Manama musings 2.0

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jjw
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Manama musings 2.0

Post by jjw » Mon Jan 17, 2022 5:09 pm

Whelp, after a nice run-up to the All-Star game, building a 5-game lead over Jerusalem in the Burt League, the Pearls hit a rough patch and the Hebrew Hammers got hot, cutting Manama's lead to 3 games. Then came a 4-game series at Manama, with Jerusalem winning the first two. The lead was now down to a single game and Manama fans were getting very anxious. But the Pearls came back to win the final two games in the series and then had a very good week after that, going 6-1. The problem is the Hammers also played well coming off those two losses in games 3 and 4 of the series, matched Manama's 8-2 record over the last 10 games, and so are still only three games back. It's going to be a tight Burt League race from here on in, no doubt about it.

Injuries have hurt Manama in the past few weeks. Two important middle relievers, righty Ian Yeatman (ruptured tendon, putting him out for a couple months) and lefty Oscar Haddingham (torn meniscus, out for at least 6 months) went on the IL, and starting third baseman Knife Lugono strained his oblique, costing him a couple weeks on the IL. Then last week closer Owen McKelvey developed a sore elbow, which will put him out of action for at least another week. Plus, top pitching prospect Bruno Bugbie, who was having a good year at Khartoum until he herniated a disc in his back, has suffered a setback in his recovery and is facing another two to three months of injury time.

Still, Manama hurlers -- aided by a promotion two weeks ago from AAA Khartoum to the Association club of southpaw reliever José Gonzalez and then another promotion of a lefty last week, Hidetada Yamamoto -- have stepped up to the challenge. Gonzalez has been solid in middle relief, even earning a save last week, and Yamamoto pitched 7 shutout innings as a starter last week in his big league debut (although Yamamoto had pitched exclusively in relief at AAA the Pearls put him in the rotation because several other starters were worn out and it looked like he had the stamina to start). In both cases here, Manama management decided to go to the more experienced Khartoum pitchers to fill the injury holes in the staff, and have now -- because of McKelvey's injury -- gone to another of the more experienced hurlers on the otherwise very young Khartoum roster, 25 year-old José Afanador, as a bullpen fill-in for at least this coming week. Afanador had a brief call up last September to the big league club, and let's see how he does out of the pen now.

Finally, the Pearls also promoted first baseman Philip Waymouth from AAA, where he had slugged 25 homers with an OPS of .938, to try and make up for Kifuno's absence -- and plainly, Manama needs power hitting, ranking dead last in HRs in the Association. Waymouth struggled in his first few games but hit three homers last week, earning him a longer stay on the Association level roster (he had seen action inn 2048 in Manama, but was demoted because of his poor -- under .200! -- batting record).
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