Weekly Awards… Seattle’s Austin Rollins, our most recent entrant into the
300 HR club, hit 11-for-24, a .458 AVG for those of you who don’t feel like breaking out the TI-84 Plus CE, with 3 HR’s, 7 RBI, and 3 scores to earn the nod in the American League… and, San Jose’s
Wilfredo Ovando was the NL PoTW winner after hitting .476 for the week with 1 dinger, 10 riblets, and 6 scores.
Weekly PR…
Los Angeles Leopards (128.5)
Las Vegas Outlaws (119.4)
Salt Lake Alpines (111.6)
Pittsburgh Pipers (108.0)
Brooklyn Citizens (103.4)
Los Angeles Leopards (54-28, .658, 1st NL West) @ Las Vegas Outlaws (50-33, .602, 2nd NL West)
After a 19-8 month in June, their best so far, a 3-0 start to July, and winning 7-straight, the Las Vegas Outlaws have hard charged their way to the second slot on the NL West table, swapping spots with the San Jose Seals and moving to within 4 ½ games of our club. This is a rock-solid club on both sides of the ball, with some legit superstars in the mix, and with enough swagger to give any club fits.
83 for 162: Peter Garcia (5-2, 3.87) @ Jake Talley (7-3, 3.21)
Loss, 9-8 (11).
Jacob Wells hit the 3rd HR of the game, this one off our own
Grumpy Losito, during the bottom of the 11th to deliver his team a walk-off, home victory.
Angry Eloy Delando punched out his 19th long ball for the bad guys, and, for our part, only
OH HONG tried to answer back with a HR of his own during the top of the 8th that put us up 8-5. Things came undone for us during the bottom of the 9th when
Donovan Turnbull blew his 4th save of the year, giving up three runs on three hits as Las Vegas knotted things up during the final frame… from there we traded zeroes until
Jacob Wells answered the call, threw his hat in the ring for the open position of Las Vegas folk hero, and was offered the job on the spot.
Elsewhere: Big day for power hitters… Seattle’s
Austin Rollins ran his career HR total up to 305 during a 3-for-5 day at the plate that included TWO LONG BALLS and NINE RBI to lead the Metros to a resounding 12-6 victory over Salt Lake, Boston’s
CF Victor Benfield finished 3-for-4 with THREE DING DONGS and SIX RBI and was the whole show during the Shamrocks 6-1 win over the Toronto Leafs, and Brooklyn
Left-Fielder, Roan Munoz, laid down a 3-for-5 line with TWO TRUCKS, FOUR RBI, and 3 runs during the Citizens 12-0 thrashing of the Pittsburgh Pipers.
84 for 162: Merl Crawford (7-2, 2.28) @ Shizuka Takeuchi (5-7, 4.41)
Loss, 3-2 (10). Walked off in Sin City for the 2nd game in a row… this time it would be a run-scoring single for
Angry Eloy that did the trick as
Grumpy Losito gave up the ghost again, running his loss total up to 5 after earning the 4th of those only yesterday.
Merl was good, only giving up two runs over 5.2 innings of work, but
Takeuchi was better over 5 scoreless innings of work…
Satoru put one out, his 19th on the year, servings as our lone offensive bright spot, the defense was mostly stout, but the relief work was suspect once again as the Outlaws secured the series win after walking us off twice in a row to the delight of their fans everywhere.
85 of 162: Masaya Nakagawa (5-4, 4.20) @ Patrick Keith (2-1, 1.62)
Loss, 7-6. Swept out of Sin City… but, at least we didn’t get walked off again (always look on the bright side of life).
OH HONG did his level best to lead our club out of the darkness, went 2-for-4 with a double, a 2-run DING DONG, 3 total RBI, and 2 runs, but it’d not be enough as the Outlaws stayed hot, leaning on
Mick Udelhoven’s 2-for-3 day in the box, where both of those two were TRUCKS, to send us packing, a disheveled and shopworn version of our former selves. As ever, it’d be the pen that let us down again with
Rishon Shaw being the culprit this time, taking the loss, his 3rd of the season, and being charged with his 3rd blown save.
So, um, yeah… not great.
On a lighter note… not sure why the game chose to throw up
RP Russell Harper on this BNN story – kinda fun, I forgot that I made this FG file way back when…
Also, current table and league leaders because I forgot to post it with the June Awards…
Record: 54-31, .635, 1st NL West
Up Next: We’ll head to Austin for four and attempt to shake some evil before breaking for the All-Star game…