Riyadh as sick as the Social Media department
It’s been a game month since we posted anything after the entire Social Media department came down with a nasty lurgy and in that time the bottom has fallen out of the Red Crescents season. A 0-6 week preceded that, and the soothsayers were saying “the end is nigh, the walls are crumbling, the revival was fake all along”. In a bid to dispel these rumours the Red Crescents immediately went on a four-game winning streak, equalling their longest of the season. Somehow the week collapsed halfway, and Riyadh only finished 4-3 on the week. Since then, it has been a month of a tail-spin dive, 1-5 weeks have been common and we have not only sunk to the bottom of the BURT, but the other sides are nearly all out of sight once more. Bottom in virtually all the stats, fewest wins and a run differential almost 40 worse than any other UMEBA side at -122. Thoughts & Dreams of that Wildc\ard spot are long in the rear view mirror now. The only ink we put in the Riyadh record books was that on Friday, June 12th Baghdad equalled the greatest number of runs scored against us ever (funnily enough also by the Kings, back in 2046) when they beat us 17-3 at The Ballpark of Baghdad. The crowd, thanks to the “Bancroft Fix” has at least stuck with us and the average attendance is still near 23,500. Only six of our 41 home games so far have seen an attendance under 20,000 with the lowest a touch below 15,000 which is a far cry from last years lowest of below 10,000.
It's not worth dwelling on all this, there are precious little highlights and a catalogue of lowlights. It’s ten games now since “All-Star” hit his last home run and although the strikeouts continue to rack up, I suppose we should be grateful that he’s now only on course to achieve 208, just short of the record of 223. Masaki Sato has picked up a bit of the slack, but he’s six games without a homer too. His batting average of .296 is the best among our regulars now, no-one over .300, although to be fair only Diesel is below .250 of the starters too. Jose Montano is now in his second big injury of 2048 which leaves us in a bind for a regular shortstop and we have brought in Jonathon O’Reilly, who has a handful of BBA games for Portland & Louisville, in an attempt to fix that. He signed on a minor league deal, but we have straight away stuck him on the active roster with a minimum salary deal. He’s a solid defender, but once more the fear is that he won’t be hitting any pitches. The big signing just arrived is 29-yr-old outfielder Myeong-hwan Kim on a one-year $7 million contract. He has seen BBA action with Edmonton & Sacramento, but lost his way with the Mad Popes, we are hoping he can rediscover his mojo in the UMEBA. He can play all three outfield roles, has great speed and our scouts tell us he can really hit for contact, find that gap as well as not striking out a ton. He has got a bit of an ‘injury warning on him, but few of his many absences are of the major or long term variety. We shall see? He will slot in initially at left field, displacing Juan Martinez to the DH role, but I think the whole OF & DH slots might be fairly fluid for a while.
Jose Lima and Ricardo Quadrado remain our top two pitchers with (just) a positive record each but it’s proved pretty impossible to find them any help in the rotation. That may well be aided soon by this year’s #1 overall draft pick, 19-yr-old Umar Doger. The obvious class of the draft, Dogar started in Double-A and after just five outings was promoted to Triple-A. Across both levels he boasts a 3-0 record from six starts and just six runs given up from 42.2 IP. His only start in Port Elizabeth to date was a complete game shutout where he gave up just one hit and a walk while striking out 10 batters.
2048 Riyadh Results against the UMEBA (up to July 6th)
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 4 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 54 | 87 | 6-11 |
| Beirut | 2 | 7 | 2 | 7 | 57 | 107 | 4-14 |
| Jerusalem | 7 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 112 | 85 | 12-8 |
| Manama | 4 | 6 | 3 | 8 | 82 | 114 | 7-14 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 1-2 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 23 | 0-3 |
| Cairo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 27 | 0-3 |
| Mumbai | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Tripoli | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 9 | 2-1 |