2032.10 - The injury bug has bitten

[bcslouck]

Back in July, the Jimmies suffered their first major injury of the year. Despite the injury, the team continued on and is narrowly atop the Johnson League Atlantic division.

The team was still fairly lucky, up until August 20th, when Slingshot broke his foot, causing him to miss the next 4 weeks. A few weeks later, Savage has now gone down with a hamstring injury. He still may be able to be available for the playoffs. Norberto León, the Jimmies top pitching prospect and September callup, has also gone down for a few weeks with a calf strain. The hope from him was to help stabilize the rotation and move Habermas back into the bullpen. The latter is also hurt for a few days, but he should be able to make León's next start.

While other teams may have suffered more injuries or more significant injuries, this latest string comes at a terrible time. Has highlighted earlier in the week, the Jimmies are still in the JLA division race. While they lead the division by 2.5 games, they have the toughest road to hoe out of the division contenders, which includes and 8 game home and home with Las Vegas to wrap up the year. That series alone could very well decide if they are the #1 seed or the #3 Wild Card. That first round bye could be the difference between another early exit or getting healed and rested up to make a title run.

While some of those players will be back by then, the team needs all the wins they can to hold off very good Montreal and Atlantic City teams. Atlantic City has been within distance all year, but recently got hot to take over the division briefly. Montreal has been there all year, and going back and forth with Charm City for the division lead the whole way. They have finished up the season series with Montreal, earning the season series by going 9-4. However, they've already lost the season series with Atlantic City (2-8), with 3 games left in Baltimore. The Jimmies have to find away to overcome that great starting staff to win 2.

Bottom line, the timing of injuries with the schedule come at a bad time and could hurt the team. But the best teams overcome adversity. If the Jimmies are still on top once the calendar turns to October, that means they played good baseball despite not being fully loaded. That should put them among the favorites to take down the Landis this year.

[bcslouck]

Just a note..

I know I don't have it as bad as other teams. But I have to write about something, right?

[RonCo]

Dealing with injuries is a major pain.

[udlb58]

Losing your best player warrants discussing injuries. I did the same when Rutledge went down.