Portland Pioneers (SVMLB)

[pauwoo]

Colorado Kings (81-78, .509, 5th AL West) @ Portland Pioneers (85-74, .535, 3rd AL West)
Looking things over, at the loose collection of papers my head scout has strewn all over my desk, and it’s all too clear that these Kings of Colorado aren’t that different from us – a little less fortunate perhaps, and nowhere near as adept offensively, but in the larger scheme of things they’re a capable outfit that, with just a few more lucky breaks, could’ve easily found themselves still in the hunt instead of sitting outside the cake on a winning record. Here, with our lead over Vancouver for the final wildcard slot in the American League at just 1-game, these Kings have an opportunity – an opportunity to play the spoiler, the dream ruining also ran who would have one over on a division rival for years to come… and in our house no less. We’d better come correct… or else we could find ourselves on the outside looking in – a vantage point that, after a decade in Los Angeles, I’m not so used to.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP W. Macomber (13-8, 3.68) vs RHP E. Belanger (18-7, 2.55)
RHP P. Yamaguchi (10-4, 3.80) vs RHP J. Sanchez-Flores (11-13, 3.49)
RHP D. Hornbrook (7-9, 3.98) vs LHP L. Álvarez (13-11, 3.63)

#160: Loss, 1-6… and so it begins, our slow and gradual descent into nothingness – a Jess Alford error at SS opened the floodgates with Colorado’s 2nd run coming across to give them a lead they’d not relinquish the rest of the way. Three doubles and a homer for Colorado would be all it’d take to run up the score in this one where our only good fortune came in the form of a 4-8 loss for Vancouver against the Salt Lake Alpines. In fact, despite the loss, our chances at making the playoffs improved to 94.4% as Vancouver needs to win out while we get swept by Colorado to take our spot outright.

#161: Win, 8-2… and still not ‘official’ official – 4 TANKS for the team in this one… 1 each for Leo, Micky, Elijah, and Sam Gore with Sam’s, Micky’s and Leo’s being 2-run shots. We wrecked the base paths a bit too with a couple of swiped bags on the day while the defense behind Yamaguchi, who won his 11th with us after turning in 7.1-innings of work with 8 K’s, finished with two double plays and a Micky Austin outfield assist to catch 3B Aldo Fernandez trying to make it home on a shallow fly ball.

#162: Win, 4-3… And, we clinch on a win – though given that Vancouver lost their last game of the season against the Alpines, a loss would have sufficed. Certainly, our biggest win during my tenure, making it to the playoffs as the last wildcard entrant during a season where we weren’t supposed to finish above 5th in our division is satisfying to say the least. Here, Leo Bullock would rule the day offensively, finishing 1-for-3 with a 3-run TANK, his 26th HR this season, while our bullpen closed out the final four frames by allowing just two hits between four pitchers with Payton Inzen securing his 34th save at the end of it on 12 total pitches… what a nice way to head to the dance, on a win, with a fine performance coming from several of our key guys. We’re ready to shock the world!

Elsewhere: Some notes (I’ll post the standings tomorrow as I start the playoffs over the weekend) – 1B Tom Franzone, of the Boston Patriots, won the 26th Triple Crown in Strangeverse history at 35-years-old. He hit 347/407/597 with 36 dingers and 106 RBI (yeah, I need to update my stats output to, like, 2005 or something) and Los Angeles’ Oh Hong won the batting title in the NL, finishing off the season with a .300 average to lead all in that category.

Record: 87-75, .537, 3rd AL West
Up Next: We’ll open the playoffs against the Salt Lake Alpines, needing to win two in a row in their building as our new Circle Series rule includes spotting the higher seed a game… meaning, if they win just one of the two, we gone.

[pauwoo]

Los Angeles, in the NL, and Charlotte, in our league, each managed to maintain their status as the class of the Majors… the biggest surprise here looks to be the Vancouver Mounties unfortunate fall from grace – just an off year for most of their key players coupled with the ascent of clubs like Salt Lake and ourselves.



Los Angeles and its players had quite a year in the National League… Oh Hong, Otto, T-Rex…



The stories in the American League, as I see it, include Triple Drown winners 1B Tom Franzone and Colorado’s SP Elias Belanger… oh, and our offense had something snappy too.



And, finally, a look at Portland’s finest… your 2085 Pioneers.

[pauwoo]

@ Salt Lake Alpines
The Alpines surprised, confounded, and confused the BNN punditry throughout the 2085 campaign, doing things no one thought they’d be capable of, and, in the early goings at least, at a clip no one saw coming… they were, for large stretches of the season, the class of our division. But, that was then and this is now – the Alpines have limped into the playoffs… they’ll be without 1B Satoru Ono who strained his anterior cruciate ligament, SP Quentin Sieg, who’s out with an elbow strain, their closer Frank Bursley due to shoulder inflammation, and their best player, CF Mason Duryea, who, get this, fractured his finger on the last day of the regular season – he’ll be out until after the conclusion of the Second Series, meaning all the Utahns who’ve come around to these Alpines, who’ve placed their faith in this clubs ability to win it all, won’t get a look at their favorite player unless their club finds its way to the LCS without him.

But first, Montreal and Brooklyn played their first (and last) Circle Series game as the Americans dispatched the representative from Canada, even with legendary Ace Stephen Estevez at the helm for the Alouettes, by a score of 3-1. Next up for Brooklyn… a date with those formidable Leopards of the single greatest city in the free world. Or 15th greatest, I don’t know… who’s counting.



And, with that… away we go…

William Macomber will be manning the bump for us while Salt Lake has elected to go with SP Walt Allen

#2 (technically given that Salt Lake was spotted a game): Win, 6-3… down, 3-2, and headed into the 9th, with the bottom of the order due up and our dreams on the line, Wyatt Raphael would lead us off with a single, followed by a walk for Elijah Arvinda, then another single, this time for Sam Gore, followed by an Angel Marino strikeout on a wild pitch that led to our game tying run… from there Aitor Cubas and Frodo Gonzales would bring our remaining runs in, giving our closer, Payton Inzen, a three-run cushion to work from during the bottom of the frame – and, he’d not disappoint, dispatching these Alpines on 18 pitches to earn his first win of the 2085 playoffs.

And, one more for all the marbles, shall we? We'll go with Kade Voll, a decision I'm unsure of, while the Alpines have elected to start Peter Parrow. He's pretty good.

#3: Loss, 2-4… and, just like that, all of our hopes and dreams, hard work, and dogged determination, squashed, stamped out, extinguished, leaving our club to fumble around in the dark without knowing which way is up, which way is down, where we’re at, or where we’re going… Kade gave up 3 runs in just 4.1-innings of work, and, our offense, facing Salt Lake’s Peter Parrow, wouldn’t be good for it as the Salt Lake starter gave his club 7.1-innings of 5-hit, 2 earned work in this one. We’d hit just one extra base hit, a double for Angel Marino, his second of the playoffs, and leave 8 runners stranded over the course of the game as our American League leading offense came up lame when the chips were down.

Remaining bracket is attached…

Up Next: We'll recap the playoffs, and then get on with the offseason. Bums me out, if I'm honest... I was hoping for that magical, once-in-a-lifetime sprint towards immortality.

