Strangeverse 2076+

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (8-11, .421, 5th NL West) @ Austin Grackles (7-12, .368, 6th NL West)
After arriving in Austin, I spent the first two hours in my hotel room being berated by Phil over the phone – each time I answered the question, “tell me why I shouldn’t fire you right now”, Phil would reply, “wrong, try again”. He’d eventually accept that I’m more valuable in trade and begrudgingly let me keep my job… for now. After that tongue-lashing and a few failed attempts at falling asleep, I flipped through the stations on the hotel TV and finally landed on Predator 20 as my bedtime story – the flick, starring a genetically engineered Arnold Schwarzenegger replicant, features a mutated Predator that has evolved to include gills giving it the ability to take to the ocean when it needs to retreat from the fury of Dutch. The ending sequence features Dutch vanquishing the Predator underwater with an explosive-tipped spear that found purchase in the beasts eye – but wait, there’s more… after chumming the water, Dutch is forced to engage in some hand-to-hand combat with a Great White in a sequence that rivals the ending of the classic literature book, Shark Fighter. The Predator movies, like the Tremors franchise, just keep getting better and better. But, back to the business at hand – we’ll arrive in Austin playing the type of lackluster baseball you’d expect from a group of sullen, young millionaires whose future financial security is, barring any unfortunate investments, likely assured. Fortunately, that might be enough against the Grackles – 12th in AVG, OBP, OPS, wOBA, Bullpen ERA, and FIP… you’d be hard-pressed to find anything about these guys that would give you much pause. This is a team that we should handle, with ease, and, even though we’re not operating at our full capacity, I think we have a good shot at coming out of the set smelling roses before we head back to LA to reacclimate ourselves with our surroundings before welcoming the Coyotes to town.


20 of 162: Michael Brisk (2-1, 3.66) @ Thor Rogers (1-2, 4.24)
Loss, 10-5. Brisk showed up late, completely missed warm-ups, and came in smelling like stale beer and smoked meat. And he played like it too – 4 innings pitched, 6 runs well deserved, and 4 free passes on the day for our resident Wildman. Bae struggled in relief and allowed three more to get across, Ethan hit a jack and a SAC FLY, Webster put his 8th ball out of the park, and despite securing a couple of expertly crafted DP’s our defense wasn’t stout enough to cover up for the fact that we left 7 runners stranded. Nothing is working well for us right now.

Elsewhere: SP Logan Squirrell, of the Atlantic City Gamblers (a New Jersey development outfit) hurled a complete game, 3-hitter with 12 Ks and only one earned in his clubs’ 1-0 LOSS against the Quebec City Admirals… that’s some tough luck for the kid (he’s 29, but very emotionally immature). SP Nick Rich, playing for the CITY OF COMPTON, twirled an 8-inning, 3-hitter of his own, fanned FOURTEEN batters and came away with the W over the Abilene Roughnecks by a score of 4-1. Nick has good stuff, three good pitches with two of those topping out at great when he’s dialed in, and, if our assistant scout (and part-time hitting coach), Darryl Philbin, is correct, he’s ready for a spot on the big club. I’ll move him up eventually, just not yet. And, last, but certainly not least, SP Dwight Beasley, up to no good with the INGLEWOOD SENTINELS, pitched a complete game, 2-hit shutout with 5 Ks in a 3-0 victory over the Reno Travelers. He’s another one that Darryl believes is playing at a level too low for his current skillset. And, again, I’ll move him up when I feel like it.


This is the look Darryl gives me when I don’t listen to his advice.

21 of 162: Merl Crawford (0-4, 5.95) @ Ryan Burg (1-0, 2.49)
Win, 4-2. Merl, who showed up on time and smelling like Irish Spring, instead of smoked brisket, finally earns his first win of the season in a 5 inning, 9 K effort where he allowed only two runners to plate… Mack Ramirez hit his 3rd two-bagger of the year, Arthur Grant had his best game in a Leopards kit with a 2 for 5 day that included a 2-run blast over the left-field wall, and we managed to get ourselves a win here despite stranding 9 of our friends. This was a good effort all around – the guys stayed focused, played some solid baseball, and, even if only for a moment, looked like a club that belongs in the MLB.

22 of 162: Case Tunnell (0-3, 8.35) @ Joshua Moeller (2-2, 2.92)
Win, 11-7. We finally get a good, old fashioned offensive outburst from the guys today… and pick up a much-needed series win in the process. Mack went 2 for 4 with TWO JACKS, and 4 RBI, Case gave us 5 shutout innings and fanned 6, and Otto put his 6th ball out of the park (it was a solo shot). A team cycle today – Webster & Sparacino hit doubles, Yoshi Nakamura hit a triple, and we got homers from Otto & Mack… 15 total hits today, so too many singles to mention. We, even in scoring 11 today, did find a way to leave 8 runners stranded… so there is that.

When you are playing as poorly as we have been, a series win, even one against an overmatched squad like the Austin Grackles, is cause for celebration. We’re finally done with this dreadful road trip, will head back home on a 2-game winnings streak, and binge drink on the flight until we’ve forgotten all about it. When we get back to LA, the guys will have a day off to collect their thoughts before diving right back into the thick of it with Phoenix and Mexico City all set to pay us a visit on our turf. For my part, there is no rest for the wicked as after having most of the morning to myself, I’m scheduled to meet with Phil at 2 PM at his office in downtown El Segundo. He struggles with recency, so I don’t expect him to lay into me too much, but, with him, you never can be sure. I’m hoping that we’ve turned a corner here, or that, if we haven’t yet, we can see it just up ahead – we’re too damned good to be playing this damn poorly. Something’s got to give.

[pauwoo]

Phoenix Coyotes (11-11, .500 t-2nd NL West) @ Los Angeles Leopards (10-12, .455, t-4th NL West)
The Coyotes are 3 ½ games off Las Vegas’ pace in the NL West and stuck with us in the glut of teams currently all bunched up at .500 or a game below it. They make their living on pitching where they rank a so-so 7th in Starters ERA, a decent 6th in bullpen ERA, and a respectable 4th in FIP. Offensively, it’s a different story… these guys couldn’t hit water if they fell off a boat – 12th in AVG, OPS, bWAR, wOBA, and HRs, 11th everywhere else. We’re the reverse – hitting is solid enough, pitching is mostly unacceptable. Still, after such a long and mostly dreadful road trip, a three-game home set against these guys is, on paper, most welcome. We should, if we play near our capabilities, come away with a series win here – it’s as good a chance as we’ll get on this homestand to give our fans something to feel good about. Granted, we’ll have Mexico City on deck for four games after this set and they’re not really that good so far either (better on paper though) – better odds against the Coyotes for sure.

23 of 162: Gary Benoit (1-2, 5.16) @ Nick Demmer (0-1, 11.05)
Win, 6-1. Demmer cut his ERA in half with a 5 inning, 2-hit effort with no runs allowed, 3 K’s, and, in what was ultimately his undoing, 3 walks. Nice to get a good start to kick off the series. Mack Ramirez did the dirt offensively – 2 for 3, two, two-baggers, an RBI, and a run – and Ethan got a couple of hits and scored twice. Homeruns from Cooke & Sparacino, a double from Webster, and a SAC FLY from Grant would round out the offense for us... good home win for the La La’s.

Elsewhere: Mexico City’s Heathcote Kinton went 4 for 4 with a 3-run homer in the Jaguars’ 5-0 win over the San Jose Seals. The victory snapped their 3-game losing streak and was Casey Tucker’s second win in a row. He’s now 4-1 on the year with a 2.10 ERA and an ERA+ of 197. Last season, his first in the majors, Tucker started 16 games and posted a 5-6 record with a 4.27 ERA and an ERA+ of 83.

24 of 162: Kikuzo Ueno (2-2, 2.20) @ Trev Anderson (2-0, 4.19)
Win, 4-0. Ethan led the offense with a 2 for 4 performance that included two extra-base hit, 2 RBI, and a 2, and Trev gave us 6 innings of shutout baseball and fanned 5. Webster sent his 9th ball over the fence, Otto got a hit and scored, and Leandro Mercedes took it out for a spin on a 3 for 4 day. We also got three great innings from Igarashi in relief – he picked up the save, got 4 fly outs, 4 ground outs, and fanned the last batter of the game.

25 of 162: Landon Sampson (2-1, 3.22) @ Michael Brisk (2-2, 5.32)
Win, 4-2. Landon rang us up 9 times but could only muster 5 innings of work – once we got him out of there we were able to do some damage to their pen – we scored all of our runs after the 7th and 3 of those came in the 8th frame. Brisky put in a solid effort – 5 innings, 2 hits, 2 earned, 4 walks, and 8 Ks… he’ll get the no-decision here with the win going to Losito out of the pen who put in three innings of work where he fanned 3 and didn’t allow anything to get across. The bulk of our offense came from Justin Burton tonight – it was his 3-run homer in a pinch-hit AB that sealed the deal for us in this one. Hey, we’ll take them any way we can get them.

Elsewhere: Harper Johnese, of the Alexandria Possums (Virginia Beach’s AAA outfit), pitched a complete game, 2-hit shutout in a 2-0 win over the CITY OF COMPTON Raiders in International League Play. For our part, SP Nick Rich gave the Raiders a superb 8-inning outing, fanned 10, but allowed two runs during the game that our offense couldn’t get back for him. Rich is coming along nicely – he’ll make a good addition to our bullpen in the not-so-distant future. In AA action, our own Kayden Birdsall, of the Inglewood Sentinels, secured a 3-0 win over the Juneau Huskies, in Alaska, in 8.1 innings of shutout baseball that included 5 Ks.

This sweep, our second of the season (not including the one we were on the other side of against New Orleans), couldn’t have come at a better time. My meeting with Phil earlier in the week was tense, uncomfortable, and, when I think about it, pretty weird. He’s got a funny way about him – that is for sure. After winning these last three we’re now 7-3 over out last ten contests and have moved into 2nd on the NL West table… still, 4 ½ games off the pace being set by Las Vegas, but at least we seem to be heading in the right direction. Next up we’ll face off against the Mexico City Jaguars who have lost their last two sets, including a recent series loss in San Jose – our clubs seem to be going in opposite directions right now… I’d like to see us continue that trend when we welcome them to town tomorrow.

[pauwoo]

Mexico City Jaguars (12-13, .480, 3rd NL West) @ Los Angeles Leopards (13-12, .520, 2nd NL West)
It seems that, lately, Mexico City and your Los Angeles Leopards are headed in opposite directions. They are in the midst of a two-game skid and are 4-6 over their last ten contests while we’ve gone 7-3 over that same stretch and are currently riding a five-game winning streak. Their offense, should it come alive in L.A., is capable of giving us fits though – they score at an impressive clip (3rd in the NL), find their way on base with regularity (4th), and swipe bags once they get there (1st) – but, as is often the case with a club mired in a rough patch, their pitching is suspect. The defense gives up way too many runs (12th), their fielding independent pitching is poor (10th), and their defensive efficiency is, well, inefficient (12th). The problem here, and the reason I’ve started day drinking again, is that our pitching plays right into their offense’s hands… if styles make fights, we look like a can that is tailor-made for these guys. And that is no good for anyone – not at home in front of our wives, girlfriends, and mistresses, not when Phil will be watching from the owner’s box, and definitely not when our last meeting ended with a veiled threat that he’d trade me and our pitching coach to Ottawa for their GM and a bag of peanuts. What kind of peanuts, you ask? Runners… plain old Runners. Not those fancy Valencia’s, not those giant Virginia’s, not even the Spanish variety. Just plain old, unsalted, still-in-their-shell Runners. We got to get some wins here – I don’t want to be the guy who got traded for a bag of peanuts.

