Riyadh Musings
It’s been a swift hello and goodbye to 27-yr-old pitcher Nick Garner, signed as a minor league free agent on August 13th a few months after his release from Calgary. He made his debut for Triple-A Port Elizabeth on August 19th against Johannesburg and went five innings. Allowing five hits and three runs, he walked two while striking out five batters. Returning to the dugout after a 1-2-3 fifth innings he complained of pain in his throwing arm and was taken out of the game. Leading 9-3, he got the win for the Windies, but he also got the news everyone feared. He had suffered a torn rotator cuff and wouldn’t pitch again until 2048. Riyadh assured him they would wait for him and signed him to a minor league extension. After a relatively injury free season the injuries have been piling up recently. The red Crescents have managed to get away with just DtD injuries of a week or less for much of the season, Bert Hackworth’s spring training groin strain was the exception, keeping him out three weeks. As we slip into August though, that has changed with both our double-play combo taking major injuries. Grady Fern will miss a month with a rotator cuff strain and Jose Montano will struggle to get back this season after suffering a hamstring strain. Down in the minors we have had our normal quota of long-term injuries, currently we have eight players, six of whom are pitchers, on the IL and won’t be back this year. This of course includes Garner and Jalloun El Khattabi who’s torn UCL has finished his career.
The fans are now streaming away from Riyadh, the Red Crescents seasonal average is now down over 3,000 on last year’s 19,710 average. Our recent series against Baghdad, Monday August 12th to Wednesday 14th only drew 31,420 fans, the lowest ever for a 3-game series at the Princes Palace. Twice it set the lowest ever total crowd figure which is now the 10,054 who turned up for the Wednesday game. We set the longest ever losing streak for the team (9 games) at the start of 2047 and although we’ve twice equalled that later in this year, but so far have avoided extending that streak further.
