## Standings / Recap / Comments
Code:
AMERICAN LEAGUE STANDINGS
East W L PCT GB
Detroit Tigers 4 2 .667 -
Baltimore Orioles 5 3 .625 -
Boston Red Sox 3 3 .500 1.0
Cleveland Indians 3 4 .429 1.5
Milwaukee Brewers 2 3 .400 1.5
New York Yankees 2 4 .333 2.0
West W L PCT GB
Minnesota Twins 4 1 .800 -
Chicago White Sox 4 4 .500 1.5
Oakland Athletics 3 3 .500 1.5
Kansas City Royals 4 5 .444 2.0
California Angels 3 4 .429 2.0
Texas Rangers 3 4 .429 2.0
Code:
NATIONAL LEAGUE STANDINGS
East W L PCT GB
St. Louis Cardinals 6 2 .750 -
Chicago Cubs 5 3 .625 1.0
Pittsburgh Pirates 4 3 .571 1.5
New York Mets 3 3 .500 2.0
Philadelphia Phillies 2 5 .286 3.5
Montreal Expos 1 5 .167 4.0
West W L PCT GB
Atlanta Braves 9 1 .900 -
Houston Astros 5 2 .714 2.5
San Diego Padres 5 4 .556 3.5
San Francisco Giants 3 5 .375 5.0
Los Angeles Dodgers 2 7 .222 6.5
Cincinnati Reds 1 6 .143 6.5
OK, so the true story so far isn't shown on this screen. Offense is waaaay down, to the point that I thought the game had seriously miscalculated the LTMs. Right now, league BA is just .229 and ERAs are at 2.70 in the AL and 2.96 in the NL. But no, not really! Real-life MLB ERA was 3.26 a d they actually hit .244. So... still low, but not insanely low and I think that the difference here is probably a combination of the front-line starters and relievers getting to play a bit more than they will in relation to the leagues as a whole as well as the knock-on effect of good pitching, where nobody gets tired and so everyone plays completely rested and so on.
Otherwise... someone should tell the Braves that they were supposed to slip this year because they did not get the message. The only mitigating factor I can see is that closer John Winn missed most of spring training and wasn't on the roster when the LTMs were created, which is also when the preseason predictions are generated. They're also an average of the 3 seasons the game sims to figure out the modifiers so I very very very much doubt we're going to see any 65+ HR output from a certain Indians first baseman. Incidentally, Chicago (A)'s Alice Cooper leads the AL with 5 HRs so he's on pace to break it! He will not.
## Major Transactions
April 15: The Astros traded P Carlos Garcia (5-3. 3.91 at AAA OKC in '71) and prospect P Armando Gomez (1-1, 4.58 at AA Columbus) to the Cardinals for P Ernie Alvarez (16-18, 4.40). Alvarez had a rough year for the Cardinals last season but he's still only 27 so they're giving him away for a practical song. Gomez was rated the #67 prospect in MLB and the #1 guy in the Houston system but he's 2 years away at least. Garcia is... an interesting guy I guess.
April 20: The Cubs purchased P Raul Andrade (0-1, 2.84 in 1971) from the Padres for $7,500. With the longterm injury to Sugar Bear (see below) it only made sense for the Cubbies to bolster their bullpen. The Padres might be better this year, maybe, but do they need a 33 year old middle reliever? Sources say no.
## News
April 15: OPENING DAY!
April 15: Hey, an actual storyline. Usually I miss these but I guess I was acting as Cleveland when it happened... anyway, Ernesto Garcia, less than a year removed from getting a player kicked off the team, is once again making news for the wrong reasons. He got into an argument with Bobby Ramirez this time, who is too good of a player to ignore. I'm going to go ahead and suspend him for 5 games. That will hamstring Cleveland but man, Garcia's got to be better.
April 15: Maybe this isn't new news, exactly, but check out the Padres' uniforms for this season:
http://exhibits.baseballhalloffame.o...f&Entryid=1219
1970s, go home. You're drunk.
April 15: The White Sox chose not to open the year with player representative Ben "Nugget" Lamar (3-4, 2.52, 4 Sv) on the roster, as he was a last-minute cut. Sources from around the league indicate that this had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with the team not wanting a union organizer on the team. The A's have also reportedly stepped right in to snap the guy up.
April 15: In a classic matchup of power vs. finesse, finesse got the upper hand today in Oakland as the Twins' Chris Benavides (1-0, 0.00) threw a 7-hit shutout and bested his opponent Vince Akright (0-1, 2.00), 2-0. Akright struck out 9 but also walked 5 as well as hitting a man (who came around to score in the 8th). Benavides only whiffed 2 men - it's 1972! - but issued just the 1 walk and allowed a new-look Minnesota defense to carry the day behind him. "We're not your father's Twins," said an elated Benavides after the game.
April 15: Pirates hurler Santos Arango (1-0, 0.00) also gets his Opening Day going right by carrying a no-hitter into the 7th and finishing with a pitch-to-contact 2-hit shutout, striking out just 1 batter but never quite giving the Mets anything to hit. "We fell short last year," said a boastful Arango after the game, "but we will fall long this year."
April 15: Cardinals P Raul Mendoza (1-0, 0.00) makes it 3 shutouts on Opening Day as he takes care of the Expos handily. Mendoza, a #3 starter for a packed Senators rotation last season, allowed 3 hits, struck out 7, and walked 1 in a 6-0 victory. RF Casey Satterfield (1.000, 2, 4) got things going with - you can see this from his statline - a 4-4 game with 2 HRs and 4 RBIs.
