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Week Three has concluded in the WPBL, and as such, let’s get to recapping. As a reminder, these weekly roundups are designed to cover 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 list discusses the more confounding aspects of the prior week because good faith criticism is a necessary component of continuing progress. 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 their 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.

Without any further ado, your Week Three winner is the San Francisco Firebells. The Firebells went 3-0 on the week with two decisive wins over the second-place team in the standings (the Los Angeles Queens), and team captain Kelsie Whitmore issued a temporary moratorium on the Denae Benites MVP chatter.

Before we meet the Firebells of the Ball from around the league, here are the current league standings. Since all four teams make the playoffs, this is more about understanding team quality as a function of how they stack up compared to one another. The New York Heights’ Pythagorean Win% suggests they are a bit better than their 2-5 record suggests, and despite the Boston Hunters’ managerial change and improved winning percentage, they still sport the league’s worst run differential.

And now…

The Firebells of the Ball

The Law Offices of Schroder and Schiano

While it’s true the Hunters haven’t pulled off some magical turnaround under the managerial auspices of new skipper Jemile Weeks, that doesn’t mean we’ve got another Boston sports curse on our hands. Both sides of the ball have featured performances that foreshadow fewer trials and tribulations for the Hunters. Alli Schroder and Gigi Schiano largely laid down the law on the mound for Boston this past week. Schroder’s start to the season went poorly enough that those unfamiliar with her résumé prior to the WPBL were probably wondering how she came to captain the Hunters, especially following a lackluster performance in the group stage of the Women’s World Cup just prior to the start of the WPBL season.

A native of British Columbia, Schroder debuted for Canada’s national team during the 2018 World Cup, and though she was just 16 at the time, she was called upon to pitch several critical innings against Team USA. She finished the tournament that year with a 1.66 ERA and seven strikeouts over 12 2/3 innings. She pitched well for Canada during the group stage in 2023, but struggled against Team USA during the subsequent round in 2024. Outside of national team play, Schroder played on American Legion teams as a teenager, then played club baseball at Vancouver International University. The off-field nugget that the WPBL broadcast booth loves mentioning is that Schroder also fights forest fires with the British Columbia Wildfire Service. It’s a great fun fact, but what they often fail to mention is how difficult it must be for Schroder to transition from full-time firefighter back into elite pitcher. Across her first two outings for the Hunters, Schroder threw 3 1/3 innings, allowing 10 earned runs and five walks while striking out just one. But in her start against the Heights on Thursday, she pitched three scoreless innings, giving up four hits and two walks and recording one strikeout. After a little time to get back into the swing of her baseball routine, hopefully Schroder has turned the corner.

Schiano has been one of the league’s strongest pitchers from the jump. Her 3.60 ERA is third best among qualified pitchers. After closing out last week with a couple of shaky outings, she followed up in Week Three by throwing seven innings across two appearances, with just one earned run (a home run to Benites) to go along with six hits, two walks, and three strikeouts. More importantly, she’s established herself as a reliable late-inning option who can protect a lead. And since the Hunters have had precious few leads to protect, a pitcher like Schiano, who can come in and throw relatively uneventful innings (she did balk in a run during the final inning of Sunday’s win over the Heights) is even more of a necessity.

Geldenhuis and Yamamoto Inc.

The Hunters got a fresh injection of offense from two distinct sources during Week Three. After opening the season with just two hits and two walks over Boston’s first four games, left fielder Ticara Geldenhuis was all business during Week Three, clocking three doubles on Thursday against the Heights and adding a home run on Saturday against the Queens. By Sunday’s rematch with New York, Geldenhuis couldn’t get a pitch to hit and had to settle for four walks and a stolen base.

A delayed arrival due to visa issues, Suzuka Yamamoto’s WPBL career began with a pinch-hit single in the top of the seventh inning on Thursday. Weeks penciled her in to play shortstop and bat leadoff on Saturday, and though she didn’t make much noise in that game (unless you count Queens catcher Maggie Foxx knocking the glove right off her hand with a line drive), on Sunday she tallied three hits, a walk, and a stolen base. Moreover, she feels like the type of player that tends to make her opponents feel a little itchy, and once the itch starts, mistakes follow. Mistakes that tend to work to Yamamoto’s benefit. Sure, she was caught stealing once on Sunday, but also consider this failed pickoff attempt in which she smoothly scooted on over to second. The broadcast failed to capture what exactly happened at first, but Yamamoto did not look the least bit frazzled as she pulled up at second.

And then there’s this sac bunt attempt that devolved into Yamamoto reaching on an error after Benites rushed the throw to first and pulled Rakyung Kim off the bag.

Maybe Yamamoto’s style of play won’t translate as well as it did in her first couple of games, but if she can keep pestering her opponents, it should be entertaining regardless.

