Los Angeles Leopards (2-2, .500, t-4th NL West) @ Miami Herons (3-0, 1.000, t-1st NL East)
When the chips fall on the 2081 season, and it’s much to early for that now, the Miami Herons will, undoubtedly, find themselves rubbing elbows with the rest of the riff raff at the bottom of the NL East. That they’ve shot out of a cannon thus far, sweeping the down-trodden, still reeling from last years unceremonious exit from the playoffs (courtesy of yours truly), Brooklyn Citizens, to open the 2081 campaign isn’t just a nothing burger, it’s a
storm cloud filled with them raining down on the NL East to wash away their false hope. Miami, in losing their best hurler,
Cathal Magill, to free agency, pretty much letting things ride everywhere else from a player personnel perspective, and focusing instead on hiring a new GM,
Louie De Palma, and Skipper,
Alex Reiger, have all but thrown in the towel on 2081 as their full scale rebuild picks up steam. Here we’ll amble into town with designs on putting something tasty together to wash the bad taste of splitting against San Diego out of our mouth.
5 of 162: Dwight Beasley (0-0, 0.00) @ Cullen Craig (0-0, 0.00)
Loss, 5-6. Despite outhitting and out defending the Miami Herons, we’d take the loss in Dade County, falling victim to an
Imanov GRAND SLAM during the bottom of the 6th as he took a
Beasley screwball yard and put his club up for good.
OH HONG &
Isaac each drove in a run, both on doubles,
Hutch brought in two of his own,
Mullens swiped his third bag of the year, and our infield defense laid down a stellar
Hutch-Paulino-Tignor DP… but it’d not be enough as that one hit altered the landscape on this one in such a way that our boys were unable to traverse the altered terrain.
Elsewhere: Luke Walker, currently plying his trade in A-Ball with the Cancun Palms (a Mexico City affiliate), went off during a 3-for-3 day at the plate where each of those three was a TANK, driving in 4 of Cancun’s 6 runs as they went on to defeat the Daytona Beach Hurricanes by a score of 6-1.
Walker was drafted 197th overall in 2078 out of Mississippi and likely has either an early retirement or a semi-fulfilling Bush League career in his future as his batting profile is decidedly ho-hum and he can’t defend a lick.
6 of 162: Stephen Estevez (0-0, 0.00) @ Paquito Ruiz (0-0, 0.00)
Loss, 3-5. Up is down, left is right, and the Earth’s gravitational field has gone berserk as our La La’s dropped two in a row to the now 5-0 Herons, falling to 2-4 on the year, and suffering the early season indignity of being called out by
Stephen A Smith IV during the excruciatingly long-running First Take program on the
Ocho. Not much to parse out here… our backup backstop,
Darby Helton, hit a two-bagger and a triple,
Estevez was solid over 6-innings of 2-hit, 3-run ball, but, once again, we’d come up short in this one as the Herons charged three runs to our account during the bottom of the 7th to take a 2-run lead that they’d never look back from.
Elsewhere: Halifax’s
Tiki Castillo, the 90th ranked prospect who was traded along with some other goodies from Brooklyn to Toronto during the offseason, gave a great account of himself at home against the visiting Inglewood Sentinels, delivering an 8-inning, 1-hit shutout to lead his club to a close, 1-0 victory.
Tiki torched 12 of our batter, fanning each on a mix of his fastball-curve combo, to keep our youngsters off balance throughout the game. Also, we received word today that
LF Palmer Parker, will miss 5 weeks due to a severe knee sprain… I hate it when a superstar goes down, tough one for Philly too. They’re, on paper, the best club in the entire league next to us, so, seeing their superstar go down kind of sucks.
7 of 162: Ram Chen (0-0, 2.08) @ Tommy Mathieu (0-0, 0.00)
Loss, 0-3. We’d find ourselves on the wrong side of a sweep in our road opener, falling victim to a club I have a low opinion of in the worst way possible – shutout on three total hits as a club while watching
Ram Chen get brutalized by a
Yoshimasa Sugawara 3-run DING DONG. With the win, Miami has secured 6 of the 60-wins the BNN Punditry pegged them for and have, thus far, made mincemeat of two tip-top clubs in the National League. Listen, it won’t last, but, for now, fair play to them.
Elsewhere: There is something in the water down in Cancun as unheralded off-season free agent acquisition
3B Marquis Freeman went yard
THREE TIMES, driving in 5 total runs, to lead the palms to a satisfying 12-5 win over the Calgary Bonepilers. The recently relocated Cancun Palms are off to a ho-hum 2-4 start on the year, only seeming to claim victory when one of their guys puts three out during the game.
Record: 2-5, .285, 6th NL West
Up Next: We’ll head north to Montreal for three days of poutine, Alexander Keith’s Light Ale, and baseball.