26 of 162: Lee Myers (2-1, 3.58) @ Merl Crawford (1-4, 5.47)
Loss, 4-2. A Dom Cooke 2-run homer, bringing in Webster who’d hit a single earlier in the frame, would open things up for us in the bottom of the 2nd – but, as goes the story of my life, the Jags’ David Pritcher would follow that up with a 2-run jack of his own in the top of the next inning. They'd get to Crawford a couple more times in the top of the 5th to go up 4-2, and that’s where we’d leave it. Crawford went 6, allowed 5 hits, had 4 runs added to his permanent record, gave up the aforementioned 2-run moonshot, and fanned 6 while our offense swung at everything and hit nothing. I should point out that the powers that be called this one off in the 6th due to a lightning storm – but, that hardly matters… we looked terrible, would’ve kept looking terrible, and, in the end, the result would’ve been the same. Our 5-game winning streak comes crashing down while the visiting club from Mexico City has a chance to start putting a nice little streak of their own together.


Elsewhere: Ronaldo Guzman, who’s currently plying his trade in Macon for Austin’s AA club, went 3 for 5 with TWO JACKS, 4 RBI, and 2 runs in the Gledes’ 11-3 win over the Los Altos Snails. I’ve had this guy on my radar for a while now – he’s a 5-tool player with plus speed, a tasteful ‘stache, and, as if that wasn’t enough, he’s the current reigning, two-time champion of the Dominican Republic’s Salsa & Merengue Championships. Interestingly, the grace and agility he’s shown on the dancefloor doesn't always translate to the base path’s where his baserunning could use some work… plenty of time though, the kid is only 23.

27 of 162: Cosmo Puente (1-2, 6.14) @ Case Tunnell (1-3, 6.56)
Loss, 10-9. Case gave up a solo homer to Sandber Aviles during the top of the 1st but worked his way out of a jam with runners on 2nd and 3rd and looked no worse for wear. Looks, as you well know, can be deceiving though as he wasn’t right in this one and gave up a run in the top of the 3rd followed by a couple more in the top of the 5th (a 2-run shot courtesy of Ryder Nieman). Our pitching coach, who’s terrible at his job, yanked him after the two-run shot and his replacement, Adrian Bae, started off by walking in a run and followed that up by giving up a GRAND SLAM (courtesy of Sandber Abiles, again). And, just like that, we were down 9 to nothing and looking, desperately, for an escape route. We’d get after it a bit with a 6-run bottom of the 6th that featured homers from Dom and Hector Espinoza, and Otto would hit a 2-run blast in the very next frame – but, and I’m sensing a theme here, it was too little, too late for the La La’s as we dropped our second straight by a score of 10-9. Heartbreaker. There were 7 total dingers in this one – so, if nothing else, the fans that stuck it out were able to have a little bit of fun before we sucker punched them in the gut.

28 of 162: Casey Tucker (4-1, 2.10) @ Nick Demmer (1-1, 6.57)
Loss, 7-4. I’m telling you, we’re built for Mexico City like Peter McNeeley was tailor-made for Mike Tyson. Our weaknesses accentuate their strengths, against us they’re the best ever, they’re the most brutal and vicious, and most ruthless baseball team there’s ever been. This time, JJ Barbari picked up where Sandber left off and hit a 3-run jack off Demmer in the top of the 5th. That put the Jags up 7-4, and, same as it ever was, that’s where we’d leave it. Fortunately, I know the head groundskeeper and he agreed to meet me outside the clubhouse with a golf buggy should we lose this one – well, obviously, we lost… I owe Willy and his souped-up golf buggy one, had he not come to my rescue and get me out of Dodge, I surely would’ve run into Phil in the hallway.

29 of 162: Ben McGillicuddy (0-2, 9.16) @ Trev Anderson (3-0, 3.20)
Win, 5-1. We’d get an early, bottom of the 1st homer from Ethan and Webster followed that up a couple AB’s later with a run-scoring double to give us an early cushion. We’d get 3 more runs in the bottom of the 3rd to run it up to 5-0 and, after allowing them to get one across, would shut the Jags out the rest of the way. Trev helped the club avoid the sweep with a 5.1 inning, 1-run effort, and our bullpen, finally, found a way to close the door against these guys with Guzman, Anderson, and Igarashi combining for 9 K’s over the last 3.2 innings. We got a SAC BUNT from Burton, a SAC FLY from Mack, Otto swiped a bag, and we even turned a sweet 5-4-3 double play. So, we had a punchers chance of avoiding the sweep, and, like Buster Douglas in Tokyo, landed something snappy. Feels good… in a real low-key kind of way.

We have a hole in the bow of our ship, there are rough seas ahead, we’re short on life vests, and I’m out of Dramamine… basically, this whole thing is a slow-motion shipwreck on par with 2012’s cruise ship tsunami scene. Just when we get the ball rolling, we find that the grade of the hill we’re trying to climb is just too steep. We came into this series riding high, on a 5-game winning streak, and looking like the club everything thought we were… but that was then, and this is now – back at the bottom of the barrel, rum-sick, and squinty-eyed. There’s a lot of season left, to be sure, but if there is an end to this mess on the horizon, I just don’t see it. At this point, if we’re going to be the club I thought we would be, we need to string some wins together and then attach another string of wins to that one. As it stands, with this snake-bit collection of highly paid baseball players behind me, we’ve made a habit of showing up to gunfights with a pair of nerf nunchakus and a throwing star we folded out of paper, origami-style. That’s not going to cut it for Phil… who, by the way, will fire me if I see him before boarding the plane to Denver. It’s just one big game of hide and seek.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (14-15, .483, 3rd NL West) @ Denver Miners (17-12, .586, 2nd AL West)
We’ll open interleague play against a Denver squad that has been on an upswing over the last 4-years where they’ve improved season-over-season since 2074, finally crashing the playoff party in 2076, and already looking like a real contender in 2077. Their offense is strong, ranked 2nd overall in the American League behind Vancouver, they average 5 runs per contest, and have a little pop with 29 long balls so far. Their pitching, by comparison, is middle-of-the-road, ranked 6th overall in the AL, and featuring the all-time, though on a downward trend of late, GOAT of Strangeverse, Josiah Weber. The 38-year old, 7-time Pacheco winner has certainly seen better days, but he’s still enough to hold down a permanent spot in the rotation. We’ll get him first in this set and if our current trend holds, he’ll look vintage against our lineup and the toothpicks they’ve been bringing into the box.

30 of 162: Michael Brisk (2-2, 5.02) @ Josiah Weber (2-2, 4.13)
Loss, 9-2. And the Josiah of old decided to make an appearance… 8.2 innings of funky curveballs, deceptive changeups, and that wicked two-seamer that made him a legend. Brisk was solid over his usual 5 innings of work – he allowed three to plate, walked a couple, fanned three, and gave up a dinger. The story here, besides Josiah, was our offense – or lack thereof. It’s in shambles. Justin Burton hit a leadoff homer, Mercedes hit a run-scoring double, and everyone else was slack-assed, swinging at everything, and putting one bad at-bat together after another. Oh, and our bullpen, if you could call it that, got shelled – Igarashi sees his ERA balloon to 6 after allowing five runs in an inning of work, and Jeremiah Short let another one get by over the final two frames. ****, if Phil won’t do it, I might fire myself.

Elsewhere: Chris Brown, a highly regarded draft prospect (projecting to go in the 3rd or 4th round) out of LSU, went 3 for 3 with a GRAND SLAM, a 5th & 6th RBI, and 2 runs in the Tigers’ 15-3 win over the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs. LSU, now 17-16 on the year, has an outside chance at making the dance, but it will take more than just Chris Brown to make that happen – they’ll need their pitching staff, ranked at the lower end of the bottom half of the NCAA table, to step it up a little bit to secure a ticket.

31 of 162: Merl Crawford (1-5, 5.58) @ Evan Church (2-1, 5.63)
Win, 7-5. It’d take extras for us to, finally, add another one to the win column – a wild pitch in the top of the 10th put us up by one and Mercedes drew a bases-loaded walk to give us a little bit of cushion. Otto secured a couple of hits and drove one in, Webster added two more RBIs to his team-leading total (now at 25), and Justin Burton hit a two-run homer in the top of the 8th. Bullpen mainstays, Saul and Sterner gave us five innings in relief after we pulled Merl after giving up four runs in five innings of work. This was a nice come from behind win – albeit one where the offensive contributions mostly came from guys that we start because of their defensive wizardry…

32 of 162: Case Tunnell (1-4, 7.71) @ Misael Enriquez (1-3, 4.96)
Loss, 8-3. Denver put a bad one on us here, hung five on Case before the 3rd inning, and charged three more to our bullpen’s account. Mercedes and Burton both collected hits, Mack & Otto combined for a 0 for 6 day, and Arthur Grant, who we’ve been shopping around, hit his 2nd long ball for the Leopards since joining the club earlier this month. The struggle is real.


Trade Alert: The Los Angeles Leopards would send 27-year-old LF Arthur Grant (retaining 10%), 24-year-old minor league 2B Seve Navarro, 23-year-old minor league SS Juan Castro, 22-year-old minor league RHP Kayden Birdsall and $100,000 in cash to the Montreal Alouettes, getting 30-year-old LHP Dejuan Burns and 23-year-old minor league RHP Murray Wagner in return. I had to give up a couple of solid prospects to make this one happen, but I needed the pitching and Arthur Grant just never could figure out a way to fit in with our club – he’s a good guy, but proved to be more disruptive to our lineup than helpful… so, he had to go. Both Dejuan and Murray join the big club and are under strict instructions to meet us in Vancouver, BC on the 4th.

Elsewhere: SP Jeff Keiper, of the Colorado Springs Peaks (a Denver affiliate), threw a NO HITTER in a 1-0 win over the Manitoba Bison in AA play. The young fireballer fanned 8 during the game and only allowed one walk. This could very well be the kid's high watermark… he doesn’t look like a sure-fire major leaguer, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t make it past a cup of coffee in the bigs, but, if nothing else, he now has a good story to tell his grandchildren.

We’ll have a day off to process our latest series loss before facing off against the Vancouver Bears in British Columbia. Our Skipper, Michael Scott, is under specific orders to give the ball to our newest addition – we’re hoping that Dejuan will be able to show the rest of our guys how it's done. As for the state of our club, I’m not really sure what to say at this point – everything that could go wrong, has, and this is a tailspin that I’m not confident we have the wherewithal to pull out of. We’re two games below .500, 7 games off Las Vegas’ pace, and boast an RDiff of -18… the only thing we’re good at right now is winning 1-run games (we’re 5-3 there, woot woot) and facing off against lefty’s (7-2, baby). Problem is, we don’t face a lot of lefty’s and we’re usually too busy getting blown out to find ourselves in a closely contested game.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (15-17, .469, 3rd NL West) @ Vancouver Bears (20-11, .645, AL West)
Vancouver is one of my favorite North American cities – great food, cool folks, and home to one of my favorite bridges (Lions Gate Bridge) to take a jog over on the way to Dundarave Park. So, this was a trip that I circled on the calendar when the schedule came out. Unfortunately, however, we couldn’t arrive in Vancouver at a worse time for our club. The Bears are everything we aspire to be but can’t seem to attain – their offense is a juggernaut, holding down 1st in the AL rankings for OBP, OPS, bWAR, wOBA, 2nd in runs scored, and t-4th in home runs, and their pitching, outside of the starting rotation, has been tip-top… 4th in FIP, 5th in bullpen ERA. We’ll get the back end of their rotation here, which offers little consolation given the hitting acumen we’ve been putting on display lately, before turning the corner and closing out the set against their Ace, Isaiah Zuno, who, along with Big Burt McElheny & our own Michael Brisk is one of the three battered bastards of Strangeverse. Incredible ‘stache, a lively personal life off the field, and uneven stuff. I don’t have high hopes for this set, I’m working on tempering my expectations such that the lows become much easier to handle, but we’ll have some opportunities to salvage this mini foray into the American League before heading off to Las Vegas for another gut check.

