Superpesis roundup

The second week of the regular season is now behind us, but who was top of the power rankings and who was left struggling? 1st Manse PP  Manse sit at the top of the table with Vimpeli, but have had a tougher schedule than ViVe. The jewel in the crown was a home win over Joensuu, where Manse took the full 3 points. even the win over Kempele was not a certainty, as Kempele’s much improved performance this season has meant that they are a more difficult team to beat. Henri Puputti led Manse’s offence in style against JoMa with a 4 run home run that took his career tally to over 700 RBIs. 2nd Imatran Pallo-Veikot IPV played only 1 game last week, but it was a significant result for the club, who many have predicted will fall way short of the battle for a post-season spot. IPV took the full 3 points against Hyvinkää, who finished 6th last season. Despite IPV losing a number of players to Kitee in the offseason from critical roles, the team are actually doing far better than Kitee...

Toni Kohonen makes history to become the first active player to choose his team-mates for East v West The big stories Toni Kohonen to pick the East all-star team Ok, so this news broke on 14th June, but it is such a big story. Wanted to include it in this roundup. There are not many awards or titles that Toni Kohonen hasn’t already won or earned, but history has been made by the Pesäpallo Federation determining that Korhonen will be the first active player in history to choose his team-mates for this year’s East v West game. The allstar event is a matter of great pride for players and this opportunity is a clear measure of how much the pesäpallo community respects Kohonen and his continued drive for success.  Kohonen has 49 home runs and 796 regular RBIs in his career, with 528 runs and a staggering 3,244 successful hits at moving the point runner across 743 regular-season matches in 28 Superpesis seasons. Korhonen’s career famously started with Kitee and he now stands in th...

Marko Pelkonen’s great performance at the plate gave KeKi the edge in this local derby game Pattijoen Urheilijat, Raahe v Kempeleen Kiri 0-1 (2-2, 2-4) This week’s featured game is the exciting matchup between PattU and Kempele. There is title more than 30 miles between the two teams and their final positions in the table this season could equally be close. PattU struggled offensively in 2020, whereas Kempele’s defence seemed to be the issue. The matchup sees veteran PattU pitcher Topi Kosonen go up against Kempele’s explosive lineup, which tore apart JoMa’s defence last week at Kerubi stadium. Kempele’s difficulties come from key areas defensively, but pitcher Jani Lassila continues to impress; if PattU’s offence stalls, or some of the key areas in KeKi’s defence start to firm up as the season progresses, the gap between these two teams could start to appear and put Kempele in prime spot for a top 8 finish. As it stood going into this game however, both teams only had 1 point this ...