A season which began with great optimism and started in April with a winning record was followed by a slow decent in May, a quicker decent in June and a disastrous full blown headlong rush into deep last place in the month of July. By the middle of June, it seemed that Ottawa were completely overmatched by the rest of the league and the Lynx were quickly out of the race for the Northen Division in a defence of their 2006 title. The team played poorly and at times indifferently and were often embarrassingly beaten by their opponents. The 2007 version of the Ottawa Lynx had little team speed or power and played sloppy defence after the month of June. Mental errors at critical times on the bases and in the field added to the ineffectiveness of the team. The starting staff were hurt by injuries and personnel changes which often forced manager John Russell to use relievers in the rotation which had a ripple effect on the bullpen. More often than not, these relievers were unable to go deep into games which caused an overuse of the bullpen and which correspondingly lead to the unavailability of these “starters” for bullpen duty. Some of the relievers were simply ineffective all season but Russell had to keep throwing them out there not having any other options. The team was stocked with older players whose skills seemed to have diminished, all at the same time. This was a team which had won the Northern Division in 2006 with essentially the same players. Either the team got quickly old and/or it was simply one of those years in which a team was simply spinning it’s wheels all season.
Continue reading The Ottawa Lynx 2007 Season Review Part One, (Overview and Hitting) →
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