WPBL Week Six: The Heights and Mighty

The WPBL’s first ever regular season is complete, making this the final weekly recap before the playoffs. Next week’s edition will cover the semifinal round of the postseason. As a reminder, these weekly roundups are designed to run through each week’s action by highlighting the most notable players, moments, and anything else I deem worthy of further commentary. For each edition of the recap, I re-license the naming rights to this list of highlights to whichever team I feel has won the week. And how does a team win the week? Well, unlike actual wins and losses in baseball, this type of win is purely subjective and will operate under the time-honored tradition of making it up as we go along.

Along with the list of highlights, the Unforced Errors section typically discusses the more confounding aspects of the prior week, because good faith criticism is a necessary component of continuing progress, but my gripes are fairly minimal this week, so in a season already awash in firsts, we’ll add one more to the pile and make this the first recap without an Unforced Errors list.

And on the topic of firsts, rounding things out are the Historic Firsts of Lesser Renown. The league’s momentous firsts will obviously get their shine, but there’s something to be said for the more strange and mundane firsts, the smaller day-to-day occurrences that make a new league feel familiar and complete. Think of these firsts as the knickknacks on a shelf that make a new house feel like a home. Baseball fans won’t really feel settled into a new league until the first time a player on their favorite team commits a TOOTBLAN.

If you need a refresher on the league’s structure and mechanics, check out the Week One recap.

In the final standings update of the regular season, the Firebells lead the way as the only team to reach double-digit wins, while the Hunters sit at the other end of the spectrum as the only team with double-digit losses. But more interesting is how the two teams with 8-7 records compare to one another. Despite matching win totals, New York’s Pythagorean winning percentage is close to .600, while Pythagoras and his formula have Los Angeles positioned well under .500. Situations like this one are basically designed in a lab to test one’s loyalty to run differential as a metric.

As you may recall, New York had a run differential of zero just last week, and two games later it now sits at 23. Should two high-scoring affairs really change our opinion of the Heights and their true talent as a team? Maybe, but one of the main arguments against putting too much weight in run differential is that runs scored in blowouts are less meaningful. Whether or not they go as far as putting a position player on the mound, it’s generally accepted that teams check out a bit once the score gets out of hand. Therefore, the runs scored during garbage time are less meaningful since neither team’s players are exactly giving it their all at that point. It’s a valid criticism, but since we can’t really measure the exact moment, nor the degree to which a team has taken its foot off the gas, we accept it as a known limitation, and shrug it off as the type of thing that comes out in the wash of a long season.

For several reasons, it’s harder to know how to gauge the significance of blowouts in the context of team run differential in the WPBL. One is that the season isn’t long enough for these things to level out on their own. Further, the league’s dramatically different run environment (at least as it compares to MLB) means recalibrating our definition of what even counts as a blowout. Comparing 2026 regular seasons, the WPBL, which plays seven-inning games, averages 15.9 total runs per game, whereas MLB averages 9.0 total runs per game. The average margin of victory is 5.7 runs for a WPBL game and 3.6 runs for an MLB game. But since averages are easily skewed, especially given the WPBL’s small, 30-game sample, I went ahead and plotted the full distributions as box-and-whisker plots to get a better feel for the disparity.

So on the one hand, the Heights besting the Queens by 11 on Thursday and trouncing the Firebells by 12 on Friday both qualify as wide margins of victory even by WPBL standards. But those wins are not the extreme outliers they would be if an MLB team accomplished the same feat. And while an MLB team that has allowed 10 or more runs and fallen behind by six or seven might be inclined to start daydreaming about the postgame spread, a six- or seven-run deficit is still reasonably within striking distance in the WPBL. After all, the league’s 30-game regular season featured 21 half innings where five or more runs were scored. Big innings abound in the WPBL, which makes it less likely that either of the Heights’ opponents conceded early and let them run up the score. Particularly San Francisco, who leads the league in OPS and runs scored.

