25 of 162: Phillip King (3-0, 1.39) @ Ryan Burg (1-1, 4.32)
Loss, 6-2… In Baseball, all good things must come to a resounding thud. It’s a requirement – there must be suffering, fear, and loathing. King gives us 7.1 innings in this contest – he allowed 5 earned and lacked command throughout. We’d only manage 5 total hits with Dom, Ethan, Otto, Pepper, and Mario doing the honors. Dom and Otto hit doubles. King gives up two long balls – at times he was just out there serving it up… Berger did the most damage for Brooklyn – a 3-run homer in the 8th was the icing on the cake. And just like that – King takes his first loss & our 8-game winning streak ends on a sour note. Baseball, man, she’s a mean chickadee sometimes – you had better wipe the seat if you know what’s good for you.
26 of 162: Merl Crawford (1-1, 3.63) @ Sam Gehring (0-2, 8.15)
Win, 4-2… You can’t get too high with the highs or too low with the lows in Baseball – we’d bounce back here with a win and hope that this is the start of a new streak. Merl was dealing – 7 innings of work with 8 K’s and 1 earned… his fastball had that late-life that makes it hard to deal with. Pepper Grant busted out – 3 for 4 with a HR, an RBI, and a run. He’s quietly starting to put together a nice line so far in 2076. Otto stays ice-cold, Weaver got hit by a pitch but toughed it out, we get a crafty double-play, and Barbaccia picks up his 11th save. Of note: Jules Winfield got the start at DH in this one – he went 0 for 3 and was hit by a pitch and batted 9th for the Citizens. Nice to see that guy all kitted up and getting some MLB AB’s.
Time-out for Adrian Bae… Making his Bush League debut at home for the Hagerstown Hummers against the Beaumont Bullies, Bae, after recording two strikes, hit the leadoff batter. Ruh-roh. He gave up a solo HR in the 2nd, his only earned run of the game and finished at 5 innings pitched allowing only 2 hits and 1 earned while striking out 8 batters. Hagerstown wins big – 10-2, and Adrian Bae, former Laker and lead singer of the Good Time Guava Boys, a calypso-salsa fusion band that plays the So-Cal club circuit in the off-season, gave a good account of himself in his first BL win. If he keeps it up the MLB will come calling – there has to be a club out there that’s willing to buy his contract out and install him into their bullpen.
27 of 162: Dejuan Burns (3-2, 3.09) @ Isaiah Zuno (1-4, 2.56)
Win, 5-4… We lost Pepper in this one – he’s DtD with back spasms… Dejuan goes 7 and gave up 5 hits and 3 runs – he’d pick up the Win off of a performance that can only be described as, “good enough”. Mario Marshburn had his turn in the limelight tonight – 3 for 3 with 2 RBI – Weaver breaks the tie with a run-scoring sac fly in the 7th, we gave Otto a day off (because, why not, he sucks), and Barbaccia gets his 12th save of the season. We continue to play some good, solid team ball – but, the good time will only last so long if Otto doesn’t wake up soon.
About Otto – he faded last season in the end there, made a critical error in the World Series – the kind that gnaws at a man – and thus far has been a mere shell of his former self. The psyche is a mysterious thing – it’s difficult to say that he’ll eventually bounce back. Sure, he has all the skill in the world, but if he can’t clear this mental hurdle it will all go unfounded – hopefully, he will tap into the form he displayed last year, a Boyce winning year by the way, and get back on the horse. We’ll need him if we are to avenge our heart-shattering loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars over 7 gut-wrenching games in last year’s World Series. Maybe when we arrive at the Philadelphia ballpark to begin our 3-game set against the hottest team in the league – looking across the diamond at Palmer Parker, who is laying claim to Otto’s crown as best active player in the game thus far, will be enough to stir up his emotions, stoke his competitive fire, and allow him to come out of this coma.
