AAA<\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a simple equation in the AAA-North League as the top two teams go straight to the AAA NBC and the rest are left to think of what might have been.\u00c2\u00a0 That promises to be a fascinating battle as there are four teams, all closely matched, vying for those two spots.\u00c2\u00a0 Liverpool Trojans (13-5) had dropped 3 of their previous 4 games to see their advantage in the standings whittled away by the chasing pack, but the tables were turned on Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 The Trojans won twice at Bootle Stadium against Glasgow (1-15), while Harrogate Tigers (10-4) and Menwith Hill Patriots (10-6) split a double-header and the surging Manchester A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (11-5) surprisingly lost their second game of the day against Halton Jaguars (3-13) to be left with a split.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The top games come thick and fast in the AAA-North as the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s host the Patriots, while the Tigers take on the Trojans this Sunday.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just as competitive in the South.\u00c2\u00a0 Here, the top team goes straight through to the NBC, but the second and third placed teams have a single-game showdown to determine who joins them there.\u00c2\u00a0 Oxford Kings (9-1), Bracknell Inferno (9-3) and Herts Eagles (8-4) hold the top three spots currently, with Bristol Badgers (4-2) in fourth and having four games in hand on the Kings and six on both of the other two.\u00c2\u00a0 The Badgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 next six games include four against the Kings, including two this weekend, and two against the Inferno, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll soon have a good idea of how they shape up against the competition.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the playoffs will be beyond them this season, due credit should be given to Essex Redbacks (4-6)who followed up their first two wins of 13 June with another double-header sweep on Sunday over London Metros (2-8).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
AA and A<\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier to look at these two together as there is some overlap when it comes to who qualifies for which level of postseason play.<\/p>\n
The AA-Midlands league contains five teams and four of them will head on to the playoffs: the top two to the AA playoff round and the third and fourth placed teams to the A playoff round.\u00c2\u00a0 The Leicester Blue Sox 2 (2-8) rookies are expected to be the team to miss out in their first year, they lost twice to their first team counterparts by a combined score of 51-0 on Sunday, although the struggles Mildenhall Bulldogs 2 (2-5)have had in fielding a team may ultimately mean that the Blue Sox 2 gain some playoff experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Results so far suggest that Birmingham Maple Leafs (8-3) should be in the top two,and if so the main battle will be between Leicester Blue Sox (6-4) and MK Bucks (4-4) to determine which joins the Leafs in the AA playoff and which goes on to the A playoff instead.\u00c2\u00a0 The two teams meet for an important double-header on 4 July.\u00c2\u00a0 This Sunday, the Blue Sox are scheduled to face Bulldogs 2 at RAF Feltwell.<\/p>\n
The AA-North league works in the same way as the Midlands league, with only one of the five teams set to miss out on extending their season.\u00c2\u00a0 That team will be Oldham North Stars, who slipped to 0-13 after Bolton Robots of Doom (9-3) beat them twice on Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 The order in which the other four teams will finish is still completely up for grabs.\u00c2\u00a0 Bolton and Sheffield Bladerunners (7-3) hold the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 spots, with Manchester Torrent (8-6) one game further back and Humber Pilots (5-4) having the potential to catch up if they win their games in hand.\u00c2\u00a0 The Pilots host Torrent this weekend, while the Bladerunners and Robots meet in a top-of-the-table clash.<\/p>\n
The AA-South and A-South leagues each contain two pools (A and B) and quite simply the top two teams from each pool go through to their respective level of the playoff rounds.<\/p>\n
In AA-South, the top two spots in Pool A appear to be going the way of Poole Piranhas (8-1) and Windsor Bears (7-3), particularly after the Bears beat the fourth-placed Croydon Pirates III on Sunday and the third-placed Thames Valley lost twice to Sidewinders.\u00c2\u00a0 Richmond Knights (8-1) should qualify from Pool B as champions and the other spot will be a battle between Sidewinders (8-3) and Essex Archers (6-3).\u00c2\u00a0 The Archers host a double-header against Thames Valley Bisons on Saturday as part of the Waltham Abbey Town Show, while Sidewinders play two games against the 0-10 Brentwood Stags on Sunday.<\/p>\n
In A-South, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just half a game between Richmond Dragons (7-2) and Guildford Mavericks (6-2) at the top of Pool A following Guildford\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 17-13 win over their rivals on Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 Both teams are in pole position to qualify for the postseason, but Southampton Mustangs II (4-3) could still catch one of them.\u00c2\u00a0 In Pool B,\u00c2\u00a0 Braintree Rays (5-2) and Old Timers (4-3) have the advantage over Chelmsford Clippers (5-4) owing to the latter having played more games than their rivals.\u00c2\u00a0 The Clippers and Old Timers face struggling teams this Sunday (Bracknell Pyros and Herts Raptors respectively), while the pool-leading Rays host Pool A leaders the Dragons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve reached the point in the British baseball season when playoff predictions start coming to the fore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[556,89],"class_list":["post-8349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-baseball-beat","tag-british-baseball","tag-nbl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8349"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8372,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions\/8372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"bbbHlsq\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/bbbHlsq.jpg\" "\\"bbbHlsq\\"")
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve reached the point in the British baseball season when playoff predictions start coming to the fore.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that anything has been decided yet \u00e2\u20ac\u201c far from it, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still plenty to play for -\u00c2\u00a0 but the teams have now played enough games that you can get a good idea of who is going to be in the postseason mix.<\/p>\n