2056-11 Lost

[Knucklehead254]

"I just don't know where we're at, I just don't know." I said to the group of reporters after an embarrassing 11-4 loss to Omaha to end the near two week road trip. It's been keeping me up at night watching this team lately. Just when we seem to figure things out, we fall apart again.

"Aaron," I hear you saying, "it's still early and you're 34-25, it's not the end of the world."

And maybe you're right, maybe I'm just in my head too much and should just relax. Of course last year when I had a similar mindset where we hovered around the .500 mark the entire time and ended up missing the playoffs by one game. It's a lot of pressure you know? Trying to bring a championship to a city that hasn't held it in over 50 years. As a Maple Leafs fan I sure as hell can relate. While I obviously don't want to just immediately blow the team up it feels like a rebuild could be coming sooner rather than later depending on how the coming weeks go. Of course that's not to say everybody on this team has been bad, there's been a lot of positives to take from this rollercoaster season so far.

Jorge Gutiérrez is on pace for a 100-RBI season with a season high in homeruns and Tony Frost is looking more like his old self as the season goes on (Thank you Nashville). Martin Hemming has been excellent as well, practically making me forget that Andrew Wright is having a decent comeback season with Phoenix. Ángel González is also playing well although perhaps not $18 million well. The problem so far lies in the rest of the infield. Bob Irwin's helpful leadoff production went down for a month with an injury, Jeremy Pickens hasn't played that bad at all in his absence though I'm grateful Irwin will be able to return from injury this week. Manny Toledo, the fan favorite I brought back? Well he's drawn the 3rd most walks in the BBA, and that's the only positive I can think of for his play. The shortstop position, hoo boy. Last year it was also a struggle but it's been musical chairs with that position since Ewan Allman went down with injury at the beginning of the season.

So far I've had:
Abdul-Sabur Nabhan
Mike Collins
Jeremy Pickens
Tony Frost
Ricardo Muñóz

All start a game at shortstop with mostly poor results. Wagaw Fakihi was brought in to hopefully have some stability as a starter until Allman's return, but with a month or so until then we'll see how he does.

The pitching? That's another story. A strong start to the season has slowly withered away back to mediocrity. Then of course, our debatably best pitcher this season Marcus Olivares suffers a season ending injury causing me to look for a replacement. But with so little cap space I didn't have many options, causing me to make a deal for a struggling starter in Alejandro Morín. His first two starts were.. meh. Sure, it didn't help that his first two opponents were the juggernauts of Nashville and Omaha, but wooof did the other piece I got in the deal have a debut to forget. Reese Newsome came in a close 5-4 contest against Omaha, pitched one third inning, allowing 6 runs with 2 homers. In other words, an 81 ERA after his first game. At least it'll go down from here... right?

So maybe I am crazy into thinking we can fight for the division and it'll just be more of the same as last year. Outside looking in the entire time until it's too late. Maybe we'll have a solid series against Long Beach which will have the fans and I again saying "WE ARE SO BACK". But if these losses continue to pile up and drag us back to .500, it may be then time to pull the plug and start the blowing up of the team.

[Dington]

Ugh

[Knucklehead254]

Ugh

If it's any consolation you still destroy us every time we face off. Dread it every time.