Los Angeles Lakers (38-27, .585, 1st NL West) @ Montreal Impact (25-40, .385, 6th NL East)
Montreal is curt by nature, unapologetically severe to those lacking in the ability to form the phonetically distinctive & nasally vowels the French language requires. This is less a complaint than an observation. An expectation of sorts - abject politeness extended to an English speaking, recent Angeleno with a suspect vocabulary, and a Midwest jawline would be so uncharacteristic that I’d meet it with my chin tucked and hands up. The closest I get to an extension of courtesy comes from the bartender at our hotel whose low-cut blouse and complete disregard for its top two buttons more than makes up for her insistence on correcting me each time I ask for an orange garnish with my Old Fashioned. No, ma’am, I didn’t mean to say, “cherry”. When you arrive in Montreal as losers in six of your last ten contests, there’s an element of feeling kicked while you’re down - there will be no coddling here. But, if ever there was an opportunity to locate the North Star and to attempt a course correction, you could do a lot worse than Montreal as a starting point - they are a 25-40 albatross with an anemic offense and subpar defense whose fan support is amongst the lowest in the league. They have a demanding 68-year old owner - a Texan no less - who is mad. His priority of extreme winning will be tough to achieve with a 23% reduction in revenue and a ~5000 dip in attendance per game. He’ll get a bump with us in town, but our goal here is to make sure that his fans leave discontent - in no rush to return to the park for a plate of poutine and some baseball.
66 of 162: Michael Brisk (5-5, 4.13) @ Kikuzo Ueno (4-3, 3.62)
Brisk was a cool customer tonight, giving the home team the cold shoulder over 6 innings of work, but our offense was colder – Newman saves us from 3-games straight of no batter registering more than a single hit with two of his own on the day – not enough, though, as Montreal wins a close one by a score of 2-1. Mullens and Pepper are ice cold, Otto is on the wrong side of warm, and our 11 strikeouts on the day made the hometown crowd happy. Ours is a funk that even the Impact can’t cure it seems… SMH… baseball, man, she’s a harsh mistress.
67 of 162: Merl Crawford (6-4, 3.95) @ Norm Rodriguez (3-6, 2.90)
If your Owner calls you during the 7th inning stretch of what turns out to be an 8-2 road loss, skips all formality, and opens with, “is this what I pay you for?”, don’t be like me and reply, “currently, or in general?”. Don’t do it, man – trust me, I know. This was a dismantling of my hopes and dreams, complete annihilation at the hands of 2B Thiago Leyva, whose two homers and 3 RBI would have been enough by themselves… Merl gives up 4 in 4 innings and reliever Jared Dewan gives up 3 in 1 inning… we strike out as a team 11 times. Otto hit one out, so, that’ll have to suffice I suppose. Do you know what’s worse than watching Sportscenter in French? When the lead highlight of the broadcast features a performance that came at the expense of your club.
Elsewhere: Hamza McDonnell did more than his part as the San Francisco 49ers topped the St. Louis Rams today. The 49ers shortstop pounded out 5 hits to pace his team to a 10-6 thumping of the Rams. Hamza singled in the 1st, walked in the 3rd, grounded out in the 5th, singled in the 8th, singled in the 9th, singled in the 11th, singled in the 14th, walked in the 16th and walked in the 17th. Gotta love the Hamza experience.
68 of 162: Case Tunnell (4-2, 3.99) @ Dejuan Burns (4-3, 4.06)
Tunnell picks up the win for Los Angeles, going 7.1 innings, giving up only a single run on three hits as we pick up a much-needed win by a score of 6-3 in Labatt Park. Fregoso returns to the lineup and goes 3 for 4, and Pepper, despite living on poutine and stinking up the dugout over these three games, wakes up in a 2 for 5 and 2 RBI performance. Jared Dewan is poor for the second game in a row in relief giving up 2 runs on a triple to the only batter he faced. We struck out 11 times again today – yet still, get the win. We’ll take it. We’ll take anything at this point.
Elsewhere: Weiser continues to deliver strong starts in Compton… 1 earned over 7 innings today against the Newport Beach Gypsies… Compton would go on to lose the game after Floyd Lott hits a 3-run jack off of Closer Jon Compton in the bottom of the 9th.
69 of 162: Josiah Kawka (7-3, 2.94) @ Ferdinand Loving (5-6, 4.48)
A 68-minute rain delay in the 5th is nearly enough to extinguish whatever spark we ignited in the last contest, but a pinpoint throw from CF Nash Aguilar in the bottom the 8th to home plate on a would-be sac fly saves us a run and the game. Lakers win 4-3 and secure a series split in Montreal. Aguilar also had himself a day at the plate finishing 2 for 3 with a HR and 2 RBI, Otto took the day off, and Josiah was effective for 5 innings – we pulled him early and let RP Logan Elsinger take over once the rain subsided. Three double plays for our defense and the first time we kept our K’s under ten for a stretch.
A series split against the lowly Impact – that’s less than desirable. On to St. Louis for 4 games against, arguably, the best club in the NL. We’ll need to wake up before then – can’t sleepwalk against the Rams.