[pauwoo]

Toronto Reds BC (22-12, .647, 1st AL East) @ Miami United (14-20, .412, 6th NL East)
You’d have to look long and hard to find any similarities between us and the Toronto Reds – and then you’ll need to stretch the boundaries of reality to connect them… here, after our scholastic exercise was complete all we could dig up was that they, sort of like us, are a subpar home team. They’ve compiled a 10-9 record in Toronto and, more importantly for our purposes here, a 12-3 record on the road. They do struggle a bit against lefty’s though – so maybe Kordell will have a good showing. Or not – this is a club that is ranked first in the AL for runs, OPS, bWAR, wOBA, and HRs (they’re 2nd everywhere else) and a Starting Rotation that is ranked 2nd in the AL as a unit. There are no holes in their game – no fundamental that they haven’t mastered, no high-level skill that they haven’t acclimated to. We’ll have our work cut out for us here – and, with a month of the 2080 season already gone, we are past the ‘fake it until you make it’ phase of our campaign.

25 of 162: Colin McCaffery (2-3, 7.56) @ Rad Taylor (3-3, 2.64)
Win, 6-1. All hail Rad – king of Miami… 7 innings, 6 hits, 1 earned, and 9 Ks for the stud from Bolingbrook, IL… Aris went 1 for 3 with 2 RBIs, 2 runs, and a walk, and Norton Manning, our backstop, went 2 for 3 with 2 RBIs and a walk. A 5-run, bottom of the 5th sealed the deal and included a well-hit ding dong from Magee (his 3rd) – Felger also swiped his 10th bag during that frame. 31, 520 fans showed up for this one – many because of the Corndog BOGO we were running and others to see Toronto – and, finally, we treated them to a brand of baseball we can feel good about playing.

26 of 162: Norm Rodriguez (1-2, 3.46) @ Kordell Littles (3-3, 3.99)
Win, 4-2. You just never know what you’re going to get at a baseball game, do you? Kordell gave us a great eight – 5 hits, 2 earned, 7 Ks – Saucerman went 3 for 5 with 2 RBIs, and Johnny Dial picked up his 3rd save of the season. We got a homer from Anaconda (12th of the year), a double from Hamza (his 7th), a hit from OH HONG (his 15th), three steals (Felger, Magee, and Saucerman), and a tasty little double play… it does go well with the chicken.

Elsewhere: SP Robby Garrett (PIT), who we, fortunately, didn’t see while in Pittsburgh, twirled a complete-game, 5-hit, and 6 K shutout in a 12-0 win over the Chicago Fire… it’s nice to see that we aren’t the only team they crush at home. SP Aiden Jenson (LAL) pitched a complete-game, 4-hit shutout for the Kings in their 1-0 win over the visiting Dallas Cowboys. Jo Jo Jackson struck out in each of his 3 ABs. SP James Parker (PCU) hurled a complete-game, 3-hit shutout for the Whooping Cranes in their 2-0 win over Baylor. The young stud peppered in 15 Ks for a little bit of extra spice.

27 of 162: Julian Horne (4-1, 2.25) @ Harvey Allen (1-2, 3.63)
Loss, 6-4. A sweep wasn’t in the cards – hardly surprising, really. It’s to be expected – Lanny Schaffer (TOR) hit a solo homer off of Harvey, OH HONG drove in two, and we hit two doubles as a club. Just didn’t have enough of what it takes to sweep one of the top 3 clubs in the Majors… our day will come, we’re steadfast in that belief and doing whatever it takes to trust the process.

Notes: Okay… I thought we would get trucked during this set, just batted around like a field mouse in the clutches of a barn cat. But, we didn’t – in fact, we gave a pretty damn good account of ourselves here. We’re still sitting in dead last of the NL East, with only three teams that have a worse record than us in the entire Major Leagues, but we’re situated well – directionally challenged at times, sure, but at least we’re moving away from the darkness. It could be worse, right? We could be the Houston Texans.