Pitcher of the Month award. In fact, somehow, he didn’t even take home a Pitcher of the Week honor, despite being a hit batsman away from throwing a perfect game! My method for selecting those honors makes it a near certainty that the weekly pitching award goes to the top starting pitcher who throws two quality starts in a week. Unfortunately for Scherzer, those three starts came in separate weeks. Anyway, it was a pretty impressive month for him. Here are the weekly award winners from June:
Batters of the Week:
Week 9 (6/1 – 6/7) – Jose Bautista, Choppers
Week 10 (6/8 – 6/14) – Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope
Week 11 (6/15 – 6/21) – Manny Machado, Mavericks
Week 12 (6/22 – 6/28) – Nolan Arenado, Naturals
Pitchers of the Week:
Week 9 (6/1 – 6/7) – Chris Archer, Cougars
Week 10 (6/8 – 6/14) – Chris Sale, Choppers
Week 11 (6/15 – 6/21) – Anibal Sanchez, Kings
Week 12 (6/22 – 6/28) – Collin McHugh, Cougars
The races for the monthly awards were both extremely tight with a lot of deserving candidates narrowly missing. Here are the award winners for June 2015:
Batter of the Month:
Nolan Arenado, Naturals
.304 AVG, 12 HR, 33 RBI, 24 R, 0 SB, 2.57 PAR
Pitcher of the Month:
Chris Sale, Choppers
1.83 ERA, 0.812 WHIP, 2 W, 0 SV, 75 K, 3.77 PAR
You know the Naturals must have a pretty good infield when Troy Tulowitzki is only their second best Rockies infielder. Nolan Arenado had an incredible month of June and finished with a flourish. His 33 RBI easily led the league and were the most in a month since Miguel Cabrera had 34 last May. Arenado just barely edged out a pair of Mavericks for this award: Manny Machado and Albert Pujols.
It is very hard to win the Pitcher of the Month award with only two wins in the month. But when the rest of your numbers are setting records, you can overcome criminally poor run/bullpen support. That’s what Chris Sale did in June. He is currently riding an eight start streak of striking out at least 10 hitters. He is only the second player in the past 100 years to accomplish such a feat. His 75 strikeouts in 44.1 June innings looks like a misprint. It is also a DTBL single month record, surpassing the 72 whiffs Pedro Martinez recorded in June of 1997.