Lake Elsinore Storm Are South's First Half Champions

With their 5-4 win over Rancho Cucamonga on Monday, the Lake Elsinore Storm clinched the first half championship in the Cal League's South division. This is the franchise's third first half title. It's no surprise that they clinched with five games to go. For the past few weeks, they've been on a great hot streak and put up one of, and at times, the best record in professional baseball. There are two very weak teams in the division which they've certainly take advantage of, but with a series win against Modesto and holding their own against their closest competitors in Rancho Cucamonga and High Desert, the Storm have proved to be worthy winners.

This group of players has gotten used to winning. In 2009, the Padres' A affiliate rolled through the Midwest League with a league championship and owning the league's best regular season record by 13 games. A lot of the players on that championship team are now contributing on this year's Lake Elsinore team, so they know how to win. Seven of the nine regular players in the Storm lineup this year had at least 200 AB for Fort Wayne last season, and three of their five usual starters made at least 10 starts for that championship team. How have they done it this year?

Lake Elsinore has really been a complete team. They're near the top of the Cal League leaders in a lot of offensive categories and have maybe the deepest lineup in the league. Four position players made the All Star team, and two of them, Dan Robertson and Blake Tekotte, have spent the majority of the season batting in the bottom third of the lineup. Two of the seven players that play just about every day have an OPS over .900, and three others are over .800. The two catchers that split time, Michael Collins and Robert Lara, have .982 and .843 OPS', respectively. If Jaff Decker turns his season around, and Padres fans hope that's more of a matter of when, they'll score even more runs.

At one point in May, I think I said Lake Elsinore's pitching needs to improve if they want to be a championship team. Around that time, their run differential was pretty small, and they did not compare favorably to some of the other pitching in the league. All of a sudden, they may have the best pitching in the league. What happened? The addition of Juan Oramas has had a lot to do with it. Except for his near perfect game, he often doesn't pitch deep into games, but he gives them very effective innings. Besides Oramas, both Anthony Bass and Nick Schmidt both have great streaks going in which they haven't allowed many runs. Bass has only allowed seven earned runs in his last six Cal League starts, and Schmidt allowed only nine earned runs in his eight starts before his most recent one. Throw in a pretty deep bullpen, led by the league's best closer Brad Brach, and the Storm have put together a very formidable staff.

Because they won the first half title, Lake Elsinore will have homefield advantage throughout the Cal League playoffs. The South division representative in the championship was already scheduled to have homefield anyway, but this makes sure they'll play three of five games in Lake Elsinore in the Division Final. Not only that, they earn a bye through the first round of the playoffs which is obviously huge. Anything can happen in a short series, and the fact that they have to win two fewer games to get the championship is very beneficial.

Even though the first half title in the South has already been decided, the last few games could still prove to be important. The four other teams in the division need to accumulate as many wins as possible because that could earn them the final playoff spot available at the end of the season if they don't earn the second half championship. There is still plenty of season left for teams to make a run.

Congratulations to the Lake Elsinore players, coaches, front office and fans on the successful first half of the season. The team is playing great right now, and after the last one and a half seasons of success from this core group, there's no reason not to expect these guys can keep it up and win another championship. It seems like there are really only two things that can stop them, and those are injuries and promotions, and obviously no one is hoping for the former.