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.

Russell summed up the season this way after the final game of the 2007 season. “It was a long year obviously. We didn’t have a good season but we’re here to prepare these guys for the major leagues. A lot of the guys made a lot of progress.” Russell added, ” It’s time for everyone to go home and heal.”

Russell will be managing in the Arizona Fall League come October and there have been rumours that he is under consideration for a major league managerial opening, perhaps in Kansas City. But for now, he simply wants to go home to Texas and relax.

“I haven’t been home for two years now,” offered Russell. “It’ll be nice to just go home and relax.”

Matt Childers led Ottawa in wins with seven. J.A. Happ led with 117 strikeouts and an ERA of 5.02. Brian Sanches was the team leader in saves with sixteen. Joe Thurston had the best average on the team at an even .300, Chris Roberson had nineteen steals while Gary Burnham led in just about every other offensive category including home runs, (12), and RBI, (84).

Ottawa finished with a record of 55-88, twenty nine games back of first place. The Lynx had a home record of 30-41 and a road record of 25-47. The were at their very worst on Monday going 1-19 , (0-10 on the road) with Thursday being their best day, (12-11). Who likes Monday anyway and what do those stats really mean? But they’re fun aren’t they?

Of the fifteen hitting categories, Ottawa ranked last in seven, near the bottom in three more and in the top three in batting average, fewest strikeouts and fewest caught stealing. The lack of power, (home runs and doubles), was very significant as the team had far too many games where the overwhelming majority of their hits were singles and many innings where three singles did not score a run. It was an all too rare event when a Lynx base runner went first to third or second to home and there were far too many strikeouts in key situations despite the fact that the team struck out the fewest times in the league. Ottawa didn’t walk much or steal many bases, key factors if there is a significant lack of power along with station to station base running. This makes the strong .267 team batting average somewhat insignificant. Ottawa scored almost a run less per game than the league leader and was dead last in two key power indicators, slugging and OPS. This lack of power made it difficult to win games where the team played less than perfect and there were too many of those games. When Ottawa scored three runs or less a game their won-lost record was 10-63! That in itself isn’t a significant or unusual percentage but the number of games, (73), in which the Lynx scored three or fewer runs certainly is. You won’t make the playoffs scoring three runs or less in 51% of your games unless the pitching is lights out the vast majority of the time. Lynx pitching was rarely that. Ottawa were 6-67 when trailing after six innings and 6-72 when trailing after seven. When trailing after eight innings, Ottawa went 3-70. There were many games one got the feeling that the team simply were not going to come back even though the game was still close and in the early innings. There were many games Ottawa had a chance to get something significant going to put the game away or to climb back into it but they simply went bust.

Gary Burnham lead the team with multiple RBI games yet he only had fifteen. Joe Thurston lead the club in multiple hit games with 40. Only six of the regulars had more than thirty multiple hit games.

Let’s quickly review the Lynx regulars position by position on offence.

Catcher: Jason Jaramillo appeared in 118 games and finished with an average of .271. He drove in 56, (4th), scored 52, (5^th), and hit only six home runs and thirteen doubles. Of the regulars, his OPS, (.711), ranked only seventh. He was hot in April, very cold in May but pretty consistent after that but like the rest of the team, not much extra base power. All in all a good season for his first full season in Triple A and he is only twenty four.

First Base: Gary Burnham, Jim Rushford and Dusty Wathan split the first base starts fairly evenly with Wathan getting the majority of the starts in the last couple of weeks as Burnham was being used almost strictly as a DH. We know what Burnham did and he was very steady all season. Wathan played first, catcher and DH and was one of the better players in the clutch for Ottawa. Rushford patrolled left field for most of the season.

Second Base: Joe Thurston was very consistent all season long and started the majority of games at second base. His .300 average lead the team and he was the only player other than Chris Roberson to show any team speed although his stolen base totals, (16-14), left a lot to be desired. After Gary Burnham, Thurston was the Lynx best hitter.

Shortstop: Gookie Dawkins came late to Ottawa and surprisingly showed some solid offense. Surprisingly because Dawkins has always been great field no hit in his career. Danny Sandoval and Carlos Leon were your typical decent field no hit infielders.

Third Base: Brennan King manned the hot corner for most of the season and didn’t show the power needed at third base in the majors but came back from injury and had a pretty good August with the bat. However, he is still young enough, (26), to have a major league job in his future but the power numbers have to go up substantially.

Outfield: Jim Rushford manned left field for most of the season and wore down as the team went through the second half. He finished with only two home runs and 48 RBI, playing in 120 games. His average fell steadily in the second half and finished at .266. He hit 24 doubles but an OPS of .663 simply won’t cut it for a traditional power position.

Chris Roberson was the Lynx centre fielder for most of the year, (two weeks in Philadelphia in August and a September 1^st call up). Indicative of the team’s lack of run production and power, Roberson, a singles hitter with great speed, lead the team in RBI for much of the season from the lead off spot. His speed didn’t translate into many stolen bases, (19-9), and he scored only 64 runs in 113 games. Roberson walked only 31 times.

Right field was manned by Pedro Swann and in August, Matt Padgett. Padgett showed occasional power while Swann usually batted seventh or eighth in the order. Padgett hit four home runs and eight doubles in only 122 at bats, pretty good power numbers and brought a much needed intensity to the team in August. He also had an OPS of .793 which ranked second behind Burnham.

DH: Burnham was the main DH in 2007. Collectively, the DH spot hit .293 with eleven home runs and 66 RBI. Of that total , Burnham accounted for eight home runs and 51 RBI while batting .296. Burnham had 267 at bats out of the 400 total from the DH spot in 2007. John Wathan hit .429 in twenty one DH at bats but with only two RBI.

There you have it-the 2007 offense in review. Part two will look at the pitching, such as it was.