[pauwoo]

Pittsburgh Steelers (23-16, .590, 1st NL East) @ Miami United (19-20, .487, 4th NL East)
The suddenly power-starved Tom Franzone hasn’t hit one out in five games – it’s tough for anyone to go against Golden State & Philadelphia in back-to-back 3-game sets – and now finds himself ranked 3rd behind Aitor Cubas (14) and Jo Jo Jackson (12). I imagine that, right now, he’s somewhere over North Carolina reading a scouting report on our pitching staff – his eyes opened wide, lips licked, with a smile, slowly creeping across his face. “Soon, I’ll feast…”. Pittsburgh is a top-notch outfit, they’re running rough-shod over our division so far in 2079 with their only real competition coming from the St. Louis Rams. If you care to call it that… look, STL is a good, solid ballclub. This much is true. But they are no Pittsburgh – 2nd in runs scored, OPS and wOBA, 1st in HRs, and rated 5th overall in the NL for pitching. This isn’t a case of outliers – Pittsburgh is balanced, efficient, and cold. An automated assembly line designed to manufacture wins in the National League. We’re not any of those things – we’re something else… an appetizer, small bites. We’ll have our work cut out for us here – if we can earn even a single win during this 3-game set it will be a minor miracle, something along the lines of the Virgin Mary appearing in a piece of gluten-free toast. Defensively it’ll require that our hurlers navigate their power alley with aplomb and offensively we’ll need to find a way to overcome their power arms. This is a tall order, but, we’re gamers and we’ll give it our best shot… just don’t be surprised when we get Manute Bol blocked each time we attempt to drive the lane. Side note: Tuesday at the ballpark is $2-taco night, and, because no one eats hotdogs on a Taco Tuesday, our all-beef franks will be ½ off as well. I told the marketing team that we should run the hotdog promo as a BOGO so we don’t keep throwing so many away, but, because they are outlandishly confident in their marketing prowess they’ve rebuffed my request and went with this instead. Whatever, I’m just the VP of Baseball Operations… what do I know?

40 of 162: Roydrick Luedtke (1-1, 4.50) @ Cathal Magill (2-3, 3.97)
Win, 3-2. Cathal gave up one run over 6.1 innings of work and OH HONG went 3 for 4 with a 2-run double… Franzone went 2 for 4 but was unable to cook up much of a long-ball appetite as our pitching was able to hold it together throughout this one… We got a SAC BUNT, a SAC FLY, and just enough of everything else to secure a game 1 victory. This wasn’t the most convincing display of baseball superiority – no, this was a just good fortune. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes, as is the case here, you simply outlast the other team.

Elsewhere: SP Rad Taylor threw a complete-game, 8-hit, 1-run game for the CITY OF COMPTON to improve his 2079 IL record to 3-2 with a 2.72 ERA… Compton got the win over the Newport Beach Gypsies by a score of 5-1. Of note… Rad registered 9 K’s in this one including 3 against Cole Holt who is 2nd best prospect behind 3B Bulldog Johnson.

41 of 162: Robby Garrett (4-2, 3.18) @ Cliff Slavinski (2-3, 5.08)
Win, 2-1. No homers today… and another lackluster win where we outlasted the Pittsburgh Steelers. Slavinski gave up a lone run in 7 innings of work and Steve Green went 2 for 3 with an RBI… Kyle Weaver hit a SAC BUNT, Scharmer committed a crime against the base paths (steal #21 for the speedster), and, in a bit of terrible new, OH HONG pulled his hamstring and will miss 4-weeks. CF Masaharu Watanabe has been recalled from Havana as a replacement.

42 of 162: Gregory Morgan (3-3, 6.30) @ Kordell Littles (2-1, 7.04)
Loss, 5-0. On aggregate, after this 5-0 victory, the Pittsburgh Steelers would have beat us by a score of 8-5. But this isn’t soccer, so we earned a series victory, 2-1, over them despite having our asses handed to us in the final game of the set. Kordell was okay here – his ERA improved, so he has that going for him, but the team was, well, I’m not sure they showed up at all. This was, easily, the most uninspired set of baseball our club has played this year, and, yes, I know we got the series victory – but if this is the product we intend to put on the field, how can we expect anyone to show up at all? Oh, almost forgot – Tom Franzone hit a 3-run ding dong during the top of the 8th that served as the cue for our fans to head out to their cars… He’s now tied with Jo Jo for 2nd on the HR rankings – both he and Aitor haven’t hit one out in their last 3 games…

Elsewhere: The NCAA Tourney is all set… Clemson is the odds-on favorite to win the whole thing and Ridgemont Community College, the University of Hawaii (in their 1st season), San Dimas Community College, MIT, and Binghamton all made the cut from the unaffiliated division. My dark horse is the San Diego State Aztecs – they have Mortecai Flenderson out of French Lick, Indiana on their roster – he’s the best player in the NCAA according to Cheech and is, surely, a lock to go at #1 in this year’s amateur draft.