Two late wins rescues the week
Losing the first two games of the week extended the Red Crescents losing streak to four games, their longest of the season. They only scored three runs in each of these four games but shipped 29 which certainly didn’t help the Red Crescents run differential. Only a single win in the home series against Manama made it look like it was going to be a real down week, but a pair of wins in the final two games of the week, against BURT bottom side Baghdad saved the week. Riyadh’s 2048 winning percentage is hanging at .431, which would give them right around the 70 wins that they got in their inaugural year, certainly an improvement on last year’s tally.
Ricardo Quadrado picked up his sixth win of the season, his hot streak now sees him 4-0 in his last five starts which could put him in the running for a pitcher of the month award. New bullpen arm Jorge Perez made four outings during his first week, pitched 5.1 innings and only gave up two hits and three walks. Francisco Cardona was struggling with back stiffness and probably could have struggled on, but we decided to send him for a stint on the 7-day IL. We had just picked up 31-yr-old lefty pitcher Dave Welsh on a minor league contract with an $80K sweetener, previously he had made 114 bullpen appearances for Manama posting an 8-5 record with a 3.52 ERA & six saves. He also had 355 BBA appearances to his credit mainly for Boise with the last 38 for Vancouver. We upped Welsh’s contract to a minimum UMEBA deal and stuck him in Cardona’s slot in the ‘Pen and will use him as a long man.
Jose Montano, despite suffering with a sore knee, legged out his team-leading third triple of 2048. Rule 5 pick Vinnie Coalman is doing well as the regular Riyadh right fielder, hitting .298, scoring 19 times and stealing a team leading eight bases. Torvald van Donkelaar, now relegated to his backup was really struggling, his 2047 batting average of .203 was down to .180 now and we ‘ve decided to stick him on waivers on his way to Triple-A to try to sort his swing out. In his place we have called up 29-yr-old Lucio Becerro, he’d been hitting .272 at Port Elizabeth with six homers and 22 RBI.
2048 Riyadh Results against the UMEBA (up to May 25th)
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 46 | 51 | 5-5 |
| Beirut | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 29 | 45 | 4-5 |
| Jerusalem | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 52 | 42 | 6-5 |
| Manama | 3 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 59 | 83 | 5-10 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 23 | 0-3 |
| Cairo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Mumbai | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Tripoli | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 9 | 2-1 |