Women Who Understand That if You Look Good, You Play Good

Thanks to four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and Custom Cleats, Benites (the aforementioned MVP candidate and catcher for the Heights) and Queens captain Ashton Lansdell are both playing in a version of Wilson’s signature shoe that has been converted into a cleat. Lansdell debuted her hot pink A’One’s as a member of Banana Ball’s Party Animals a few months back, while Benites introduced her blue A’Two’s to the world on the field last week.

On a similar note, Firebells utilitywoman Jua Park chose to celebrate National Liberation Day of Korea (which takes place on August 15) by gifting Korean skincare masks to her teammates and several other women around the league (per Sunday’s WPBL broadcast). And anyone who knows even a little bit about skincare knows that Korea leads the world in quality skincare products.

A Fresh Spin on a Classic Narrative

Despite their best efforts to leave everyone else in the dust, Benites and Whitmore are not the only two players angling for the league lead in home runs. Queens two-way player Jamie Mackay sits in third place on the leaderboard with four, just behind Whitmore (6) and Benites (7). Mackay re-entered the race with a two-homer game on Saturday against the Hunters. In addition to her four home runs, it feels like every ball Mackay hits travels at least 300 feet, so even though she has some ground to make up, the league’s inaugural single-season home run record is still within her grasp. And as Mackay deftly noted in her postgame interview after Los Angeles defeated Boston 13-3, she can help her own cause by not allowing Benites and Whitmore to take her deep while she’s on the mound. Whitmore homered off Mackay twice on Friday, but more on that later.

Now not only do we have a good ol’ fashioned home run race, but we also have a home run race with a zesty sprinkle of spice on top. A typical home run race might feature a series where the frontrunners’ teams face off and the sluggers swap home runs, but in this scenario, the sluggers are likely to face off in a much more direct way. Imagine how much more satisfying it would be to snatch Whitmore’s position on the leaderboard by launching a pitch thrown by the slugger herself.

Molly Paddison’s Arm

We don’t have Statcast’s Arm Value metric for WPBL players, but it doesn’t take an advanced metric to appreciate Hunters right fielder Molly Paddison’s two deadly throws to nab runners trying to grab an extra base.

In the fifth inning of Boston’s 6-1 win over New York, Paddison rocketed a throw to Maika Dumais, who turned and fired home to catch Benites trying to score from second.

And as a bonus, enjoy this footage of Benites Getting The Ass after the umpire makes the out call.

Then, in the first inning of Boston’s 13-3 loss to Los Angeles, Queens second baseman Amira Hondras shot a grounder just inside the first base bag and into right field. Normally, a ball hit just inside the foul line is destined to go all the way to the corner, translating to easy extra bases for the batter. Instead, Paddison cut it off and unleashed a one-hopper to second, just in time to get Hondras.

To the hitters of the WPBL, please keep running on Paddison, because I could watch her do this all day.

Rosi del Castillo’s Changeup

After a rough debut outing during Week Two, in which she allowed three earned runs in just one inning of work, Firebells right-hander Rosi del Castillo bounced back in her second appearance of the season, throwing 1 2/3 scoreless innings in San Francisco’s 8-2 win over Los Angeles on Wednesday. She allowed just one hit and got three Queens to whiff at strike three, thanks to her rather upsetting changeup — a pitch that features more downward bite than a T. Rex tearing into the top tier of a wedding cake.

I mean, look at this thing. Those L.A. girlies never stood a chance.

Six Homers in Four Games

Heading into Week Three, Whitmore’s contributions on offense consisted of three singles, two walks, and a stolen base across 14 plate appearances. But in her 13 plate appearances this past week, Whitmore walked once, hit two singles, and clubbed six home runs. She played in three games and only made four outs. In one of those games, she went yard in each of her first three plate appearances. Whitmore also established herself as a master of the humblebrag. When asked postgame how it felt to homer three times in a game, she nonchalantly mentioned that she hadn’t done it since college, so it was nice to remember what it felt like.

Now, it would be bananas to include clips of all six homers, so I’ve carefully curated two for your viewing pleasure.

This one (her fourth of the week) made the cut because it featured Mackay doing the slow walk off the side of the mound the instant Whitmore made contact.

The first thing to note about Whitmore’s sixth and final home run of the week was that it made Benites slap the dirt in front of her the second she realized the pitch that was supposed to be in her glove was leaving the ballpark instead. Next, the ball traveled so far that it became comically hard to track. It blended in with the pale blue of the sky, and the left fielder gave up on the notion of catching it so quickly that we couldn’t use her route as a hint for where the ball ended up.

Eventually, a camera operator figured out where it landed and got a shot of it rolling around on a residential street, fully outside the stadium.