[pauwoo]

The Second Series is now in the books... Charlotte dispatched the hard-charging Salt Lake Alpines in 4 games, relying heavily on the two-way play of 3B Broderick Chavis who finished 6-for-14 during the series with three timely HR's and some flawless play in the field. Broderick, who hails from Bellevue, Washington, won the 2083 Boyce Rigg award for Charlotte, and, while he’s not been quite that good since, he seems to be putting everything together at the right time for these Imperials… it could finally be their year… Dallas, winners of the AL West this season, managed to defeat the Nickels in four games and look like a tough out for anyone as they head into the League Championship - RF Simon Harris led the way for them in the Divisional Round as the Chaparrals punched their LCS ticket despite poor showings from C Dominic Cooke, 2B JJ Barbari, and CF Lonzo Gonzalez during their series against Buffalo… Meanwhile, in the National League those dastardly Los Angeles Leopards had no trouble dismantling the Brooklyn Americans, defeating the NL East runners-up by sweep to head into the LCS on an unblemished playoff record… CF Hernando Benavidez led the way on both sides of the ball for the Leopards while All-Timer Otto Isaac showed the fans that he still has it, finishing 3-for-13 with TWO TANKS and three total RBI for the set… and, finally, the Austin Grackles defeated the Philadelphia Liberty, 3 games to 1, on the back of SP Joe Matthiessen’s complete-game shutout to kick off the series coupled with SS Hamza McDonnell’s clutch 6-for-18, 3 RBI performance during the 4-games…

Updated bracket is attached…

[pauwoo]

Welp… after the dust had settled on the League Championship Series it’d be an all Texas finale in Major League Baseball this season as the Dallas Chaparrals dispatched the Charlotte Imperials with relative ease, 4 games to 1, in the ALCS – relying on the superb relief work of Elmar Pirov who secured 3 saves and a win in 8-innings of work spread across each of his clubs 4 victories – while the Austin Grackles defeated their nemesis, the Los Angeles Leopards, in what was a slobber knocker of a 7-game series, 4 games to 3 with that winning game 7 effort coming on the road in Los Angeles… OH HONG finished 2-for-5 with a 2-run DING DONG in Game 7 but also hit the game-ending double play ball that brought an abrupt close to the Leopards season…

Updated bracket is attached…

[pauwoo]

An all-Texas Championship – fun for the locals, much less interesting for the rest of the country, and, as a result, not the ideal World Series for our league. Having said that this has, so far, been one for the ages… we kicked things off with Dallas coming out gangbusters – reeling off three dominant wins in a row with a devil may care attitude and the air of a champion. Austin wouldn’t have it though – they’d not lay down and die, content to fade away, accepting this lopsided fate. Nay! Not these Grackles, no siree. Instead, on the back of three gutsy wins in a row they find themselves on the precipice of something truly special – a World Series win by REVERSE SWEEP. It’s a tough scenario to not to root for – a gutsy, come-from-behind series victory for the ages and against a newly established division rival to boot? Yeah, maybe… even though these Grackles gave me fits during my time as the Los Angeles GM, a fitting rival while I helmed that club who ended our consecutive division titles at 6 in 2081, and, even though they dispatched those same Leopards during this years NLCS, a team I still very much care about, I’ll have to put my chips on their side of the table… I’m all in on them completing this near-miraculous come from behind, World Series Reverse Sweep….

Austin @ Dallas
Game 7: Joe Matthiessen (2-1, 2.84) @ Jihei Arai (0-1, 6.17)
Austin 6, Dallas 2… Dallas, after leading 3-0 to start the World Series, has lost it all, at home, in the most embarrassing way possible – dropping the deciding game to a club that calls the same state home is rough enough, but you add in that it went down by REVERSE SWEEP and that’s just salt in the wound, my friends. Here LF Anthony Jamison, who finished 2-for-4 with a 2-run TANK, and SS Hamza McDonnell with his 2-run double would be the story offensively while 26-year-old pitching stud, Joe Matthiessen, turned in another fine performance in what was a playoffs filled with them for the young man, turning in a 7-inning, 2-hit, 2 earned performance to enter his 3rd win of the playoffs into the permanent record. Austin, after a decade spent as the NL West also ran behind Los Angeles, finally breaks through – winning the 3rd title in team history and first since way, way back in 2052… All hail the Grackles! Champions of the World!

Austin LFer Lucas Keiler, who finished 12-for-29 with TWO TANKS and 10 RBI, took home the World Series MVP trophy. Good on him… he’ll never pay for brisket in Austin ever again.



Up Next: We’ll power through the offseason, make some small changes to the file (maybe), retool our Pioneers a little bit, and hit 2086 with a full tank of gas and some lofty dreams to fulfill.

[pauwoo]

Offseason Awards
Dom Cooke, backstop for the Dallas Chaparrals, took home the Gold Glove at his position in the American League while SP Patrick Torres (Mexico City), 1B Archie Imanov (Las Vegas), 3B Luca Biacchi (Los Angeles), and RFer Ethan Mullens (Los Angeles) each did the same in the National League.
Elmar Pirov, of the Dallas Chaparrals took home his first ever Kingston Cashmore award at the tender age of 35, while Vegas’ CL Bob Tate claimed the hardware over in the National League.
1B Tom Franzone (9x, BOS) took home a Silver Slugger Award in the American League. Meanwhile, in the National League it would be C Mason Click (3x, LAL), 1B Otto Isaac (9x, LAL), and DH Oh Hong (2x, LAL) taking home that same honor.
New York’s 1B Spike Tucker took home the Greenhorn of the Year Award in the American League while CF Adrian Pierce, of the San Diego Skipjacks, did the same in the National League.
Your Victor Pacheco Award winners were Colorado SP Elias Belanger, a unanimous pick, and Austin’s SP Joe Matthiessen, who earned 18 of 24 first place votes.
And, finally, your Boyce Rigg recipients are Boston’s Tom Franzone (.347/36/106) and Los Angeles’ 1B Otto Isaac, who, it should be noted, barely edged out San Diego’s Sanuel Preston for the award.

Summary of Offseason Changes
I updated the Uniforms/Caps for the following Minor League Clubs… Sparks Mustangs. And, that’s it.

Summary of Offseason Roster Moves
Traded 21yo SP Donovan Fitzpatrick (20/47) and 23yo RP Tyler Gilman (50/57) to Las Vegas for 20yo RP Micah Holman (56/56)
Traded 27yo SP Kade Voll (47/49) to Phoenix for RP Nuno Vera (53/54) and prospect LF Andres Santana (26/43).
Traded 25yo 2B Tate Ramsey (48/48) to Dallas for 28yo RF Simon Harris (50/52) and 21yo 2B Blanco Whitt (28/49)
Traded 28yo RP Waldo Long (57/58) to Salt Lake for 24yo SP Wendell Winston (48/56)
Traded 22yo Sam Gore ((54/57) to New Orleans for SS Skyler Dickey (52/52)
Signed RP Noah DiMaio (63/63) to a 1-year, $12mm contract.

Summary of Notable FA Signings
Toronto Maple Leafs: Signed SP Arturo Rodriguez to a 3-year contract worth a total of $71.6mm
Los Angeles Leopards: Signed SP Jack Sanchez-Flores to a 3-year contract worth a total of $70.2mm
Pittsburgh Pipers: Signed 1B Oh Hong to a 3-year contract worth a total of $88.2mm
Montreal Alouettes: Signed SP Trevor Dotson to a 3-year contract worth a total of $72.6mm
Montreal Alouettes: Signed SP Marco Ortega to a 2-year contract worth a total of $39.2mm
Buffalo Nickels: Signed RF Neil Jahraus to a 3-year contract worth a total of $64.2mm
Philadelphia Liberty: Signed 2B Telma Taveras to a 1-year contract worth $14.4mm
Pittsburgh Pipers: Signed RF Ethan Mullens to a 2-year deal worth a total of $45.2mm
Colorado Kings: Signed SS Demetri Rodriguez to a 3-year contract worth a total of $35.7mm
Salt Lake Alpines: Signed SS Jess Alford to a 2-year contract worth a total of $27.1mm
Salt Lake Alpines: Signed 3B Reuben Johnston to a 2-year deal worth a total of 37.2mm
Colorado Kings: Signed SS Brad Gallo to a 2-year contract worth a total of $27.8mm
Montreal Alouettes: Signed 1B Palmer Parker to a 3-year deal worth a total of $68.4mm
Miami Herons: Signed SP Cathal Magill to a 3-year, $51mm deal
Phoenix Coyotes: Signed RF Rajkumar Kosciusko to a 3-year, $61.4mm deal
Philadelphia Liberty: Signed 1B Satoru Ono to a 1-year, $7.9mm deal
Miami Herons: Signed SP AJ Quimby to a 3-year, $52.2mm contract
Las Vegas Outlaws: Signed RF Mack Ramirez to a 3-year, $56.4mm deal
New Orleans Gators: Signed RP Elmar Pirov to a 1-year, $7.6mm deal.
Buffalo Nickels: Signed RF Aitor Cubas to a 1-year, $19.4mm deal.
Detroit Motors: Signed 2B Dan Blasko to a 1-year, $7.5mm deal.

