[pauwoo]

A Quick Tip of the Ol’ Cap… Your boy, OH HONG, was named this week’s best performer, posting a .435 average with 6 TRUCKS, 12 RBI, and 10 runs for the week. This marks Hong’s 4th time wining the PoTW honor, with his last time being nearly 1-year ago on May 29th, 2079.

Boston Shamrocks (13-24, .351, 6th AL East) @ Los Angeles Leopards (21-16, .567, 2nd NL West)
After dropping 2 of 3 against the Grackles during their last time out, and mired in a prolonged funk since the start of this 2080 campaign, the Shamrocks season already seems lost in the fog, and while they’d no doubt accept any port in the storm, they’re already too far from shore to have much hope of righting their ship. The Shamrocks are Charlotte in reverse, armed with a staff that can deal (4th overall in the AL) and beset by an offense incapable of manufacturing much in the way of runs (130 – 12th AL) – destined to finish at or near the bottom of the AL East, missing the playoffs for the 2nd season in a row after making it to 8-straight postseasons from ’71 through ’78. Theirs is a storied franchise that’s lost the plot with no end in sight for this dark chapter… here, we’ll attempt to make up some ground (again) while keeping the Shamrocks away from the light.

38 of 162: Bentley Hunt (2-2, 3.38) @ Jan Hernandez (1-2, 1.96)
Win, 4-2. Otto finished 2-for-4 with a double (his 7th), a triple (his 3rd), and an RBI, with OH HONG, Satoru Ono, and Walt Tignor each adding one to the final tally as our La La’s got back to their winning ways behind a tip-top, 5-inning, 1 earned effort from Jan that evens his record this season at 2 wins and 2 losses in 8 total starts. Three doubles, Otto’s triple, and a dinger from Hong would round things out for us offensively, with a SAC FLY from Ono and swiped bag courtesy of Hendo mere frosting on the cake. Good stuff all around – Wayne Matthews earned his 1st Major League hold, working 2-innings in relief, and Don Haag, still on that good stuff after an abysmal start, entered his 8th save into the permanent record.

39 of 162: Wes Doles (1-3, 5.45) @ Dwight Beasley (4-1, 3.11)
Win, 6-5. We’d win a close one here with Haag laboring through the final frame and gutting out save #9 on 21 total pitches to help us secure the win by the thinnest of available margins, while Otto managed to make an impression with a 2-run JACK during the bottom of the 8th as a PH for Oh Hong. A little bit of everything in this one – two doubles, a triple, a TRUCK, two, 2-out RBI, a SAC BUNT, a HBP, a swiped bag, and an OF Assist for Kyle Weaver who gunned down CF Victor Benfield at home. It should be noted here that I seriously considered trading Jan Hernandez for Wes Doles (with some MiLB fodder thrown in to sweeten the pot) during the offseason – I’m glad I didn’t do that, and not because of his 5-inng, 6-hit, 4 earned catastrophe today… trade made no sense and was predicated more on my desire to have new players to talk about than on actually improving the team. I mean, we do need to fill out our development system, currently ranked 14th, but that can wait…

40 of 162: Carlito Cisneros (0-3, 5.73) @ Stephen Estevez (4-2, 3.89)
Win, 3-0. Another glorious, glorious SWEEP, our second so far in May, highlighted by Estevez’s tip-top form and punctuated by Haag’s 10th lockdown of the season… Estevez delivered a 1-hit, 5-inning start, keeping an already off-kilter Boston club even more askew, allowing for our offense to get by on three total runs, two of which came from the bottom of the order, to close out the home sweep. A SAC FLY from Dom, a HBP courtesy of a plate-hugging Nash Aguilar, swiped bag for Demetri, and diamond dandy in the form of Rodriguez-Paulino-Ono double play would round things out quite nicely as our club has seemingly worked through our early season struggles, have settled into something of a groove, and are now only 1 game off Austin’s pace with the wind in our sails.

Record: 24-16, .600, 2nd NL West
Up Next: Austin is headed to town for a 4-game series in the City of Angels.