The playoffs begin this week with the one-seed Firebells facing the four-seed Hunters and the two-seed Heights matching up with the three-seed Queens. Each pair of teams will play a best-of-three series with alternating off days. The first game, between San Francisco and Boston, is set for tonight at 6:00 pm ET. As in the regular season, all WPBL playoff games will be available to stream on ESPN+.

But before we get to the postseason, here are the highlights from Week Six in the WPBL.

The Heights and the Mighty

The Last Firsts

Four players waited until the last week of the regular season to go yard for the first time. On Wednesday, Hunters third baseman Denver Bryant went deep on the fifth pitch thrown by Firebells starter Kelsie Whitmore. Shortstop Val Perez only appeared in nine of the Heights’ 15 regular season games, since she was splitting time between the WPBL and coaching the Firefighters of the Banana Ball Championship League, so she had fewer opportunities to get her power swing going. But in the fourth inning of New York’s final game on Friday, Perez joined the home run club with a two-run shot to left-center off Firebells reliever Ela Day-Bédard. Queens catcher Maggie Foxx hammered her first homer in her second-to-last plate appearance of the regular season on Saturday. She saw six pitches from Heights pitcher Alyssa Zettlemoyer before depositing the seventh pitch over the fence in left field. And finally, Hunters pitcher Alli Schroder, who didn’t start hitting on a regular basis until Boston’s 11th game of the season, was down to her last strike in the seventh inning on Sunday and facing Firebells closer Peyton Coria. After fouling a pitch off to stay alive, she launched a long ball out to center field and logged a home run on her season stat line, just under the wire.

A Bonus Bat

At the start of the season, Schroder was one of just a handful of players used in a pitcher-only role. Even players with pitcher listed as their primary position would often hit and play another defensive position when they were not on the mound, but a few, such as Ayami Sato, Meggie Meidlinger, and Jaida Lee, have focused exclusively on pitching. And over the first four weeks of the season, Boston’s captain was among that group, only snagging stray plate appearances here and there as game situations dictated. Even then, she didn’t do much with her limited opportunities, going hitless with two walks in 10 plate appearances. And given that Schroder’s season on the mound has been a bit up and down, it makes sense that she and the Hunters’ coaching staff might opt to have her channel all of her energy toward pitching.

Meanwhile, Boston’s offense has been its weakest link all season, and short of adding to the roster externally, the odds of the team making substantial gains in the batter’s box were slim. At least until Schroder stepped in. Starting on August 26, Schroder began hitting and playing first base in games she wasn’t scheduled to start on the mound. Since retiring from her pitcher-only status, Schroder is slashing .700/.727/1.200 and providing an unexpected surge of offense for a team desperately in need. If Schroder’s hot streak stretches into the postseason, the Hunters might prove more formidable than their record indicates.

The Hot Hands

Speaking of streaking into the postseason (no, not like that), several Firebells ended the season on a high note. And the thought of the league’s best offense entering a playoff series with a supercharged version of its usual lineup should absolutely terrify the Boston Hunters.

Right fielder Skylar Kaplan has been downright toasty all season. Her .490/.552/.627 slash line is top five in all three categories among qualified hitters. But she’s still managed to one up herself by hitting for a .583 average over the last week of the season.

Second baseman Amanda Gianelloni has also been a consistent producer at the plate, posting a .327/.429/.469 line. She played in all 15 games for the Firebells and logged either a hit or a walk in all but two of them. But all that consistency hasn’t translated to many big moments for Gianelloni, aside from a home run early in the season. She hadn’t logged a three-hit game since the Firebells’ opener on August 2. That is, until she doubled to all three fields in her final three plate appearances of the regular season. After hitting just one other double prior to Sunday’s game, Gianelloni is spraying the ball around with a little extra juice, which surely bodes well for her postseason outlook.