A look at the preseason predictions, our offense, and pitching – if the punditry is correct, I’ve built Portland into the best team in the Majors, in only my second season as GM…





The Offense...


The Staff...

[pauwoo]

Vs. Dallas Chaparrals (0-0, .000, t-1st AL West)
We’ll welcome the former class of the American League to our house, fresh off their harrowing loss to Austin in the World Series, as an opener to what should, for us, be the start of something truly special – that is, of course, if you choose to believe the admittedly spotty BNN punditry and their hackneyed predictions put forth each year after running suspect calculations on the most unscientific of calculators. And, if I’m honest… I don’t trust them – 1. Because I don’t think we’re as good as they do, and 2. Because the Chaparrals have a real shot at winning the division again – and they’re definitely not finishing 5th on the AL WEST table, that’s for sure…

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP W. Macomber (0-0, 0.00) vs LHP J. Hruska (0-0, 0.00)
RHP D. Hornbrook (0-0, 0.00) vs RHP C. Gould (0-0, 0.00)
RHP M. Holman (0-0, 0.00) vs RHP R. Straub (0-0, 0.00)

#1: Loss, 0-4… dropping the season opener, at home, and being held scoreless? Yeah, that’s not the way we drew it up. Macomber looked solid, though he’ll take the loss after giving up just one run in 6.1-innings of work while his competition, Josh Hruska, was tossing beebees for 7-innings of shutout baseball. 3B Buffalo Maliwat came out swinging for Dallas, finishing 2-for-4 at the plate with a 3-run TANK and run-scoring double sprinkled in for good measure while the Chaps’ defense made mincemeat of our boys, turning 2 double plays and completing two perfectly thrown OF assists. Also, CL Payton Inzen gave up three runs during the top of the 8th, allowing Dallas to extend their lead by an unreachable margin.

Note: NCAA Play opens tonight… the Grand Lakes University Hooters are your preseason pick to win the championship… yeah, right. They’ll find a way to muck it up.

#2: Loss, 6-7 (12)… after Dallas came all the way back from three down with a 5-run top of the 7th, the boys would have to dig down deep to knot things up during the bottom of that frame, and, when Dallas went up again during the top of the 8th, we’d have to dig deep once more to tie the ball game with a Shane Fukumoto solo homer, one of three TANKS for him tonight, only to have that effort be spent in vain… here, the Chaparrals continued to stick it to us at the start of the 2086 campaign, finding a way to beat our squad without hitting a single extra base hit. I feel for Shane – 3-for-5 with 3 TANKS… should have been a win.

#3: Win, 5-3… Frodo put two out and finished 3-for-4 on the day, including the 2-run DING DONG that put our boys up for good during the bottom of the 8th, Micah Holman managed to give us 5-innings of 3-hit, 2-earned work with 6 K’s, we fielded two expertly executed double plays behind him, Leo Bullock swiped his second bag of the season, and our new closer, Noah DiMaio, secured his first save as a Pioneer while our former closer, Payton Inzen, was credited with the win from the setup role. Listen, winning just 1 of 3 to start the season, and at home, isn’t ideal… but, as ever, we move forward – never straight.


Elsewhere: RF Aitor Cubas, now doing the dirt for the Buffalo Nickels, finished 2-for-4 with 2 TANKS and 5 total RBI to lead his new club to a resounding, 6-1 win over the Detroit Motors. With the win, Buffalo improved to 2-1 on the year, winning their opening set, on the road. Also, former Leopard, current Motor, Dan Blasko, put one out for Detroit during the contest, representing their only run of the game.

Record: 1-2, .333, 4th AL West
Up Next: We’ll head out on the road, north to Seattle, for a 3-game set against our closest rival.

[pauwoo]

@ Seattle Metros (2-1, .666, 2nd AL West)
The Metros offense has come out gangbusters, just three games in and already leading our league in OBP, OPS, bWAR, and wOBA… the heart of their order – 2B Vance Dudgeon, DH Austin Velasquez, and RF Patrick Adams - have come off the line in a full sprint, with Patrick really doing the dirt to the tune of a .545 average so far with THREE TANKS and EIGHT RBI. The pitching has been solid too – especially the bullpen. Here, we’ll get the back of their rotation before flipping it back around to get a look at their Ace, Adam Gunter, for the first time this season.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP B. Sánchez (0-0, 0.00) vs RHP W. Felix (0-0, 0.00)
LHP N. Vera (0-0, 0.00) vs LHP C. Newby (0-0, 0.00)
RHP W. Macomber (0-1, 1.42) vs LHP A. Gunter (1-0, 3.68)

#4: Win, 6-1… SP Bernal Sanchez secured his first win of the season off a 6.1-inning, 5-hit, 1-earned performance and RP Peter Yamaguchi gave us 2.2 flawless innings in relief, tossing a clean sheet marked up only by his 3 K’s. Offensively, our boys did it up big time with three doubles and a homer… Leo did the honors in that regard, finishing 2-for-4 with his 2nd HR of the season and 2 total RBI on the day. We’d swipe a couple of bags as well – one each for Leo Bullock & Blanco Whitt – while also leaving a total of 11 runners stranded in what could have been a real blood bath.


Elsewhere: Satoru Ono, now putting in reps with the Philadelphia Liberty, went 3-for-4 with 2 TANKS during a tilt against their division rival, Brooklyn Americans, to lead his new club to a satisfying, 6-3 win on the road in New York. Ono, after being traded to the Salt Lake Alpines late last season by Mexico City found himself a free agent at seasons end and elected to sign in Philadelphia for 1-year and a total of $7.9mm in pay. Looks like he’s worth every penny so far…

#5: Win, 3-0… We’d secure the series win, relying on the offensive efforts of Frodo Gonzales (2-for-3, HR) and Leo Bullock (1-for-3, RBI) and the pitching of Nuno Vera, who gave us 5.2-innings of 6-hit filthiness before turning it over to the pen where, after holds from Morris Jones & Jeremiah Fletchall, CL Noah DiMaio would pick up his 2nd save of the season on 17 total pitches. Three swiped bags for the club here too as we were surprised by an early Adam Gunter start, dealing the Seattle Ace his first loss of the season despite that underhanded surprise.

#6: Loss, 3-10… after earning decisive victories over our first two contests in Seattle, the Metros would finally get fed up with our styling on them, in their park, and get some of that sweet, sweet revenge for themselves as they tuned us up in this one, dealing Macomber his 2nd loss of the season after hanging 4 of their 10 runs on our starter and then spreading those last six evenly across our bullpen. Leo Bullock hit his 3rd dinger of the year while Seattle’s Johnny Ramos, Andy Dennis, and Patrick Adams each put one out for the bad guys. And, Seattle’s defense successfully squashed each of our rally attempts, turning two perfectly timed double plays in this one to keep the boys from mounting any kind of comeback, furious or otherwise.


Note: Seattle’s RF Patrick Adams went 12-for-22 with 4 homers, 9 RBI, and 6 scores this week… he’ll be named the AL player of the week tomorrow… or we riot.

Record: 3-3, .500, 3rd AL West
Up Next: We’ll make the trek from Seattle to Salt Lake City for a date against the club who extinguished the candle we lit last season as a demonstration of all our hopes and dreams… and, while winning a regular season set in Utah is hardly sufficient revenge for being ousted so unceremoniously from last years playoffs, it’s the only option we have in front of us so far, so we’ll get after it with gusto.

