Worst fears realised as season ends in catastrophic fashion
We finished off our home season with a distinct lack of effort against Baghdad. A Lucio Becerra sac fly in the second innings to give us a 1-0 lead, but the Kings scored four runs in the fourth & four more in the ninth on their way to a 10-1 victory as we gave up. As I feared the party really kicked off on the plane to Jerusalem and at the hotel afterwards, perhaps I could have put my foot down but what was the point? The players were right, our season was cooked; I could have appealed to their pride to keep going, but more than a few of them won’t be with the team next year anyway.
Our overall winning record against the Hebrew Hammers went down the drain as we were swept by the home team even if two of the defeats were just by a single run. The middle game of the series saw Raymond Ortiz on the mound for the third time back in the UMEBA, his previous two he hadn’t gone much more than three innings and this was no difference. One out into the third innings he was helped off the mound with what was eventually diagnosed as a partially torn labrum. That will be his final action in Riyadh as the Red Crescents will be non-tendering him in his final arbitration year.
The partying moved on to Mumbai and although we managed to keep two of the defeats to just a single run again a heavy 10-1 defeat sealed another sweep. The final full-stop on the season was when an extremely drunk Myeong-hwan Kim fell off the roof of his courtesy car to the airport and broke his wrist. He perhaps was someone we might have taken a gamble on for 2049, but his salary was definitely more than he was worth, and this was the last straw. Sancho Castillo seems to have failed his audition for the vacant hot corner role in 2049, hitting just .156 since being called up to Riyadh. Far more likely now will be Anastasio Guillen, fresh off signing a one-year $600K deal for 2049 he rocked up and went 4-7 (.571) in his two games. We’re not ruling out a return though for 37-yr-old Jamie Ramirez, he wants to test free agency but he may well find suitors for his signature are few and far between.
So, there it is, 2048 is in the books. We won just a game more than 2047 after finishing off the season 0-7, but finally turned our first ever profit – the princely sum of $2,508,710. We’ll have around £20-25m coming off the books this off-season, so there will be considerable room to replace all those departing, the biggest question is though, will there be the players out there to improve the squad at the price we can afford?
Final 2048 Riyadh Results against the UMEBA
Vs BURT
| Team | HW | HL | AW | AL | RF | RA | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baghdad | 6 | 9 | 7 | 11 | 120 | 170 | 13-20 |
| Beirut | 5 | 10 | 4 | 15 | 103 | 197 | 9-25 |
| Jerusalem | 9 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 159 | 148 | 16-17 |
| Manama | 4 | 14 | 5 | 10 | 127 | 189 | 9-24 |
| 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 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 22 | 40 | 1-5 |
| Mumbai | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 25 | 44 | 1-5 |
| Tripoli | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 29 | 19 | 4-2 |