The Lincoln Park Pirates are we

[Lemandria]

Scurvy dogs

For September and October we were 18-13 (.580), a decent month, right?

Nope. LVG opened September 13-1, instantly erasing the lead. And the “Miracle Mets” moved into the division and league lead at the same time.

:shrug: I guess we’ll have to be the hundred-win wildcard team. I’m proud of my felons, anyway. Extra grog ration this evening, and maybe some shore leave after the series.

We face the Renegades in the WC game, 5-2 record against them during the regular.

Coveleski took the ERA crown, Koosman t-2nd for wins with 19 and lead with 230 Ks, Cano 1st with 117 RBI.

100-62 for the season, second-best season thus far. But we’re off to be mauled by those monster teams in Diamond, so we’ll likely see you back in Gold in 2029.

---

Minor League postseason update:
Santo Domingo - Wildcard
Tulsa - Division
Las Vegas - Division

[Lemandria]

Well, um, crap a lot happened yesterday (including water in my basement).

We lost the game seven in the series, but at least we played in it (gratz to the Pensioners, it was an excellent back-and-forth series).

LVG and I are both headed to Diamond to accept our first beatings, so 2027 was a successful division race and regular season.

[Lemandria]

Cudgeled in a dark Diamond alley (thud)

Oof. Boomerang, here we come.

We’ll have to give it another day or two, maybe we’re just in our (typical) spring training slump. But we ain’t hitting the ball, we ain’t catching the ball, and we ain’t throwing the ball—so it doesn’t look too good so far. There don’t seem to be many lawbreaking vehicles on the street in Diamond Town.

Quartermaster, it may be time to give the felons a little encouragement. Go and fetch the cat o’ nine.

Looking for signs of hope…the infield (including catchers) is hitting all right, but we left the outfield in gold, apparently. The starters are getting banged up, but the relievers simply shelled (bullpen ERA-dead last). Ooh! 4 and 6 for the last 10, a hot streak!

We’ve actually had chillier first months. This team traditionally gives away half their losses every Spring. So we’re hoping for a warmup, and it had better come soon.

Anyway.

10-18 for Apr-May, Division 5th, Overall 27th. Relegation Line -½, we’re certainly not alone in the Boomerang Squad.

[Lemandria]

The 400 railroad

Small signs of improvement, but they’re difficult to spot when your ERAs are dead last.

Coveleski loves to walk the bases full (89 control) and then feed fat ones to the enemy sluggers. 1-6 6.5 ERA at the end of May. Then we have the rest of the convicts, with ERAs in the 5’s.



Runs Scored 11th, Runs Allowed 15th. With a defensive team. Right, try to blame it on the fielding, you scumbags.

The team has decided they hate our ballpark (.320 at home???!). OK, we’ll try to address that next season, but come on, guys.

It feels to me like this league’s numbers are fluctuating wildly, and I keep waiting for things to normalize.

They just aren’t.

[Lemandria]

The worst month

Is over now, at least according to the RSS model. And we did lose a few more than we won…

9-17 is bad.

So now we’re sub-400, riding just below the relegation line. On the season, 32-51 (.386), two games behind the Springfield Isotopes, who is the current relegation borderline.

ERAs still dead last, though Coveleski pitched up into the 5’s now (with the rest of them). Pitching continues to blow, from stem to stern.

Division 4th, Overall 25th. -119 Rdiff (ouch), RS 10th, RA 15th.

Really, genuinely few signs of hope. We might be able to squeak out of the relegation zone, but we’d still be an awful, terribad Diamond team for the foreseeable future.

These guys are already so loaded with perfect cards that your pitiful high diamonds need not apply. And that’s what gold-level hopefuls have to look forward to.

Projections:
PPM—68 wins
RSS—71 wins

[Lemandria]

2029 Gold

Well, after the drubbing we took in Diamond (wasn’t unexpected, but there was faint hope we could manage to ‘stick’ instead of ‘bounce’) it’s pretty obvious that we need to work the live mission SE’s out of the roster and upgrade all over the place.

That’s going to be a long and ongoing project.

12-15 for Mar/Apr, a little sub-par but not horrific. Still plenty of time to make a comeback. I suspect the problem is just too many southpaws on the staff at the moment, the next upgrade will almost certainly be a RHSP.

We’re moving older roster players into reserve roles, and dialing up the offense. Pirate’s pitching is so mediocre-bad that we won’t be able to revisit the offense again any time soon, so we’ve platooned up where necessary, moved Peckinpaugh into 2B/3B platoons, and settled on 7-day lineups (for now).

Fingers crossed, hope that all works as planned.

[Lemandria]

Stern chase

We’ve after a fat and fully loaded warship, captain, but she’s four times our size and has 22 cannons to our 2.



17-9 in May, a much better month. We’ve risen from ice-cold spring training (relegation land) to pulling away from the pack. 31-25, Division 2nd, Overall 8th.

The problem is that the ACW division leader, the Bandoliers, is easily this season’s one seed, that team is loaded (lifetime 741-122, looks like a three to five hundred dollar team racing to get to diamond).

So I can depend on losing a bunch of games when they come around (3 more games in May, 3 in August, 7 times in September, of course). The game scheduler hates hates hates hates hates hates hates us.

We would need to win a majority of those games to have any chance at all, and looking at the rosters that just ain’t happening. We might be hopefuls for the Wild Card team, right up until he takes us out of that race in September.