April 15: Make that *four* Opening Day shutouts. Tony Rivera (1-0, 0.00) of the Astros takes advantage of the opportunity to face the weak-hitting Giants in the Astrodome with a 3-0 win. He allows 7 hits, walks 4, and strikes out just 2 but it's the results that count. "I heard we're supposed to suck this year," he said after the game with a wry grin. "We'll see about that."
April 15: The Braves and Padres face off at San Diego Stadium and... man oh man it is a 70s-off. Those uniforms... it's like a MLB record for the most 70s uniforms on one field. This one, too, looked... OK, mostly it looked garish but it also looked like shutout #5 until the Padres rallied in the 8th and chase George House (1-0, 2.45). However, the Braves then got to use their biggest weapon, superstar closer John Winn (0-0, 1 Sv, 0.00), who threw a scoreless 1 2/3rds innings to close out a 6-2 win.
April 16: Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, the first giant pandas in the United States, arrived at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, as a gift from the People's Republic of China. The two pandas were super duper popular and both lived into the 90s.
April 17: Ford announced the recall of all of its 1972 model year Ford Torino and Mercury Montego models - 436,000 automobiles in all - to correct a defect in the real axles. Nope, not the Pinto, amazingly enough.
April 17: Looks like Cardinals 1B Lorenzo Martinez (.265, 37, 100 in 1971) is going to miss another 2 weeks with a sprained knee that's not healing as quickly as thought. That means another 50 or so at-bats for 28 year old rookie TJ Tortorella (.182, 1, 2), who broke out of a little slump yesterday with a 2-3, 1 HR, 2 RBI day.
April 17: Dodgers 2B Danny Fager (.636, 0, 1), slowed by injuries in each of the past 2 years with the Orioles, is among the "walking wounded" with a strained Achilles tendon. Given that they're not expected to do much and given Fager's proneness, they're pushing last year's starter Francisco Pena into that role for the next couple weeks or until Fager's 100% again.
April 17: Texas Rangers rookie Billy Crystal has done the IMPOSSIBLE in his 1972 debut: a no-hitter! Look, I guess it's teeeechnically not impossible but it's very, very hard, especially for a guy with all of 15.2 major league innings to his name heading into the season. He gave up just 1 walk, too, to the Chicago White Sox and overall faced just one man over the minimum 27. "I won't lie, my forkball looked mahvelous today. Did it feel mahvelous? Not at first. But it looked mahvelous."
This game, which was pitched in Comiskey Park - Arlington Stadium has still yet to have its opener - was the first no-hitter in either league since Crystal's new teammate Kevin Freeman tossed one on July 30, 1970 for the then Washington Senators. Yep. First in war, last in no-no's, first in... no-no's. Washington/Texas has in fact pitched the last 3 no-hitters now, as Chad Daugherty was the man who did the feat before Freeman on May 3rd. To get to the first non-Senator/Ranger you've got to go to Josh Matthews, then with Cleveland (now with San Francisco) who tossed the first of 3 of them in 1970 on April 12th.
April 19: The Phillies (1-4) needed 2 games' worth of innings to prevail against the visiting Cardinals (4-1). Marius Gaddi (0-0, 6.94) gave them 8 innings but made a couple of long mistakes and left with a 3-2 deficit. The Phillies then staged comebacks against both the setup man Edward James Olmos and stopper Billy Munoz, then had to have long man Billy Ording (1-0, 0.00) outlast Cardinals middle reliever Miguel Hernandez (0-1, 2.70) for almost 4 innings in a 17-inning 5-4 win. The Phightin Phils finally (phinally?) won it on a single by 2B Victor Serna (.304, 1, 5).
April 20: 1972 is already the Year of the Shoulder Inflammation. Today, Cubs stopper Antonio "Sugar Bear" Martinez (4-5, 3.36, 10 Sv) left his first game this year with it and now is going to miss the next 4 months. The Cubs spent the offseason stockpiling guys with closer experience so hopefully this doesn't hit too hard.
April 21: American astronauts John W. Young and Charles Duke become the ninth and tenth people to walk on the moon. Take that, Soviet Union!
April 21: Norm Hodge (.350, 0, 0) goes 3-4 against his old team and Jim Kenner (1-0, 1.35) gives the Rangers 6.2 good if wild innings as the Rangers christened their new home in style with a 7-2 win over the California Angels. Kenner left the game with the bases loaded and 2 outs, the only time in the game when the Angels looked threatening, but Andres Rivera (0-0, 0.00) induced 1B Willie Vargas (.158, 0, 0) to ground out weakly to second to end the inning. "This is how we make the pie higher," said 1B George W. Bush (.455, 0, 1).
April 22: The second set of buildings in the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex were demolished. The process was filmed and later immortalized in the cult classic Koyaanisqatsi.
April 23: Fresh off that 5 game suspension, Indians 1B Ernesto Garcia (.500, 1, 2) hit his first homerun of the season and also drove in 2 runs and batted in 2 in the Indians' 6-3 win over the visiting Baltimore Orioles. "One down," Garcia said, pointedly, following the game. "Sixty-five to go."
## Teams in Review
ABSOLUTELY NOT