The Firebells Offense

But lest you think Whitmore carried the San Francisco offense by herself in Week Three, it’s worth noting that the team’s seasonal OPS is 1.102. The Queens have the second-highest mark, at .953. But then again, a team OPS of 1.102 makes perfect sense once you realize that six San Francisco hitters (min. 20 PA) are running an OPS above 1.000, while no other team has more than three. The Firebells are averaging over nine runs scored per game (12 in Week Three). It almost doesn’t matter that their pitchers own the league’s lowest ERA and WHIP because the ‘Bells can bang.

Unforced Errors

Comparing a WPBL Player to Pete Rose

Heights manager Rocky Henley joined the broadcast booth for a few innings during Saturday’s game between the Queens and the Hunters. In the top of the third inning, as Henley and play-by-play announcer Jenna Becerra chatted, Henley, without any prompting from Becerra, compared a player on the Queens to Pete Rose. Henley was not asked to draw a comparison to a men’s baseball player, nor was she even asked to give her thoughts on a specific WPBL player. The decision to take the conversation in this direction was made entirely by Henley. But neither Becerra, nor sideline reporter A.J. Andrews (who also participated in the conversation) seemed at all put off by the decision to discuss Rose.

I’ll start by saying that I do not believe Henley was referring to any of Rose’s off-the-field behaviors (i.e. his gambling, his inappropriate relationships with minors, his poor treatment of female reporters, etc.) when drawing the comparison. However, I do still have two distinct issues with mentioning Rose on the broadcast. First, is the lack of consideration for the specific audience of a women’s baseball broadcast and, more broadly, the community surrounding women’s sports. Men’s sports are heavily gate kept and not very welcoming to anyone who isn’t a cis-man. Women’s sports on the other hand, are something of a haven, open and accepting to all (recent events in the WNBA notwithstanding). Women’s professional leagues provide opportunities to those who have been excluded elsewhere, both as players on the field and as fans joining a community. Rose represents the antithesis of all of that.

Rose made it abundantly clear during his life that he did not respect women. He mistreated women in numerous ways and on many occasions. It’s clear he felt entitled to treat women this way because of how well he played on the field. At no point did he express remorse for his mistreatment of women. Instead, when given the opportunity, he belittled the female reporter who asked the question, choosing to make life more difficult for one of the relatively few women able to maintain a career in the sport.

The women most affected by Rose undoubtedly spent years recovering from the trauma he inflicted. And unfortunately, we live in a world where countless women have their very own Pete Rose, a man who has treated them poorly and inflicted untold trauma. Those women don’t need to hear effusive praise of Rose, even if only speaking of his play on the field. To speak so glowingly of Rose — in any capacity — on a women’s baseball broadcast is a betrayal of the community that supports women’s sports. There are so few corners of sports fandom where we’re not forced to constantly drink from a firehose of gross men. And don’t get me wrong, plenty of gross men have wandered into the women’s sports ecosystem over the years, but the concentration is much lower. We should be able to watch women’s baseball without a manager (and the league’s only female manager, at that) going out of her way to yank one of the sport’s grossest men out of the ground to insert him into the chat.

Which brings me to the broader issue of using men’s baseball as a comparison point for women’s baseball. Though women’s and men’s baseball share the same basic structure and rulebook, there are several fundamental differences between the version of baseball that women play and the version of baseball that men play. Women’s baseball is different from men’s baseball. Not better, not worse, just different. Some fans might prefer one version over the other, but it’s just that — a preference. I understand the urge to reach for comps to men’s baseball because it’s likely a familiar reference point for new fans. But to use men’s baseball as a measuring stick for women’s baseball is setting women’s baseball up to fail. Women’s baseball will never measure up to men’s baseball. Not because it’s lesser, but because it’s not trying to be men’s baseball. It’s an entirely separate thing, and comparing them misses the point. Let these women define success on their own terms. Don’t write their names in a record book designed to the specifications of the men’s version of the sport; let them create their own record book. Whitmore and Benites aren’t Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire (another comp used on Saturday’s broadcast). They’re Whitmore and Benites. They rock. Full stop. No comps needed.

Historic Firsts of Lesser Renown

• In the top of the fifth on Thursday, Boston’s Denver Bryant scored the league’s first run on a passed ball.
• San Francisco’s 17-3 drubbing of Los Angeles marked the first instance of the commentating crew losing focus during a blowout and letting the conversation wander to topics such as eating turkey legs at the state fair.
• In the top of the fourth on Saturday, Firebells first baseman Andréanne Leblanc hit the league’s first automatic double (the ball got stuck under the fence). Leblanc hit the league’s second automatic double in the seventh inning of that same game (ball got stuck again).
• On Saturday, Lansdell will become the first player to be honored with a bobblehead that looks nothing like her.