MAGIC NUMBER AT 156
April 7, 2037
Long Beach, CA
After a solid but underwhelming debut in 2036, Michael Best (.522/.542/.870, 2 HR, 7 RBI) is setting out to prove the doubters wrong. After offseason work on his contact skills OOTP OSA reports a bump from 7 to 8) he's off to a blistering start in 2037. His .522/.542/.870 line so far is surely inducing a massive eye roll from a certain General Manager in northern California. That's a 1.411 OPS and 0.6 WAR through just 5 games. Not bad for a kid that some projected as not even a 2 win player at best.
The Surfers in general were just as hot, going 5-0 to open the season, scoring an average of 6.2 runs per game, with their rag-tag pitching staff throwing two shutouts. The pitching star of the sim was rookie Luis Oliva who threw 6.1 innings of shutout ball, striking out 9 Stars in the second game of the season. The twenty-four year old lefty, acquired from Atlantic City in the Glenn Gorman trade has flourished in the Long Beach development machine.
The second shutout of the season was spearheaded by crafty left Pepe Castillo, who threw 6.1 shutout innings with 5 Ks to shut down the mostly right handed Calgary lineup.
With the 5-0 start, the Surfers have a solid 2 game lead over the California Crusaders, and a downright massive lead of 4 games over the rest of the teams in the FLP. Their magic number to win the division sits at 156, which at their current pace, should win them the division sometime in June.
So much for preseason predictions!
