San Francisco Seals (59-74, .444, 4th NL West) @ Miami United (66-67, .496, 4th NL East)
We’ll begin our shuffle to the finish line with sets against the Seals (@ home), Houston (OTR), and Los Angeles (@ home), before turning our attention back to our division rivals to close out the 2079 campaign. If I’m honest (and I always am – except during card games and in social media posts), this year hasn’t been a total loss – we are directionally in alignment with a promising future and if we have a successful offseason could contend as early as 2080. With the lowly Seals in town, a club that has struggled to juggle successfully for their fans (blame their lack of opposable thumbs), we have an opportunity to beat up on a National League weakling and improve our standing in the process. This, as always, is a welcome opportunity – any time you are fortunate enough to host a club that is ranked 9th in total offense and 10th in pitching after taking a series off the formidable Philadelphia 76ers you have to embrace it and hope for the best. Of course, our tendency to play down, and at times up, to the level of our competition gives me pause here, I am comfortable in the thought that we should handle the Seals relatively easily. We’re 37-26 against clubs with a worse record than our own so far, so, I see no reason why we should change anything now…
134 of 162: Landon Sampson (10-6, 4.57) @ Radoslav Borovsky (9-8, 3.35)
Loss, 3-2.
Radoslav was just okay,
Early Felger announced his return to the bigs with a solo HR, and
Rico Sosa drove one in on a SAC FLY. We swiped a couple of bags, failed to capitalize on two San Francisco errors, and just found ourselves to be a few steps too slow in this contest. There’s really not much to say about this one – it’s too bad though as the Carnival Cruise Lines Ballpark was nearly at full capacity tonight and we, as always, failed to take advantage of the situation and didn’t exactly deliver an ROI that modern baseball fans have come to expect. We’re now 15-7 in Friday night games and 7-4 in Friday night games at home.
Elsewhere: 1B Benjamin Compton (CHI) went 3 for 3 with 2 HRs, 6 RBIs, and 5 runs in Chicago’s 18-2 win over the Vancouver Giants. Compton, a 3-time all-star, most recently in 2078, is batting .296 with 15 dingers and 76 RBIs in 2078 – his 3.8 trend in WAR would be his 3rd best of the last 5 seasons and at 31-years old it would appear that the 6’4” cattleman from Garland, Texas has settled into a pattern that should hold for at least another season or two.
SP Newton Weiser (LAK) pitched a complete-game shutout in the Kings’ 5-0 win over the Philadelphia 76ers –
Newton managed to record 6 K’s during his outing and now has 135 K’s on the year – he’s trending towards 163 K’s which would be his second-highest total in 3 major league seasons.
SP RJ Adler, of the Charleston Shiners, closed out the Inglewood Sentinels in their opening-round series of the Continental League playoffs on a 3-hit, complete-game shutout with 9 K’s. Charleston won the series 3 games to none. And, lastly, I received word from
Mack Noriega,
Elvira’s bodyguard, that she would like to have a word with me about my expense account – it seems that my justification for the $1,000 Canadian Dollars I spent at the Chez Parée as a team-building event has come under some scrutiny. Partially because of the establishment’s sordid nature and partly because none of my players were in attendance.
135 of 162: Cathal Magill (8-9, 3.73) @ Thomas Deane (7-10, 5.26)
Loss, 2-0. Cathal went the distance, shut the door in our face every time we even sniffed the plate, and sent 5 batters back to the dugout with their heads hung low in shame…
Deane was serviceable, or better than that really, in 8.1 innings of work where he only allowed 1 runner to plate, but our offense, suddenly in shambles, was not up to the task. We only managed to get 3 hits today,
Early Felger recorded 3 of the team’s K’s, and
Deane committed an error on the mound that led to an unearned run.
136 of 162: Jan Hernandez (9-6, 4.12) @ Rad Taylor (5-3, 3.61)
Loss, 7-5.
Rad got shelled, our offense, while better, still was not up for the task at hand, and despite
Homer Wingard’s two SAC FLIES, we were unable to avoid the sweep, at home, against one of the weaker clubs in our league. This was embarrassing, and, when you add in the fact that
Elvira lit me up for my shoddy expense report and all but called me an ODB, this was not the best weekend I’ve had since securing employment with the Miami Baseball Club, LLC. At least she didn’t threaten to take the houseboat away…
Elsewhere: RF
Jonah Dove, of the St. Louis Rams, has crossed the 2500-hit threshold and now has his name displayed among some of Strangeverse’s all-time greats.
Dove is hitting .290 for his career and has 360 HRs and 1355 RBIs to go along with his 2500 hits. He won the Boyce Rigg in 2072, has made 9 all-star appearances, won 6 silver sluggers, and was the 2065 RoTY. He’s a lock for the Hall of Fame. Also, we’ve dropped to 19th on the weekly power rank. Because we’re not very good.