[pauwoo]

@ Salt Lake Alpines (0-6, .000, 6th AL West)
We’d return to the scene of last year’s crime to find a perpetrator in crisis – winless, ranked last or second-to-last in every offensive category worth tracking, and, really, just a shell of their former selves thus far in 2086. Former Pioneer, SP Waldo Long, will get the nod against us in the first game of this set – he got shelled his last time out, allowing 6 earned over just 2-innings of work (the guy we got for him, Wendell Winston, wasn’t much better in his debut with us)… so, an opportunity for him to show us what we’ll miss out on after trading him away and an opportunity for us to exact some small measure of revenge for last season’s unfortunate end.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP D. Hornbrook (0-0, 6.75) vs RHP W. Long (0-0, 27.00)
RHP M. Holman (0-0, 3.60) vs RHP R. Taylor (0-1, 11.57)
RHP B. Sánchez (1-0, 1.42) vs RHP T. Green (0-0, 1.29)

#7: Loss, 4-6… there’d be no revenge, sweet or otherwise, and Waldo, try as he might, left something to be desired with his 5-inning, 7-hit, 3-earned performance in his first outing against his former club. What we did get here was a listless performance from our boys, including a scant two extra base hits, and an abysmal outing from Hornbrook who wasn’t able to make it through the 2nd inning after allowing 5 earned runs through 1.2-innings of work. And, only two of our runs were driven in, one RBI each for Frodo and Skyler Dickey, while the other two came around on wild pitches… we had a lot of nothing in this one, folks – really need to see the boys kick it up a notch and win out here in Salt Lake.


Elsewhere: 35-year-old, 2B Heathcote Kinton, a Phoenix mainstay since, er, 2085, reached a career milestone during a 3-for-5, 4 RBI day against the Las Vegas Outlaws, crushing his 300th career homerun during the hard-fought, 8-7 victory for his club. 35-years-old, still fierce, and still contributing at a world class level… All hail Heathcote – one of my faves.

#8: Win, 5-1… mostly listless until the top of the 9th, after Salt Lake had knotted this one up during the bottom of the previous frame at 1 each, as the bottom of our lineup drove four in between them to put us up by a margin the Alpines had no chance to close. Simon Harris finished 2-for-3 with 2 runs, Blanco Whitt drove one in on a single to open our scoring during the top of the 7th, and C Elijah Arvinda hit his first DINGER of the season, a 2-run shot, during that fateful top of the 9th… solid, 6-inning outing from Micah Holman, allowing just two hits and nothing earned during his time on the mound, with former closer, current set-up man, Payton Inzen claiming his 2nd win of the season despite also being charged with a blown save as he allowed the game tying run during the bottom of the 8th. Also, it should be noted that, Rad Taylor, a former Leopard and all-time favorite of mine, acquitted himself nicely here, putting forth 6-innings of 5-hit, 1 earned baseball before handing it over to a bullpen who just wasn’t good for it tonight.

#9: Win, 11-5… here we’d systematically dismantle Salt Lake’s staff, holding them to account for their 2085 transgressions, and just really sticking it to them in front of their hometown fans, their families, wives, parents, children, girlfriends, and mistresses… Simon Harris went bananas – 3-for-5 with a 2-run DING DONG and 5 total RBI, C Elijah Arvinda hit a 2-out, bases-clearing double, and SS Skyler Dickey continues to impress with another RBI for the club. 4 stolen bases – Micky, Simon, Leo, and Blanco – 2 double plays, an outfield assist, and a fine, 6-inning, 8-hit, 5 earned performance from Bernal who stays unbeaten despite his so-so form. We’ll take it – our second series win in a row after dropping that first one to Dallas in our building.

Record: 5-4, .555, 4th AL West
Up Next: We’ll mosey on back to Pendleton Park for a 3-game set against those Kings of Colorado. Who, by the way, find themselves at the top of the pops in our division.

[pauwoo]

Vs. Colorado Kings (6-3, .667, 1st AL West)
Colorado is in a good way, ranked tops in our league offensively with a pitching staff that is, as ever, decidedly middle of the road – still, it’s been a great start for these Kings who, despite not looking so good on paper, have come out gangbusters to start the ’86 campaign. Former Leopard, Demetri Rodriguez, has played well so far, hitting .375/1/7, and RF Evan Prag, who signed a 1-year, $10.9mm deal with Colorado during the offseason, has settled in quite nicely to his cleanup role, hitting .382 with a TANK and 6 RBI. The staff, as mentioned earlier, has yet to settle in… we’ll kick things off in this set against their Ace, SP Elias Belanger, who, despite his good looking profile as mocked up by my scout, will bring a 0-1 record with a 5.91 ERA to the game with him.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
LHP N. Vera (1-0, 0.00) vs RHP E. Belanger (0-1, 5.91)
RHP W. Macomber (0-2, 3.97) vs LHP J. Lynch (0-0, 4.50)
RHP D. Hornbrook (0-1, 10.80) vs LHP L. Álvarez (0-0, 6.30)

#10: Loss, 2-6… still struggling at home, showing serious discomfort in what should be our most comfortable confines… here we were undone by a 4-run top of the 5th as our starter, Nuno Vera, came unglued, allowing 4 of the 5 total runs that were charged to his account during that fateful frame, while our offense, asked to mount a furious comeback, couldn’t be bothered to do so as Colorado’s bullpen held us in relative check over the final 3 innings of this contest, making all those in attendance wonder why they came out to the ballpark tonight at all. We need to get the whole ‘winning at home’ thing sorted, and quickly lest my ticket sales swoon as hard as an 8th grader with a too-hot-for-tv math tutor.

#11: Win, 6-4 (10)… it’d take extras, and we’d have to dig down deep, before getting this one sorted on a 2-run, walk off homer courtesy of Leo Bullock that, to me, felt like the unofficial start to our ’86 campaign. Leo finished 4-for-6 with that 2-run TANK, and 4 total RBI with Skyler and Elijah, as ever, making up the difference as both light-hitting, defensive dynamos have been showcasing their hitting of late. Macomber would settle for the no decision after a serviceable, 6.1-innings of ho-hum, 5-hit, 3 earned ball, with our Closer, Noah DiMaio picking up his first win in a Pioneers kit after closing this one out during the top of the 10th to set up Bullocks late game heroics.

Note: We lost our 1B Angel Marino during that last one – Team Trainer, and Japan Heart Surgeon #1, Hidetoshi Hasegawa, diagnosed your boy with torn ankle ligaments and estimates that he’ll be out of service for about 4 weeks… In his stead we’ll call up LF Bruce Sarmiento who, it should be noted, can’t play a lick of first base.

#12: Win, 3-1... We’ve won our 3rd set in a row, our first at home, against a club of would be Kings who, over the course of these last few days at least, were found wonting, and wholly incapable of beating the likes of us. Blanco Whitt played the hero role here, hitting the game-winner during the bottom of the 5th, a perfectly stroked run-scoring single, with Shane Fukumoto and Leo Bullock contributing our other two runs while our staff, led by the incomparable Dominic Hornbrook, who picked up his first win of the season after turning in 5.1-innings of work, ran roughshod over Colorado’s much-vaunted offense. Save #3 for DiMaio who still has not allowed a single run this season… your boy has been immaculate.

Record: 7-5, .583, 2nd AL West
Up Next: A day off followed by a visit from the Vancouver Mounties, who have performed at a 6-6 clip so far… doing baseball so-so, and risking getting squished like grape.

Oh, and… HEY! Before I forget – 1B Otto Isaac, 37-years-old and still going strong in Los Angeles, won player of the week in the National League after hitting 10-for-26 with 2 TANKS, 6 RBI, and 7 runs of his own. Father time seems to have overlooked old boy… I like it. One more thing… don’t look now – but – Montreal, who retooled during the offseason with several key free agent acquisitions (SP’s Trevor Dotson & Marco Ortega, and LF Palmer Parker), have come out swingin’ in ’86, posting a 9-3 record to kick this thing off and looking every bit the world beater they have designs on being.

