Aside from the blantent Naked Gun reference the winds of change have blown thru the AL south. Despite 2 blown leads in the 9th inning turning into deflating defeats, Salem managed to take advantage of their schedule and pull out a 7-3 stretch, while Tacoma struggled with the top 2 teams in the AL (Philly and Montreal) while slumping to 3-7, including weekend sweep at the hands of Montreal. Salem now finds itself w/ a 1 game lead heading into its pivotal 3 game home series with Tacoma this afternoon. Salem even managed to give many of its key players significant rest while taking advantage of the 2 sets verse rebuilding Boston and has aligned its top 3 pitchers for this series while getting their regular position players up to 99 or 100% health. Tacoma remains mostly at full health, but has a few appearing on the brink of heading into the low to mid 90s health wise while aligning 3 straight solid lefties for this series in an attempt to minimize the effectiveness of Hartley and company.
Game 1:
Lamb (12-10, 2.98 era) vs Hansell (17-7, 3.82 era)
Game 2:
Dale (11-10, 4.48 era) vs Cedeno (13-6, 3.84 era)
Game 3:
Bagwell (15-5, 3.98 era) vs Cambridge (12-8, 4.08 era)
On paper, Salem would appear to have the pitching advantage vs Tacoma's first 2 "crafty lefties" throwing a combination of slow and slower, while Cambringe can bring the heat, but suffers from control issues. On the flip side, Tacoma has the advantage at the plate. The key to the series lies in getting into Tacoma's pitching staff out of their comfort zone they've grown used to in their ultra pitcher friendly park while playing in Salem's more neutral park.
Tacoma has the easier closing stretch to the season, so its imparative for Salem to hold serve at home and get a series victory, while a series sweep could blow open the division chase.
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