[pauwoo]

Portland Pioneers (83-79, .512) @ Los Angeles Leopards (112-50, .691)
Of all the clubs that made it to the playoffs this season, Portland, in winning their division with a so-so 83-79 record, has not been held in the highest regard. Average on both sides of the ball, with a middling offense ranked 7th overall in the American League and a so-so staff coming in at 6th, these Portland Pioneers may be the dictionary definition of being greater than the sum of your parts – add in the fact that they so easily dispatched the much more highly regarded Charlotte Imperials, by sweep no less, and what we have looking back at us from our visitors’ dugout is a club that has gelled at the right time, a club that is playing its best baseball at exactly the right moment to do just that. CF Wasp Hauck is off to a phenomenal start to the playoffs, hitting .368/.400/.421 with 7 RBI and 2 runs, SS Jess Alford has been a double machine with 4 already on the books to go along with his 4 total RBI, CL Ricky Halbur has made an appearance in each of Portland’s games against Charlotte, earning saves in three of them, and their starters, save Riley Valentine, have each been great so far this postseason. On paper, this thing is ours to lose, in practice, however, it’s basically anyone’s guess.

1 of 7: Josiah Kawka (1-0, 3.18) @ Marco Ortega (1-0, 1.69)
Loss, 1-3. Here we go again… Portland, like a young Sly Stallone still looking for an iconic character to play besides Rocky, would draw first blood, knocking us down onto the canvas early, and keeping us out of it the rest of the way. Not much to parse out here – Hutchinson drove in our only run on a single, we had no extra base hits, Otto swiped a bag but was ultimately left stranded, and Ortega’s solid 5-inning, 3-hit, 1 earned performance was betrayed by reliever Ewing Rivera who came undone in the 6th and 7th, allowing a solo homer in each frame to a couple of guys who only had 22 of those between them during the regular season.

2 of 7: Riley Valentine (0-0, 15.00) @ Larimel Alvarez (0-0, 9.00)
Win, 5-4 (14). When Portland’s LF Bruce Sarmiento hit a solo homer during the top of the 11th I resigned myself to the possibility that my/our worst nightmare was about to come true… going down, 0-2, in the World Series, at home, in front of our notoriously fickle fanbase. When we got some get back during the bottom of that frame as a wild pitch from RP Jaxon Dupre allowed Oliver Koloski to come around, I steeled myself up for the possibility that, despite that gift, we’d still find a way to lose this monumental game 2… and, when Ryan Bearnson, brought in as a defensive replacement for a drained D-Rod at 3rd, smashed a legendary, walk off DING DONG during the bottom of the 14th, I was finally able to let go of all that anxiety and live, gloriously, in the present. What a win, what an opportunity to use this to trigger the exact momentum shift we need to kick the Pioneers in the teeth while in PDX. Alvarez gave us 5-innings of work, allowed 8 hits and 3 runs, only one of which was earned, Sherwin Kane got the win, his second of the playoffs (with the previous victory coming during Larimel’s last start), and the aforementioned Bearnson, an instant local legend who will never pay for a beer in this town again, delivered the blast heard around the world…

Record: 1-1, .500
Up Next: We’ll head to Portland, that barren wasteland of unbridled socio-economic weirdness, where we’ll attempt to repeat what we did in Pittsburgh and get this thing over with… fortune favors the impatient.