Sticking Points 2040.7: Rockville Season Ends Ignominiously

[aaronweiner]

The players play the game for six months, and they eagerly await the postseason like kids on Christmas. Rockville got to wait an extra week to start playing games because they won their seventh straight division title. They'll get to wait another year until they play another one. Rockville was blasted out of the playoffs in a four-game sweep by the Calgary Pioneers, who have discovered new territory in the Cartwright Cup.

"Man, that one hurts," said Arthur Dempster, who was obliterated in both games by the Calgary offense and only avoided losing games 1 and 4 because Rockville scored 12 runs in Game 4. "I don't remember a single postseason where I ever got shelled like that. I don't even know what to say."

The Pioneers set the tone in Game 1. Rockville was up 4-0 going into the fifth inning, and looked to be coasting to a Game 1 victory. Then, Calgary slammed them for 2 in the 5th, 4 in the 6th, and 2 in the seventh before letting their All-Star bullpen take over. Rockville would keep it close in Game 2, but lost that one by a 4-3 margin and never quite made it back in the series.

"Game 1 was a heartbreaker for us, with Arthur on the mound and us up early," said DH Lorenzo Palacios. "It's hard to watch from the sidelines and not be able to control anything watching the other team come back on you like that."

It's most telling that Rockville, known for their pitching staff, lost this series despite scoring 26 runs in the 4 games, an average of 6.5 runs per game. They were completely unable to contain the Calgary bats, giving up at least eight runs in three of the four games.

"They just beat us up," said catcher Francisco Flores. "It's almost like they knew what we were throwing before we threw it."

Rockville will have very few personnel decisions this offseason, though Flores, the 2038 Sawyer Silk Award winner, may opt out of his contract and demand more money. One could therefore expect the Pikemen to come back next year exactly the same. What might happen, though, is that the Pikemen might come into next season with a chip on their shoulder having lost two straight Doubleday series, and especially after such a gutcheck sweep as this one.

"You might see a little bit more fire from us next year given this series," said team captain Manuel Rivera. "We're mad as hell. There's every reason to believe that we're going to be the team to beat next year and we're going to come out every single game next year like we're that team. This isn't going to stop us at all."

[recte44]