[pauwoo]

Vs. Vancouver Mounties (6-6, .500, 4th AL West)
After 9 years of AL West dominance, the Vancouver Mounties took a step back last season, turning in a body of work that did not equal the sum of their parts but instead was colored with off years for some key constituents and long stretches of shoddy luck. Unlike last season, however, this version of the Mounties is expected to be decidedly ho-hum, the type of outfit that is adept at treading water but is unable to get themselves out of the pool. Sure, they boast the likes of CF Norris Flaherty, a 1x Boyce Rigg winner with 6 All-Star selections to his name, in their lineup and have studs like SP Hunter Vaughn & SP Russ Galan at the top of their rotation… it’s just that, beneath that glamorous surface, is an 80-pound weakling who’s kicking furiously just to stay afloat.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP M. Holman (0-0, 1.64) vs RHP S. Kenny (1-0, 4.22)
RHP B. Sánchez (2-0, 4.38) vs RHP R. Galan (1-1, 2.84)
LHP N. Vera (1-1, 4.50) vs LHP T. Mack (0-0, 2.92)

#13: Win, 4-1… SP Micah Holman earned the win in his second start of the season, performing admirably over 6-innings of filthy 5-hit, 1-earned work that included 5 total Ks and Frodo Gonzales’ 2-run double sealed Vancouver’s fate during the bottom of the 4th inning. SS Skyler Dickey hit his first HR of the season, Fukumoto hit a triple and scored, we turned three double plays, and even got a perfectly thrown OF assist from Bullock, catching RF Peter Claw trying to make it all the way to 3rd on a Basil Sanchez single. Also, I probably should have known this going in, but… CF Norris Flaherty, who went 2-for-3 with a run scored tonight, has now hit safely in 20 straight games. Hopefully, we can wreck that for him tomorrow.

#14: Win, 4-3… We’d ride a 2-run bottom of the 7th all the way to victory here, thwarting a late, 2-run rally during the top of the 8th that brought these Mounties to within one. Recent callup, DH Bruce Sarmiento, hit the game winner, a 2-run single for his first runs batted in since joining the big club while Angel Marino is on the mend, we got doubles from Leo and Blanco, and newcomer, LF Simon Harris, hit his second TANK since joining the club. Great start from Bernal too – he’ll be credited with his third win of the season after turning in a tip-top, 7-inning, 5-hit, 1 earned masterpiece for us here. Oh, and CF Norris Flaherty, went 0-for-4 with one K… so, um, yeah – to heck with that guy.

#15: Win, 7-6… we’d mount a furious, come-from-behind, rally to get the sweep, capping off our 3-run bottom of the 9th with a walk off, run-scoring sacrifice fly courtesy of new guy, Simon Harris. Skyler, Leo, and Micky each contributed an RBI with Sarmiento contributing 2 more from the DH spot as our club smacked three doubles, a triple, and a HR as a unit to get the nod here… Rough outing for Nuno Vera who gave up all 6 of Vancouver’s runs before the end of the 3rd frame, but the pen, led by Yamaguchi’s 2.1 innings and Payton Inzen’s 2.2, would hold the Mounties scoreless the rest of the way to give our boys all the room they’d need to come back and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Note: Play has officially begun in AAA, AA, and A-Ball – and all three of our development outfits (Eugene in AAA, Corvallis in AA, and Coos Bay in A-Ball) lost their first game. And, all three were at home. For shame.

Record: 10-5, .666, 1st AL West
Up Next: We’ll hit the road for a trip to Toronto where we’ll meet the Leafs, on their turf, for a 3-game set.

[pauwoo]

@ Toronto Maple Leafs (6-9, .400, 5th AL East)
With an offense that has sputtered off the line and a group of starters with serious control issues and no movement to speak of, the fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs has won 6 games seems like a low-key miracle. They have the look of a club destined to lose 100+ games, an also ran on autopilot without sufficient internet connectivity to get the updates necessary to keep this thing from crashing into oncoming traffic. They just don’t have enough of what it takes to be a serviceable baseball club – helmed by a nonexistent front office, devoid of any imagination, and owned by a penny-pinching madman who’s more interested in his other companies than this plaything that his father loved so much.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP W. Macomber (0-2, 4.08) vs LHP A. Rodríguez (0-1, 4.11)
RHP D. Hornbrook (1-1, 7.24) vs RHP T. Belew (0-3, 7.53)
RHP M. Holman (1-0, 1.59) vs RHP J. Santana (0-2, 6.63)

#16: Win, 4-0… William Macomber picks up his first win of the 2086 campaign after giving us 5-innings of crafty, 3-hit, shutout work and the unheralded, yet surprisingly effective, Bruce Sarmiento was at it again with a 2-for-3 effort and solo homer to get things started (and finished as it were) during the top of the 4th inning. Frodo and Mickey were responsible for our other runs, Blanco Whitt went hitless but did secure a rare SAC BUNT, Micky burgled his 4th bag of the season, and our defense fielded a crispy, Bridges-Dickey-Frodo double play. Good stuff all around – off on the good foot, winners of 6 in a row now...


Elsewhere: In what was a big day for Power Pitching Miscreants everywhere, Montreal’s SP Stephen Estevez had his top shelf stuff in a tilt against the San Diego Skipjacks, twirling a complete-game, 3-hit shutout with 12 K’s to lead his club to a deafening 2-0 win at home in Oh, Canada. Not to be outdone, even though he (technically) was, Mexico City’s SP Patrick Torres, recorded 10 K’s during a 2-1 win for the Jaguars over the Miami Herons, in Florida.

#17: Loss, 4-5… close but no cigar – we’d fight for it here, trying to secure that ever elusive 7th straight win, scoring once during the top of the 7th and again during the top of the 8th to pull within one run, but the backend of Toronto’s staff, namely CL Jerome Dial, was good for it as he picked up his 3rd save of the year after turning in 1.2-innings of hitless work. Shane Fukumoto hit his 5th DING DONG of the year, Blanco hit two, two-baggers, and we even got a timely SAC FLY from DH Rowan Calvin – but, it was those 10 runners we left stranded over the course of the game that did us in here as we were unable to convert the two more we’d need to get a win in this one.

#18: Loss, 5-9… If we could flip this score around, we’d be back on it, and likely humming that Dolly Parton classic but, instead, will be forced to live with it this way, forced to endure some pale, Kellie Pickler impression, auto-tuned to the gills and filled with the types of deep south colloquialisms that don’t even make sense to the locals. Shane Fukumoto finished 2-for-4 with a 2-run TANK and Leo blasted a 3-run shot here – but they’d not be enough as the Toronto Leafs wailed on us something fierce, leaving us with a couple of bad ones on our way out the door.

Record: 11-7, .611, 2nd AL West
Up Next: A quick hop to Detroit for a 3-game set against the Motors.

Sidenote: After not doing much to the file, I decided to combine the Bush League and Western Bush League and then rebranded the lion’s share of the teams. The league now looks like the following..



I’m going to do a 96-game schedule for each SL, with no interleague silliness, followed by a playoff tournament structured just like the one I do for the SVMLB. I set up a new General Manager in the save and will likely set up a dynasty report for whatever team I assign him to when the league starts up on May 1st, 2086… or, more likely, I won’t. We’ll see.

[pauwoo]

@ Detroit Motors (6-12, .333, 6th AL East)
Gone is its legendary tone, its Stooges, and its MC5, its Supremes and Temptations – replaced, unceremoniously, by Baseball’s version of Loggins and Messina esque Yacht Rock so devoid of style, originality, and verve that the Motors have gone from being a creamy Neapolitan masterpiece to a bowl of the blandest vanilla ice cream the world has ever known. Or, something like that… look, what I mean to say is that these guys suck, they offer no danger, are nothing to be scared of, and, really, just don’t belong on the same field as us, or anyone for that matter. They should fold, close up shop, flee under the darkness of night, and relocate this sorry excuse for a ball team to somewhere more suitable like Cleveland or Columbus, Nashville or Memphis… somewhere without such a storied history, somewhere that, never having seen it before, would struggle to recognize what a pale comparison of the Motors of old this current incarnation really is. If we fail to sweep, we riot.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP B. Sánchez (3-0, 3.26) vs LHP P. Morales (1-1, 4.91)
LHP N. Vera (1-1, 7.24) vs RHP L. Morelli (1-3, 11.40)
RHP W. Macomber (1-2, 3.18) vs RHP J. Miller (0-0, 0.00)

#19: Loss, 3-10… Detroit’s Yoshimasa Sugawara hit us in the face with some of that hellacious Detroit fuzz during a 3-for-5, 2 RBI day, the Motors offense et al hit 6 two-baggers as a unit, and starter, Pablo Morales, tossed the pill around like Rob Tyner on the mic kicking pain through your speaker, holding the boys in relative check over 6.1-innings of 7 K filthiness. For our part, two doubles and a Micky Austin homer coupled with a tip-top, 6-inning, 1 earned effort from Bernal wouldn’t be enough to get the deed done as Detroit Rock City teed off on us like the final boss of Joe Louis Punchout (also a sweet tune by Portland Alt-Rock heroes, Hazel… dig on this tasty jam).


