2052.21

[bschr682]

GM: " Well that was a pretty good way to come out of the break. Took 2 of 3 from rival Valencia and then the first 2 of our current series with league leading Twin Cities. We did suffer a season ending injury to the back end of our bullpen in Lonnie Bernard but thats not a back breaking situation. We can fill that spot. "

Renfork: " Einan and Cole were their usual bad ass selves. Einan is really starting to get some Nebraska buzz. Oh and I noticed you traded away Jorge Rivera for a lefty specialist? How does that make sense? "

GM: " Well Niles here is the thought process on that one. Rivera is a pending free agent. We have already come to the conclusion that we will not be extending him so he would have hit free agency and left us nothing in return. Now we did like what he brought to the pen and honestly he will be missed especially in the light of the Bernard injury but moving him and more importantly his salary allowed us to do multiple things which I'll get into here in a minute. For now we really like our odds anytime we send Rodney Barlow against another teams big lefty sluggers. It will be up to the manager though to make sure he doesn't get caught having to throw to right handed bats. He does have a noticeable split there. "

b]Renfork:[/b] " If you say so. You were pretty high on Angelo Rodriguez coming up to fill in for the injured Pedro Huerta and he got tatooed. I have my doubts on Barlow. "

GM: " Thats why they pay me the big bucks Niles. I think both Rodriguez and Barlow will be contributors going forward. We do need to balance the needs of todays team with needs of tomorrows team as well. "

Charron: " The offense really hit the ground running straight out of the break. Who is this new guy in centerfield?! "

GM: " Well Guy thats part of why we made that pitching trade we just talked about. That salary relief allowed us not only to call up Ivan Gulledge who is going to massively help out our lineup against lefty pitching but also to make that small trade to bring in Wafiq Riyad. Now defensively he isn't as good as the kind of guy we normally want roaming centerfield but we have some very rangey backups and corner guys so we figure we can get away with that in spurts to put that bat in centerfield. He won't wow you with average most of the time but he brings power. He's already crushed 4 homers in his first 5 games here. Now with him and Manuel Torres in a strict platoon situation, thats a lot of power added to the lineup in a nontraditional power spot. "

Sullivan: " Is it really ok to be so zoned into power? Aren't you afraid to run into a dry spell and have nothing to fall back on offensively? "

GM: " Of course Ms. Sullivan thats a legitimate concern. But honestly? If it fails, it fails. If we are going down, we are going down swinging. No matter the strategy you employ, somtimes its just not your day. The gamble here is that come playoff time, we wont have enough of those bad days in a row to sink us. We sit it 164 homeruns right now. Next closest team? 142. Thats a big gap and that team is actually San Fernando in our division. If they play the same game as us, we can beat them at it. The next closest total from a likely playoff team? 135 from Twin Cities. Still a big, big gap. Now combine that with our also league leading only 85 homeruns given up. Thats a big edge. Will it work in the post season? Hopefully we have the opportunity to find out. For now enjoy that guys like Cesar Feliciana who just got homerun #300 are killing it and having fun. "

[Jwalk100]

Feliciana is having great success vs righties. Should be another 35+ homer season.

[bschr682]

Yea he’s been pretty good for me