Performance rankings - 6th to 12th July 2020

Sotkamo storm to the top of the performance rankings this week


With the first full week of games the teams are starting to hit their stride, or rather some teams are and some teams have struggled. Here are last weeks performance rankings.


1st Sotkamon Jymy

Surprisingly if you beat Vimpeli twice in one week winning all 4 jakso and taking maximum points you end up top of the performance rankings... After a slow start to the season with a home loss to Kempele, Sotkamo have gone from strength to strength and are certainly the team that is performing best. There are still little tweaks and aspects of Sotkamo’s game that could improve, but you cannot argue with the results.


2nd Kouvolan Pallonlyöjat

KPL stand tall at the top of the table again this week and their wins against Hyvinkää and Kankaanpää gave them maximum points. If their opponents had been higher performing teams then they probably would have overtaken Sotkamo in the rankings. KPL look very healthy at the moment and have scored more runs in the league than any other team. Given that KPL and Sotkamo will not play each other in the regular season and the current predictions look like both teams will advance deep into the playoffs, a series between the 2 teams could be unpredictable. 


3rd Kiteen Pallo -90

Making a surprise second consecutive appearance in our performance rankings is Kitee. With 2 point wins over IPV and Joensuu, Kitee have established some good results early in the season. I mentioned last week that Kitee will have to draw on their successes in games like their opening game against IPV to reach the post-season; well they certainly have made an impact since then, humbling local rivals and current champions Joensuu, sharing the points 3-3 over 2 games. 


Worst performance - Koskenkorvan Urheilijat

Koskenkorva are still the only team without points this season. Oddly enough, their joker and hard-hitter Patrik Wahlsten leads the league for runs-batted-in (15 over 4 games). At the moment their dance is far too loose and Wahlsten is the only player repatriating players consistently. 


Worthy of note - Kempeleen Kiri

Last week Kempele made a shock appearance in the performance rankings thanks to a key win over 2019 silver medalists Sotkamo. This week was less successful, but overall saw Kempele take a point against Pattijoki and tie a jakso over the course of 2 games. Kempele also took 3 points against struggling Koskenkorva to place them towards the top end of the league. Kempele’s offence has produced a staggering 50 runs so far this season in just 5 games, giving them an average of 10 runs per game compared to their 2019 average of just 6.7 per game (201 runs from 30 games). Defensively however Kempele remain under pressure and they have conceded the 2nd most runs to date, 45. The game plan seems to be - score as many runs as they can because they will also concede a lot defensively. Using a projection based on an adapted Pythagorean calculation, if Kempele keep this performance going they should end up either 4th or 5th in the table at the end of the season!


Photographs

Cover - (c) Sotkamon Jymy 2020

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