33 of 162: Dejuan Burns (2-1, 2.02) @ Nathaniel Firestone (0-2, 7.26)
Loss, 5-3. I put a lot of faith into the acquisition of Dejuan Burns, let myself believe that he would be our savior, and, for the most part here, was let down by his performance. Burns’ debut in a Leopards kit wasn’t the smoothest – he could only manage to give us 4.1 innings of work, allowed 5 runs, gave up a 3-rum homer, and only fanned two Vancouver batters. Mack Ramirez did his level best to back Dejuan up at the plate in a 3 for 4 performance that included a two-bagger, a jack, 2 RBIs, and a score. The rest of the team, however, just couldn’t be bothered to contribute to the cause and gave us a whole lot of nada in the first game of this three-game set. Mercedes hit a homer tonight – the kid is playing above his skillset, but it’s being wasted as our ‘all-stars’ are all playing well below theirs.


Elsewhere: Dwight Beasley, representing your Inglewood Sentinels, put a nice 6.1 inning effort together in a 3-2 win over the Halifax Whalers for our AA club. He fanned 11 batters during the outing and only allowed a single runner to plate. Beasley will need to get more seasoning in our Minor League system before he’s ready for primetime – he’s likely 1-2 years away from making the big club. Nice to see him progressing though, his future is bright it seems.

34 of 162: Trev Anderson (4-0, 2.93) @ Luke Mann (0-2, 6.04)
Win, 5-1. Trev only allowed one run in 4.2 innings of work, he got a little wild again leading to his removal from the game, but Guzman, who sniped the W, gave us a stellar 3.1 inning effort with 5 Ks and got himself out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the 7th, and Igarashi closed the door in the bottom of the 9th on 5 total pitches. Ethan made a reappearance for us with a 2-run jack, and Cooke & Burton also put balls out of the park. Otto continues to struggle for us though – he went 0 for 3 with 2 Ks on the day and is now batting just .177 so far in 2077. I remember when he was a great player… can it be that it was all so simple then?


Elsewhere: SP Lucas Torres, a 19-year-old blue-chip prospect playing for the Blue Mountain State Goats, hurled a complete game, 4-hit shutout and fanned 18 in his schools 4-0 win over the Stanford Cardinal in NCAA play. Torres tracks to have good control, a devastating changeup/knuckle curve combo, and legendary stuff – I’ll be keeping tabs on the kid if only to feed into my own wishful thinking – if I manage the Leopards properly, we won’t have a high enough pick to nab the kid. Of course, with the way things have been going, who knows, maybe we will…

35 of 162: Michael Brisk (2-3, 5.08) @ Isaiah Zuno (3-0, 3.57)
Loss, 3-2. It took 12 innings to get this one sorted, we put ourselves in a position to steal the series, but in the end, were walked off unceremoniously on a SAC FLY from Andrew Beck. Brisk was a tick above solid in 6.1 innings of work where he only allowed 2 earned, our bullpen locked it down for the most part, but an error from our closer on a throw to second put the runner on 3rd that would eventually score the final run of the game. Otto’s slump has reached mythical proportions – he went 0 for 5 with 3 Ks and is now batting .171 – Burton managed to hit safely again, and Webster ran his RBI total up to 27 with a run-scoring single. We just couldn’t see this one through – would’ve been a nice, confidence-boosting win had we managed to steal this one in extras.

Elsewhere: I got this little unfortunate nugget from the BNN news wire… Inglewood Helpless Against Cartwright: The Huntsville Rocketeers did little to support starter Toni Cartwright against the Inglewood Sentinels, but it turned out he didn't need the help. The left-hander spun a complete game shutout against the Sentinels, striking out 9 and surrendering 5 hits. The performance from Cartwright allowed Huntsville to escape with the 3-0 win despite an anemic offense. "Nobody came to me and said 'Toni, we're gonna need you to win this one for us today,' but I could feel it," Cartwright told BNN reporters following the win. "I'm the guy that will step up for you when you need it." In 6 starts this season Cartwright has compiled a 4-1 record and a 2.55 ERA. Based on that quote, the kid’s head may give him balance issues as he moves up the ranks – he’ll be a back of the rotation type in a year or two, and will, undoubtedly, get batted around a little bit in the bigs.

Our mini tour through the American League has ended for now, and we're back to our regularly scheduled programming with Las Vegas up next on the docket. I would've liked to have had a better showing on this trip, but, you have to play the cards you’re dealt and despite the fact that I thought I had stacked the deck in our favor, we keep getting all the undesirable cards. If this season was a game of spades, then we've been getting a steady supply of clubs. I'm toying with the idea of sending Otto down to AAA - but he has the right of refusal and would undoubtedly exercise it. There's always the bench though, and while Michael Scott wouldn't like me tinkering with his lineup, I'm still the boss and he'll do what I say. Maybe it's time to give Nash Aguilar a couple of starts - that could serve as a wake-up call for our resident superstar.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (16-19, .457, 3rd NL West) @ Las Vegas Outlaws (24-11, .686, 1st NL West)
After a short hop from Vancouver, we find ourselves back in Las Vegas and all set to face off against our third winning club in a row. Only this time we’ll get the winningest club in the MLB and a division rival to look bad against. The Outlaws have started off the month at 3-2, are 7-3 over their last 10, and have built up a league-leading RDiff of +68. According to the Pythagorean, they’re right where they should be this juncture of the season, and why wouldn’t they be… they’re 1st in every offensive category except home runs and are ranked either 1st or 2nd in every pitching category that counts. The only soft spot we may be able to pick at is their bullpen, who, at 8th in bullpen ERA, may be the only weakness they have. Recent bullpen addition, Steven Barbaccia, is off to a sub-optimal start at 0-1 with a 5.79 ERA – he was signed on the 27th of April after a prolonged courtship from yours truly where he sent me several messages indicating he had taken offense to my offer… that he signed with a rival is hardly a surprise, he probably wants to stick it to me as much as possible, of course, he’ll need to be better than he has been if he intends to do that. We may not be hitting for **** right now, but we can certainly crush the beachballs he’s been throwing.


36 of 162: Merl Crawford (1-5, 5.80) @ Julen Morales (6-0, 2.51)
Loss, 3-1. I put our skipper, Michael Scott (pictured), under strict orders to sit Otto in this one – it did not have the desired effect as Julen Morales, a former Leopard who we traded for RP Cory Sterner during the offseason, was able to mete out some small measure of revenge over 6.1 innings of work where he only allowed one run and fanned 4. Offensively it was more of the same for us – no one of note did anything worth mentioning and continued to underperform despite the mountains of cash we’ve been throwing their way – though Otto’s replacement, Nash Aguilar, brought in our only run on a solo-shot of Julen… not bad for his first start of the season. I might ask our skipper to leave him in the lineup tomorrow as well, though he could slot into our current left fielder’s spot to make some room for Otto. Or, I could let Otto stew some more… which, if I’m honest, when mired in a malaise as all-encompassing as this one, seems like the more fun of the two options.

Newsflash: In a surprise move, we managed to land LF Kyle Weaver on a waiver claim (I really didn't think that would go through) and will need to option Nash Aguilar to Compton, once he clears, to make room for the new guy. If nothing else, his 1 for 3 day and home run will serve as an enticement for some club to come along and snatch him up – he deserves a bigger role than we can give him.

37 of 162: Saul Guzman (1-0, 2.79) @ Cam Murphy (1-0, 4.74)
Win, 7-4. We decided to slot new guy, Kyle Weaver, in at left tonight, giving Burton a spell, and moved Otto back into a starting role… and, just to keep things weird, elected to start Saul Guzman on a pitch count, effectively pushing back the start for Case… unlike last night it worked and we managed to come away with our 3rd, game 2 win in consecutive series. Saul was far from great, 2 earned over 2 innings of work with 2 Ks, but the rest of the pen performed beautifully to help us close this one out. Otto went 1 for 3 with an RBI, and 2 walks, Weaver hit a 3-run triple in his Leopards debut, and Mullens went 2 for 3 with 2 runs. The club looked solid today… 9 hits, 7 runs, two doubles, and a triple for us offensively here. Good stuff.


Elsewhere: Former Leopard, and current Quebec City Admiral, Rad Taylor, pitched a complete game, 2-hit shutout with 12 Ks in a 1-0 win over the Tucson Fireballs in what may have been his best start as a pro. I’m still a huge Rad Taylor fan and will, undoubtedly, find a way to trade for him again soon. Also, in NCAA play, KJ Marcus, of the Grand Lakes University Hooters, went 2 for 2 with 2 jacks, 5 riblets, 3 runs, and 3 free passes in his schools’ 12-3 win over the University of Anchorage Alaska Seawolves. The Hooters look like a lock to make the dance this season as they are currently perched at the top of the Unaffiliated Division table and KJ, who’ll be draft-eligible this season, is projecting to be a 3rd round pick.

38 of 162: Case Tunnell (1-5, 8.42) @ Jonathan Thompson (1-0, 3.38)
Win, 3-2. Otto tied this one up with a run-scoring single in the top of the 5th and Webster brought it home with a solo homer in the top of the 8th. Kyle Weaver continued to rip in a Leopard kit with a 3 for 5 day with a couple of runs, Mack Ramirez hit a 2-out RBI, and Ethan picked up his 15th steal of the year. The pitching was on point in this one – 6 innings and 2 earned from Case, 1.2 shutout innings from Igarashi, Anderson Parker picked up his 3rd hold on 3 pitches, and Cory Sterner earned his 7th save in a 9th inning closeout that included 2 Ks and 14 total pitches. This is our first series win in May and first since sweeping the Coyotes at home on the 25th of April. Not going to lie – it feels pretty good.

We’ll head out to San Jose for the last three games of this twelve-game road trip with our heads held high and confidence restored – it’s amazing what winning a set against the best club in baseball can do for your morale. Suddenly the guys have a little pep in their step, have embraced their short-term memory loss, and are walking & talking like they have solved the riddle of our early season troubles. That gives me pause – winning one set for a big-time, big-city ball club isn’t exactly the formula that cures all that ails you, our hometown beat writers will make sure to remind us of that. But, if the mood during our short hop to San Jose is any indication, the players believe that we’ve found some magical, course-correcting elixir in Las Vegas, and, really, who am I to argue with that? Let’s hope that the club carries this good fortune forward, stays focused, and salvages this road trip with a sweep over the Seals.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (18-20, .474, 3rd NL West) @ San Jose Seals (14-23, .378, 5th NL West)
I don’t know if it’s the right word, but it’s ‘interesting’ how the San Jose Seals run their baseball team – they have an owner whose only mandates are that he be invited to any potluck the front office throws and that the club makes a little bit of money each year, their best player, Mario Marshburn, is a light-hitting, baserunning challenged 25-year old second baseman out of Fresno State, and their development system, where there isn’t much being developed, is ranked 19th in the league. Their top prospect, Steve Green, like Mario, is another light-hitting, poor baserunner whose lone NCAA highlight came when he hit a lead-off home run for his UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs against San Dimas Community College. If this is how they intend on cooking up a future champion, by sourcing their recipe from some ad-filled, click-bait webpage, then they’ll likely have a difficult time convincing their Bay Area fanbase to try a bite. Even at a discount, the fruits of their labor have led to a decline in season ticket purchases, overall attendance is down by 8.8% YoY, and their revenue per game has fallen by nearly that much too. Directionally, it’s hard to see where these guys are headed – the only certainty here is that the final destination of their 2077 campaign, like each campaign since 2072, won’t be the playoffs.