Elsewhere: 35yo pitching legend, and current Seattle Ace, Adam Gunter, had something snappy during his most recent outing, a complete game, 1-hit shutout with 10 K’s to lead his Metros to a hard fought, 3-1 victory over the Charlotte Imperials. The 3x Victor Pacheco award winner is off to a 1-2 start to the year with a 2.41 ERA, 33 K, 163 ERA+ start to his 13th Major League season.

#20: Loss, 1-5… Oof – more of the same for us in Detroit as starter Leland Morelli kept our squad in line over 6-innings of 3-hit work while the offense on the other side of the ball kept pumping out the hits just one night after trotting them all out to a packed house on Friday. Shane Fukumoto provided our only highlight, a solo homer and his 7th longball on the year, while Nuno Vera and Payton Inzen shared 4 of Detroit’s 5 runs between them equally as that 5th time around came courtesy of a Skyler Dickey fielding error. At this point, we just wanna get out of this town… do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars – just give us our bed, our pillow, and a warm & familiar body cuddled up next to us so we can cry ourselves to a listless sleep spent dreaming about all the ways this season has gone off the rails.

Okay, that was a little overwrought. Melodramatic, even.

#21: Win, 3-0… William Macomber acquitted himself, and perhaps our entire staff, nicely in this one, tossing a 7.2-inning, 4-hit, 7 K shutout to improve to 2-2 on the year with a team-leading 2.37 ERA. Sarmiento, Fukumoto, and Micky Austin did the dirt for us offensively, with Bruce finishing 2-for-4 with a double and a 2-run TRUCK to pace our output. Two swiped bags, 8 runners left stranded, and save #6 for DiMaio would round out the things worth talking about here as our club managed to right the ship on our way out the door so that we may fly home a winner, even though we finished an abysmal 2-4 during this 6-game road through the AL East.

Record: 12-9, .571, 2nd AL West
Up Next: We’ll get back into Portland late this evening, make our way back to our individual homes, and get what is hopefully a good night’s rest in our own bed before getting back after it against one of the biggest bullies on the AL block in the Charlotte Imperials.

[pauwoo]

Vs. Charlotte Imperials (13-8, .619, 1st AL East)
Boasting our league’s best RDiff at +27 and coming in on the exact record predicted by the Pyt, it’s safe to say that, as ever, these Imperials are on point. They’re not going anywhere – still the class of the league looking for that one playoff breakthrough that will carry them all the way through to the promised land. That the BNN Punditry sees them slipping, predicting that they will finish 2nd in their division for the first time since 2081, is of no consequence – I have no idea how they got that job and on whose authority they claim to be capable of seeing into the future. They can’t… because fortune tellers are just gypos with the gift of gab, witchcraft isn’t real, there’s no such thing as ghosts, and the future has yet to be written. Here, we’ll have an opportunity to add to our ever-evolving story, to make it jump off the page with gusto and real verve, and at the expense of the Charlotte Imperials… if ever an opportunity we’d not want to waste…

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP D. Hornbrook (1-2, 6.75) vs RHP T. Sheard (4-0, 1.93)
RHP M. Holman (1-1, 3.27) vs RHP L. Schmidt (2-1, 2.57)
RHP B. Sánchez (3-1, 2.84) vs RHP N. Granado (0-1, 4.79)

#22: Win, 3-1… RP Peter Yamaguchi came on to give us a fierce 2.2-innings of immaculate relief work after Hornbrook left early due to a mild oblique strain, earning his first win of the season out of the pen while our offense gave him just enough to work with to accomplish that feat. SS Skyler Dickey, playing way above his head offensively at this point, was the whole show for us, hitting a bases-clearing double during the bottom of the 1st that sufficiently spelled Charlotte’s doom.


Elsewhere: Aitor Cubas, settling in quite nicely with Buffalo after we took a flyer out on him from the Bush League last season, went 2-for-4 with TWO TANKS, 3 total RBI, and 3 runs to lead his club to a razor-thin, 6-5 win over the Dallas Chaparrals at home in New York. With these two homers, Aitor now finds himself leading the majors at 9 so far this year while our own Shane Fukumoto, Vancouver’s Baron Henry, and Brooklyn’s Nicky Bowman are nipping at his heels with 7 each, respectively.

#23: Loss, 3-2… Oh how the turntables have turned… here, the Imperials would rely on skill, guile, and overall baseball playing acumen to get the win, against us, in our house after scoring all three of their runs early, prior to the finish of the 4th frame. We fanned 8 times as a club and left 16 runners stranded despite Frodo’s double, and homers from Leo & Simon Harris… we threw two perfectly executed DP’s into the mix here as well – though they were all for naught as the Imperials managed to stay one step ahead of the spider until the very last pitch.

#24: Win, 7-2… putting a winning set on the board over the Charlotte Imperials, even at home, is nothing to shake a stick at… it’s a step in the right direction, forward momentum that shouldn’t be ignored, and a development that clubs on our periphery are certainly well aware of… sure, it’s early, teams are still finding the right gear, learning about who they are and who they’re going to be, but, here, with this dominant 7-2 victory over the club that has been the class of the American League for the last 6 seasons, we’ve made a low key statement. Bernal picked up the win, his 4th of the season, after turning in a sturdy 6.2-inning, 7-hit, 2 earned performance, and the bottom of our lineup did the bulk of the damage with 2 RBI each for Blanco, Bruce, and Elijah as the boys capped off this set with a big win to send our fans off into the night on something of a high note.

Record: 14-10, .583, 2nd AL West
Up Next: We’ll take a day off, at home, and await the arrival of the New Orleans Gators for a 3-game set in Pendleton Park.

[pauwoo]

Vs. New Orleans Gators (12-12, .500, 5th NL East)
Whenever these Bayou based brigands pay a visit to a club of mine, be it in Los Angeles or here in Portland, visions of a young Mickey Rourke commissioned by a not quite as young Robert De Niro penetrates my psyche while an even younger still Lisa Bonet dances on the periphery in a suggestive yet repulsive way, tossing around moist chicken bones that only recently had the flesh removed as she recites some Cajun curse that will inform my life for years to come. And, then I shake myself out of it, remember that none of that is real, that it’s only a movie, and a so-so one at that, and that this club standing across from mine are just a loose collection of stiffs like the rest of them. Here we’ll go against a club adept at occupying the middle – they come to us playing .500 ball, with the NL’s 6th ranked offense and 5th ranked staff, having most recently cribbed a set off the Phoenix Coyotes in Louisiana. They’re fine – as capable of getting things right as they are of getting them wrong – and here, in our house, the boys will be charged with making sure that everything they roll comes up snake eyes, that we walk away victorious lest we be cursed, in front of the hometown faithful, to the life of an also ran for all eternity.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
LHP N. Vera (1-2, 6.16) vs RHP R. Valentine (4-1, 2.90)
RHP W. Macomber (2-2, 2.37) vs RHP N. Estopinan (1-3, 4.18)
RHP D. Hornbrook (1-2, 5.40) vs RHP S. LaRoza (1-0, 0.00)

#25: Win, 4-0… Nuno Vera mesmerized the Gators, rendering their voodoo useless over 6-innings of 4-hit, 5 K work, Elijah Arvinda, in addition to calling a great game for our staff, finished 2-for-3 with a 2-run HR and 3 total RBI, Blanco Whitt wrecked the basepaths, scoring once and swiping two bags on the day, and the club managed to win a barnburner here despite leaving 6 runners stranded and the lack of resistance from our opponent. Hey – winning equals more butts in seats, and, while how you do it matters, a low-key boringly efficient shutout victory plays well with the fans as long as you mix in a little swagger here & there.

#26: Win, 3-0… We’d hold the Gators scoreless again as Macomber picked up his 3rd win of the 2086 campaign after turning in a nice, 6.1-inning, 5-hit, 7 K clean sheet with Payton Inzen earning a 1.2-inning hold in relief followed by DiMaio recording his 8th save so far… Blanco Whitt and Skyler Dickey did the dirt offensively, Whitt with a 2-run double and Dickey with a run-scoring single, and the defense was sturdy, turning 3 double plays behind the staff to keep New Orleans honest.