Like Gianelloni, first baseman Andréanne Leblanc has hit well from the jump (.385/.500/.558), but hadn’t showcased much power until her final four games of the season, when she went 5-for-14 with two homers (including a walk-off grand slam) and four walks. After Friday’s game, Leblanc told reporters that “something definitely clicked” for her after hitting that first homer, and whatever it is has led to improved selectivity at the plate and the confidence to swing more freely when she gets the pitch she wants. Leblanc also added an inning on the mound to her résumé, allowing zero runs and one hit to a Heights team that had been bopping prior to that point. After her outing on the mound, Leblanc emphasized to the media (with Firebells manager Matt Williams sitting next to her) that even though her pitching debut came late in the season, she’s not afraid to pitch in the postseason and hopes to be considered an option should the need arise.

And lastly, third baseman Ayaka Yamamoto wasn’t able to join the team until late August due to visa issues. She didn’t see much game action until this past week, when she hit .600 across 11 plate appearances. I don’t know that the Firebells actually need another hitter with an OPS over 1.000, but I’m sure they’ll find a way to make it work.

The Highest Heights

I spent most of the preamble yapping about how the Heights have scored approximately 2,300 runs over their last two games, so I’ll try not to belabor the point too much more here, but there are two specific hitters in their lineup who deserve recognition.

Infielder Madison Willan probably spent her first 17 plate appearances of the season wondering whether she should wear earmuffs and thermal underwear in the batter’s box as a way to heat up. She plays incredibly solid defense at both shortstop and second base, making a lack of production at the plate far more tolerable than if she were a traffic cone posting up near first. Nevertheless, I’m sure everyone in New York’s clubhouse is thrilled she finally snapped out of her cold spell. Over her last 16 plate appearances, Willan is slashing .769/.813/.923 and probably needs one of those handheld misting fans whenever she’s not in the box.

And then, of course, there’s catcher Denae Benites, who had another two-homer game on Thursday and finished the regular season tied with Whitmore for the league lead with 11 home runs. Benites and Whitmore also mimicked one another’s spray charts, each hitting 10 of their long balls to left or center and going oppo exactly once. Whitmore went the other way back on August 22, whereas Benites waited ‘til number 11 before proving she could poke one out to right, too.

Flashes of Leather

The Hunters have the worst fielding percentage in the league at .923. Granted, fielding percentage isn’t an ideal, or even a particularly good way of measuring defense, especially when it comes to the minutiae of individual plays. But for a zoomed-out comparison of team defenses, it captures the overall gist. However, the full-season numbers do gloss over any recent trends, and while the Hunters still have plenty of room for improvement, they are, as the business dorks say, upward trending. Over their last five games, they’ve successfully turned six double plays (1.2 per game), while no other team has managed more than four. Over the six games prior to that, they turned just three double plays (0.5 per game), which was roughly on par with the other teams in the league. Sure, the quantity of double plays is partially a function of opportunity, but their increased rate of double plays tells me they’re at least getting better at cleaning up their messes.

Among those six double plays were a couple of real sparklers, as well as a couple of other defensive gems of the non-double-play variety.

First was pitcher Paloma Benach carefully winding her internal clock to wait for coverage at second rather than riding the adrenaline of the catch and rushing a throw to the bag.

Next, second baseman Suzuka Yamamoto turned a liner off the bat of Whitmore into an unassisted double play.

When the Firebells next met the Hunters, Yamamoto ranged to her left, made a snow-cone stab on a chopper bound for right field, then managed to reverse her momentum so she could set her feet and make the throw to first.

Last, center fielder Lexi Hastings made a catch on a fly ball to the first base side of second, then fired a one-hopper to third to get the out on Queens catcher Jamie Mackay as she attempted to tag up and advance to third.

Whitmore’s Glove

By now, we all know Whitmore can pitch, and we definitely know she can hit, but lest we forget, she’s also pretty good with the glove.

