2078 Season (4/4 – 4/6)
Los Angeles Kings @ Houston Dynamo
We’ll start the 2078 campaign, and our quest to win our 3rd straight World Series, in the home of our newest divisional rival. In an offseason that brought a lot of changes, Houston’s move to the National League, along with Vancouver’s move to the American League, was among the biggest. We’ll welcome them to our league with a new middle infield, a revamped staff, and without our 2077 World Series MVP, Tony Voorhis, who signed with Brooklyn as a free agent. We’ll face Abe Meinecke, the reigning 2077 AL Pacheco winner, to start the season – Abe signed a 3-year, $115M contract with Houston in the offseason. It was a big, bold move from Houston – who, despite their free-agent aggressiveness, still looks more like a team who will lose 100 games than they do a team who could contend.
1 of 162: Paul Yeager (0-0, 0.00) @ Abe Meinecke (0-0, 0.00)
Win, 6-2. Julian Goodwin’s debut was a success – 3 for 4 with a double & a run, Yeager picked up where he left off in 2077 with an 8-inning effort where only two runs squeeze by, and Rajkumar went 3 for 4 with a HR, and RBI, and 2 runs. LF Joseph Zody was injured during the game – he’ll miss 5 games with an oblique strain. An unfortunate result for him – he’s been waiting in the wings for a while now and will look to return as quickly as possible.
Elsewhere: Dejuan Burns, in his first start for his new club, led the Minnesota North Stars to victory over 7.1 innings of work where he allows only one run to plate and strikes out 6. Minnesota defeated the San Diego Chargers by a score of 4-1 – the contest was a pitcher’s duel until Minnesota managed to get to the Charger bullpen – San Diego Starter, Josh Allen, pitched great over 7-innings and only allowed 1 run to score.
2 of 162: Newton Weiser (0-0, 0.00) @ Josiah Kawka (0-0, 0.00)
Win, 8-5. McTaggart went 3 for 5 from the leadoff spot, Ethan hit a double, a homer, and drove two in, and Weiser got the win despite allowing 5 runs for the game. Barbaccia picked up his 1st save of the year, Otto scored twice, and OH HONG put his 1st TWO RBIs on the board in 2078. RP Roldan Freitas, who has spent 5 seasons working on his craft in Compton, got his first relief work for the big club and did not disappoint of 2.1 innings of work – he registered 3 K’s before handing it off to our closer.
Elsewhere: More silliness out of Minnesota… Yoshimasa Sugawara, who has spent the last two seasons in the Bush League with the Hagerstown Hummers (and the 2077 BL ROY Winner), has had quite a journey recently. His contract was purchased from the San Marcos Supremos prior to the 2078 season by the San Francisco Seals, who then lost him to Minnesota in the Rule 5 Draft (where he was selected 7th overall). After today’s 3 for 5, TWO HR, TWO RBI, and TWO-RUN performance in Minnesota’s 9-4 win over the San Diego Chargers, I think it is safe to say that it has all been worth it for Yoshi – it’ll be interesting to see his career progress.
3 of 162: Aiden Jensen (0-0, 0.00) @ Pete Taylor (0-0, 0.00)
Win, 6-2. We start the 2078 campaign with a ROAD SWEEP! McTaggart was great again, 3 for 5, HR, THREE BATTED IN, and Aiden only gave up two earned in 8-innings of work (4 K’s too…) to help us secure our 3rd straight win. Save #2 for Barbaccia, Otto gets his first RBI of the season, and we stole a couple of bags (Richard McT & Otto each get their first SB of the season).
2078 Season (4/7 – 4/9)
San Diego Chargers (1-2, .333, 5th NL West) @ Los Angeles Kings (3-0, 1.000, 1st NL West)
After our
ROAD SWEEP, we would travel home to perform in front of our home crowd for the first time in 2078. The Chargers, like Houston, have the look of a terrible club – and like the Dynamo, also made a big free-agent splash with their signing of Free Agent SP Josh Allen to a 3-year, $64.8M contract. What they didn’t do was address any of their other deficiencies in the offseason – it’ll be another long season in San Diego as they are expected to battle the Dynamo for 5th place in the NL West.
4 of 162: George Geiss (0-0, 0.00) @ Michael Brisk (0-0, 0.00)
Loss, 13-5. Somebody should have told Brisky that the 2078 campaign had started – he laid an egg here… 5 earned over 3.1 innings of work. Our bullpen was no better – 8 more would plate before this thing was in the books. Our pitching, on the whole, was really, really bad. OH HONG committed an error at 1B and hit his 2nd double, SAC FLY for Dom, and 4 stolen bases – just not enough goodness on display for us to squeeze out a win. This was not the home debut of our new look Kings that we were looking for – that much is for certain.
