A soul destroying week
Just when the month was shaping up to be somewhere near a good month, you get a complete disaster to end the month. Suddenly a month of reasonable promise is wiped out by a 1-6 week and now we are struggling, needing 10 wins in the final month of the season just to stand still. It doesn’t matter that two of the losses we took to extra innings or that four of the seven games were against Beirut, it’s just there in black & white – six more defeats, 20 in August. The pipedream of setting Riyadh’s biggest ever total season attendance at the People’s Palace has faded, we still need 303,000+ with just 14 games left and that isn’t happening. At the rate of decay, we will be lucky to get half that figure, it will still be an improvement on 2047, just not a record.
Roster expansion is here and with nothing to shoot for we have added a few players who might well be in last chance saloon as far as their Riyadh careers are concerned. Bert Hackworth and Raymond Ortiz are back in the rotation, not that we expect any massive improvement despite their good figures in Port Elizabeth, but because they have little room to actually be worse than the previous “3-win” occupants of the bottom rotation spots. Ch’ang-chieh Xin returns to the bullpen as well after a good season down in triple-A. A big shuffle up the minor league system took place to accommodate these moves, not that any of our affiliates really have anything to play for in the final week or so of their seasons, but in fairness to the fans who have broken attendance records at all levels; from Triple-A to Rookie ball our teams have set their highest ever attendances for the season.
Sancho Castillo is the only batter to join the major league roster in the end. Neither Doeke Soethout or Anastasio Guillen did enough in their first week with the franchise to warrant the instant upgrade for their minor league deals to UMEBA minimum salary deals. They have eight days left of the season in Port Elizabeth to convince us to keep them on as both are seeking major league deals for 2049. There’s no point in starting 19-yr-old Umar Doger clock this season but as he’s now 6-0 in his 12 starts in Triple-A, it’s probably a pretty fair bet that he will be seen in Riyadh early in 2049. He is now unbackable with the dodgy bookmakers in the shady Souks among the noisy alleyways to be the first Red Crescent draftee to see time in Riyadh. Some had thought that 20-yr-old middle infielder Jouo Rovanpera might have had an outside chance of that honour, but after his first week at Double-A the odds have lengthened after he went 1-10 in his first five outings in Santiago. Other promising candidates have all been derailed in South Guam, where four rotation pitchers have missed the bulk of the season (and some of 2049) with major injuries. The farm system has risen in the UMEBA ranks from rock bottom for sixth, mainly thanks to Doger, Rovanpera and Ivan Gulledge all forcing themselves into the Top-50 prospect listing
2048 Riyadh Results against the UMEBA (up to August 31st)
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 4 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 91 | 135 | 10-17 |
| Beirut | 3 | 9 | 3 | 15 | 86 | 176 | 6-24 |
| Jerusalem | 7 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 134 | 115 | 14-12 |
| Manama | 5 | 14 | 3 | 8 | 110 | 169 | 8-22 |
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athens | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 26 | 27 | 2-4 |
| Bucharest | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 18 | 34 | 1-5 |
| Cairo | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 18 | 40 | 0-5 |
| Mumbai | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0 |
| Tripoli | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 29 | 19 | 4-2 |