Elsewhere: George Sanches, currently getting in his development reps down on the farm with our own Corvallis Beavers, had himself a game in a tilt against the Long Beach Titans, tossing a complete game 4-hitter with 1 earned run and 9 K’s as our Double-A club defeated the San Diego affiliate by a score of 2-1. Sanches, who graduated from Blue Mountain State and was selected 130th overall by Montreal in 2082, is a long shot to make the majors… so, we’re going to wait and see for a while longer, I guess.

#27: Loss, 4-6… New Orleans would not leave Oregon empty handed, saddling us with a loss here as they put all 6 of their runs on us prior to the start of the 6th frame, leaving us to work from behind the 8-ball the rest of the way. Simon Harris and Skyler Dickey were responsible for driving in each of our three runs, Leo hit a double, a triple, and scored twice, and Blanco swiped his 7th bag of the season… we’d just not have enough of what was required to get the job done offensively after Hornbrook allowed 5 runners to plate in just 3.2-innings of work.

Record: 16-11, .592, 1st AL West
Up Next: Our club will board a cross country (and then some) flight bound for Miami Florida where we’ll face off against the Herons over the weekend. A cursory glance at available non-stop flights from PDX to MIA reveals this to be a 6 hr 45 min journey… the boys will be tired for the game on Friday night, that much is clear.

[pauwoo]

@ Miami (10-17, .370, 6th NL East)
That the scheduling department of the MLB did us dirty like this makes me wonder who’s working there now that may have been on the wrong end of one of my youthful indiscretions. Who did I wrong so severely that sending my club on a nearly 7-hour flight with no day off before our next game seemed fair, like it was the right and just thing to do? I suppose that I can take some consolation in the fact that Miami boasts the National League’s worst offense, ranked last in runs, AVG, OPS, and wOBA, while not being ranked better than 9th anywhere else… but, the fact remains that for as bad as these Herons look, they’re still a professional baseball outfit, filled with players who, to a man, likely take pride in their work. The boys will need to shake off the jet lag and get after it early & often in this set if we’re not to come unglued against what could be the weakest club in the NL…

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP M. Holman (1-2, 3.81) vs RHP L. Torres (2-3, 3.38)
RHP B. Sánchez (4-1, 2.81) vs RHP Z. Foster (0-0, 7.20)
LHP N. Vera (2-2, 4.68) vs RHP K. Western (1-3, 4.10)

#28: Loss, 2-4… It’s not that Miami took it to us, that they did anything of real note in taking us down a peg, it’s that, after that long, seemingly endless flight to Miami we just couldn’t be bothered to get after it with our typical gusto… or, at least that’s the excuse I’ve settled on here. SP Micah Holman drops to 1-3 on the year after allowing 4 runners to plate over his ho-hum 5.1-innings of work, he’ll see his ERA balloon to an untenable 4.31 as a result, and our offense couldn’t be bothered to get in line behind Bruce Sarmiento, whose 5th-inning, 2-run TANK was all we’d muster in this one… a wasted game where what little effort we did get from the boys came at a premium.

#29: Win, 3-1… what a difference a day makes, with the cobwebs wiped away and our jet lag gone, Blanco Whitt carried the club to victory with a solo shot during the top of the 4th that would provide all the margin we’d need to get the win as Bernal Sanchez kept the Miami offense confused over 6-innings of work where he’d allow just one of the 7 hits against him to make it all the way back around. 6 walks for the club in this one including two free passes each for Leo, Skyler, and Micky… and we found a way to win despite leaving 13 batsmen stranded over the course of the game – this one should have been a bloodbath.

#30: Loss, 1-7… a tough way to go out, leaving Miami on a harrowing loss and looking at another 6+ hour flight to get us back to the PNW where, after a much-needed day of rest, we’ll get back after it against the Seattle Metros in our park. Here we were undone by a subpar performance from Starter William Macomber – he could muster just 1.1-innings of work after being shelled for 5-runs one out into the second frame and an offense that couldn’t be bothered to put up much of a fight after that hole was dug so quickly. A real rough stretch in South Beach – nice to see Kito Western still coming correct – 7-inning of 7-hit, shutout baseball from the 31yo, 1x all-star… I just don’t like it as much when it comes against my club.

Record: 17-13, .567, 1st AL West
Up Next: We’ll return to PDX, take a day off, and then follow that up with a 3-game set, at home, against one of our fiercest division rivals, the Seattle Metros.

[pauwoo]

Vs. Seattle Metros (12-18, .400, 6th AL West)
Down and out in the Emerald City… these Metros have seen better days, that much is clear, as they amble along on a dismal 12-18 record dragging our leagues worst offense and 3rd worst pitching staff along with them. They’re no doubt looking forward to leaving April in their rearview after performing at a .375 clip so far this month and know full well that they’re better than they’ve managed to show in the early going of this 2086 campaign. Of course, closing out the month, on the road, and against the likes of us is unfortunate for them because, despite getting embarrassed a little bit by New Orleans our last time out, no opportunity to stick it to a Cascadia Cup rival will go unrecognized… our mission here is destruction, complete annihilation – the Metros should, by all accounts, cease to exist after this set is complete.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP D. Hornbrook (1-3, 6.33) vs RHP M. Fauske (3-0, 3.26)
RHP P. Yamaguchi (1-0, 1.00) vs RHP J. Grace (0-1, 2.57)
RHP M. Holman (1-3, 4.31) vs LHP C. Newby (1-2, 4.07)

#31: Loss, 0-7… Best laid plans and all that – it’s never ideal to end the month on a loss, at home, against as fierce a rival as these Seattle Metros. But, as ever, if we didn’t take the long way here in Portland, we might as well just stay home. Even still, all the Voodoo Donuts in the world couldn’t help the boys wash down the taste of this loss - strung up by these Seattle Metros, tortured by Austin Velasquez’s TWO SAC FLIES, undone by run-scoring doubles courtesy of Nick Arredondo & Gunner Fletcher, held down by SP Morten Fauske over 6-innings of 2-hit filthiness, and tickled to death by RP Ron Bishop over the final three frames of the game… and all in front of our fans. Some rough stuff here…

A few things… I think I brought it up earlier, not sure… I updated the Bush League, combining the Western Bush and Eastern Bush into a Big Ol’ Bush Leage and was going to write about my adventures GMing the Reno Ramblers, who’ve since been rechristened the Reno Berserkers… and, while I am still using the secondary GM character to run that team, I’ll not cover them in a separate thread – too much work, and, really, I just want to run a Bush League club so that I spend more time interacting with that league… so, to that end, I’ll likely look in on them from time to time here. Also, we’ve made it to May Day, so, as always, feel free to peruse the current standings, League Leaders, and our Clubhouse…



National League Leaders


American League Leaders




And, just because… my first box score for the Reno Berserkers is attached… we got beat, on the road, by the Ontario Dumplings. Our only run came courtesy of 2B BJ Cristoforo, who managed to get a cup of coffee with the Los Angeles Leopards back in 2081 before becoming a Bush League mainstay after toiling in the minors for a couple more years…

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

#32: Win, 6-5… things were going swimmingly, the boys were up 5-1, conversations in the dugout had turned to what everyone had planned for after the game, what restaurant Leo would take his most recent girlfriend too, what club Micky and Simon Harris were headed to, when, seemingly out of nowhere, the Metros put four on us during the top of the 7th, chasing Peter Yamaguchi from the game and knotting this one up at 5 each. We’d get the win and it would take pretty much everything we had, 4 homers as a club (2 each for Micky Austin and Skyler Dickey), two swiped bags, both courtesy of Blanco Whitt, and some rock-solid performances out of the pen as Morris Jones picked up with win in relief with DiMaio earning his 10th save right behind him. Less than ideal? Sure. But, we’ll take it.