5 of 162: Artyom Fadeyev (0-0, 0.00) @ Kenny Ibuna (0-0, 0.00)
Win, 4-1. Ibuna went down with an injury in the 2nd frame – not ideal, we await the official determination on its extent, McT kept up his torrid start to the 2078 campaign – 3 for 4, HR, 3 ribbies – and Joseph Zody, back in the fold, went 2 for 2 with an RBI and a run. Another save for Barbaccia and Ethan finally registers his first steal of the season.
6 of 162: Josh Allen (0-0, 1.29) @ Paul Yeager (1-0, 2.25)
Loss, 7-6. Yeager is uneven over 6 innings, gives up 5 for the game, Otto went 2 for 3 with 2 runs, and Rajkumar registers his first steal of the season. Tough homestand for us against a poor club – but, that’s baseball. With the loss, we’ll head to Minnesota North Stars on their turf – they are off to a smashing start to the 2078 campaign and find themselves in a 3-way tie atop the NL West table with Phoenix and ourselves.
2077 Season (4/11 – 4/13)
Los Angeles Kings (4-2, .667, t-1st NL West) @ Minnesota North Stars (4-2, .667, t-1st NL West)
While they certainly have come out of the gates hot, the line on Minnesota is that they should fade after the stretch and ultimately settle into another ho-hum 4th or 5th place finish in the NL West. It seems that the baseball pundits are no longer fooled by the poppycock that Shawna and her brain trust spew at the outset of each MLB campaign – fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice… Sure, there are things to like about Minnesota – the offense looks to be great and the Dejuan signing should help their rotation. The problem with them is depth – they don’t have any… yet. They have managed to stock their minor league system with a sturdy number of prospects and have the 3rd best MiLB system in the game – so, maybe the future is bright, or maybe they’ll squander it all on a fashionable trade that doesn’t get them the return on investment they were looking for. Time will tell.
7 of 162: Newton Weiser (1-0, 8.44) @ Octavio Cervera (0-1, 5.68)
Win, 5-3. McT – still clutch with another 3 for 5 day, Ethan drives one in, and Weiser, despite some early struggles, managed to navigate his early control issues to secure his second win of the season. Barbaccia gets another save, Otto drove in his 3rd run on a SAC FLY, and Otto records a double-play with an OF Assist when he catches LF Soloman Lawrence at home.
Elsewhere: Saul Guzman recorded his 1st Save of 2078, and the 200th Save of his career, in Toronto’s 7-1 win over the Carolina Panthers. He went 3-innings and only allowed two hits in the effort. Your boy has been roaming the Strangeverse Universe like Caine from Kung Fu since leaving the Lakers (now Kings) in 2075 and has spent time pitching for San Francisco, Portland, Houston, and Seattle before landing in Toronto during the offseason.
Note: SP Kenny Ibuna is out for 4-5 months with a torn labrum. We’ve recalled Trevor Dotson from Compton to replace him in the rotation.
8 of 162: Aiden Jensen (1-0, 2.08) @ Damon Smith (0-0, 0.00)
Loss, 6-5. Aiden struggled early, Garcia got walked off in the bottom of the 9th, Dontrell went 3 for 5 with a solo-HR, and Otto hit his 1st homer of 2078 – a 3-run blast in the top of the 5th to tie it up a 4 each. Tough loss – we need to secure the series win here to take control of the table.
9 of 162: Trevor Dotson (0-0, 0.00) @ Matt Olston (1-0, 5.14)
Win, 10-9. Yoshi Sugawara was at it again for Minnesota – 3 for 5 with a double and a homer, but it was OH HONG’s RBI Double in the top of the 11th that would secure the win for us here – he went 4 for 6 in the contest. Rajkumar hit his 2nd HR of the season, we hit 4 doubles as a team, registered seven 2-out RBIs, and even got two triples in this one – a much-needed series win before we head out to Brooklyn for a 4-game parlay.
Elsewhere: LF Jo Jo Jackson, of the Dallas Cowboys, went 2 for 2 with TWO HOMERS and FOUR RBI in their 7-4 win over Vancouver. Jo Jo, formerly known as Bo, came to Strangeverse as a free agent during the 2077 Season due to a rip in the space-time continuum – he’s not a world-beater, and we don’t expect him to take over here… all Jo Jo does is hit bombs. And Strikeout – he does that a lot too…