39 of 162: Dejuan Burns (2-2, 2.84) @ Brody John (5-2, 3.78)
Win, 6-1. Before the game, the positional comparison our analytics department handed out to the coaches showed that we are superior to the guys at nearly every position on paper – we’d play the game out anyway though, where, despite besting them by five runs, it was closer than it should have been. Our 3-run outburst in the top of the 9th padded this one a little bit… good showing from Mack who went 2 for 3 with two runs, Otto hit a 2-run homer on 1 for 4 hitting, Kyle Weaver, who went 1 for 4, has hit safely in all three of the games he’s played for us, and we only left two runners stranded tonight. Dejuan’s second verse was a bit better than his first – 6 innings of 4-hit, 1-run ball from our new #2, and Nick Demmer showed some improvement in three innings of relief where he allowed only 2 hits and fanned 4.

Elsewhere: Kelowna’s 3B Frodo Gonzales went 4 for 5 with a double, TWO HOMERS, 3 RBI, and 3 runs in the Silvertips hard-fought, 7-6 win over the CITY OF COMPTON. Frodo is a low-key prospect who, with some improvement on defense, may make the big club in Vancouver one day… he’s a bubble guy, though, so it could go either way. OH HONG tried his level best to keep the Raiders in this one – he went 3 for 5 with a 2-run ding dong and 2 runs scored in the losing effort.

40 of 162: Trev Anderson (4-0, 2.80) @ Jeronimo Tucker (2-3, 5.08)
Win, 3-2. Another good day from Kyle Weaver, who went 2 for 4 with an RBI, and a fine performance from Trev (5 IP, 2 ER) were the highlights for us here… this one was a bit too close for comfort though, as it required a late rally to earn the W. Otto put two balls in play, improved his average to .189, and swiped a bag – he was also hit by a pitch in his last at-bat and hasn’t stopped talking about it since it happened. Our poor-hitting, highly-paid superstar isn’t impervious to pain it would seem – funny, you’d think that with all the extra cash the guy has lying around he’d invest in some protective gear beyond the off-brand equipment that Phil provides.

41 of 162: Michael Brisk (2-3, 4.72) @ Bentley Hunt (2-6, 4.37)
Loss, 5-1. We blew our chance at climbing above .500 here and were dominated over 9 innings by Bentley Hunt, who, if the rumors are true, is named after and looks a lot like his family’s long-time butler at their estate in Santa Rosa. Ethan hit a solo homer, Kyle hit safely again, and Otto went 0 for 4 while we attempted, in vain, to navigate another one of Brisky’s poor performances. He could only muster 4.2 innings in this one, allowed 5 earned, and was forced to look on painfully as Mario Marshburn’s second homerun of the year left the ballpark in the bottom of the 2nd.


Elsewhere: SP Kordell Littles, playing for your Inglewood Sentinels, pitched a complete-game, 5-hit shutout during an 8-0 win for our AA club over the visiting Butte Mountaineers and fanned 9 in the process. At 24-years old the jury is still out on this kid, but we’re not giving up hope that he will develop some control and improve his changeup just yet.

We’d pick up our second straight series win to close out this long slog of a road trip and head back home to meet the Phoenix Coyotes after enjoying a day off in Los Angeles. In all we’d tread water for the trip, finish 6-6, and come home right where we left it – just another so-so ballclub, mired in a ho-hum season, in a league filled with them. Our problem seems to be that, even with all the talent we possess, we just can’t separate ourselves from the pack. We’re like a prized greyhound, bred from championship lines, that lacks the competitive desire to finish first, and prefers, instead, to run with the glut of other dogs in the back of the pack because it’s more fun to be like Scottie instead of Michael. The problem with this, of course, is that we pay these guys Michael money, Brisky, our resident Rodman, has all the extra-curricular's without the on-field performance to make it palpable, and our role players would have trouble playing the straight man at a local improv night much less fill in any of the gaps we’ve been putting on display.

[pauwoo]

Otto spent our first break in 9-days shooting a commercial for Dove’s (it’s not really soap) Soap & Bodywash line that is set to debut in the summer – this one claims to have a heat-activated, patent-pending aroma shield that kicks into high gear whenever you break a sweat, masking your musk so that no one knows you smell like onions whenever you forget to deodorize. It’s nice that our former MVP has good sponsorship opportunities and it’s good for the club – our reach is national – but, I question his selection to lead the campaign by Unilever… the guy hasn’t broken a sweat all year, isn’t hitting his weight, and has started openly complaining about his protection in the lineup. Instead of feeding his ego and surrounding himself with yes men, would it kill the guy to put in some work with our hitting coach to make some inroads toward fixing the hitch in his giddyup? For my part, I’ve been low-key shopping the guy around – keeping it on the real, real low so the word doesn’t get out. I got a couple of nibbles so far, though nothing that is too substantial, including an offer from Orlando that includes two good pitching prospects and their oft-injured, #2 pitcher Nacho Valadez. That’s not happening, the fanbase would have my head on a plate, so, I’ll keep putting the feelers out… Otto has a no-trade clause so if I can’t find something agreeable in a huge media market, he’ll likely exercise it anyway.

On a side note, I have my secret, off-payroll investigative assistant, local roller derby legend, and current UCLA Law School student, Loretta Synn, on the case. My hope here is that the note I passed under our lawyer's door as she drafted up the contract we offered Otto during the offseason that read, simply, “loopholes are fun”, did not go unnoticed and that, Loretta, in her infinite investigative and legal wisdom, will find one big enough for me to crawl through. Like Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of crap and came out clean on the other side, I’d like to right the wrongs of my failed roster and salvage this season while I still have a chance – look, I already live on the pacific, any cash I’d have buried under a tree has long since been spent, and, if I don’t figure this thing out soon, I’ll be stuck GMing a Bush League club and locked up in Baseball Purgatory for the rest of my days.

[pauwoo]

TRADE BONANZA!
My aim here was really to just mix things up – we didn’t get much better but came out of these moves with a bit more money in the kitty (which we’ll use to throw at Otto and maybe Brisky during the offseason) and a better vibe in the clubhouse. I’m under no illusions that this will cure all that ails us… in fact, it may set us back as my pitching took a hit here and while we do have a lot of arms in our development system, none of those are ready for primetime. Basically, the team wasn’t much fun – we weren’t connecting, the pieces weren’t coming together, nothing gelled… hopefully, this influx of talent and agreeable personalities will mesh with the quickness and, ultimately, help us deliver on the promise we brought with us at the beginning of the 2077 campaign…

Onward and upward… or sideways… or back a few steps. I really have no idea what these series of rash decisions will mean for us now or in the future. It was fun making some trades though…

In…

• LF Tony Voorhis, from Pittsburgh
• 2B Ian Hanan, from Pittsburgh
• 1B Archie Imanov, from Ottawa
• RHP Kieth Baeza, from Ottawa
• RHP Masaya Nakagawa, from Ottawa
• SS Hamza McDonnell, from Phoenix

Out…

• LF Justin Burton, to Pittsburgh
• RF Mack Ramirez, to Pittsburgh
• Cash, to Pittsburgh
• 3rd Round Pick, to Pittsburgh
• 1B Arnold Webster, to Ottawa
• RHP Murray Wagner, to Ottawa
• C Lester Brown, to Ottawa
• LHP Dejuan Burns, to Phoenix

Oh, and we managed to sweep the Coyotes… the first two games came before these trades, the final one after…

Up Next: It’s back to our regularly scheduled programming as we prepare to welcome the erstwhile Austin Grackles to town for a 3-game set. They’re solid.

[pauwoo]

Austin Grackles (20-23, .465, 4th NL West) @ Los Angeles Leopards (23-21, .523, 2nd NL West)
After that long, 12-game road trip, to be back in LA, surrounded by my things, and with easy access to my favorite local migas spot is a low-key dream come true. Sure, LA is not without its problems – traffic, crime, population density – but it’s home, or has been for the last four years. It’s always good to be home. And, when you add in the fact that, due to some fortunate scheduling, we’d parade two ho-hum clubs through town over these six days, it really couldn’t get much better. In Austin, a club I’ve described as having a stock Hyundai motor under the hood, we have a suitable foil to test our new lineup against – new faces, new roles, and a new team motto… no regrets (that and, everybody Wang Chung tonight). So far this season, we own a 2-1 record H2H against these guys, have vanquished them in their own park once, and are looking to completely dismantle them this time around. It won’t be easy though – they’ve come into a bit of good fortune as of late and have won their last 4 series against some relatively stiff competition. They’re starting to come together, guys have stepped into their roles, and the pieces, to the degree that they have any, are starting to fit. For our part, we haven’t been on a great run of late, but we did just sweep the Coyotes and I see no reason why we can’t do that here…

45 of 162: Ryan Burg (1-3, 4.41) @ Michael Brisk (2-4, 5.24)
Loss, 11-7. The new era of Leopards Baseball got off to a poor start, primarily due to Brisky’s complete inability to dial it in consistently this season. Here, your boy could only muster up 4 innings of work, gave up SEVEN RUNS, and was, in general, weighed, measured, and found wanting by an Austin club that really has no business charging 11 runs to our account. Austin did whatever they wanted at the plate – 5 doubles, 3 homers, and 11 scores despite leaving 11 stranded. We were knee-deep in the muck throughout, never comfortable, and despite putting 7 runs of our own on the board were just not able to put our best foot forward in this one. We did get 4 homers though, all solo shots, from new guys Hanan & Voorhis and LA mainstays Ethan & Otto. We also, like Austin, left 11 runners stranded because that’s what we do… and, even after all my trade silliness, I’m starting to realize that what we really need is a better bullpen.

46 of 162: Joshua Moeller (4-4, 3.88) @ Merl Crawford (1-6, 5.21)
Win, 4-2. We did our work early in this one with Otto, Dom, and Voorhis each bringing a teammate around on run-scoring doubles and would ride out a great bullpen performance over the last four frames where our relievers held the Grackles hitless while fanning them 7 times. Crawford was solid over 5-innings of work allowing only two runs, Mullens went 2 for 4 with a run, and Hamza stole his first base as a Leopard. The defense was stout too – 3 double plays with new guys Hanan and Imanov taking part in all three…


Elsewhere: LF Cash Crouch, of the Las Vegas Outlaws, went 3 for 5 with THREE JACKS, FIVE RIBLETS, and THREE RUNS in his clubs 17-5 win over the Mexico City Jaguars. Cash is a solid dude, good to his teammates, and fun to have around – a real good-time boy. And, he’s a solid ballplayer too – that his name screams superstar is unfortunate… his skills will just never lived up to that billing. But he gets on base, the local fans in Sin City love him, and despite having ‘insignificant’ listed as his popularity status nationally, he’s a local legend in Nevada. Good day for him here – should help his fledgling car dealership, no doubt.

47 of 162: Dwaine Schilling (1-4, 4.20) @ Case Tunnell (2-5, 7.01)
Win, 6-5. Classic! We’d win this one in dramatic fashion on a walk-off, 3-run long ball courtesy of my new favorite Leopard, Tony Voorhis. He finished 3 for 5 with 3 RBI and a run here while Otto continued to underwhelm with a 0 for 3 day that included 2 Ks and a walk. Ethan got a hit and scored, Hanan secured two singles and scored as well, and Hamza hit a two-run shot that knotted this one up for us during the bottom of the 6th. Case went 5 and allowed three while the bullpen wasn’t as stout as they were yesterday – but, the team battled, kept their heads in the game, and, in the end, we sent our fans home happy off that glorious walk-off jack. We better stock up on Voorhis jerseys.