#wompwomp. Looks like another season in gold, ya’ll.

[Lemandria]

Becalmed on the reef of sharks

Well, here we are in August. 14-11 (.560), overall 77-57 (.575).

What’s still possible?

Mega-whale Bandoliers have the division locked, +15 going into the final month is a guarantee. However, they do still have plenty of time to crush my winp, because we play seven more times in September. They will almost assuredly knock me out of promotion territory, they’ll probably knock me out of the WC (meh), but they cannot crush me all the way back to relegation. Just ruin my season numbers.

The Mallards are playing hard for the WC spot, we’ve been clashing and disengaging for several months now, at the moment he has a narrow lead and a far friendlier remaining schedule strength (.514 to my .567). I’d say he’s going to take it, in the end. But we play six more head to head and I’m winning those so far (7-3). so I dunno, anything can happen? But probably won’t.

Looks like purgatory again, felons, and another season becalmed on this shoal.

Projections:
PPM — 92 wins
RSS — 88 wins

^ See the difference? Did I mention that our schedule for September suuuuuucccks? Pretty sure I did.

Called it back in May.

[rburgh]

There is just a certain sinking feeling you get when you see a team like that in your division. I guess it's unavoidable, I looked at a couple of ways of seeding the league my Bees were in and it looked like they may well be seeding things based on aggregate OVR. I can't tell exactly, since it's hard to see the entire roster of one of your opponents, only the lineup vs. R and pitching staff.

[Lemandria]

Well, mega-whale cost us the division and had us teetering on the brink of missing the playoffs entirely, but we survived a three-way tie and snuck as the second wild card spot.

Coin flip game tomorrow, but I can't find any way to care about this series. :shrug:

This division produced three (3) 90+ game winners though, that has to be pretty unusual. Now grab the guy in charge of scheduling from the league office and let's have a little...private chat with him, felons.

[rburgh]

"This division produced three (3) 90+ game winners though, that has to be pretty unusual."


2029 G304, AC Central


Berkshire Bees 100-62
Knoxville Knucklers 99-63
Fort McMurray Northern Lights 94-68
Dyersville Ghosts 92-70
Roggwil Ravens 47-115

[Lemandria]

Pirates 0-4 D.(Round 3)
Cerveza 0-3 I.(Round 2)
Nemesis 1-3 I.(Round 2)
Tulsa 2-4 I.series loser
Knight Raid 4-1 I.series winner
Fallout 4-3 I.series winner

[Lemandria]

Aug 29, 2030

Well, it’s been…interesting.

Essentially, we dug a huge hole in Mar and Apr (nothing new about that, it seems to be a tradition for most of my teams) and we’ve spent the entire season clawing back out of it.

This seems to happen quite often, and I’ve no explanation for it. The lineups haven’t changed, the pitchers haven’t changed. It’s got to be scheduler just raping us, again.



Anyway, things eventually did stabilize.

Looks like purgatory land again, we might even finish @ .500. Currently relegation line +8 games, so I’m not too worried about the worst-case side of things. The best-case side of things died back in that horrific April…heh.

BUT even if it’s only Purgatory Land, at least we’re probably gonna “stick” instead of “bounce” this time. Fingers crossed.

[Lemandria]

Fat Man pleads poverty

Only 79 vehicles towed, how can you run a business in a town so devoid of illegally parked vehicles?

(Actually we ‘stuck’ in Diamond at pretty nearly .500, after that miserable Apr/May. It’s Purgatory land, but at least we’re still in the neighborhood.)

[Lemandria]

Another season in purgatory

Well, I guess the Pirates are solidly placed in Diamond now (fingers crossed).

This season has seemed pretty steady-state, we opened around the .500 mark and we’ve never strayed too far from it. 64 vehicles towed so far, projected for 78. Division 3rd Overall 16th, essentially right smack in the middle.

Our scouts have turned up Martin Dihigo, who will push that horrible Roush glove-of-stone out of the outfield (which should help in the long term.)

[Lemandria]

.500 exactly (81-81).

Two division winners this season (Tulsa and Nashville). Two relegations. Two purgatories.

Meh.

[Lemandria]

6-1-2032

28-24 (.538) Div2 Ovr10, about as expected. The season schedule looks like we’ll be fine right up until the wheels come off in September (because of course), so hopefully we’ll be enough out of the water to weather the storm in the stretch month.

I sure hope there’s some light at the end of the tunnel a few weeks down the road, there just isn’t a lot to discuss in the Land of Mediocrity. Baby steps, and watch the frolics of the up-and-down teams getting frisky in the Perfect borderlands.

:stifles a yawn:

[Lemandria]

More of same.

/holding pattern

[Lemandria]

Nothing new, we're still solidly stuck in purgatory.

Light at the end of the tunnel, tho. Finished the Cash Collections, serious progress on my Jackie (a week or two should be enough). Then maybe we can finally think about pitching again.

[Lemandria]

5-7-2034

23-12 (.657) is a fairly hot start for the felons, but I remain skeptical after the last four years in Purgatory.

We’re not quite there yet, but by my best estimate we should sign Jackie to a contract towing felonious vehicles late this week or this weekend. He’s consumed enough time and resources, we’ve suffered more than enough .500 seasons while getting the prerequisite cards and I’m eager to move on. Finally.

The rotation really needs some attention.