As Cairo finished the month against the top two teams in the BANC it wasn’t as bad as they feared. Against Beirut the visitors took an early 2-0 lead, but for a change Cairo came roaring back. Two runs in the 5th, three in the 6th and four in the 7th but the Banc leaders to bed in a hit-fest with the Chariot Archers outhit the Cedars 15-11. The next game saw Hector Gallo’s first ever start in the UMEBA following his move out of the bullpen. Unfortunately, Beirut torched him for three runs in his first innings and two more in the third, knocking him out of the game. The Chariot Archers never recovered and went down 6-2. The Cedars took the third game as well by the larger score of 10-3 as they showed their class this year.
The final series of the month was a visit from the second-placed BANC side, the Mumbai Metro stars. Although Mumbai scored first, Cairo scored in five consecutive innings to take the game away from the visitors. Felix Arrojo going 2-3 with a walk and scored three times. Cairo couldn’t build on that though and went down 6-8 in the second game of the series. The final game of the month saw Roberto Gomez on the mound for the Chariot Archers. He struck out 11 batters as Mumbai struggled and finally collapsed as Cairo’s seven run eighth inning put the game beyond their reach. Backup shortstop Allen Miller will remember the game for some time as he hit his first ever UMEBA homer. In a bit of a hit-fest Cairo outhit Mumbai 19-13 and the Metro Stars didn’t help themselves by committing three errors that led to seven unearned runs in their 13-5 loss.
So, there it was, another month under .500 for Cairo. At least this month was only 13-14, but Manama gained two games on us and are now five games ahead in the BURT Wildcard race. Cairo are improving but we’ll have do even better in June if we’re not to break our streak of successive post season appearances.
Spotlight on Raul Castrejon
When Cairo signed 25-yr-old Raul Castrejon to an $11 million two year deal, the scouts assured us he was the centre fielder of the future and for once they were right. Raul had first made his pro debut in 2034 after being drafted by Atlantic City in the 5th round (He was drafted by California in 2033 but refused to sign). He slowly worked his way through the Gamblers system including three trips to the Florida Prospect League before ending up in Triple-A Brooklyn at the end of the 30’s where he got his first major league contract in the end of 2039. It wasn’t renewed and he was released in November 2040. Cairo picked him up a month later and he has been wowing the UMEBA in 2041.
His second week in the league he picked up the BURT Player of the Week Award and his best performance was on May 9th when he went 5-5 against Istanbul. That helped him to his second BURT Player of the Week Award before he collected the mother-load at the end of May. In one fell swoop he collected the BURT Player of the Week Award, the BURT Player of the Month Award and the BURT Rookie of the Month Award. Here’s to many more awards throughout the rest of his rookie season in Cairo