So, we’ve now won 5 of our last 6 tilts, the club is starting to come together, and the moves we made recently are paying some early dividends. The mood amongst the players is jovial, outside of Brisky, and we’ll head to the airport for a trip to St. Louis as a club on the rise… and, as if that wasn’t enough, PEPPER is set to return to the big club after completing his rehab assignment in the CITY OF COMPTON. Things are starting to look up – we have a lot of work to do, sure, but I’m starting to feel a bit more secure in the belief that, at the end of the day, we’ll be good for it. We are still 5 games off the Outlaws pace though, are out performing the PYT at +3, and are sitting on a -10 RDiff – so, the hill is steep and fraught with danger… we’re definitely not out of the woods yet, but we know where we’re headed and have, for now at least, rediscovered true north.

[pauwoo]

Since our set against the Austin Grackles, we’ve been ripping it up – on a 12-4 stretch with series wins over Dallas, St. Louis, and Seattle and a 2-2 split against the Brooklyn Atlantics. Pepper returned to the fold and came out like a man on a mission – he’s put 3 jacks and 11 RBI on the board since his reappearance in the lineup, including a 2 HR day against St. Louis in only his 3rd game back from injury. The new guys are doing well too – Archie Imanov is hitting .355/7/20 since joining our outfit and Voorhis has been solid with a .262/5/13 line. Heck, even Brisky has ramped it up with two quality starts in a row including his earning a much-needed W against the St. Louis Blue Birds on 5/22 – the struggle is still real, but your boy looks like he’s, finally, headed toward the light. Oh, and before I forget, Ethan Mullens made the accomplishment list with a 3 HR day against the Seattle Metros on 5/28 – that performance wasn’t good enough to get him a spot on the Game Performance rankings, but what a day for our centerfielder. I guess the main problem was that each one of those was a solo homer…

Las Vegas Outlaws (38-23, .623, 1st NL West) @ Los Angeles Leopards (35-26, .574, 2nd NL West)
While we’ve managed to pick up our pace a bit and shave two games off Las Vegas’ lead in the NL West, they’ve been fierce here lately too and are on a 9-1 streak over their last 10 while managing to keep us from making a pass. This is an opportunity to make up some ground, but we’ll have to do it the hard way – so far this season, we are 3-3 against these guys with two of those wins coming in their park, while two of the losses came in ours. The Outlaws won’t make it easy – their offense is easily the best in the NL with top rankings in every category that matters except HRs where they rank 3rd and the staff is stacked with strikeout artists who are also good at keeping the ball in the park. We’ll need some good fortune here if we are to take the series win and a lot more than that if we are to get a sweep. If nothing else, this will be a good measuring stick for us… there’s still some time left to make some trades to fill any gaps that get exposed here. The key though, and this is where I struggle as a GM, will be my ability to make trades that fill those holes without digging one for myself somewhere else.

62 of 162: Jack Sanchez-Flores (3-3, 3.07) @ Michael Brisk (3-5, 5.73)
Win, 2-1. Brisky does it again – 3 quality starts in a row now… 7 IP, only 3 hits, a single earned run, and 4 Ks for our resident man about town. Not a lot to parse out here offensively – our lone highlight in that department, as dictated by the game generated summary, reads, “Dominic Cooke had a productive at-bat for the Leopards with no one out in the bottom of the fifth. With a runner on 1st, the catcher drew a walk. The at-bat was important in the Los Angeles win”. Both of our scores came off a walk, we only secured 3 total hits, and, outside of our two steals, really had this one handed to us by the Outlaws pitching staff. Specifically, Sanchez-Flores, who handed out 4 free passes on the day, including two with the bases loaded… he also hit Ian Hanan during the game, so, his command was an issue.


Elsewhere: Bishop Jones, a 10-year MLB vet, mostly spent in Virginia Beach with the Captains, who now plies his trade with the Beaumont Bullies in the Bush League, went 2 for 5 with a double, a jack, 2 runs, and 6 RBIs during a 13-6 win over the Coney Island Footlongs. After years of playing Catcher did work on his dodgy knees, Bishop saw a steep decline in performance – at his best, he was a 4x all-star and 2x Silver Slugger in the majors with a cannon for an arm and one of the sweetest looking swings in the game. Nice to see him getting a second life, and a little more run under the sun, in the Bush League.

Oh, snap, it’s draft day! I won’t bore you with the gory details since our first pick came in the 2nd round after the supplemental round and because we traded away our 3rd pick… but, we did manage to pick up a solid project in Wilfredo Felix out of Arkansas. The 21-year old college-graduate tracks to have a major league fastball that he’ll couple with an above-average slider and looks to have good stuff and good control. If I had to guess, because only 3 of his 4 pitches look to have any MLB life on them, he’ll get slotted into our, or someone else’s, bullpen one day in the not too distant future. The rest of our picks were pretty meh… we did manage to pick up a guy named T-Rex Stiles though, he’s rough, but with a little luck from the TCR could turn into something one day.

63 of 162: Cam Murphy (2-1, 4.80) @ Case Tunnell (2-7, 7.04)
Win, 10-7. We put three balls out of the park as a club, two of which belonged to Otto, and managed to overcome a poor start from Tunnell – 4.1 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 2 HRA – and come out on top of our most hated division rival. Cam Murphy was brutalized by our lineup… the LV #3 matched Case’s 4.1 innings of work but allowed a total of 8 earned during the outing with two balls leaving the park on his watch. Five doubles for the club here as well – Imanov, Hanan, Rishon, PEPPER, and Voorhis each put a two-bagger on the board, and Imanov added four total RBI to his line (he hit that other jack and it was a GRAND SLAM). A nice offensive outburst from the Leopards here… who needs a better bullpen when your guys rake?

64 of 162: Al Van Wilder (0-0, 6.92) @ Nick Demmer (5-2, 3.92)
Loss, 7-5. Any dirt we did came early against Al Van Wilder as we charged all five of our runs to his account during his 5 innings of work… after that, we were held in check Maximiano Cordova for 3 innings before Jerome Dial came in to make sure the door was shut good & tight. The showing was not without some goodness – a double each from PEPPER, Hamza, and Ethan, a homer from Voorhis, and two stolen bases from Otto would round out our highlights… in the end, we managed to take a set off our rival but were unable to catch them at the line as we are still operating at a clip two games off their pace. Also, of note, RP Adrian Bae, who came on in the second after our starter, Nick Demmer, got crushed during his one inning of work, managed to give us 5 innings in relief while allowing nothing to get across and fanning 5.

Recap: We still find ourselves operating a couple of games off Las Vegas’ pace but are starting to get hot and could find ourselves sitting on top of the pops by the end of the month. Of course, that will require that we maintain our current form while Las Vegas slips a bit. They’re hot too – hoping they burn out a bit before we start to fade away.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (37-27, .578, 2nd NL West) @ Phoenix Coyotes (32-32, .500, 3rd NL West)
After securing a set at home against the division-leading Las Vegas Outlaws, we’re heading into Arizona on something of a come up & looking to turn the corner on this young season… that we’ll be trying to extend our run of quality play and good fortune against our division-rival Phoenix Coyote’s and their much-lauded pitching staff (3rd overall in the NL, 2nd in Starters ERA, 3rd in Runs Against) is surely not lost on us, but if we can outpace their less-than-stellar, last in nearly every category, offense then I think we should be alright. Of course, they’ve played us tough so far – we boast a 6-5 head-to-head record against these yokels in 2021 – and are always looking to cause problems for us, so, if nothing else, we should have a fiercely-contested, two-game slobber knocker on our hands here… something the fans should enjoy if nothing else.

65 of 162: Trev Anderson (4-0, 2.41) @ DeJuan Burns (7-2, 2.57)
Loss, 2-1 (10). Trev gave us 6-solid innings of work, fanned three, and allowed only two hits with no runs in what was, ultimately, a wasted effort as the Phoenix staff had little trouble with our up-and-down offensive outfit during game one of this two game parlay. Mullens went 1 for 5 and scored, Otto drew 3 free passes, and Voorhis went 4 for 4 with an RBI and little else to show for it in the losing effort, while Phoenix’s, LF Roy Schoenherr, came through with a clutch walk-off solo dinger in his only at bat of the contest. DeJuan Burns, who we traded to Phoenix for SS Hamza McDonnell and a reliever earlier this season, kept us guessing over 6-innings of work and walked away with a confidence-boosting win against our formerly hot, now tepid, offensive outfit.


Elsewhere: Ash Newman, of the Buffalo Nickels, hurled a 7-inning, 2-hit shutout and fanned three to improve his record to 2-9 with a 5.19 ERA & 75 ERA+ on the year during a 5-4 win against the Boston Shamrocks in Massachusetts. The Shelbyville, TN native has allowed only 2 hits in each of his last three starts and is threatening to recapture the form he displayed in 2076 while with the Vancouver Bears when he posted a 10-8 record with a 3.38 ERA and 115 ERA+ before being traded to Buffalo at the deadline.

66 of 162: Merl Crawford (5-6, 4.70) @ Rick Wright (2-0, 0.36)
Loss, 2-1 (10). Second verse, same as the first… just last night we were reminded of just how bad
It had gotten… in a virtual repeat of last nights closely contested, gut-punch loss against the offensively challenged Phoenix Coyotes, we found ourselves on the short end of the stick again as the Coyotes’ Justin Jenkins undid a solid performance from Merl and an early DING DONG from Imanov with one swing of the bat during the bottom of the 10th to send us off to the showers on a game-winning, run-scoring single to secure the mini-sweep. For our part, we’d only secure two total hits during the game, hit double-digits in K’s with 10 as a club, and found ourselves on the outside looking in despite some fine fielding work from Grant, Hanan, and Imanov, who secured two, web gem DPs on the day.


Elsewhere: Austin Rollins, the representative from Seattle and poster boy for bad facial hair, went 2 for 4 with 2 DING DONGS, 7 RBI, 2 RUNS, and a WALK during his clubs 13-4 dismantling of the Portland Lagers. With the win, Austin’s Metros put themselves within 5 ½ games of the AL West division-leading Denver Miners and have strung together 3 straight victories while going 8-2 over their last 10 tilts.

Record: 37-29, .560, 2nd NL West
Up Next: We’ll enjoy a day off before heading into Mexico City for a 4-game set, at altitude, against the 4th place Jaguars. Brisky will kick things off for us on the 10th and then promptly get lost on some legendary, Hangover-esque bender before miraculously showing up for the plane ride home minutes before we secured the cabin…

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (37-29, .560, 2nd NL West) @ Mexico City Jaguars (31-34, .477, 4th NL West)
Mexico City can hit – they get on base, are known to punch a few out, swipe more than their share of bags, and are adept at running the bases. They are as offensively sound as any club in the National League and better than most – their problem, then, is pitching, where they boast a rotation that is in shambles, are 12th in runs against, FIP, and Bullpen ERA, and their defense, whose lack of efficiency and proclivity for committing errors would give even the most resolute of Skippers fits. Theirs is a halfway house – they have what it takes on offense, but not enough to get started on the other side of the ball… they’re tough though – there’s no easy outs in the majors – and play well at home, so, given our sudden loss of form, a tough travel schedule, and the altitude, we could be in for a rude awakening here should we not play up to our capability and with the verve required of a club that has a target affixed squarely on its back.

