The Cool Of The Grass 2050.18: Sacramento and Portland Not Good For Des Moines' Record

[aaronweiner]

The Des Moines Kernels went 1-5 in the last sim, falling to basically three first place teams: Nashville, Sacramento, and Portland. They were virtually unable to score on any of these powerhouses, scoring more than three runs just once (in a 11-5 blowout) and getting shut out twice. Still, two one-run losses means that the Kernels' sim could have gone better with just a little luck, especially since those games were 1-0 and 3-2 in extra innings.

"We've obviously got issues, but I think this sim showed we might be forming an identity as a team," said Kernels manager Ricardo Alomar. "We're not the team that outscores you. We're the team that shuts you down."

Des Moines' tinkering hasn't worked so far. Francisco Flores has been fine, but Tim Battle, a recent import from Twin Cities, went a ghastly 1-23 last week. Rule 5 pick Carlos Correa continues to be a disaster but the team has nobody to replace him. Dave Gracia isn't coming close to replacing Pedro Mendoza's offense. And Felix Parreno continues to heavily disappoint.

"We need some of our guys who can hit to start hitting," said Alomar. "If that doesn't happen we can't contend no matter how much better we are right now at everything else."

The Kernels' schedule gets easier than last week simply by credit of it not being possible to be worse, but the team will go on a road trip to Yellow Springs and Madison after one more game against Sacramento; nobody would call that schedule easy.

"We need some kind of jolt," said left fielder Hasheem Makin, who may be starting to come out of his prolonged slump. "We're better than this."

Des Moines is currently 26-30, in sixth place in the Heartland and now four and half back of the final wild card spot.

https://statspl.us/brewster/reports/new ... am_18.html