Luck is just not with Riyadh
Sometimes you just need the luck to run with you and that’s one thing Riyadh doesn’t have at the moment. I believe that we have improved the team from last year’s, but we just can’t get the breaks. The Red Crescents get a lively start to July with three wins, but once more they couldn’t dig out an advantage as we slipped to another four defeats. Two ninth-innings runs by Mumbai turned a 7-6 lead into an 8-7 loss at the start of the week and three ninth-innings runs by Baghdad at the other end of the week turned a 5-4 lead into a 7-5 loss, it’s games like that that are holding us back. Last year the luck was with us and we finished seven games ahead of our expected Pythag record, this year we’re currently three games below our expected record. Only three games next week thanks to the All-Star festivities, what’s the betting on us turning out a 0-3 week?
We added 30-yr-old Raymond Ortiz to the rotation this week in place of Jimmy Cook who headed for the bullpen. Ortiz was a minor league free agent signing, he hit the BBA at age 22 with Twin Cities in 2039 and spent seven BBA seasons with them and Hawaii, mainly in the bullpen. He started games against Jerusalem & Baghdad, pitched nearly 11 innings, gave up seven runs, three walks and struck out six, but collected two no-decisions, Cook did however pick up his third win of 2047 in relief of Ortiz. A better start than Ghi-cheng Kum at least. Fraser Pond has given up four runs in three of his last four starts and has been tagged with losses in all three. While Juan Rodriguez becomes the first Red Crescent to reach ten losses in his 17 starts. Orlando Sanchez now has 10 appearances out of the Riyadh ‘pen and this week collected his first save, in eight innings pitched now he’s only given up two runs and no walks.
Another new player this week was 27-yr-old outfielder Jose Tovar, he too was a minor league free agent signing. A sixth round draft pick by Calgary in 2037, he had won Platinum Sticks at both DH & RF but peaked out at Double-A spending 2042-2046 there. He’s not a very competent right fielder, lacking the range, so we are trying him there initially, hoping to make use of his power (93 homers in 420 AA appearances) while having Mike Martin, a plus-plus fielder at right, to come in as a late game defensive replacement. Tovar in his first seven games for us is at least hitting .250 (good for a Riyadh player) and has clubbed his first UMEBA homer against Jerusalem. Torvald van Donkelaar has managed to get his average up as high as .236 while competently fielding at centre field and stealing a team-leading 15 bases. His .236 is now the lowest average of the starting batters, excepting our catchers, which is an improvement over the last few months. Only utility backup Freddy McCord and Mike Schofield (who despite his power is rapidly becoming the backup catcher again) are currently hitting below .200.
I am definitely coming round to the idea that we have solidified our batting line up, and certainly improved our outfielders from where we were at the start of 2047, but we just can’t make hardly any inroads into improving the pitching staff. We are so close though, 41 out of our 87 games this season have been decided either by one-run or in extra innings. Only 21 of those 41 games have been won though, if we could just increase our winning percentage in these close games to 70-80% we will have taken a big step forward.
We have also had an open roster spot in Rookie Ball Taipei thanks to a promotion to South Guam so we have decided to promote 18-yr-old Jorge Gallegos from the international complex, our first ever IC graduate. Gallegos certainly isn’t near the finished article, but with the roster spot open we thought we’d take a gambol, the youngster out of Venezuela works hard and can throw a selection of six different pitches. Maybe working daily with our established rookies might encourage him to develop faster? We've sloted him into our sixth starter spot.
2047 Riyadh Results against the UMEBA (Up to July 6th)
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 4 | 4 | 1 | 9 | 76 | 104 | 5-13 |
| Beirut | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 65 | 79 | 7-9 |
| Jerusalem | 3 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 81 | 112 | 6-14 |
| Manama | 5 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 78 | 83 | 8-10 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 21 | 2-1 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 21 | 1-2 |
| Cairo | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 11 | 1-2 |
| Mumbai | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 13 | 1-2 |
| Tripoli | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 23 | 0-3 |