Oh, and, ever the tinkerer, I’ve made a trade… sent fan favorite 1B Archie Imanov (good in the field, solid power bat) to Virginia Beach for 1B Satoru Ono (better in the field, a few ticks below Archie for power). Ono will slide right in as a starter during our series in Mexico City. And, honestly, there really isn’t a good/great/so-so reason I made this trade… Thought it would be fun to mix it up a bit, I guess…

67 of 162: Michael Brisk (4-5, 5.24) @ Cosmo Puente (3-5, 6.03)
Loss, 10-2. Mexico City did us dirty to open our 4-game series, led by DH Ryder Nieman who went 3 for 5 with a TRUCK, a two-bagger, 2 runs, and 6 RBI, and buoyed by an offense that made mincemeat out of Brisky to the tune of 6 earned, 2 HRA, and all the hits, the Jags led us down a dark alley, broke a bottle over our head from behind, and made off with our lunch money. New guy, Sato Ono, went 0 for 3 with 3 Ks, Otto did the same but only fanned once, and Keith Baeza picked things up where Brisky left them and allowed 4 more bad ones to get across to help Mexico City run this one up on us. We’ll slink off into the night, clean out our wounds with some mezcal, toss some birria tacos back, and find some senoritas to dance our cares away with before getting back after it tomorrow…

68 of 162: Anderson Parker (3-3, 2.00) @ Casey Tucker (8-5, 3.80)
Win, 11-9. Determined to exact some small measure of revenge and buoyed, no doubt, by the mezcal that was still coursing through our veins early in this one, we’d run up our tally to 11 before reaching the 5th and then sit idly by as our bullpen was folded up like a lawn chair while the Jags made a game of it. In the end, Mexico City didn’t have enough to overcome Dom Cooke’s GRAND SLAM, and, despite poor days from Otto (0 for 4) and Sato Ono (0 for 5, now 0 for 8 as a Leopard), we found a way to hang on long enough for the home team to run out of time. Doubles for PEPPER, Kyle Weaver, and Voorhis fit in nicely with Cooke’s aforementioned SLAM and Ian Hanan’s 2-run moonshot, while Case Tunnell (used as a follower in this one) continued to struggle, giving up 6 earned, including a 3-run TRUCK from Heathcote Kinton, to go along with his 6 walks and lone K. We won, we’ll take it, but it wasn’t pretty.


Of note: with that 3-run homer, Heathcote Kinton has now hit safely in 20 consecutive games…

69 of 162: Nick Demmer (5-2, 4.63) @ Nelson Kirk (1-3, 4.47)
Win, 12-11. Another hard-fought, rabble-rousing, slobber knocker in Mexico City as we rode Voorhis’ magnificent 3 for 3, 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI day to victory here and overcame another late surge from the Jags, punctuated nicely by Heathcote Kinton’s GRAND SLAM during the bottom of the 8th, to escape with another W by the skin of our country teeth. Ono secured his first hit as a Leopard and drove one in, Ethan Mullens went 2 for 5 and scored 3 times, and we flashed the leather a little bit with two spectacular double-plays and found a way to make it two in a row despite the fact that the Jaguars made a mockery of our staff again, hanging 4 on our starter, Nick Demmer, 3 more on Baeza (who let four come around only two short days ago), and 4 more on Masaya Nakagawa who now boasts a beefy 7.88 ERA. Listen, the ultimate goal, as ever, is to win ballgames so I don’t want to dig too deep into the details here, but, sheesh… if our pen doesn’t tighten up, and soon, we may be in trouble down the stretch when teams are putting it all on the line to take a run at the playoffs…

Of note: Keith Baeza is headed back down to Compton in an attempt to fix the hitch in his giddyap, and, RP David Beck will, for now, join the big club from our AA outfit in Inglewood. This was done to give our Skipper, Michael Scott, a fresh face to scream at… we don’t want to give anyone a complex.


Elsewhere: Brody McManus, of the Dearborn Dilly’s, a former San Jose State Spartan who went undrafted in 2071 and now plies his trade down in the Independent Bush League, finished 3 for 5 with a GRAND SLAM, 5 total RBI, 4 runs, and a walk during his clubs 21-2 dismantling of the Tallahassee Tomcats at home in Michigan. Brody is now hitting .292/.416/.653 with 7 dingers and 17 RBI on the year and is trending to a career-best 3.6 WAR.

70 of 162: Trev Anderson (4-0, 2.16) @ KJ Judd (1-1, 6.41)
Win, 7-4. Dominic Cooke was stellar for the second time in Mexico City and finished a stout 3 for 5 on the day with a 2-run longball and starter, Trev Anderson, gave us a gritty 5.2 innings of work that featured only 5 hits from the bad guys, 3 earned runs, and 8 Ks. Ono continues to disappoint with another 1 for 5 day, improving his average as a Leopard so far to a paltry .118, Otto drove one in, Ethan swiped two bags, and Cory Sterner picked up his 22nd save on 9 total pitches during the bottom of the 9th. Heathcote Kinton, it should be noted, finished 2 for 5 at the plate, and has now run his consecutive games with a hit streak up to 22… for our part, we’ve managed to gut out a 3-1 series over some stout competition, in their building, and head back stateside to meet up with the San Jose Seals after a well-earned day off on the 14th.

Side note: I have it on reasonably good authority that Brisky will show up in time to take his seat on our flight home. No idea where that guy wanders off to…

Record: 40-30, .571, 2nd NL West
Up Next: A day of rest & reflection where we'll do our level best to piece together what happened on the night of that first loss, followed by some good old fashioned introspection and perhaps a confession or two for the Catholics on the team before getting back after it against the Seals in San Jose…

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (40-30, .571, 2nd NL West) @ San Jose Seals (26-44, .371, 6th NL West)
The Seals are mired in the mud, making their living at the bottom of the barrel with the rest of the riff raff – this is the type of club that we, with all our enviable resources, should squash with ease. Their offense is pedestrian, topping out at 6th in average, but 9th or worse everywhere else, and the hurlers aren’t much better, 10th in ERA, 9th in FIP… basically, they’re bad everywhere that counts and serviceable in the areas that no one really cares about. For our part, we should come out of this mini-set with two easy dubs, pushing our total to five in a row, and, with any luck, close the gap a bit on Las Vegas.

71 of 162: Merl Crawford (5-6, 4.48) @ Cuco Verhoeven (4-7, 4.18)
Win, 8-1. Otto came correct for us here – 2 for 5 with 2 DING DONGS, 5 total RBI, and 2 runs, and Merl twirled a solid, 6-inning effort where he’d allow only two hits while fanning 9 hapless hitters. Homers for Satoru Ono (his first as a Leopard) and Ethan contributed to the cause, Voorhis clubbed a two-bagger and scored, Hanan plated, Mullens secured his 27th steal on the year, and our defense crafted two highlight-reel worthy DPs during the game. A good, if workmanlike, effort from the club today as we found a way to play to our strengths and not down to the level of our competition.

72 of 162: Michael Brisk (4-6, 5.65) @ Knox Hussmann (5-5, 4.75)
Win, 12-8 (16). In a back and forth, rock ‘em, sock ‘em, slobber knocker we’d secure the win on a (very) late Ethan Mullens 2-run, two-bagger, and get the win despite Brisk continuing to display abysmal form (he gave up 5 in 4 innings and walked 4). Mullens' only hit of the game turned out to be the difference-maker, Otto was solid again with 3 RBI on 2 for 7 hitting, Voorhis trucked a 3-run moonshot, we hit four doubles and 5 DING DONGS as a club, stole two bags (Ethan & HAMZA), registered two more double plays, and managed to do what we were supposed to do here in securing the mini-sweep, on the road, in San Jose.

Record: 42-30, .583, 2nd NL West
Up Next: We’ll board a plane bound for Pennsylvania to do battle against the Philadelphia Patriots and their well-behaved, welcoming, and all-around joyous fanbase. Big 4-game series for us as we’ll need to continue our current run of tip-top form while hoping that the NL West division-leading Las Vegas Outlaws, currently on a 7-3 run over their last 10, stumble against the 32-40, 6th place in the NL East, Ottawa Senators, over their 4-game series. Wishful thinking, sure… but, we’re in need of some good fortune here, so I’ll put it out into the universe and hope for the best.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (42-30, .583, 2nd NL West) @ Philadelphia Patriots (39-33, .541, 3rd NL East)
Four days in Philly, doing battle against a formidable club, in a formidable park, with a formidable fanbase. Were I to rank things by what I’d rather do less, this would fall somewhere between taking golf ball sized hail to the face and getting caught in a whiteout without any clothes on… but, as the general manager of a bona fide big league baseball club, I’ve learned to embrace the suck and love the grind, and, as such, we’ll saunter into town on a mission to dismiss the Patriots unceremoniously in front of what is sure to be a raucous hometown crowd. Philadelphia is a solid club, led by the comedy (and offensive) stylings of CF Norris Flaherty (4x All-Star, 4x Gold Glover, 1x Silver Slugger) and LF Palmer Parker (1x Boyce Rigg Award Recipient, 1x All-Star, 1x Silver Slugger) and feature a staff helmed by the flame throwin’ Paul “Don’t Call Me Chuck” Yeager and the crafty, groundball pitcher Jonny Garcia. They give you a little bit of everything, just not enough to make you wake up in a cold sweat – the offense is among the best in the NL… 3rd in runs and OBP, 4th in Stolen Bases, 2nd in Base Running… while the staff is usually serviceable and lately a few ticks below that. This is a club that, even on the road, we should do well against if we find a way to tune out their crowd and that our guys don’t get too caught up in the nightlife of the Delaware Valley.

73 of 162: Case Tunnell (3-7, 7.52) @ Prior Balazs (4-4, 4.71)
Win, 2-1. We’d get our 6th straight win here, each coming on the road, and squeak by in the opener by a run off Tunnell’s best start of the year – 5 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 5 Ks – and a clutch, 2-run dinger from C Dom Cooke during the top of the 6th. Ethan and Otto matched Dom with 2 hits each, Satoru Ono hit his 2nd double since joining the club, and Mullens and Hamza each swiped a bag (it’s Ethan’s 29th of the year and McDonnell’s 7th). We acquitted ourselves nicely in this one, didn’t give the partisan crowd much to cheer about, likely lulled most of them to sleep, and managed to tuck away another win in our quest for baseball immortality.


Elsewhere: Buffalo Catcher and Surf City, North Carolina native (it’s a real place, I looked it up), Johnny Alavez, came correct during a 16-4 win over the Bulls, in Dallas, for his Nickels… your boy went 3 for 4 at the plate, secured a nice run-scoring double in the 1st frame, followed that up with a juicy GRAND SLAM during the 2nd frame, tallied 6 total RBI, found his way home three time, and even earned himself a free pass during the game. His game score of 93 is good enough to earn him a spot on the top 10 of the year where he finds himself tied with Donny Jeter, Dallas’ part-time SS, who earned the score during a tilt against the Orlando Stars back in May.

74 of 162: Nick Demmer (6-2, 4.89) @ Paul Yeager (7-6, 3.61)
Win, 5-3. Seven straight… Otto led the way for us tonight, 2 for 4, a double, a 2-run DING DONG(his 19th), and 3 RBI while Masaya Nakagawa came on in relief and gave us 4 solid innings of work after taking over for starter Nick Demmer who left after securing two outs in the first clutching his elbow on his way into the clubhouse. That’s not wonderful. Dom went 3 for 4 with nothing else to show for it, a 2 for 5 day from Ethan with nothing else of note, and runs scored by Voorhis, Otto, Ono, PEPPER, and Ernie Sparacino would round out the offensive highlights while our bullpen came up smelling roses ove 8.1 innings of work.

