It’s that time in the season where individual statistical category races begin to get really interesting, and so I’ve been busily getting Project COBB’s National Baseball League stats for 2011 in good order. Full statistics can now be viewed as an Excel spreadsheet available from the Project COBB top-tier stats archive, and a summary of leaders in the main categories is scheduled to be published on the British Baseball Federation’s website on Friday. [UPDATE: Here is the link to that piece.]

As a result of the update, I’ve also been able to bring milestones and records of feats up to date, as described below.

FEATS
Oscar Sierra (Mustangs) got the offensive feats going early this season, with a two-homer game on Opening Day. Since then, there have been two other games with two home runs by an individual player, with the slugger on both occasions being Edwin Alcantara (Nationals). This makes him the only player to record two such games in the same season in modern British top-tier play, according to available records. In the second of these occasions he tacked on two singles to register the only performance so far this year with at least 10 total bases.

There have been four games in which a player has stolen five bases, with the feat having been performed twice by Victor Aizpurua (Mustangs) and once each by Robbie Unsell (Flames) and Nick Chenausky (Bulldogs).

Finally, two players extended hitting streaks that were live at the end of last season into 13-game runs this year (remember not to interpret these against MLB benchmarks, as streaks are much more difficult to compile across 7-inning games, particularly when walks are free flowing). Maikel Azcuy’s (Nationals) streak came to an end at that mark, although he is now on another shorter streak, but Brandon Deal’s (Nationals) is ongoing, and he is just one game short of the post-2007 record (seasons for which game-by-game data are available).

MILESTONES
Darrin Ward (Falcons) passed 200 top-tier hits this year in a career with statistics dating back to his 1991 season on the London Athletics squad. In addition, he needs just four more walks to bring up the century in that category. Another player moving past 200 career hits this season was Mike Osborn (Flames).

Ryan Trask (Blazers) swiped his 100th base in the NBL earlier this season (a milestone I, unremarkably, predicted on a BSUK podcast in April), taking his own modern British record to 103, and he needs one more home run for 25. Cody Cain (Flames) also needs just one homer to reach the 25 mark, while Maikel Azcuy (Nationals) is three shy of that milestone.

Matt Gilbert (Arrows) smashed through the mark of 250 innings pitched earlier this season and now needs just 10 more for 300. He also sailed past 250 strike-outs and needs 5 more to reach 300 in that category. Finally, he also passed 30 complete games, extending his own modern British career record to 34. Two other pitchers to move past 250 strike-outs were Matt Maitland (Blazers) — who is now also only five innings short of 250 — and Henry Collins (Blazers), who has moved to within 29 Ks of the 300 mark.