“Go back to the cold coast.”  It was meant as an insult to Mets fans at Dodger Stadium during last Friday night’s rout of Los Angeles behind the wicked walloping knuckler of R. A. Dickey who not only shutout the Dodgers and became the first pitcher in 2012 to reach 12 wins, but also brought home Team Reid’s first Dem Bums title of the season.  I was sitting only three rows back from the third base line at Chavez Ravine and tried to let the witty Dodgers fan and his bleach blonde girlfriend know that it was currently plenty warm in NYC on behalf of those of you who are living the “sweat puddle” life as I vacation the west coast.  His only response was that he “appreciated” that I wasn’t too “rowdy” of a fan of the Mets and that it was all those other New York screamers that his critique was aimed towards.  Other than being a fan of the Dodgers, I think my lack of “rowdiness” had more to do with the fact that the Los Angeles fans were left with cheering only the limited base hits that Dickey allowed–a grand total of three that night–and the fact that the Dodgers were in the midst of a six-game slide at the end of June.  So, at least in baseball terms, the “cold” seems to struck the team in the ravine while R. A. Dickey etches his All-Star status pitch by pitch, bringing home the June Pitching Title for Team Reid by going 5-0 on 6 starts with a 0.93 ERA and allowing only 5 earned runs and knuckling 55 strike outs on the month.  Overall Dickey is 3rd in MLB with a 2.15 ERA, 4th in strikeouts with 116, 5th in innings pitched at 113, and first in wins with 12.  Team Parry’s Jonathon Niese was a no-slouch-second by throwing an ace-worthy 1.93 ERA on 5 starts with a 3-1 record and a somewhat-distant third was Team Rybakova’s Johan Santana who had a 2.77 ERA on 6 starts with a 4-2 record in June.  Of worry is the pitching of the Los Angeles Dodgers whose “ace”–Team Roberts’ Clayton Kershaw–threw for the team’s best 3.44 ERA in June with only a 1-1 record on 5 starts due to a freezing and injured LA offense.

FLAW MAN

Never look back.  Team Roberts’ David Wright never surrendered his first place run for the June Dem Bums’ Batting Title by hitting for a .340 AVG on 103 ABs with 35 hits, 4 HRs and 21 RBIs to give Team Roberts their own first title of the year.  Wright is second in the MLB only to the Phillies’ Carlos Ruiz with a .354 AVG overall and second only to the Reds’ Joey Votto with a .447 OBP that has him joining Dickey in Kansas City for the All-Star Game.  So “flaw” would hardly seem to be the right title for our June Batting Title champ–and the term is hardly directed toward Wright himself–but other than the Baker – LaRussa dust-up–David has become the focus of the fan-voting controversy in regards to the All-Star Game being more of a popularity contest rather than a game based upon merit.  Wright as a third baseman has the clear All-Star performance in he NL this year with a .354 AVG, .447 OBP, and .560 SLG with a .956 fielding percentage on 8 errors and David led the All-Star voting by more than 400,000 votes at the time of the last vote update before the final count.  However, to the shock of nearly every MLB fan–each of which can vote up to 25 times for their favorite players–the announcement of the NL All-Star team put Wright on the bench and Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval in the starting spot at 3rd base with a miraculous voting turnaround that gave him the spot with 1.6 million votes.  While Wright was polite saying it’s “for the fans” and that he was honored to have the guys he battles with on the field to vote him in, GM Sandy Alderson pulled fewer punches on his Twitter account stating “A city of 8 million was outvoted by a city of 800,000.”  So maybe us New Yorkers should bow our heads as Sandoval’s numbers (.300 AVG, .362 OBP, .480 SLG) pale in comparison to Team Roberts’ batting champ.

JUNE GLOOM

Though the weather out here in California has been exceptionally warm for June–a time when the marine layer seems to hover and hold and keep things a bit cool–the dark clouds have certainly stuck in Chavez Ravine as the Dodgers lost 11 of their 13 games of the last half of June and had the worst team batting average in the NL at .212.  Obviously a big reason for the Dodger chill and streak of 66 innings without having a lead in a ballgame is the loss of the heart of their lineup to injury: Mark Ellis and Dem Bums batting title winners Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier.  The Dodgers had only 6 HRs in June compared to their 20 in April and their .212 AVG in June brought them from first to worst in the National League in overall team AVG after hitting for a .285 AVG in May.  All of this has led Mattingly with “no choice” and few words to explain the exit strategy for this slump other than getting their bats back after the All-Star game:

OFF THE INTERSTATE

We might just have a return–a resurrection really–of a familiar face to fantasy drafts after Ike Davis has exited the interstate to bring his batting average up to .203 on the season after hitting for a .264 AVG in June.  After hitting for a meager .185 and .154 AVG in April and May respectively, Davis awoke in June and led the Mets in HRs (6) and RBIs (24) in June and was second only to Batting Title winner David Wright in runs, total bases and doubles.  While Davis still has some ground to make up in overall AVG due to his slower than slow start, keep in mind that here at Dem Bums we only consider month-to-month heat and that Davis was second only to Wright in AVG amongst qualifying batters in June and out hit nearly all qualifying Dodger hitters–except for Juan Rivera (also undrafted) who hit for a .278 AVG–last month and could have taken third place in the Batting Title race.  While Davis has been rightly left out of consideration amongst Dem Bums franchises, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his face back in the mix.  I’ll see you in the draft room for July and here’s your June title race breakdowns:

JUNE PITCHING TITLE RESULTS

1) Team Reid – R. A. Dickey (0.93 / 6)
2) Team Parry – Jonathon Niese (1.89 / 5)
3) Team Rybakova – Johan Santana (2.77 / 6)
4) Team Roberts – Clayton Kershaw (3.44 / 5)
5) Team Carlson – Chris Capuano (3.62 / 6)
6) Team Wanzel – Aaron Harang (3.67 / 6)
7) Team Talley – Chad Billingsley (4.35 / 5)

JUNE BATTING TITLE RESULTS

1) Team Roberts – David Wright (.340 / 103)
2) Team Parry – Lucas Duda (.258 / 97)
3) Team Talley – Omar Quintanilla (.246 / 61)
4) Team Rybakova – Josh Thole (.244 / 82)
5) Team Reid – Daniel Murphy (.240 / 96)
6) Team Carlson – Tony Gwynn Jr. (.229 / 83)
7) Team Wanzel – Dee Gordon (.223 / 112)