Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:37 pm
The team rburgh is pointing to was the Championship winning team in the Barnstormers Tournament last year.
Its team ERA was 3.64 in a league where the average ERA was 5.05. That's almost 1.5 runs per game better than league, which is of course very good. Sub 3.00 ERAs aren't necessary when the league average is over 5 runs per game.
The team scored just 809 runs, which is 2nd worst in the league, but...
1) the team only allowed 642 runs, so it had a league leading run differential of +167 (the next best was +38).
2) Those 809 runs were scored in Petco, an extreme pitcher's park. The team scored 440 runs on the road--so it might have been good for 880 in a different park.
To score 809 runs, in that park, given how much the manager spent on pitching--well, that's the trick to winning with pitching in this game.