[luckymann]

The month begins poorly. Bozeman beats us 3 straight times. We get Franchi’s diagnosis back; it’s not as bad as it could have been but he’ll still miss 5 weeks or so. John Freshcorn gets the call-up. We run hot and cold the next week, loss-win-loss-win-loss-loss-loss, with our pitching the main problem. Miller is back, but he is struggling along with the rest of them, as our starter ERA of nearly 5 attests to.

We lose 6 on the trot before finally busting out in a big way with a 15-2 win over Helena. Another win the next day looks to have come as a big cost with Withers, so good for us so far, succumbing to injury. With the danger of losing another key member of our lineup hanging over our heads, we have the Draft to attend to.

With the pool being relatively thin this time around, it’s all about our first pick, number 16 overall. I am convinced we need an infielder that is ready now but will get better. I narrow my selection down to Moti Linch and Jared Holmberg. Moti plays 3B better, which is where I think we need reinforcement, and has a little more pop. But Jared is better in every other aspect, and shows some promise as a two-way player. So I decide he’s our guy.

For the other 4 picks I just tell Assistant GM Tristan Burgess and Scouting Director Mark Buda to get us as good a pitcher still in the pool as they can in Round 2, then just whomever grabs their eye after that.

I am apparently the master of delegation all of a sudden.

They return from the Draft having procured Jared, along with a pretty solid southpaw pitching prospect in Cory Meisner, trade bait CF Nate Hale, and two other guys I doubt you’ll hear any more about from me other than in a trade missive.

Certainly none of these guys are going to turn us into a Championship team overnight, but Jared should be handy from the get-go and Cory will hopefully develop into a decent lower rotation starter or long reliever for us in a few years’ time.

We get an excellent 10-3 win over the leaders the following day, as Macon goes bananas with 4 hits including a dinger plus 4 ribbies, Matt Kendall goes 4-for-5 with 2 doubles, and Drake Brown knocks in 4 as well. We also get the relatively good news that Matt Withers will only miss a week or so with a strained oblique. I decide to play it safe and IL him, which also gives us a chance to check out newbie Jared. This is all capped off by Macon winning the Player of the Week Award.
We proceed to lose the next two games against Bozeman and then get the news that Tyler’s return has been delayed by close enough to a month. Rollercoaster much?

We settle ourselves with a sweep of Great Falls, with a 6-hit shutout by Steve Miller the highlight. Close second is Jared’s pitching debut, in which he gives us 5+ scoreless. Ben Pope’s steady progression is also encouraging.

With us not having made much – any – progress in this regard via the Draft, I decide to go find a couple top-notch lefty relievers via the trade route. The first one is easy, and helps us lighten our salary load in the process when we offload Phil Landoll and his $30k salary / age-40 bones to Bellevue for gun closer Greg Perkins. We also have to give up Felix Varaza, which is absolutely no biggie, but also Jonathan Williamson whom in a perfect world I would have kept in case we get a rash of rotation injuries. We also grab Bob Lynn from Grand Prairie in a deal that costs us 5 warm bodies of little consequence to anyone but their mothers but actually nets us $2500.

I’m enjoying working with the front office group we have in place so i decide to take this opportunity to lock them all down for another year. There are a couple of initial holdouts for more dough, but eventually they all locked down.

The new-look bullpen gets a proper workout the day after these acquisitions arrive, as they hold Billings scoreless over 5+ as we come back late from an 0-5 deficit and win it in 12 on a walkoff 2-run dinger by Macon, his 18th of the season. He continues to absolutely carve it up over the final week of the month, which sees us go 6-1 to make it 9 wins from 10 and put our record for May at 14-13, which is quite amazing given we started it by going 2-10.

No surprise when Chris Macon wins both the Weekly and Monthly player awards. He hit an even .400 during May with an astonishing 14 round-trippers while driving in 37 and scoring 34 himself. He’s not playing a lone hand by any means, with Withers providing superb support, as is Grubb. Our rotation is still a bit too inconsistent for my liking but the pen are more than compensating for that with a league-leading 2.55 ERA.

Most importantly, after Bozeman looked set to run away with the title this year, they suddenly hit the wall, with a couple of key injuries really upsetting their proverbial apple cart. While we were on a tear during the second half of the month, they were going in the opposite direction. Their 6-game losing streak at month end has allowed us to narrow the gap to just 2 games, with Billings hot on our tail another 2 behind and Great Falls a further 2 back from them.

Looks like we’re smack bang in the middle of a dogfight people!