Tom Brennan - CYCLONE SURGE

The Cyclones of Coney Island are a pretty awful 23-48 (.324 W/L %) going into today's action.

But on August 25, they were VERY awful at 15-47 (.242 W/L %).

Since then, they've done this in winning 8 of 9:

8/26: 3-2 walk off win.  16-47

8/27: 6-0 win on a 9 hit shutout.   Scored in the first 4 innings, making it 5 straight innings with runs.   17-47

8/28: 2-1 win.   18-47

8/30 doubleheader: 3-1 loss, then a 3-0 win.   19-48

8/31 doubleheader: Two 3-2 wins.   21-48

9/1: 2-1 win.  22-48

9/2: 1-0 win.  23-48

So they've won 8 of 9 games despite only scoring more than 3 runs once in those 9 games.   Just 24 runs for the always struggling offense, but only 11 runs allowed in 9 games by the much-improved staff.

After such a run of success, I heard that Sandy Alderson (after whom Hurricane Sandy was named) asked Brooklyn's players if any of them wanted to be immediately promoted to the Mets.  

At that very moment, so I was told, the Cyclones players watched Wilmer Flores foul a pitch right off his schnoz at 95 MPH, and all of the players fidgeted and said it was just too unsafe with the Mets right now, they'd stay in Coney Island for now, thanks for the offer, Mr. Alderson.

He went in to tell Terry Collins, and saw that Collins was watching The Exorcist, to see if that is what this team needs.  Sandy walked away without saying a word.

On a more serious note, the Cyclones have had 13 pitchers with 10 or more innings with ERAs under 4.00, so all has not been awful there by any means.  And, in case you were wondering, first rounder David Peterson has only pitched in 2 games, totaling under 3 innings, and is listed not as disabled but ACTIVE, thank heavens.  Team-wise, the Cyclones have a league-worst 4.25 ERA (despite the recent pitching surge) with 41 HRs allowed.  And just 10th of 14 in Ks at 575 (league leader by contrast has 718).

Offensively, 2B Walter Rasquin has had a fine season, hitting .300 with 31 steals in 58 games.   The offense, though, has league-lows of 17 homers and 230 runs to go with its .232 average.  The NY Penn League's team highs are 52 HRs, 336 runs, and .261, just for perspective.

So there you go.  Not good, but my solution, after considering all of the above, is play only doubleheaders in order to win 3 of every 4.  Anyway, 5 games left for the Cyclones until season's end.  Ending 28-48 wouldn't be so bad.  But a few of them are against the Staten Island Yankees (43-28).