Virtual Baseball Season/Franchise Updates

Played the two key series.

At Toronto: Lost 7-4, won 12-8, lost 7-3.  First time all year our pitching was not so good, but at least the hitting came around.

At Baltimore, desperately needing a two game sweep: Got a phenomenal 1-0 win where each team managed 6 hits, all singles.  Followed it up with a 3-1 win.  Great intense pitchers duels.

OK, Toronto leads the East at 14-11.  Baltimore and New York are each 12-12.  Us and Tampa are 11-14.  We're playing pretty well and are still in it, more than halfway through the season.

2 game series at Detroit: Crushed them 10-3 behind Shawn Chacon when Joe Thurston (my awesome 2B) had an amazing 6 RBIs.  Then won the second in dramatic fashion, 4-3 in 11 innings; it looked like a sure 3-1 loss, but Mike Sweeney hit a 2R-HR in the 8th to send it to extras.

13-14, 2GB of Toronto in the East.  Also 2GB of Chicago in the Wild Card standings.

HUGE homestand coming up next with 3 AL East opponents, KC (tops in AL Central), and Anaheim (tops in AL West).  No idea if we'll finally make the playoffs this season, but the pitching is good enough for it to be a real possibility.

I'll be finishing this season and then looking at MLB2k10.  If I like it I'll move on.  If I don't I'll probably move over to 2k9 on the PC permanently.  It plays the same, but looks even better than the 360 version.

45-51 7.0 back from Texas and last in the west.

We took 2 of 3 from Toronto with a 4-0 win in my start.  Brandon Morrow was excellent with a 7 inning shutout going when he left the game at the top of the 8th with a back injury.  Roy Corcoran came in and finished up the game with a good performance only giving up two hits in two innings.  Post game information shows Morrow has a herniated disc and out for at least 21 days.  He's on the DL and I pulled up Carlos Silva from AAA Tacoma to cover.

We face first place Texas at home next.  Trade deadline is this week so I might make some moves.  Josh Willingham cemented his place as the starting left fielder with a great performance in the field against Toronto with a handful of running catches and one at the ankles.  I'll be shopping Balentien and possibly Russel Branyan for some left handed power, but I'm not very hopeful.

It's an awesome feeling when you pull the trigger on a big/risky trade, I hope your next 5 games produce good results.

In the HH world, I played the key 2-game series against AL-leader KC last night.

The first game was fantastic, had real urgency and intensity the whole game, felt like what I assume a key playoff game would feel like if I ever made it. 

Doug Davis is our fifth starter, and he's having an incredible season -- but every game he gets into so much trouble and somehow gets out of it.  Anyway, he was in trouble with singles and walks every inning, but mostly got out of it.  In the 5th KC took a 2-1 lead, but Larry Henderson (our powerful 3rd baseman) homered to tie it at 2-2.

A tiring Davis left the bases loaded in the top of the 7th.  I needed him to stay in if possible because KC has a run of 4 consecutive good-hitting lefties that were due up in the 8th.  Then in the last of the seventh, Rafael Stanton (our new DH) homered, and we then finessed another run to take a 4-2 lead.  It felt like the winning rally since it had been such a struggle for either team to score.

In the 8th though, Davis was chased.  Scott Stewart got an out, as did Scot Shields.  But with 1 on and 2 out, KC managed 3 hits in a row to tie it again at 4.  I was really amazed and disappointed.

In the 9th their cleanup hitter then delivered a 2-run bomb to make it 6-4.  I was really bummed, I couldn't believe we were going to lose it.

Then in the last of the 9th we loaded the bases with nobody out.  A sac fly made it 6-5, runners still on first and second, one out.  Joe Thurston our great 2B then hit a hard ground ball that was a possible DP to third base.  They tagged third for one, but the runner beat the DP throw by an INCH to keep it alive.  Still first and second, now two out, Carl Crawford (who's been hot lately) at the plate.  He went down 0-2, then fought back to 3-2 with a ton of fouls.  But a swing-and-a-miss ended it, so the Royals held on 6-5.

The second game we were in a bad hangover from the first.  Back-to-back homers -- one by Bernie Williams who is STILL a part-time player in HH in 2010 -- staked KC to a 4-1 lead, and our late-game rally couldn't pull it out, KC won it 6-4.

So with the disappointing outcome we're now 14-17, 3.5 GB in the East, and about the same in the WildCard race, with 17 games still to go.  The good news is that our next 5 games are against Toronto and Baltimore -- the top two teams in the division -- so we can still stay in it if we have a good run.  KC has a GREAT lineup, I feel like we match up better with Toronto and especially Baltimore, so we'll see how it goes...