You wait ages for one and four come along at once
Suddenly the Red Crescents are coming alive again, after two wins last week (their first multiple win week of 2047) they followed that up by winning four out of their six games this week. It was most impressive that two of them were back-to-back 13 & 14 innings wins over Beirut who had got off to such a flyer this season. That puts Riyadh 3-0 in extra innings games in 2047 and closes the one-run figure up to three wins out of eight such games. It’s not a bad time to be running into form with the first of our only two series with fellow expansionists Cairo starting at the end of next week. We split the six games last year and with their better start this year we certainly will be looking to match that at the very least although the Pharaohs will be facing the bottom end of our rotation that currently haven’t achieved a win between them. It would be a very good time to break that.
New stopper Francisco Cardona pitched in four of the six games last week and although he didn’t pick up a save he did only give up one run while collecting the win in the final game of the week against Beirut; his ERA is currently 0.64 with a 0.93 WHIP. Not really a strikeout pitcher, but he doesn’t allow too many on base. No one is really piling on the strikeouts for Riyadh at this time, but at least now the top three in the rotation all have a win at least. Now to hopefully get the bottom two to follow their lead. Set-up man Ch’ang-chieh Xin is certainly getting involved, he’s had 12 outings so far in 2047 and has posted a 3-2 record with two saves. His ERA of 3.48 isn’t too bad either but his WHIP of 1.65 could obviously do with a bit of improvement.
Both catchers now have two homers each but are really struggling to hit even as high as a buck 50. I don’t know what, given their acceptable form in 2046, I can do about this, it really seems I will just have to ride it out given that there really isn’t any suitable replacements lying around anyway. Backup infielder Freddy McCord is also down there with just one hit in 12 AB’s, but once more the FA pool doesn’t offer any better options. Colin Adams has slipped below the Mendoza line as well and hasn’t hit an extra base hit all season so I think it is time to hand Clive Timberlake a starting role at First base. It may also be prudent to think about sending Adams to Port Elizabeth, Ivan Thomas has had a hot start there with three homers and 22 RBI. My main concern there though is that maybe at such a young age Thomas may benefit more from a year starting at Triple-A rather than a year backing up in the UMEBA? At least the middle infield partnership of Grady Fern & Jose Montano seems to have solved our weakness there. We are sadly lacking in power still, Masaki Sato is our only slugger and looks likely to remain so for a while. There’s no big hitters just lying around in free agency, the waiver wire or in the farm and I’m not really sure of the wisdom of trading away our very limited recourses for a big bat. It might hurt our long term development with the lack of decent prospects available these days for just a small, short term fix. Ourselves and Cairo will find it very hard to compete for quite a while with the stocked farm systems of the more established UMEBA sides, gained in the days of the super draft pools. Now, even virtually guaranteed picking 1 & 2 in the draft, we will struggle to add more than a couple half-decent prospects a year to our system.
2047 Riyadh Results against the UMEBA
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 22 | 22 | 2-3 |
| Beirut | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 22 | 29 | 2-4 |
| Jerusalem | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 24 | 33 | 2-5 |
| Manama | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 30 | 40 | 3-5 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Cairo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Mumbai | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Tripoli | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 23 | 0-3 |