Playing in the Sand (2040-5)

[Fat Nige]

Regular Season review (pt.2)

As May became June, Bluth was released as Christain Baudouin had preformed well (relatively well) at the shortstop position making the slightly older Bluth surplus to requirements. With no injuries in June it was full steam ahead for the Chariot Archers and a 15-9 month was enough to give them the outright lead of the BURT Division with a 41-37 record, over .500 for the first time. Manama & Bagdad both coming up second, seven games behind at 34-44, the Chariot Archers 41 wins was enough to overtake poor Beirut’s 35 wins as the opposite Division continued to put the BURT to shame.

34-yr-old Gonzalo Delgado, 3-5 on the season, lost his spot in the rotation to a new signing, 28-yr-old Jesus Lopez who had arrived at the start of the month on a 2-year, $10m deal after being released by Las Vegas. Lopez went 2-1 in his four starts but worryingly gave up 17 runs in just 18.2 IP. The fest of the rotation was as frustratingly inconsistent as ever. Caraballo was 1-0 from 4 starts, Quintana 3-2 from 5 starts while Coughlin’s ERA almost touched 10 as he went 0-2 from 5 starts. Benavides continued to anchor the bullpen, appearing 11 times and converting 5 out of 6 save opportunities. A good contributor this month was 28-yr-old Hector Gallo. He has a strange story, signed in May 2038 after being released from Montreal he went 4-0 in 4 starts with A ball Taipei that year. When the age-aware revolution came to Taipei in 2039 he appears to have fallen into the cracks that year and not played at all. In May he had resurfaced all of a sudden going 2-0 in 9 appearances while now in June he got into eight games and posted a 3-0 record on the month. Rivera also made eight appearances, picking up three saves, only giving up 2 earned runs in 20 IP (0.89 ERA) and leading the staff in June with 21 K’s.

Elijah Curry came off the IL with a bang, hitting .342 for the month, he had 11 EBH, five going over the fences but disappointedly only nine RBI. Barney Everhart and Bungay Martin also matched Curry with five homers during the month while five of the starters drove in double-digit runs. Perhaps getting a bit scared of the number of injuries caused by basepath collisions it was a static month on the bases, only 15 attempts were made to steal, of which 13 were successful. Nathan Naylor was responsible for the two unsuccessful attempts but also six of the steals.

It wasn’t a turning point in the Chariot Archers season though, July was certainly a slump as Cairo only won three games in the first half of the month on the way to an 11-15 record for the fourth month of the season. Cairo were still playing .500 baseball at 52-52, good enough to lead an increasingly poor BURT Division, Manama were still five games back and Beirut, still bottom of the BANC also had a 52-52 record but were 15 games out of the BANC title race.

Roberto Gomez, who entered the month with a 6-5 record, posted a 3-1 record in his five starts, but only Adam Coughlin & Tony Cababallo (both two wins) also managed more than one win in the month. Caleb Benavides was still a rock in late innings, getting into 14 games and getting a win on the last day of the month. He was 100% in save situations, unfortunately only three were. Santiago Rivera once more was the best in the bullpen going 1-0 in his nine outings with a 1.40 ERA. Rivera and Renzo Stefanelli were the only two on the staff that managed an ERA below four.

A string of niggling injuries kept Felix Arrojo to just 47 AB’s all month and out of the stand-in’s Rio North was the best. In the previous three months he had only had 37 AB’s with very limited success but July saw him hit .389, the rider on that was it was only from 18 AB’s and a homer was his only EBH. Mauro Garcia had some pop in his bat, hitting 14 EBH in the month, 10 of which went over the fences and drove in 22 runs. Elijah Curry was a solid hitter too, averaging .326 with 10 EBH and six more homers. Barney Everhart managed a .316 average and legged out 12 doubles as well as walking 13 times, unfortunately he drove in just nine runs and scored only 14 times himself. Christian Baudouin was defensively sound at short but managed just a .160 average.