Los Angeles Kings (41-28, .594, 2nd NL West) @ San Diego Chargers (21-49, .300, 6th NL West)
Like most teams, we’ve now completed 69 games - not quite halfway home but getting there. Most clubs are, theoretically, in it still - with routes to the playoffs still clearly drawn even if they’ll be tougher to navigate for some... unless we’re talking about the San Diego Chargers, who, at only 69 games down, have performed so poorly that they already find themselves at a seemingly insurmountable 21 1/2 games off the pace of our current NL West-leading Phoenix Suns. We’ll spend the next two days in San Diego, surrounded by all its useless beauty, for a quick 2-game series before heading to Orlando for 4-game series... that’s the part that makes this 2-game series against the NL West doormat so difficult - a quickie series in paradise followed by a cross-country flight and a 4-game parlay. At least we’ll have a day off in between. By now, the cash I’ve wired to Ms. Finkelstein should be burning a hole in her pocket, with the disposable water-proof dive camera and Scotch closely behind - I’ve done my part, played the role of Charlie without the speaker box, and hope to have an answer on the Otto dilemma soon... which really just means that I can spend 45 minutes of our 55-minute flight to San Diego looking over Zahur’s report on the Chargers. Turns out that I wouldn’t need all that time as the report was scribbled on an index card and simply contained the following:
Quote:
I’m not 100% convinced that the San Diego Chargers are actually a baseball team - the truth is, I don’t know what they are... some of my unvetted ideas are as follows:
- They exist as an elaborate money-laundering front for the owner, Tony Malo, who, despite never being officially linked to the American Yakuza, may be in cahoots with some nefarious criminal elements.
- They are an Ultimate Frisbee team that got lost on their way to a tournament but were too “out of it” to do anything about it and decided to give this baseball thing a try.
- They are a group of right-wing pigeons from outer space bent on infiltrating our national pastime to re-install their kind as the official mail carriers of the United States.
Lastly, on a completely unrelated note, I have it on good authority that a new Sushi joint, Miso Hungry, has some of the best mirugai in San Diego - the perfect mixture of crispness coupled with a briny ocean aroma and accentuated by a faintly sweet flavor. So, if nothing else, we have that to look forward to.
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70 of 162: Paul Yeager (7-4, 4.38) @ George Giess (2-5, 5.12)
Win, 6-3. Easy stuff… all in a day’s work. Yeager went 8, gave up 1 and owned 8 San Diego batters, Barbaccia gets his 22nd save, Zody went 2 for 3 with 2 runs, and Dick McTaggart drove in two runs… on the bad news front – OH HONG went 0 for 5 with 4 K’s and Otto left early with an undisclosed injury. Three doubles, two triples, and two stolen bags for the club today as well.
Terrible news… Otto will be out for 4-5 months (so all of 2078) with a torn labrum. He heads to the 60-day IL, LF Bakari Konate moves up to the big club, and Aris Anaconda joins us in Compton. This is a worst-case scenario for us… our title chances are critically wounded, and our playoff chances are suspect. I mean, that’s life… we’ll figure something out.
GM Notes: My assistant GM has been MIA for a few weeks now - I’m told by some of the office staff that he is on an unannounced & wholly unapproved sabbatical. Which is long for - he’s fired. On that note - I flew Megan into LA to meet for dinner at Miso Hungry to let her know that it is my intent to buy out her contract in San Marcos, install her as the GM of the Los Angeles Kings, and promote myself to the role of President of Baseball Operations. What I won’t tell her is that the Owner of the San Marcos Supremos also required me to pay all of his teams travel costs for the remainder of the season and to become the West Coast distributor for his Tupperware empire - a stipulation I agreed to without fully understanding where I fit in on the Pyramid scheme. This, admittedly, monumental decision has led to a few other hierarchical changes, which I’ve addressed below.
- President of Baseball Operations: Lefty Anonymous
- General Manager: Megan Appel
- VP of Investigative Services: Foggy Finkelstein
- Lead Scout: Zahur Peterson
- Assistant to the General Manager (and also my assistant): Yan Welli
Note: Megan, in her first order of business as GM of the Los Angeles Kings hired our Miso Hungry waitress, Yan Welli, to be our assistant and bought the contract of Kirk Johnson from San Marcos... he will join our club in Castroville - it is my understanding that they are dating, which, while clearly a conflict of interest, is a small price to pay to get Megan back into the fold.
71 of 162: Trevor Dotson (5-3, 4.79) @ Brody John (3-5, 4.71)
Loss, 3-0. The post-Otto Era begins with a thud… Trevor was okay, he allowed 3 to get across in 7-inning of work. Dom went 3 for 4, and Brody John completely shut our shell-shocked team down in a complete-game effort where he only allows 5 hits and K’d 6… Dontrell went 0 for 4 with 4 K’s, we didn’t do anything of note on the base paths, and, really, just limped our way through this one as we mourned the loss of Otto for the year… it’s a sad state of affairs, man.
We find ourselves tied with Phoenix for the top spot in the NL West again as they lost their last two games while we split ours… however, given our recent news – it will be tough to take the Division now much less even make the playoffs. Super unfortunate – but, with wunderkind Megan back in the fold…
the world is our oyster.