#33: Loss, 0-1… We’d finish on the wrong side of a pitchers’ duel, and get shut out at home, as Seattle Starter, Joseph Grace, kept the boys scores over 6.2-innings of work before turning it over to RP Stuart Durham for the Hold and CL Liam Lambrou for the Save. Our guy, Micah Holman, dropped to 1-4 on the season after a fierce 7-innings of 5-hit, 6 K, 1 earned work and was done in during the top of the very first frame when Seattle stalwart, LF Patrick Adams, went yard for a solo shot. Rough way to drop a set at home, wasting an effort like that from our Starter.

Record: 18-15, .545, 1st AL West
Up Next: We’ll welcome last season’s American League champion to town for a 3-game set as the 17-16 Dallas Chaparrals pay us a visit in Pendleton Park.

[pauwoo]

Vs. Dallas Chaparrals (17-16, .515, 3rd AL West)
Dallas did the dirt last season, making it all the way to the promised land before falling just short of the ultimate prize against the Austin Grackles… it was a season for the ages, their best since winning the title way back in 2061, but, in the end, it all came crashing down with a deafening thud. This then, the 2086 season, represents their first opportunity to show the league that, 1. They still have what it takes to be considered a true contender, and 2. They’re still the class of the AL West after winning the division the last two years in a row. And, said simply, for our part… we disagree. We believe that this is the dawn of a new era, that starting now is our time, our opportunity to be the cock of the walk, the BMoC, an AL West juggernaut styled after those Leopards I helmed for over a decade. So, if that’s going to be the case, then now would be a great time to start.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP B. Sánchez (5-1, 2.61) vs RHP C. Gould (1-1, 5.20)
RHP W. Macomber (3-3, 2.84) vs RHP P. Yeager (1-4, 5.86)
RHP D. Hornbrook (1-4, 6.75) vs RHP R. Straub (0-2, 5.40)

#34: Win, 3-0… A run-scoring double from 1B Rowan Calvin during the bottom of the 3rd would be all we’d require to get this one sorted as Elijah’s run-scoring single, and Micky’s solo shot would act as mere cushion given that Bernal Sanchez, earning his 6th victory here, kept the Chaps off balance and off the board for 7-innings before handing things off to Bridges for the hold and DiMaio for the save. Three double plays behind the staff, two swiped bags, and 3 free passes for Skyler Dickey would round things out nicely for us here as we manage to secure a sweet game one victory against Dallas despite leaving 8 runners stranded over the course of the contest.

#35: Loss, 1-4… SP Paul Yeager came into this one on a 1-4 record with an untenable 5.86 ERA and promptly held our heads underwater for 8.1-innings of 6 K, 3 hit work until handing it over to the pen during the bottom of the 9th to squelch our weak rally attempt. Yeager, 36-years-young, and still capable of breaking the sound barrier… and it seems that, after bouncing around our league with stops in places like Seattle, Buffalo, and Los Angeles, the good ol’, dependable Dallas sunshine is doing his creaky old bones some good. For our part, Macomber takes the loss, his 4th this year, after allowing each of the Chaps’ 4 runs, we couldn’t muster a single extra base hit on offense, and an early Shane Fukumoto error at 3rd set an ominous tone in this, the second of a three-game set.


Elsewhere: Vegas’ Mack Ramirez, a 12-year vet and 3x all-star from Lemon Grove, CA, etched his name among our game’s elite, amassing his 300th career homerun during a 13-8 win for his Outlaws over the 16-19 World Series winning, Austin Grackles. Mack’s been something of a career vagabond in this save, with his 4-years in Pittsburgh representing the longest stretch he’s ever been with one club – he’s had stops in Montreal, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Vancouver, and Brooklyn along the way… just never could settle in with a club, and, if I’m honest, even with this milestone, he never really reached his full potential – I had him pegged as an all-timer at one point. He’s not that, but instead became a solid pro with good longevity.

#36: Win, 13-2… Our retribution for last night’s loss would be swift & severe as we hung 13-runs on Dallas off 4 doubles, a triple, and 5 homeruns… TWO TANKS for Leo, resulting in 3 RBI for our leader, a GRAND SLAM for Micky Austin, and solo shots from Skyler Dickey and Frodo Gonzales would round things out for us nicely, while our staff, led by Hornbrook’s 5.1-inning, 1 earned win and finished off by RP Wendell Winston’s 3.2-innings of 3-hit relief, would keep Dallas off balance throughout, all but insuring our victory here even without the otherworldly offensive effort. As far as wholesale annihilation goes, this was as good as it gets…



Record: 20-16, .555, 2nd AL West
Up Next: We’ll take most of tomorrow off before getting a jump on our travel as we embark on a 6-game road trip starting in Salt Lake City.

[pauwoo]

@ Salt Lake Alpines (13-23, .361, 6th AL West)
It was just one short year ago that this team shocked the punditry by making a real run at winning the AL West… now, just a month into the 2086 season, Salt Lake is a pale version of that ’85 club with a defense ranked dead last in the American League, with the worst Zone Rating in the league, and the most errors committed of any club. And, while their staff has a FIP that shows it’s not all their staff’s fault, the combination of their pitching to contact and the poor defense lined up behind them has earned them a 12th place ranking in Starters ERA with a group of relievers not doing much better at 11th. We’ll kick this set off against former Pioneer, SP Waldo Long, who has struggled as mightily with Salt Lake as he did with us… should be a good opportunity for us to draw even with or overtake the Colorado Kings.

Here are the projected pitching matchups, our pitchers listed first:
RHP P. Yamaguchi (1-0, 2.82) vs RHP W. Long (1-3, 8.80)
RHP M. Holman (1-4, 3.76) vs RHP R. Taylor (2-3, 4.29)
RHP B. Sánchez (6-1, 2.20) vs RHP J. Hernández (3-2, 4.23)

#37: Loss, 2-4… Waldo eared the win, his 2nd so far this season, after turning in what may have been his best performance as an Alpine so far… whether in the name of revenge or otherwise, his 6-innings of 7-hit, 1-earned ball coupled with his 7 K’s was more than enough to keep our boys off balance and out of sorts. Skyler’s solo TANK and Frodo’s run-scoring single were the whole show for us offensively as our hurler, Peter Yamaguchi, while solid, allowed two too many runs to get a satisfactory result.

#38: Win, 5-3… Micah Holman labored through 4.2-innings of work and was pulled after allowing just one run because his pitch count, already at 100 on the day, had gotten away from him leaving Nuno Vera to pick up his 3rd win of the year after giving us a solid 2.1-innings in relief. Two doubles with one bringing in two runs for Shane Fukumoto, 2 run-scoring singles for Micky Austin during a 2-for-3 day, and three 2-out RBI for the club, allowed us to pick up a hard-earned road win despite leaving 6 runners stranded and committing 2 fielding flubs as a club.

Elsewhere: A quick update on my Reno Berserkers down in the new look Bush League… now sitting on a 3-4 record after clawing their way back to .500 during their last set against the Odessa Sugar Bunnies. We most recently lost the opening game of a 3-game set in Tacoma as the Bandits took it to us something fierce, winning by a score of 10-4 in their park. So far we’ve been below average everywhere, ranking 7th or worse in OPS, OBP, and wOBA offensively and no better than 8th in Bullpen ERA, FIP, and Strikeouts as a staff. Plenty of work to do here… a couple of bright spots, however, include 2B BJ Cristoforo who’s batting .379/.387/.621 with a 162 OPS+, 2 TANKS, and 5 RBI, and 3B Eliezer Hoy, who has posted a 147 OPS+ in 7 starts with the club.

#39: Win, 8-7… A real slobber knocker here, replete with smash mouth innings like our 4-run top of the 2nd and furious comebacks like the Alpines knotting things up during a 2-run bottom of the 5th. We’d be led offensively by a 3-run blast courtesy of Simon Harris and run-scoring doubles from Leo & Mickey, while our staff leaked like a sieve until the 8th inning when reliever Jeremiah Fletchall recorded two outs on three pitches to get us out of a jam. Save #13 for DiMaio, another swiped bag for Fukumoto, his 8th, and an opportunity to leave the city that ended our season last year on a win… a satisfying conclusion to our second winning set in a row before traveling to Vancouver for a 3-game parlay against the Mounties.

Record: 22-17, .564, 2nd AL West
Up Next: We’re headed to British Columbia for a 3-game set.