Miami United (9-12, .429, 6th NL East) @ Houston Texans (6-14, .300, 5th NL West)
Already injury-depleted and with an offense that is suspect even at their best, the Houston Texans have come out of the gate looking hobbled, uncoordinated, and slow. Their roster is filled with crusty old vets whose only real value is in their name and whose glory days have long since passed… 1B Ben Compton has acquitted himself nicely so far at the plate with a .321 average and 12 RBIs, but everyone else, including the 34-year old former BA, Mustafa Boltz, are looking road-weary and wearing their age like a poorly fitted corduroy suit. If it holds, and if history has its way with them, then this will mark the 8th consecutive season of futility in Houston – a stretch where they’ve topped out at a .494 winning percentage once while hitting their low watermark of .426 three times. We want to be good stewards of this unfortunate legacy, we want to do our part – so, our intent here, as it ever was, will be to sweep these clowns before our trip to L.A. where I fully expect the Kings to big brother us for three straight games.
22 of 162: Kordell Littles (2-2, 3.10) @ Adrian Hollyfield (0-0, 0.00)
Win, 6-4.
Kordell was supreme – 8 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 6 K’s – he’ll get credited with his 3rd win of the season,
Hamza went 4 for 5 with two, two-baggers, a solo ding dong, and 2 runs, and
Saucerman went 2 for 3 with a 2-run dinger and 2 runs. 6th Save for
Harvey and
Anaconda secured 3 hits and 2 RBI’s as well –
the Constrictor, as our fanbase likes to call him, continues to put the pressure on opposing pitchers.
Elsewhere: Angry Eloy, in his 3rd BL season and now plying his trade for the
Shreveport Sashimi Samurai’s, is, only a year removed from winning the BL MVP Award, once again leading in HR’s at 8 dingers so far this season.
The Second Life of Eloy Delando has not been televised – but, if you care to listen in, local radio stations in towns like Tupelo, Decatur, and Kalamazoo often broadcast Bush League tilts to the unsuspecting masses. This, to me, has been one of the more enjoyable recent developments of the Strangeverse – for some conspicuous and unenjoyable news…
Otto Isaac pulled his hamstring running the bases a couple of days ago and will miss 4-5 weeks. That is, how you say, SUCKY.
23 of 162: Cullen Craig (0-0, 2.08) @ Abe Meinecke (1-2, 8.57)
Loss, 5-4. We skipped
Mirko in the rotation this week – Cheech and I decided that watching another one of his meltdowns on the mound was undesirable – but, it did not have the desired effect as,
Cullen Craig, in his first start of the year, gave up 5 runs in 5 innings… how very
Mirko-ish of him.
Mirko, strangely enough, pitched 2.2 innings in relief and rung up 3 while surrendering only 2 hits and no runs… what to do, what to do…
Elsewhere: 3B
Jason Spears (PHI) went 4 for 5 with two, 2-run two-baggers in a 12-4 win over the Phoenix Suns. Notable for the statistical synergy… and, say that three times fast – two, 2-run two-baggers… and, in Collegiate news,
LF Cameron Walczyk, went 5 for 5 with a double and 6 runs for the Miami Hurricanes in a 15-1 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks, which begs the question, “how do you go 5 for 5 without driving any runs in”?
Trade-Alert: Because patience is not a virtue of mine, nor is it one of Yan’s redeeming qualities, we’ve traded
Mirko for a really good reliever in
LHP Ardolph Goldberg, and pitching prospect in RHP
Corbin Betancourt, and
SS Donny Jeter. We then flipped Jeter to the Kings for
SS Mario Marshburn and a 24-year old pitching prospect of ill repute in
RHP Asher Rule. Certainly not our best work, but we did it anyway. As a result,
SS Steve Green was sent down to Havana and
Harvey Allen was moved into the Starting Rotation.
24 of 162: Radoslav Borovsky (2-1, 3.29) @ Shawn Duc (1-3, 4.01)
Win, 4-0.
Radoslav,
Funky Martin, and
Johnny Dial combined their efforts to secure a well-timed shutout and
Kyle Weaver hit a double and scored a run. We got two 2-out RBIs, 1 each from
Felger and
Weaver,
Magee hit a SAC FLY, and
Anaconda went 0 for 5. Okay, that last one was hardly a highlight – so, I’ll leave you with this: We burgled 4 bags today as well – 2 for
Felger and 1 each for
Saucerman and
Hamza.
Elsewhere: SP Jeremy Wyatt, of the Salem Silverbacks in Portland’s development system, pitched a complete-game, 1-hitter that featured only 2 walks and, dig this,
NINETEEN STRIKEOUTS. That it came at the expense of my Havana Sugar Kings is a bummer, for sure, but… WOW. I can’t recall seeing that many strikeouts in this save for a long time – if ever. The only Sugar King to not get rung up was
1B Hetereki Ailani, our Soloman Islander that we claimed off the waiver wire this season despite the fact that he’s not really that good.
Could you imagine what Wyatt could do if he had consistent control?
25 of 162: Rad Taylor (2-2, 3.29) @ Pete Taylor (1-1, 2.41)
Loss, 1-0. Oof. The
Taylor Half-Bros were both in prime form here – but our offense, seemingly anemic when
Rad takes the bump, couldn’t be bothered to help out as
Pete gets his 1st H2H win against
Rad in three tries.
Pete pitched a CG, 3-hit shutout, and
Rad pitched an 8 inning, 3-hit, near shutout. Offensively,
we sucked.
Notes: Splitting a 4-game road series is, while not ideal, not the end of the world – unless you do it against Houston, which we did, and lose the last one by getting shut out, which we also did… Heading to LA now where we will, fortunately for us (unfortunately for baseball fans), not have to deal with
Otto Isaac at the plate.. even still, without one of the best in the game, the Kings are formidable and should, really, have little difficulty with the type of resistance we are capable of. In other news… we’ve climbed all the way up to 17th on the Weekly Power Rankings – our progress will be measured in baby steps it seems.