[pauwoo]

Austin Grackles (44-67, .396, 6th NL West) @ Los Angeles Leopards (68-42, .618, 2nd NL West)
Austin is weighed down by their pack, in the rear with the gear, and unable to offer up much of any significance as they find themselves scraping the very bottom of the barrel in 2078. Their pitching is in absolute shambles, allowing ~5 runs a game, with a 1.43 WHIP, collectively, and a 4.49 ERA in aggregate… and that the offense isn’t much better should come as no surprise when you take a closer look at the standings to find that they have a -124 RDiff so far, are nearly as poor at home (23-30) as they are on the road (21-37), and are a league worst 14-21 in 1-run games. This is a club that couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat and couldn’t put one in the strike zone if you left them soft toss it, underhanded, to the backstop… They are, should our guys stay the least bit focused over these next four games, exactly what the Doctor ordered – an opportunity to course correct, to take back our rightful place at the top of the pops, and restore my battered & beat down faith in humanity…

111 of 162: Ryan Burg (8-8, 3.72) @ Trev Anderson (3-4, 3.95)
Loss, 1-3. Ours is a malaise so all-encompassing, so loathsome and tiresome, that one has to wonder if we’ll ever find our way out of it… to lose, at home, to the collection of stiffs fielded by Austin is an unacceptable outcome, the kind of result that ends with a trip to the owners’ office, followed by a walk to the unemployment line. Here, after Trev made his triumphant return to the rotation, giving us a 5-inning clean sheet with only 3 hits and 7 K’s, Major Hansen was a major bummer, would fail to hold the line, gave up a 2-run BOMB to Austin’s Livan Frias, and all but ensured our demise. The offense was muted, with only Dom’s 2-for-4 day and SOLO SHOT making any noise, the baserunning suspect as Hamza got caught with his hand in the honeypot, and our fielding sloppy (Ian Hanan, ol’ butterfingers himself, committed his 9th fielding flub on the year). If our goal is to fade away, to skulk off quietly into the night, then we’ve really been on top of our game of late.

112 of 162: Dwaine Schilling (6-8, 4.16) @ Keith Baeza (4-3, 2.70)
Win, 9-7. A 5-run top of the 7th for Austin, where they absolutely battered bullpen pitchers Jan Hernandez for 3 & Rishon Igarashi for two more, made a game of it for the Grackles late, but we’d right ship and usher this much-needed win home on a magnificent offensive effort from the La La’s and ‘solid’ pitching the rest of the way. Otto led the offense, put two out, knocked in 4, and did his little strut around the bases, PEPPER drove in two, one on his 18th double of the year and the other on a single, and we’d score 9 despite leaving 9 more stranded. Turnbull would get the save, his 39th, we’d overcome some ho-hum play and sloppy pitching, and secure a win that we only deserved by virtue of Austin playing even worse than we did.

Injury Alert: Keith Baeza went down with Mild Shoulder Inflammation so, to be safe, we put him on the IL and called up 30-year-old, Ignazio Armendariz, a solid, low velocity groundball type, to cover for him as we put Nakagawa on waivers when Trev came back and couldn’t get him back up until he clears…

113 of 162: Vin Uhlman (6-9, 4.74) @ Stephen Estevez (9-2, 2.14)
Loss, 1-2. Ethan did his level best to get the offense going during the bottom of the 7th – he’d open the frame with a single, steal second during the next AB, and make it to 3rd on a WP… but, it was all for naught as three straight ground outs erased all his hard work and our run-starved offense stayed malnourished yet again. Estevez picked up his 3rd loss as his 5.1 inning, 4-hit, 2 earned outing went unrewarded by any run support once again, we’d leave 9 runners stranded, waste the ill-gotten gains of two swiped bags (1 each for Ethan and Hamza), and put forth the type of listless, meandering effort you’d associate with an unimaginative 18-year-old who thinks he should travel before getting serious about his future… we are, in effect, the son who tells his parents that he has decided to pursue comedy instead of following in the family footsteps of becoming a lawyer where the problem isn’t that he has chosen to throw caution to the wind and chase his dream, it’s that he’s just not funny. Like, at all. What a frustrating mess…

Injury Note: 2B Ian Hanan will miss ~4 weeks with a hamstring strain… bummer biscuits… and will be replaced in the lineup by SS Hetereki Ailani because he can play 2B and we don’t really have anyone else who can…

114 of 162: Joshua Moeller (9-10, 4.01) @ Peter Garcia (9-3, 3.80)
Win, 3-2 (13). A long, drawn out affair, where not much of note (unless you’re a fan of lockdown pitching) happened after each team had put a couple on the board prior to the stretch… from the 7th on we’d trade zeroes until Andy Shepard, mired in an 0-for-4 day as he made his way out of the on deck circle, stepped up to the plate and SCHMACKED a bases-loaded, walk-off SAC FLY to send the hometown faithful, or those of them who bothered to wait it out, into a low-key tizzy as we find the most ho-hum way to earn a series split against the worst team in the National League. Garcia went 6.1, allowed those early two, each on a solo homer, and fanned 8, and the pen stayed stout with recent arrival Armendariz putting in a hitless inning of work with a K, Turnbull giving us 3 innings and 4 K’s, and Rishon Shaw picking up his 5th win to improve his record to 5-5 on the year.

We’re still operating two games off Las Vegas’ pace… untenable.

Record: 70-44, .614, 2nd NL West
Up Next: A quick hop over the Detroit Rock City to face off against the former Leopard Tony Voorhis and the Motors… which would make a great band name you ask me. Like a garage rock revival type vibe with a female lead singer and Voorhis on the kit. Yeah, I can dig it.