April joy swiftly turns to May woe
Apr 28 v Jerusalem W 9-5
Apr 29 @ Baghdad W 9-3
Apr 30 @ Baghdad L 5-8
May 1 @ Baghdad L 0-2
May 2 @ Baghdad W 8-5 (F/13)
May 3 @ Bucharest L 5-8
May 4 @ Bucharest L 3-6 (F/11)
May 5 @ Bucharest L 0-6
May 6 @ Manama L 3-4
May 7 @ Manama L 3-6
May 8 @ Manama W 3-2
May 10 v Beirut L 0-8
May 11 v Beirut L 3-4
We finished off the month of April winning two of our final three games giving us a record of 15-12 for the month. This equalled our best ever tally of wins in a single month (August 2046, 15-14) and was also the second ever month we have finished above .500 for the month. The joy of April, the joy of perhaps we were finally going somewhere was soon dashed though. We opened May with an eight-game roadtrip to Baghdad, Bucharest & Manama and won just two games. Battered and bruised Riyadh returned home and were walloped twice more by Beirut, we seem to have developed this habit of often losing the final two games of a week. This doesn’t help us get many .500 or above weeks. Both the Cedar’s games were only watched by around the 22,000 mark, five thousand down on all our previous 2049 home games. Is this now the beginning of the end? Now at 17-20 we’re below .500 overall for the first time since the opening week and the crowd appears to be drifting away again, granted later than normal, but still the start of the annual crowd decline.
Umar “All-Star Jr” Doger got rocked by taking the loss in his first two starts in May. The losses may well have been down to his teammates though, in the 12 innings he pitched he only gave up eight hits and five earned runs. His wavering control left him giving up eight walks, but he balanced that by striking out 15 batters. Umar got no runs in support of him in his first loss and only three in the second start. Fernando Guerrero got into four games of the ten May games from the ‘pen and didn’t give up a run or walk, but that was definitely the exception in the first half of May. New closer Constantino Teixeira was tagged with a loss as well as a save and ended up with an ERA for May over 10.00.
Diesel “All-Star” Dave went back to his old habits, striking out 11 times in his 32 AB’s and the Red Crescents managed just six homers after finally showing some pop in their bats with 42 long balls in April. Three of the starting players and three of the backups opened those first 10 games in May hitting below the Mendoza line.
2049 Riyadh Results against the UMEBA (up to May 11th)
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 30 | 38 | 3-4 |
| Beirut | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 44 | 1-6 |
| Jerusalem | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 49 | 26 | 6-1 |
| Manama | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 44 | 36 | 5-5 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 10 | 2-1 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 20 | 0-3 |
| Cairo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 00 | 0-0 |
| Mumbai | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Tripoli | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |