Seals back on track

The Victoria Seals have raised their record on the season to 14-19 by reeling off four straight wins against a strong Calgary Vipers squad. Victoria starts a five-game series against the league's worst team, the Tijuana Cimarrones, on Wednesday night at Royal Athletic Park (look for a series preview on our blog coming soon). Victoria will then close out the first half of the season with a six-game series in Maui from July 6th to the 11th.

Seal Blubber Bits

• Phil Ortez was released to make room for Kyle Orr on the Seals' roster.
• The white-hot Brian Rios is now sixth in the league in hitting with a .374 average. He has hits in 15 of his last 16 games and he has a .463 average with 2 homers and 9 RBIs in that span. 
• Wilver Perez is 7-for-15 with 6 steals in the four games that he has played since returning from his three-game suspension. It's no coincidence that the Seals have won all four of those games. The bench-clearing brawl may end up being the turning point of the season for the Seals. Wilver now leads the league in steals with 23 (he stole 24 for Victoria over the entire 2009 season).
• The Seals Director of Broadcasting & Media Relations, Mike Walker, graduated from the same high school as Kyle Orr in 2006.  Both attended Lambrick Park Secondary School.
• Anthony Pluta (1-0, 2.96 ERA) is quietly putting together a solid year and the biggest reason is that he has greatly improved his control. In 2009, Pluta walked 14.3 batters per nine innings, but this season that number has dropped to 5.2.
• Eri Yoshida had her second consecutive good outing on Thursday night for the Chico Outlaws. She limited the Edmonton Capitals to two runs on three hits and three walks in five innings pitched. Her ERA now stands at 5.25, which is better than two of her teammates on the Outlaws -- and 40% of the entire Victoria Seals pitching staff. I'm just sayin'...