[Bub13]

JUNE 2054

Only 24 games this month because of the all-star break starting on the 27th, and the games are evenly split between road and home affairs. We'll start the month with some heavy lifting: early series against Detroit, Texas, and Seattle, three of the best teams going right now. This will be a tester of a month for us. Will we right the ship and make a run for the rest of the season? Or will we continue to slide and go into reset mode for next season. If the latter, could we even be sellers at the deadline?

June 1-3 @ DETROIT
The best team in baseball right now, at 41-16 and four games ahead of the equally daunting White Sox. (Third place KC is 13 games further back.) Yes, they have many more home runs than we do (111 to 77), but what accounts for the difference is current play is this: we've allowed one less run, 293 to 294, but have scored 69 fewer runs than the Tigers. Not great. Third in most offensive categories across the board, and backing that up with fifth-ranked pitching. In a solid-hitting lineup, one guy is standing out right now: 1B Pat Townsand sits at .424/30/77, leading all three triple crown categories. Like everyone else, pitching has suffered under the new hitting dominance (their 5.27 rotation ERA ranks 6th), but the bullpen is tops in the AL, led by closer Jack Hildebrandt having a career year (0.89 ERA, 0.59 WHIP, 29 K in 20.1 IP). I hate to sound defeatist, but taking one game in this series will be a victory; taking two a major morale boost.

HAW pitchers: RH Mike Pearse (3-3, 4.18) / RH Mike Bader (4-4, 5.55) / RH Josh Irvin (2-5, 7.78)
DET pitchers: LH Corey Nelson (3-1, 3.38) / LH Carlos Zenon (6-1, 5.35) / RH Trevor Sanders (7-3, 5.67)

#58: LOSS 0-7 ... outhit just 10-8, but they get 5 runs on 2 homers...Pearse struggles, and we kick in two errors to help things out too
#59: LOSS 6-7 ... much better effort, we lose this one on an 8th inning two-run HR...3-for-3 night from Matson
#60: LOSS 3-4 ... another late loss, on a solo HR with one out in the 9th....what can you do *shrugs*

Disappointing but not surprising. We used two pitchers in the first game, three in the second, and two in the last. Each outing gave up runs.... How bad has our offense been? We've dropped into the bottom half in AL runs scored, the first time that's happened in my memory.... Hard to believe we were 26-16 once. Now we're 30-30.... ELSEWHERE: Another blow for the Mets today, losing SS Alex Duran for two months. Three-quarters of their infield is on the DL now, and their play has suffered, dropping 7 of the last 10 and falling to third in the East.... Don't look now but Cleveland has won two straight, finally getting past 20 wins, and closing to just two games behind the sluggish Twins, losers of seven in a row.... Juan Garcia watch: now at 2,936 hits. Slowly getting there...


June 4-6 @ TEXAS
We're now solidly in their rear view mirror, five games behind these guys, who are 35-25. They trail Seattle by two for the division lead. Offense is still kind of stuttering along, 8th in runs, 11th in average, and a shocking 12th in home runs. But pitching has been rock-solid, with the best rotation ERA and an adequate-enough bullpen. I can only imagine how much better they'd be if they also didn't have six pitchers on the DL. SS Ryan Boers is whomping the hell out of everything, at .351/13/42, and should get a contract extension but probably won't, so could become the most desirable free agent next fall. There's still a lot of season left, but it's hard to see how this team doesn't make the playoffs for the sixth straight season. The question is, can we rebound to push back on them?

HAW pitchers: LH Matt Waugh (8-0, 2.04) / RH Danny Carbajal (1-0, 2.45) / RH Mike Pearse (3-4, 4.54)
TEX pitchers: RH Kevin Cahill (5-4, 4.75) / LH Bobby Daniel (9-2, 2.40) / RH Paul Labbe (6-4, 5.59)

#61: LOSS 0-1 ... amazing...we lose this one on a 9th inning sac fly...just four hits, fun stuff
#62: LOSS 0-8 ... what can you do...Daniel's been hot, but this was just embarrassing
#63: WIN 9-1 ... WHAT

That final game came out of nowhere but I'll take it. It's still worth noting that we've been shut out in half our games this month. And 0-3 in one-run games. AND NOW OFFICIALLY UNDER .500.... Major lineup shuffling helped for that last game, and hopefully is a positive sign. I'll take anything at this point.... Before the series, Zach Watt and Michael Snavely were sent back to AAA. Bentley Kolb and Nick Gase came back up. Not that we're now immensely better with the new two, but the two downers (downees?) weren't hitting at all lately.... We get division-leading Seattle next, then nine straight against teams with worst records (for now) than us, in Toronto, California, and Milwaukee.... ELSEWHERE: Bad news for Tampa Bay, losing slugging veteran RF Vance Wise (.373/19/52) for the year with an elbow injury. How did he he get hurt, you ask? Because HE IS ALSO A PITCHER AND THEY LET HIM MAKE HIS FIRST CAREER START AT AGE 33 AND HE BLEW OUT HIS ELBOW. That's it, no more two-way players for me.... Checking in on two-time Cy Young winner and Cincy ace Cris Frias: he's a long way from his 387 K season in '52, currently with an ERA of 6.55 and a crazy .429 BABIP. Also crazy is his 13.4 K/9 added to 8.5 BB/9, meaning 22 batters per 9 innings get no wood on the ball at all. His 0.9 WAR in 13 starts is the lowest of his career, even beneath the 1.0 WAR he earned in just 3 starts in '50.