Here she is picking off Hastings at first:

And making a sliding grab out in center to end the inning and strand two baserunners:

A Knuckleballer

Prior to the WPBL season, Heights two-way player Claire Eccles hadn’t pitched in about a year. When she first started playing for Canada’s national team, she only pitched, but as she told the media during the postgame press conference on Friday, the mental aspect of pitching got to be too much, so she decided to take a break from pitching and focus on playing the outfield instead. But since there are more games in the WPBL compared to playing for a national team, there are also more opportunities to pitch and get reps and work on things, so Eccles got back on the mound. Heading into this past week, Eccles had thrown seven innings and allowed three runs on seven hits and seven walks, with six strikeouts. Then on Thursday, Eccles had by far the best outing of her season so far. She threw three scoreless innings, allowed no hits, issued just one walk, and tallied six strikeouts.

The difference maker? A recently evolved knuckleball.

At some point between her last outing on August 27 and her appearance on September 3, Eccles did some noodling with her pitch grips and made an adjustment that improved her command of the knuckleball and allowed her to feel more confident in hitting her spots. But Eccles probably stuck to just tweaking her knuckleball grip, right? Because tweaking all her pitch grips between outings would be bananas, right?

Wrong. When asked for further clarification later in the press conference, Eccles said, “No, it was on everything. I thought I’d try something different.”

Ah. OK then. Well I guess all that’s left to do is hear how the pitches looked from behind the plate. “She was on fire. She was finding her pitches. Her pitches were disgusting,” Benites said postgame on Thursday when asked about catching Eccles, “The people in the box that were hitting, they were also saying, ‘Wow, that is disgusting,’ as they’re standing in the box hitting.”

A No-Hit Bid

The night after Eccles stymied batters for three innings, Emi Saiki took the mound for the Heights and threw 4 1/3 no-hit innings before allowing a single to Firebells left fielder Jua Park. Saiki stuck around and finished six innings. She allowed two runs on four hits and one walk while registering four strikeouts. It was the league’s longest outing by a starting pitcher and the farthest into a game any pitcher had carried a no-hit bid. She relied heavily on her curveball, frequently baffling hitters by hugging the black with a pitch that only deigned to dip down into the zone at the last possible second. As such, Saiki got a lot of these types of reactions from hitters:

A Bow on the End of the Regular Season

Even though the WPBL is in its inaugural season, that doesn’t mean the league’s players haven’t played professionally before. Whitmore, in particular, has played a lot of pro ball, but never in a setting quite like this one. So I’ll let her have the final word on the WPBL’s first season. Here’s what she said to sideline reporter A.J. Andrews after the final game:

This season has been so important. You know, look at these fans. I mean, there’s people that show up, that come here to watch us. So many times in my career being the only female on my team, people would usually show up with the mindset of, ‘Oh, let’s go watch a girl play. Let’s go watch her play just for her to prove to us why she doesn’t belong out there.’ But these fans are here because they are like, ‘Let’s go watch these girls play because we’ve been waiting for this moment. We’ve been wanting to see them here. We believe in them.’ So, I appreciate these fans. They believe in us. They believe in women in baseball. They believe in women in sports. This is not just a win for baseball. This is a win for women, and this whole season has been awesome, and I’m just looking forward to more.

Historic Firsts of Lesser Renown

• Whitmore’s pickoff of Hastings (referenced above) was the first instance of a pitcher logging a putout at first on a pickoff attempt. There were two prior instances where the pitcher backpicked the runner at first and the runner took off, leading to an out at second, but Whitmore’s pickoff was the first instance that led to an out at first.
• After clinching the one-seed with an 8-5 win over the Hunters on Wednesday, the Firebells played the league’s first post-clinch hangover game on Friday. Despite the day off in between, San Francisco put up just two runs on offense, the fewest the team has scored in a game all season, and gave up 14 runs on defense, the most it has allowed.
• In the bottom of the fifth inning on Saturday, Hunters left fielder Ticara Geldenhuis became the first player to score from second on a wild pitch.
• Prior to their 18-7 takedown of the Queens on Thursday, the Heights held the league’s first (known) players-only meeting in an attempt to get themselves more locked in on offense. It seems to have worked.