[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (91-72, .558, 2nd NL West) @ Philadelphia Founders (97-65, .599, 1st NL East)
The 2080 season should have belonged to the Philadelphia Founders… finishing 108-54, with the NL’s best offense by a pretty wide margin. Well, if we didn’t exist that is – our now legendary club ran roughshod over all comers, dropping a total of 3 games in the playoffs, and winning the National League Championship over Philadelphia, 4 games to 2. This season, things have taken on a different look – we’re the clear underdog, an under performing club that never got it all going simultaneously during the regular-season. Philadelphia, by contrast, and while not as good as last years version, are the new Best Team in Baseball™, finishing with the best record in the Majors while leading most of the statistical categories we track. They have 2x Boyce Rigg recipient, Palmer Parker back healthy, the games best offensive Catcher in Rex Engelstad managing the staff, and the left-handed, offensive/defensive dynamo Sage Reid manning centerfield. The pitching, while not otherworldly, can toss it around a little bit with 30-year-old Linden Brittingham serving as their Ace backed up by tip-top hurlers Wilson Pena and Quirk Benoit in the rotation. Our work, as ever, will be cut out for us here… the crowd will be bearing down on us, loud, boisterous, and foul-mouthed, and our opponent will no doubt meet us chest-to-chest, nose-to-nose the entire way. Strap in folks… should be a barn burner.

1 of 7: Stephen Estevez (0-0, 0.00) @ Linden Brittingham (0-0, 0.00)
Loss, 0-10. At what point does complete annihilation, abject failure, and its accompanying misery, go from being just embarrassing to a fate you simply resign yourself to? Is it after you find your self in a 0-5 hole before the start of the 3rd frame? Is it when you realize that you haven’t secured even a single hit during the top of the 5th, down 8 to nothing already? Or, in our case, was it when we woke up this morning to a legion of Philadelphia fans parked outside our hotel with lots of mean things to say about our mothers? I’m sure of the answer… I know that whatever that answer may be, it doesn’t matter when your Ace, in this case Mr. Estevez, gives up 5 runs on three TANKS and secures just 5 outs before being airlifted off the mound in the first game of the series. Palmer Parker finished 2-for-3 with a 3-run double, Sage Reid hit a solo shot in the very first inning, and their starter, Brittingham, allowed just 3 total hits in 7 innings of work. For our part, we could only muster 5-hits as a club, Otto fanned three times, and the heart of our order went 2-for-15 overall.

Elsewhere: Austin walked Mexico City off during the bottom of the 13th when CF Anthony Jamison took JR Orten yard at Dell Diamond to kick their 7-game series off with a satisfying game one win.

2 of 7: Nacho Valadez (0-0, 0.00) @ Wilson Pena (0-0, 0.00)
Loss, 2-3. Less embarrassing, sure, though no less dire as we now find ourselves in the precarious position of being down 0-2 against the biggest bully on the block and staring down the barrel of a gun that requires us to take at least two of the next three in our house if we’re to survive this stick-up. Ethan’s run-scoring single during the top of the 2nd would get us on the board early, but we’d only be able to replicate his effort once with our much-vaunted bullpen coming undone during the 5th as Dontrell allowed two and Jan Hernandez allowed the game-winner on a Jeremy Glickstein solo-shot. Nacho gave us a fine 4-inning effort, allowing just two hits while fanning 5 before two consecutive walks led to his exit, opening the door just enough that Philadelphia, in all their cheesesteak fueled girth, could find a way to squeeze through and secure another victory.

Elsewhere: Austin, like Philly, found a way to take both games at home, defeating the Mexico City Jaguars by a score of 6-3, walking them off in the bottom of the 9th this time on a Nehemiah Jenkins 3-run MOONSHOT. Vancouver started their series with a taut, tight ballgame against the Portland Pioneers, winning by the thinnest margin possible, 1-0. And, lastly, the Detroit Motors, widely considered the 2nd-best team in the playoffs behind Philly, stumbled off the line, dropping game one against the visiting Dallas Chaparrals by a score of 10-6.

Playoff Record: 0-2
Up Next: A day off to travel back to L.A., get ourselves sorted, and engage in some positive self-talk into our bathroom mirrors before getting back after it in front of the hometown faithful against Palmer Parker and his merry men…