June 8-10 vs SEATTLE
Everyone in the division is happy to see us fall, but these guys are the chief beneficiaries, given that their 38 wins is already half of what MLB predicted they'd get all season. Still leading the AL in runs scored, and top five in every other offensive category. Every starter is going great outside of veteran C Arturo Sena, who hit a blistering .229 last year but is back to .193 this go-round, much closer to his career average. Pitching sits just 13th, and the rotation is really struggling right now. Let's see if our recent offensive anemia can find a cure right here.

HAW pitchers: RH Mike Bader (4-4, 5.75) / RH Josh Irvin (2-5, 7.38) / LH Matt Waugh (8-0, 1.89)
SEA pitchers: RH Vince Push (4-2, 6.51) / RH Erik Ramey (6-3, 6.48) / RH Danny Diaz (6-3, 5.40)

#64: LOSS 3-5 ... early 3-run HR by Covington gets erased...we get only 4 hits, just lovely
#65: LOSS 3-8 ... yeah, not even close...outhit 17-11 too
#66: WIN 5-1 ... thank you Waugh, 10 K through 8 IP...3 hits each for Medici and Royer

Again, we looked pretty bad until the last game of a series. No offense against a bad pitching team for two games, and only one HR over the three games.... Irvin has pitched his way back to AAA after that latest start, and we recall former #1 pick Andy Burke for his first taste of the bigs. Picked in '51, Burke so far is the only draftee of ours to immediately demand a big league deal. Three years later, here he is.... LF Josh Hed is back in a couple of days. He's no MVP, but we did hit much better with him in the #2 slot. Just sayin'.... ELSEWHERE: An 8-2 stretch for Detroit has put them at a quite stout 48-18 and now six games up on Chicago. Pat Townsand is still leading the triple crown stats.... St Louis, however, has gone 2-8 and the gap to the Cubs is now just two games, and three to New Orleans. And those injuries to Mets starters has dropped them to third in the East.... Portland's Chris Buck leads all pitchers with 4.0 WAR, and has a fantastic 101-to-7 K-to-BB ratio.


June 11-13 vs TORONTO
Still rebuilding and have slid to the bottom of the East, at 26-40. The offense has been average, at 9th in runs and generally top ten across the board. But pitching has been an outright disaster, last in runs and in both rotation and bullpen ERA. You might think having four pitchers on the DL would be the reason for that struggle, but none of them had pitched well at all before getting hurt. Anyway, they've outhomered us 108 to 83, but we've got them by far in steals, 83 to 43. Surely steals are more important, right?

HAW pitchers: RH Danny Carbajal (1-1, 4.01) / RH Mike Pearse (4-4, 4.08) / RH Mike Bader (4-5, 5.88)
TOR pitchers: RH Jaden Buchanan (0-3, 9.90) / RH Erik Bradley (3-4, 4.89) / RH Adam Arriaga (0-2, 13.94)

#67: WIN 6-3 ... 3-for-3 and 2 RBI from Royer, 2 hits each from Lynn and Pederson...nice 7.1 IP from Carbs, fanning 9
#68: LOSS 3-5 ... 9 hits for each team tonight, but we still can't score...Pearse gives up all the run over 5 IP
#69: WIN 5-4 ... Royer's single in the 7th drives in the tying run, then he adds a walk-off 9th inning sac fly to win

FINALLY a winning series.... Josh Hed returns from the DL, so we send Nick Gase and his .209-hitting self back to AAA to get some regular play. Russ Venters (.325) stays up for now.... At 11th in AL runs scored now, but we still have a +25 run differential. If we can start hitting again, we should start winning again.... And we're tied for 4th in the division with California. One guess who we play next.... ELSEWHERE: Detroit is still storming through the AL, at 50-19 and six games ahead of the White Sox. The Sox also have baseball's 2nd-best record.... Most teams are losing pitchers to injury these days, but not the Mets. Four regulars are on the DL, now including NL-leading batter Chis Herzog, batting .363. Since going 19-8 in April, they've slid to 19-22 and fallen back to third in the division.

......

TL;DR Version: Halfway through the month, and we start June at 4-8. Just lovely. Still hovering at a game under .500, 34-35, and tied with California at six games out of first. Hitting has gone off the cliff, and we've hit I believe five home runs this month, dropping to 17th in the league. Pitching doesn't seem so hot, but we're fifth in runs against, so you can say our staff is keeping us from sinking beneath the waves. Maybe I'm engaging in some wishful thinking here, but with Hed back from the DL and in the #2 slot in the lineup, maybe we'll start hitting again. At .292/.344/.500 he's not exactly setting the world on fire, but he helped move along the hot Joe Lynn (.346) and bring some runs home. Twelve more games this month, and then the all-star break.