Geneva Red Wings

The Geneva Red Wings are just off a hot streak. After winning six straight to claim the top spot in the Eastern Division, the Cortland Crush gave the Wings a reality check. Cortland won two of the three games they played against the Red Wings, including a 7-1 victory over the Wings in Geneva. These losses made the Red Wings two for their last five and they slipped out of first in the Eastern Division. Now, atop the division are the Syracuse Salt Cats.

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As the Red Wings near the half season point, they have shown fantastic pitching, which helped them cruise to an early divisional lead. At the plate, though, the Wings have been struggling. In their past three games, the Wings have only been able to score 2 runs and they lost two of those games. The only game they won was on the shoulders of Vince Apicella who pitched a complete game two hitter. He did so with only one insurance run that the Wings picked up in the second inning. 

So let's look at the possible reasons the Wings have fallen into this slump. As of right now, only one Red Wings batter is hitting at above .300 and that's Harry Roberson. If we look at shortstops expanded stats, he's got a slash line of .310/.446/.328. While that is a fine statline, with a strong on-base percentage of .446, Roberson hardly gets past first base, as illustrated by his low slugging percentage. Yet, Roberson's slugging percentages is one of the highest on his team. Only one batter has a slugging percentage over .400, and that's Jackson Rhodes. To be fair, he has 2 home runs, so those count as an outlier for the outfielder. His own statline is skewed as well, as he is slashing .273/.333/.591. 

The issue isn't getting on base for the Wings, though. As a team, they are batting second best in the Eastern Division at .237, only Oneonta is hitting better at .250. In fact, they also are in second in RBI's with 67, only behind the Syracuse Junior Chiefs who have 69 RBI's. But clearly the issue isn't with their season stats, so let's look at this recent three game slump in which the Wings have dropped two out of three against Cortland. In that span, as a team, the Wings are hitting a measly .173. The only earned run that was scored by the Red Wings was a solo shot from Jackson Rhodes in the 1-7 loss against the Crush to open the series. 

Vince Apicella, nycbl.com

The issue is easily labelled as a slump that the team is in. Defensively, the Red Wings are solid, giving up only an error per game which is good for the middle of the pack in the Eastern Division. Their core issue recently is their hitting.

So the Wings bats need to fire up behind their pitchers. Apicella, who pitched a sensational game two against the Crush, didn't have much insurance behind him. In order for the Wings to return to winning form, they will need to get their hitting back into shape. They will have to do so against their upcoming opponent of the Oneonta Outlaws who are sitting just a game back on the Red Wings in third place. 

You can tune into the games here, where I broadcast every home game for the Red Wings and the Twins. 

Topher Lane is the play-by-play/color commentator for the Geneva Red Wings and Geneva Twins. He's on Twitter at @Topher_L and you can reach him at his email, crlane@syr.edu. 

Geneva Twins

As of right now, the Geneva Twins are sitting right in the middle of the pack in the Western Division. After struggling in the early season, the Twins are at an even .500 record of 12-12.

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In spite of their record, though, the Twins are still bringing All-Star worthy players to the plate each game. We'll start with Catcher/First Baseman Marty Napleton. Napleton has been a regular for the Twins throughout the first half of the season. Sitting at almost exactly the halfway point through the season, Napleton is leading the NYCBL in batting average. Sitting at .369, Napleton has been phenomenal for the Twins as a constant threat to get on base.

Then we turn to the slugger, Connor Simonetti. Simonetti, out of Kent State University, is among the lead leaders in home runs, and RBI's. Tied for first in HR's with Zephan Kash from Cortland with 3, Simonetti is poised to continue his recent hot hitting and work his way to the sole league leader. His third home run was a walkoff blast over the right field fence to defeat the Wellsville Nitros in game one of a double header last week. In addition to hitting the ball out of the park, Simonetti also excels in the RBI category. Right now, the first baseman stands in third place, with 15 RBI's, five below the league leader of Dan Crozier with the Genesee Rapids who has 20. Simonetti, however, is just getting into the groove of things. After sitting out the first few games of the season with a broken hand, the slugger has made his impact since rejoining the lineup. That walkoff home run is clearly indicative of that.

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Josh Handzik also stands in the league leaders for home runs with two. He and Simonetti were tied in second with two until Simonetti recorded his third just last week.

On the other side of the ball, the Twins' Mitchell Powers also climbed his way into second place among the league leaders in strikeouts. Powers collected 12 K's in his last appearance, a complete game win over the Wellsville Nitros. Those 12 strikeouts jumped him from 22, which was outside of the top 10, to 34. Those 34 would have put him at the top of the leaderboards had Geneva Red Wings pitcher, Vince Apicella, struck out 11 in his outing against the Cortland Crush that night. That win also pushed Powers to three on the season, which has him tied for second place among the league leaders. In addition to those stats, Powers now has a 1.80 ERA. Hopefully his numbers can only improve if he continues to have outings like he did the other night.

As we are set to begin the second half of this season, I will be sure to update this with narratives throughout the rest of the season to look out for with the Twins and the Red Wings. For now, these stats will be where we start.

Be sure to tune in to every game here where you can hear me, Topher "Hollywood" Lane, or my broadcast partner, Andrew Grella for every home game, both Twins and Red Wings.

Topher Lane is the play-by-play/color commentator for the Geneva Twins and Geneva Red Wings. He is on Twitter @Topher_L and you can email him at crlane@syr.edu