Demmer will be on the IL for three weeks (at least)… we’d like to have replaced him with Grumpy Losito, but he went down with a hamstring issue during COMPTON’S 3-1 win over Vancouver’s affiliate in Kelowna, so we’ll be calling up 27-year-old Alvin Leaf instead… peep this kids profile…



75 of 162: Trev Anderson (5-0, 2.39) @ Johnny Garcia (5-1, 1.55)
Win, 12-10. If our last two contests, especially the first game of this 4-game series, were the cure for insomnia then this tilt must’ve been like mainlining espresso followed by a caffeine crash the like of which I’d not wish on the guy standing next to my worst enemy (all’s fair when it comes to my actual worst enemy). Ethan was fierce – 3 for 4, two, two-baggers, 2 RBI, and 3 runs – Ono hit a 2-run dinger and drove another in on a run-scoring single, and our backup backstop, Yoshi Nakamura, hit a GRAND SLAM during the top of 3rd frame for his second DING DONG of the year. The pitching, as you can imagine, wasn’t great… but, who needs hurlers when you’re putting up 12 runs, on the road, and letting freedom ring like it was 1776 all over again!

Oh, and, if you’re counting, and why wouldn’t you be, this marks 8-straight for the La-La’s!

76 of 162: Merl Crawford (6-6, 4.26) @ Vin Uhlman (3-6, 5.47)
Loss, 7-3. Our streak would come to an end here at 8, just in time for us to skip town and hightail it out of the Delaware Valley… you have to throw the Philly crowd some scraps on the way out if you’re to successfully make your hasty escape, so, it is what it is… Crawford could only muster 2.1 innings of work here as the Patriots got to him early, charging 5 to his account, and the bullpen didn’t do much to patch up our leaky vessel as the Philadelphia offense picked up where they left off last night and put some bad ones on us on our way out the door.

Record: 45-31, .592, 2nd NL West
Up Next: We’ll get a much-needed day off before getting back after it, at home, against the New Orleans Gators. They’re not as good at baseball as we are, so hopefully we’ll be able to give the hometown faithful something to feel good about.

[pauwoo]

New Orleans Gators (37-42, .468, 5th NL East) @ Los Angeles Leopards (45-31, .592, 2nd NL West)
The New Orleans staff, led by the 2075 Pacheco award recipient Luc Felix, is among the finest in the league and is, arguably, the best built in the National League. They’re ranked 1st in Starters & Bullpen ERA, FIP, and 2nd in pWAR, Ks, and defensive efficiency. Their issue, and the main culprit behind their subpar, 37-42 record in ’77, is their middling offence – currently ranked dead last in OPS at .665, 10th in average and OBP, and 8th overall in runs scored. Theirs is a gummed down, run-scoring machine in desperate need of a tune up, new plugs, an oil change, and some gasoline. They arrive in Los Angeles on a 9-10 record so far this month, par for the course after posting a 14-14 record in April followed by a 14-15 record in May, and, true to form, are 5-5 for their last 10. For our part, save that last one in Philly, we’ve been on great form, leaving all comers strewn about in our wake… we’ll look to continue that trend in front of the hometown faithful over the course of this 3-game set and hopefully reassert ourselves at the top of the pops in the NL West when the dust has settled.

Of course, I'm ignoring the fact that they hold a 3-1 edge in head-to-head contests against us so far… because reality is no fun, and our guys don’t need to be bogged down by all of the data simply because it is available…

77 of 162: Rudolf Caldwell (3-1, 2.28) @ Michael Brisk (4-6, 5.78)
Win, 6-4. A properly preened and sufficiently prepared Brisky can be a hard man to beat – that he was neither of those two things at home tonight, giving up 4 runs and 3 free passes in a mere 6-innings of work, is of no consequence, however, when the opposing pitcher is even worse. Here we’d benefit from an uncharacteristically poor performance from Caldwell as we drew 4 walks and charged 5 runs to his account before he exited stage left after the 5th frame. Satoru Ono, in his first home appearance since joining the club, went 2 for 4 with 2 runs, 3 RBI, and his 4th double since donning our kit, PEPPER drew a run-scoring walk, and your boy Hamza McDonnell drove one in on a SAC FLY. We’d get some good fielding too – an outfield assist from Ethan, catching Billy Brown trying to score from second, would get the crowd on their feet, and a Hanan-Sparacino-Ono double play would delight the fielding aficionados dispersed evenly throughout the crowd. A good start, we’ll take it.


Elsewhere: Jules Winnfield, of the San Marcos Supremos, gave his fans a lot to feel good about during a 14-2 win over the Tallahassee Tomcats in Bush League play, going 4 for 4 at the plate, with a GRAND SLAM, a run-scoring single, 5 total RBI, 3 runs, and a free pass on the day. Jules, in his third year flexing the San Marcos kit, is on pace to truck 31 dingers and should post his 3rd consecutive 2+ WAR season. Winnfield is said to be questing for one more championship before hanging it up – he currently has a couple of rings earned back in 2067 & 2068 with the St. Louis Blue Birds and would love nothing more than getting a Bush League ring to round out the trophy case.

Trade Alert: We cribbed SP Stephen Estevez, who will slot into our rotation, and two low-key prospects (LF Chuck Holmes and 3B Oliver Koloski) for one of our better/best young pitching prospects in SP Trevor Dotson who is just not developing fast enough for us… Dotson has all-star potential, so I may regret this one day… time will tell.

78 of 162: Damian Harris (0-2, 3.00) @ Case Tunnell (4-7, 7.11)
Loss, 3-1. We managed to secure 7 hits, were the beneficiary of two, count ‘em TWO, Gators errors, and could only manage to plate once despite our good fortune… the New Orleans pitching and defense did not disappoint for their fans, but left our suddenly poor offense shaking their head and wondering what happened… Our only run came on a Otto Isaac solo homer, his 20th truck of the season, we left 9 runners stranded, ground into 4 double plays, were caught with our hand in the honey pot twice, and were forced to sit idly by our iron-deficient offense squandered another solid outing from Case who fanned 6 and only allowed two to score over 6 innings of work.


Elsewhere: One of my favorites, Angry Eloy Delando, hit a GRAND SLAM to lead his division-leading Las Vegas Outlaws to a resounding 11-6 win over the Brooklyn Atlantics. The Dutch Antillean has put 18 balls over the fence thus far and is currently on pace to hit 37 homers which would be his career-best at three more than he clubbed out during his 2073 campaign as a Portland Lager.

79 of 162: Joseph Hinder (2-8, 3.86) @ Trev Anderson (5-0, 2.70)
Win, 4-3. In yet another win that was too close for comfort, we’d escape this one with the W by the skin of our country teeth… the offense found a way to piece together just enough goodness in this one with the back end of our lineup doing the dirt here – solo homer from Hamza on a 2 for 3 day, SAC FLY RBI from PEPPER, and a run-scoring walk from Sparacino, all coming during the bottom of the 5th knotted it up for us, and a 2-out RBI single from Ethan Mullens put us over the top. That the pitching was stout is of little consolation here as our fielding left a bit to be desired with errors that lead to TWO UNEARNED runs for the bad guys. In the end, we’d leave with the win – it wasn’t pretty, but baseball isn’t played through an Instagram filter so it’s the same as it ever was, I suppose.


Elsewhere: San Marcos’ Mark Piper, a career minor leaguer who once had a 54-game cup of coffee with the Vancouver Bears and Jules Winnfield’s roommate on the road, HIT FOR THE CYCLE today during a 9-2 win for the Supremos over the Decatur Donnybrooks. He finished 4 for 5 with all the hits, 2 RBI, and a couple of runs. His is the 2nd cycle hit so far this season in the Bush League and 92nd overall since 1993.

Record: 47-32, .594, 2nd NL West
Up Next: More home cooking as we welcome the San Jose Seals to town, AKA the worst team in the NL, and second worst team in the league, for a 3-game set before hitting the road to take on the division-leading, hard-charging, and insidious rivals from Las Vegas on their turf for three more to close out the month.

[pauwoo]

San Jose Seals (28-51, .354, 6th NL West) @ Los Angeles Leopards (47-32, .594, 2nd NL West)
Our lone Bay Area representative has done their level best to take the ‘lovable’ out of ‘lovable losers’ this season and if you were to poll their ever-dwindling fanbase, I have it on good authority that it would come back overwhelmingly in support of that fact. There is nothing lovable, even likeable, about this club – they’re equally bad in the box (12th in OBP, 11th in Runs, wOBA, and SBs) as they are on the bump (12th in Ks, 11th in runs against, Bullpen ERA, and FIP), and that they are trending to lose 100+ is an all but forgone conclusion. Hells bells, with the way this club is put together they could set the single season record, eclipsing the 110-loss mark set by the Brooklyn Atlantics nearly 30 years ago. Their best player, 2B Mario Marshburn, is a mid-level talent that already has an eye on the exit, and the leader of their pitching staff, 27-year-old Bentley Hunt, lost a major league leading 18 games for the Seals in 2076. The development system is in shambles too… It’s bad in the Bay, and hard to understand what their plan is, if they have a plan at all. All of which, as you well know, is not our problem – our task, our mission (and we are whole-heartily accepting it), is to run roughshod over these yokels, take back our perch at the top of the NL West table and head into Vegas on a mission from some higher power who shall remain nameless so as not to offend…

80 of 162: Bentley Hunt (4-11, 5.00) @ Merl Crawford (6-7, 4.46)
Win, 9-7. Tony Voorhis was a menace for us – 3 for 4, THREE DING DONGS, 4 RBI, 4 runs, and a free pass for the Left Fielder who is flexing a 322/359/650 slash so far – and Anderson Parker came on in relief after Merl, Igarashi, and “Better Call” Saul Guzman came undone, managing to secure the win after giving us 1.2 innings of work with 2 Ks and no hits. Otto put his 21st into the cheap seats and fanned twice, Ethan went 2 for 5, and Ono managed to drive a couple in, each on a run-scoring double (he has 5 two-baggers since joining our outfit), and we managed to burgle three bags while only getting caught with our hand in the honey pot once.

81 of 162: Cuco Verhoeven (4-9, 4.19) @ Stephen Estevez (9-3, 2.34)
Loss, 6-0. Estevez, 5th generation Sheen, came in chesty, ready to make his debut for LA, to show off his Adonis DNA… instead, he was shelled, rode hard, and put away wet as San Jose’s Steve Green blasted a GRAND SLAM off the new guy that would ultimately spell his (& our) doom. For our part, the offense couldn’t get anything going, we’d muster 5 hits, 6 walks, and leave 8 runners stranded over the course of the game. Not a good look for the La La’s, losing to the worst club in the league, at home, in front of all the folks we care about and a few that we don’t…


Ahh, Steve Green, that man of the people… we all have a Steve Green, do we not?

82 Of 162: Knox Hussmann (6-5, 4.87) @ Michael Brisk (5-6, 5.79)
Win, 2-1. Brisky gutted one out, improved to 6-6 on the year, and gave the hometown faithful a spectacular 8-inning, 3-hit, 1 run effort with Voorhis & Otto providing all the run support we’d need – each with a solo shot, 21 now for Tony and 22 for Otto. Hamza gaffled his 13th bag, Cory Sterner picked up his 28th save of the year (he’s currently second in the league, one save behind current leader, Sawyer Dahlgren, of the Brooklyn Atlantics), and we gave the ~52K in attendance something to feel good about on the way home even if the low scoring affair lulled more than a few of them to sleep before the stretch.


