Wednesday, September 11, 1996

Prairie Dogs open championship evenly matched
By AL PICKETT
Sports Editor

LUBBOCK - Have two teams ever been as evenly matched as the Abilene Prairie Dogs and Lubbock Crickets?

The numbers appear almost identical as the two teams open their best-of-five Texas-Louisiana League Championship Series tonight at Dan Law Field:

-- The two teams split their 20 games this season, each winning 10. Abilene was 8-5 against the Crickets in the first half of the season, but Lubbock went 5-2 against the Dogs after the all-star break.

-- Thirteen of the 20 games were decided by three runs or less. Five were one-run games, with Abilene winning three of the five.

-- Each team was 6-4 overall at its home park against the other.

-- Abilene set a league record with 67 wins this season, but the Dogs were 32-16 in the second half, just a half-game better than Lubbock's 32-17 mark.

-- The Prairie Dogs' pitching staff led the league with a 3.71 earned run average, but the Crickets were just behind Abilene with a 3.89 ERA.

-- Both teams will start a former major leaguer on the mound tonight in Game 1. Former Detroit Tiger David Haas, the most valuable pitcher in the league this season, brings a 14-4 record and a 2.51 ERA into tonight's game. Bill Landrum, who spent 1986-93 in the major leagues and recorded 26 saves for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1989, will start for Lubbock. He was 2-1 with a a 2.18 ERA in eight appearances and four start after joining the team in July.

Lubbock, the defending T-L League champion, made a surprising late-season run after have three key players - first baseman Chris Norton and pitchers Jeff Huber and Ryan Brewer - signed by major league organizations at the all-star break.

But Crickets manager Greg Minton added Landrum, outfielder Roberto Ramirez and third baseman Frank Bolick to his team, as well as obtaining pitcher Greg Bicknell after he was released by Amarillo.

Bolick hit .376 and Ramirez .306. Bicknell is 5-1 with four saves. Leftfielder Mike Hardge led the league with 77 runs scored. He batted .303 with 64 RBI.

"Two down and three to go," Abilene manager Phil Stephenson said after sweeping Amarillo in two straight games in the first round. "The idea is to go to Lubbock and, as a road team, you want to at least gain a split.

"They played us tough in the second half. They were 5-2 in the second half against us."

Abilene is led offensively by league MVP Rod Brewer, who hit .325 with 19 home runs and 87 runs batted-in, and outfielder Paul Coleman, who hit .334 with nine home runs and 64 RBI.

Paul Gonzalez provided the surprising offensive spark during the Amarillo series, hitting a pair of three-run homers and driving in nine runs. But Lubbock also received a boost from a surprising source in its two-game sweep of Rio Grande Valley when Derek Vaughn hit two homers and also had nine RBI.

Just one more similarity between the Prairie Dogs and Crickets.