Three wins but still a losing week
Despite the four losses it was a good week for the Red Crescents with three wins. After Manama had opened the week finishing off their sweep, Riyadh had split a 4-game series with Beirut as well as splitting the first two games with the Hebrew Hammers. In fact, Riyadh has a bit of an evil eye over the BURT leaders, Jerusalem, at home. We currently are 6-5 in home games against them, unfortunately it’s a different story in Jerusalem, where we only have two wins out of the 11 games played there.
We are still slowly losing touch with the rest of the division though. Nine games behind Beirut and 11 behind Baghdad is a pretty much insurmountable gap at this stage of the season unless one of our many different “plug & play” recruits really comes to play. That doesn’t seem the case with new pitcher Chris Kelly who went 0-2 in his first week in the UMEBA; his longest outing was 3.1 innings and he gave up six runs in his 5.1 innings pitched in the week. Sean Gardner did though get a win, his team leading seventh of the season, on his return to the rotation. Talking of Gardner, he and Francisco Cardona went to my assistant Saeed Gichki and complained about not wanting to play for a losing team , and could I please trade them. Saeed treated them with the contempt they deserved, and they spent the rest of the day buried up to their necks in sand while the ground crew marched around them shouting “You pitch better, you win games”.
Next week’s guest shortstop will be 26-yr-old Alfredo Diaz signed this week as a minor league free agent. He has spent time in the Louisville, Madison and Long Beach BBA organisations, but only ever played 88 Triple-A games. He put up +6.8 ZR in 51 Triple-A games in Commerce early on this year while hitting .236 with four homers, 11 walks and 23 RBI. He replaces Zach Swanson who has been optioned to Port Elizabeth. Meanwhile Masaki Sato is still providing Riyadh’s only real offence, he’s now reached the 25 home run mark with 70 RBI, on course to break the 100 RBI barrier.
2046 Riyadh Results (up to Jul. 28)
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bagdad | 3 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 69 | 96 | 8-11 |
| Beirut | 5 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 98 | 113 | 12-11 |
| Jerusalem | 6 | 5 | 2 | 9 | 73 | 133 | 8-14 |
| Manama | 4 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 101 | 128 | 7-15 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 10 | 27 | 0-3 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 9 | 2-1 |
| Cairo | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 22 | 1-2 |
| Mumbai | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 26 | 0-5 |
| Tripoli | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 8 | 2-1 |