[pauwoo]

2074 Season (9/10 - 9/12)
The Oklahoma City Thunder are hurting. Their starting rotation is a shell of its former self. The bullpen is in shambles. In total, they have three SP’s - two straight up rotation guys and one who is just filler material - and 2 relievers (a stud and a serviceable lefty) on the IL who have 7 All-Star appearances between them. They are supposed to be a championship contender - built on impeccable offensive play with a top flight rotation. Instead, they’re hobbled - 4 months here, 7 weeks there, another 5 months that way... the #2 offense in the NL paired with a formerly fine tuned pitching staff that blew a gasket. This is good for us - we like it. But as the GM of the island of misfit toys that form the Phoenix Suns if anything about this game is clear to me it’s that you don’t need a finely tuned machine to get it over the finish line against us - sometimes you just need to get the thing to start.

144 of 162: Luca, batting 2nd, opened things up for us in the top of the first with a triple that should have went out if not for the wind blowing in from centerfield. Jacob wells brought him home on a sac fly - and then we give up 4 in the bottom of the 1st to OKC... things looked dire until we put 3 on the board in the top of the 7th to take a 7-6 lead... then it got dire again when they more than doubled their total in the bottom of the 7th and 8th to win by a final score of 13-9. Math is dumb sometimes. The OKC offense laid waste to our staff today - 13 runs put up on 3 separate pitchers. Who needs a functioning gasket anyways?

145 of 162: We would get a taste of that sweet, succulent revenge in the second game - an 11-5 win for the good guys. Dylan Huerta hit two out and tallied 5 McRib’s and Jake Wells was 2 for 5. Brisk got the win, even if his timing belt misfired a few times, and Jess Alford hit his second triple of the season.

146 of 162: Ash Newman is a finisher - he gave us his 2nd CG in his last 3 starts and only gave up a single run. Homer and Yoshi hit homers, Derek got an RBI single, Luca hit a double and scored, and the good guys finally win a rubber match, this time by a score of 9-1. A good team win for the Suns that our club can carry forward as we continue to navigate the long slog of the baseball season.

This was a fun set and after being dismantled by a club that is currently being held together by duct tape and crazy glue in the first contest we managed to hold their high powered offense to 6 total runs in the last two games... and break our streak of dropping sets to sub .500 teams. Dig.