Elsewhere: Your boy, and so-so pitching prospect who’s unlikely to ever make the big club, SP Logan Zaslavsky, plying his trade in AAA with the CITY OF COMPTON Raiders, hurled a complete game, 5-hit, shutout to lead his club to a 5-0 win over the outclassed Victoria Royals on the road. So far this season, Logan has posted a 3-2 record with a 3.07 ERA, 33 K’s (7.2 K/9), 123 ERA+, and 2.80 FIP. He’s been languishing in the minors for his whole career… in a bigger universe, he’s likely an MLB, back of the rotation type… may have to expand the league to 32 teams next season, do it up big, and give some guys in his boat a shot at the big time.

Record: 49-33, .597, 2nd NL West
Up Next: We’ll head to Sin City for a 3-game parlay against our most hated rival & current NL West leader, the Las Vegas Outlaws…

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (49-33, .597, 2nd NL West) @ Las Vegas Outlaws (50-33, .602, 1st NL West)
We’ll kick off our 7-game road trip, leading into the All-Star break, against the biggest, baddest bully on the block in Sin City and attempt to remove them from their perch at the top of the pops. A tall order, to be sure, as they boast the league’s most potent offense – 1st in runs, OBP, OPS, WAR, wOBA, and base running – and have a bullpen designed to give you fits with a defense that is unparalleled in National League. They’ve put together a 15-10 record so far this month, but have stumbled a bit of late, going 5-5 for their last ten, and could be primed for us as we’re coming in hot on a 7-3 record over that same stretch.

A look at their leaders…


83 of 162: Case Tunnell (4-8, 6.81) @ Sun-Jae Cho (4-3, 5.50)
Win, 8-5. At ½ a game back when we arrived in town, it would be PEPPER that led us back to the promised land, perched in our rightful place at the top of the pops in the NL West once again… your boy was phenomenal – 2 for 3, TWO DINGERS, 3 RBI, and 2 runs for the game, and a 2-run homer to get us started in the top of the 8th frame, putting us ahead for good and setting the table for Satoru Onu to add some cushion with a 2-run blast of his own. Case was shelled again – we really need to get him straightened out or shipped out at this point – he’d give up 5 bad ones over 5.2 innings of work, 11 total hits for the bad guys with two of those sailing over the fence… but, Pepper came through, and Igarashi managed to come on in relief to snipe the win after putting in 2.1 innings of his own, and Cory Sterner recorded his 29th save to put himself in a two-way tie with Brooklyn’s Dahlgren (who got the win for Brooklyn tonight on the road in St. Louis in extras).

84 of 162: Trev Anderson (5-0, 2.60) @ Julen Morales (11-2, 3.44)
Win, 3-0. Trev Anderson was nearly unhittable over 6 innings of work where he’d allow two weak dribblers while fanning 6 and keeping it scoreless, while the bullpen held firm for us again with Igarashi giving us two more innings (no hits, 4 Ks) and Cory picking up yet another save to run his total up to 30 and, for now at least, take over the MLB lead for late game heroics this year. Dom Cooke & Pepper drove in all three of our runs, with Dom taking credit for 2 of those while Grant added his 23rd riblet of the year, Otto swiped his 19th bag, and Voorhis hit his 13th 2-bagger during the contest. We now find ourselves a scant yet satisfying 1 ½ games ahead of Sin City’s finest.


Elsewhere: Seattle’s Aitor Cubas put in some work on the road, finishing 3 for 3 on the day with TWO DING DONGS, 5 total RBI, 2 runs, and 2 free passes, as the Metros easily dispatched the Salt Lake City Alpines by a score of 7-0 in their park. Rumor has it that Aitor will be taking the entire club out for a scoop of vanilla ice cream to celebrate the win.

85 of 162: Merl Crawford (6-7, 4.62) @ Patrick Keith (6-1, 2.58)
Win, 4-0. An unexpected sweep for us here – coming in to Vegas, I’d have been happy with a win, so, to come away with the sweep is a very nice surprise… Merl twirled a masterpiece – 8.1 IP, 3 hits, 0 earned, and 9 K’s for the once and future king, Sterner picked up his third save in as many games, and Satoru keeps coming correct with a 2 for 4 day that included a solo JACK and 2 runs. Otto went 3 for 4 an drove one in, Hamza hit a run-scoring single to collect his 12 RBI, and PEPPER stayed studly with an RBI to go along with his fielding wizardry. Three doubles, a homer, and 2 expertly crafted double plays for the club as well. All good things, we are not worthy…


Elsewhere: Two hurlers with some of the best mustache’s in the Bush League were filthy on the bump for their respective clubs today… first, Nathan Rackers, of the Shreveport Sashimi Samurai, put in 6 innings of work, only allowing 4 hits and no runs while fanning 3 during a 5-0 win over the Nolanville ‘Nauts, and, second, E.J. Born, of the Decatur Donnybrooks, went 6 innings of his own, allowing 3 hits and a score while fanning 7 to lead his club to a 2-1 win over the Beaumont Bullies.

Record: 52-33, .611, 1st NL West
Up Next: We’ll travel deep into the heart of Texas to take on the Austin Grackles over four games before breaking for the All-Star festivities, and do our level best to keep the good times rolling…

[pauwoo]

As we head into July here is a look at the standings & monthly award winners in each league… starting with the American League…




AL Hurler of the Month – SP Evan Church (Denver Miners) tossed 39.1 innings last month, holding opponents to a .183 average while striking out 35 batters. In 6 starting assignments he came away with a 4-0 record, putting together an ERA of 2.52.
AL Batter of the Month – RF Patrick Adams (Seattle Metros) collected 36 hits with 10 home runs, 31 RBIs and scored 23 times.

& the National League…



NL Hurler of the Month – CL Sawyer Dahlgren (Brooklyn Atlantics) held the opposition to a .203 average and put up 14 saves and 10 strikeouts in 16.2 innings with a 2-1 mark and 1.62 ERA.
NL Batter of the Month – LF Tony Voorhis (Los Angeles Leopards) batted .382 with 9 home runs, 29 RBIs and 25 runs scored.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles Leopards (52-33, .611, 1st NL West) @ Austin Grackles (35-50, .411, 5th NL West)
Over the last 5 seasons, the Austin Grackles have finished no higher than 4th, haven’t so much as sniffed the playoffs, and, for now at least, seem to be going in the wrong direction with their perpetual rebuild… the fans, to the degree that they have any, are unhappy, their support, once unwavering, is nearly nonexistent, and the local citizenry seem to be putting their entertainment dollars into the local music scene and the occasional MLS match instead of spending it on the only game that matters. While not exactly a patsy, they should play one while we’re in town with their 6th ranked offense struggling to string together quality at bats while their 10th ranked pitching staff serves up a steady stream of meatballs… Look, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and play down to our competition, it’s just that, given our current form, nothing short of a series win will suffice as we head into the break.

86 of 162: Stephen Estevez (9-4, 2.67) @ Dwaine Schilling (4-5, 3.27)
Win, 10-6. Satoru Ono led the way – 1 for 3, 3-run DINGER, and a couple of runs – and Ethan followed with a 3 for 4 day and 2 runs of his own to lead our red-hot club to victory in Austin. With the truck, Ono has put 7 out of the park in our employ and has run his season total up to 15, Otto drove two in on a well hit single, PEPPER recorded 3 RBI on a bases-clearing two-bagger, and Ethan Mullens brought two bags home to run up his SB total to 36 on the year. The pitching was good enough – new guy Estevez struggled, though not as badly as he did in his debut, giving us 5-innings of hard-scrabble work, allowing 6 hits and 3 earned while doling out 4 free passes, and Igarashi wasn’t much better as he gave up 3 runs in 3.2 innings, looking ragged from our skipper’s overuse. He’ll be unavailable tomorrow, we got the win here, but will need our next starter, Brisky, to eat up some innings to keep things rolling.


Elsewhere: 1B Lucas Sartori, an undrafted free agent who signed with the Nolanville ‘Nauts in 2073 out of Kansas is starting to come into his own at 25… he went 3 for 4 with 2 homers, 4 RBI, and 4 runs for his club today as they easily dismissed the Shreveport Sashimi Samurai by a score of 13-8 to save a little face after getting dusted by Shreveport starter, and mustache aficionado, Nathan Rackers in their last contest. Sartori looks to have a little bit of pop in his bat, a good eye at the plate, and some solid fielding abilities at the first bag… he’ll be one to watch as it’s not hard to imagine that a big league club may come calling soon.

87 of 162: Michael Brisk (6-6, 5.28) @ Ryan Burg (1-7, 4.56)
Loss, 7-6 (10). Michael Brisk is from Odessa, TX, which, as you know, is a good stretch from Austin… that doesn’t stop him from acting like he’s on some homecoming tour every time we travel to Texas for a road series… I have it on good authority that he stayed out pretty late last night carousing with the local talent, and, though he gave a solid account of himself here tonight – 6.2 frames, 9 hits, 2 earned, 4 Ks – you have to wonder how good the fella could be if he took the whole professional athlete thing seriously. Even still, we were in this one – a key homer from Ian Hanan to put us up by two in the top of the 9th, some good work from the heart of our order, and several brilliant defensive plays (including OF Assists from Ethan & Voorhis) – but it was too little, too late, as the Grackles remembered the Alamo, dug deep to make sure that they didn’t repeat those mistakes, and knotted it up on a 2-run homer from Rajkumar Kosciusko during the bottom of the 9th, and walked us off an inning later when Warren McLaughlin punched one out to send us to the showers.

Note: Case Tunnell, who has a hitch in his giddyup, was placed on the IL with some lingering “arm trouble” and will miss at least one start. We’ve called up reliever Jan Hernandez in his stead and moved Keith Baeza from the pen to the rotation for the time being.

88 of 162: Keith Baeza (3-2, 5.66) @ Brendan Thompson (0-4, 2.93)
Loss, 4-3. Baeza performed admirably in his spot start – 5.2 innings, 4 hits, 2 earned, and 7 Ks – but Saul Guzman gave up the ghost in relief (allowing runners to score in the bottom of the 8th & 9th) as Austin found a way to walk us off for the second consecutive time. This time, Austin’s Ian Collier was the culprit, sending one out of the park to bring this one to a close. Satoru Ono continued to impress with a 2-run homer, Ethan hit his 2nd triple of the year, and Justin Burton, subbing for a tired Otto tonight, got an outfield assist to catch SS Larry Williams trying to score from 1st on a double.

89 of 162: Trev Anderson (6-0, 2.40) @ Dylan Sistrunk (0-1, 6.57)
Win, 3-0. Trev set the tone over 7 innings of 3-hit, no run ball and Otto put his 23rd ball out of the park to pad our lead in the top of the 8th. Utility man, Rishon Orosz, made the most of his opportunity with a 2-run, difference-making, dinger early, and acquitted himself nicely at 3rd as PEPPER covered first so that we could give Satoru a much-needed night off. Listen, we didn’t board the plane to Austin to come away with a split, but, even still, it’s nice to head into the All-Star break off a win, with our lead in the NL West still intact as we are now operating 3 games ahead of the Outlaws’ pace.

Injury Alert: In some unfortunate news, SS Ernie Sparacino will be out for the next 4-5 months with post-concussion syndrome after a tough collision sliding into second during our last contest. In his stead, we’ll give 1B Oh Hong the call to join the big club. He’ll bat 2nd as our DH (kid’s more than good for it) while Hamza slides into the starting SS role.

Record: 54-35, .606, 1st NL West
Up Next: It’s the All-Star break, which we don’t really care about as only Tony Voorhis made the cut, and then we’ll return to action, at home, against the Pittsburgh Pipers for 4 games.