Ottawa finished up the month of May with a 3-5 eight game road trip, a one game winning streak , and five games back of the Buffalo Bisons. Each team in the Northern Division finished May slightly above .500 at home with the exception of Pawtucket. It is the road record thus far in the season which has been the difference for everyone else in the division with Buffalo six games over .500 on the road and the Lynx six games under .500. Out final road trip of the month was a very up and down inconsistent affair When Ottawa lost, they lost big and ugly, (12-8, 8-0, 11-3), but still finished this road trip just one game shy of .500. The team lost RBI leader and third base man Brennan King, and J.A. Happ to the DL on this road trip and veteran Lou Collier announced his retirement, (May 30). Although the pitching and offense were inconsistent for the month and the home run drought continued, the Lynx are still very much in the race. Personnel changes affected the pitching staff and the loss to injury of Matt Childers early in the month along with King and Happ in the last week of May were especially tough forcing the team to scramble for replacements. Brian Mazone leaving to pitch in South Korea didn’t help the Lynx pitching situation much either.

Let’s look at who stood where statistically as of May 31, 2007 and let’s try and figure out where the Lynx might be headed. Ottawa had a won-lost record of 14-17 in the month of May, 6-6 at home and 8-11 on the road, not great but not so bad either. Let’s just say they’ve been consistently average at best. Ottawa has yet to get hot and win several games in a row so far this season but just when it looks like they are going to fall apart, they bounce back with a couple of wins. Of course, you don’t win divisions and get to the post season winning one and losing one At the end of April, Ottawa were one game over .500, three games behind Buffalo. The team ended May two games under .500, five games back of the Bisons. The team held their own despite the injuries and personal changes in a month which easily could have gotten away from them and their playoff chances slip away. Ron Calloway retired and Joey Hammond came up, went down, and came up again. The pitching rotation for a couple of days came down to who can go out there today. Danny Sandoval and Joe Thurston continued to turn double plays and Chris Roberson managed to get to just about everything in centre field. Manager John Russell was able to write down mostly the same starting lineup for every game before the injury to King and the retirement of Lou Collier and Dusty Wathan proved to be a valuable substitute and spot starter.

Hitting: Ottawa continued to have problems hitting home runs but did manage eight in May still leaving them a far distant last in this category, (16 behind Rochester for second worst and 47 behind leaders Durham), but both Ottawa and Durham hit eight in May. The Lynx counted 53 doubles in May, (32 in April), in twelve more games is an almost identical average to April, (1.68-1.70 per game), and rank tenth behind Toledo, (109), down one place from April. Very consistent. The Lynx ranked eleventh in runs scored at the end of May, (they were sixth when April was over), with 207, sixty-four runs behind leader Indianapolis. Their average runs per game in May though, was way down from April, (4.63-3.83). Ottawa remained third in batting average down to .267 from .276, collecting 271 hits in May, (175 in April), but in twelve more games,(9.2-8.74). The Lynx OBP at the end of May was .335, (.349 April), not much difference there either. Ottawa finished up the month of May last in Slugging and OPS, the same as April. The Lynx ranked dead last in steals by the end of May with only fourteen for the month, (25 total). Indianapolis rank first with 83.

Here are some Lynx offensive breakdowns as of May 31, 2007. They are pretty much what you would expect for any team and speak for themselves but I thought that I would post them anyway just to give you some numbers. Ottawa are 4-16 when they score two runs or less. They are 2-5 when scoring three runs. 6-0 when scoring four, 3-0 when scoring five and 9-4 when scoring six runs in a game. Six runs per game should give a team more victories but the some of the games Ottawa fell behind early are a reflection of the struggles of the starting pitching. When Ottawa is leading after six innings, they are 19-3. When they trail after six innings, their record is 2-20. Leading after eight innings the Lynx record is 19-1-trailing after eight, 2-23. It seems that most games are decided either way going into the seventh inning.

Now for some individual hitting stats and an April-May comparison for some key players. Gary Burnham finished the month of May leading Ottawa in most offensive categories. He was the team leader in doubles, total bases, walks, OBP and OPS. He was a close second in RBI, runs, hits and slugging, and third in batting average, (technically first as Hammond and Wathan do not have enough at bats to qualify). He ranked fifth in the IL in batting average at .336, fifth in doubles, first in OBP, and ninth in OPS. Burnham hit .345 in April-.344 in May. He scored eleven runs in April and twelve in May, had five doubles in April and twelve in May, (35 more at bats in May). His RBI were April-May 7-16. In the categories which aren’t really affected by at bats, (and really the key categories-OBP, SLG and OPS), Burnham was remarkably consistent with an April-May breakdown of .472-450, .431-.473 and .903-924. Chris Roberson upped his average considerably from a low of .184 in April, hitting .261 in May. This lead to sixteen runs scored vs. six in April and almost as many RBI, (14-11). His OBP rose drastically in May to .333 from an April low of .264. His steals were the same in both months, (3-3), which will have to improve if he is going to come close to the twenty five he swiped last year. His game is speed and putting pressure on the opposition despite his high, (for a lead off hitter), RBI total. He at least must do better than a 50% success rate. Brennan King saw a big difference in average in an April-May comparison,(.314-255), and drove in only four more runs despite having thirty two more at bats, (11-15). His OPS, .754 in April, was only .662 in May. Some of that can be explained by a big increase in strikeouts, nine in April but twenty in May. Joe Thurston had a large drop off in May in average, (.279-.232), due mainly to an increase in strikeouts, (5-13) as his other stats were very similar and he more than doubled his runs scored, (7-15) in forty-four more at bats. The other big offensive drop off was Lynx catcher Jason Jaramillo. After a stellar performance in the month of April where he hit .328 with eleven RBI and scored eleven runs, Jaramillo had a tough offensive month of May. He started twenty six games and didn’t get much going until the last week.. But although he hit only .168, he did score sixteen runs and knocked in twelve while hitting three home runs, (two in one game late in May). His OPS dropped from .767 to only .537 and his SLG fell from .379 to a middle infielder like .284. It took a productive last week of May to get his stats up to anywhere near respectable but as mentioned, the last week of May he seemed to be coming around a bit at the plate. His better numbers seemed to be a result of more time off which Manager Russell was able to give him as Dusty Wathan has been productive when replacing Jaramillo, hitting .370 in sixteen games in May while playing first, catcher and DH. Lynx shortstop Danny Sandoval hit .281 in April but only .242 in May but continued to contribute with his defence

Lou Collier, (.286-.322 and a player of the week award in May), and Jim Rushford, (297-321) had solid and consistent months in both April and May.

If Ottawa hopes to improve offensively and take some of the pressure off of the injury plagued starting staff, they will have to improve their SLG and OPS and hit more doubles, (someone other Gary Burnham), and continue to hit more home runs. Either that or John Russell will have to play small ball and hope the pitching comes around. For small ball to work, Chris Roberson is going to have to be more successful more often at stealing bases and team execution will have to be almost perfect. Also, Jason Jaramillo is going to have to continue the improvement he showed the last week of May and a way will have to be found to make up for the retirement of Lou Collier.