Hustle Picks

Its 7.48pm as the Defensive Specialist sits down to bang out previews and predictions for the clashes between the Canberra Multiculturalits / Melbourne Aces and Brisbane Bandits / Sydney Blue Sox. So that it doesn’t look like your old pal is cheating and checking box scores, lets toss out a couple of calls right now:

Sydney will win the series 3-1

Melbourne and Canberra will split 2-2

Ok, so with that out of the way, lets take an abbreviated look at both series.

Bandits Vs. Blue Sox

Interestingly Chris Oxspring doesn’t get the start in game one for the Blue Sox – perhaps he’s still rattled from Nick Kimptons proclamation that he wasn’t very good. Whatever the reason, he’s ably covered by Wayne Lundgren who’s looking for his 3^rd win of the season. The rest of the Sydney rotation is less than settled after David Welch got belted around last week by the Multiculturalists. It will be interesting to see how manager Glenn Williams fills out the remaining two spots in the starting rotation. One thing he doesn’t have to worry about is his bullpen, which looks like it’s a real strong point.

Offensively the Blue Sox are led by Trent D’Antonio who’s off to a hot start, and Mitch Dening who has made solid contact consistently with limited luck. The real blow to the Blue Sox is the absence of Techno Tim Auty who is rumoured to be in Ibiza at the World Electronic Dance Championships where he is looking to defend his crown. Alex Johnson will likely feature prominently after the splash he made in his debut and more output will be needed from Andy Graham, Stone Hands Maat and the Bossman.

The Bandits will pin their hopes on James Albury in game 1, praying that he can repeat last week’s effort against the Perth Heat. Ryan Searle and  Hiroki Yamada will likely start during the series and manager David Nilsson will hold his breath as he hands the ball to Reo Chikada after he set the bar fairly low last week with 7 walks in 3 innings.  The Bandits’ rotation looks a little shaky in all honesty and will be challenged by a strong Sydney offense. As for the Bandits at the plate? They definitely didn’t light the league on fire against the Heat and will need to scrap if they hope to hang with the Blue Sox. Wade Dutton had a good opening series and Shuhei Fukuda displayed some tools but the rest of the line underperformed. To make matters worse, the Bandits displayed porous defence across the series with 7 errors. If you aren’t going to bang the ball around, you cant give the opposition extra outs.

The Blue Sox are just an overall better ballclub and should go into RNA and take the series.

Multiculturalists Vs. Aces

Two teams looking desperately to get off the schnide face off at the brand new ballpark situated in the nation’s capital. If you told the Defensive Specialist before the season that the Aces would be winless after the first series he would have snorted in your face, better yet if you told the Defensive Specialist that they’d concede 35 runs he’d probably projectile vomit. Yes, the Aces’ beat up pitching staff flies into Canberra with their tale between their legs hoping to capitalize on a Multiculturalists team who have their own confidence issues.

The Aces will pray that their starters – Blackley, Hendriks, Hertzler and Kaneto can turn it up a notch and give them more than they did last week when they ran into the Adelaide Bite buzz saw. Aside from Matthew Blackmore, every pitcher on the staff took a whooping, so as a group they’ll need to have short memories and go right at the Multiculturalists who as mentioned in this very forum don’t have too bad a lineup. It’s not like the Aces pitching staff is the only part of the team to blame as the hitters may have forgotten to pack their wood last week as well. Josh Davies and Matthew Lawman led the charge but the drop off from there was precipitous. You’d think with 18 people on the coaching staff that some serious instruction has taken place this week at practice and the boys from Melbourne can muster a little more attack.

The Multiculturalists got a lot of ink here last week and after a week of licking their wounds, they’ll be keen to open their new ballpark with a bang. Led offensively by Nick Kimpton and Michael Collins, their hitters will be eager to pounce on the ego-damaged Aces pitching staff. They desperately need some table setting from Didi Gregorious and whoever hits in the 2-hole (Andrew Schmidt looked pretty good there), as well as increased output from the Korean contingent. On the mound Heo and Jin need to eat some innings and Steve Kent needs to stretch it out so as not to expose the thin bullpen. It will be interesting to see who manager Steve Shrenk uses to fill the 4^th starter position because there doesn’t appear to be a stand out candidate at this stage. As an interesting aside, Indian sensation Rinku Singh has been added to the roster.

Both teams have been on the ropes and the Defensive Specialist envisions a scrappy contest. If the Multiculturalists can keep the Aces out of their pen early they have the offense to get W’s but the Aces pitching staff is better than it showed last week. An evenly matched contest that will ultimately result in a split.