Our series opener with Block Chain started out well, with a leadoff homer by Kal Daniels to open the game. It was Daniels’ 10th of the season, and he’s slashing a very fine .298/.410/.535 leading off against right starters. No complaints there.
We still led 2-1 into the 7th, but the ever-maligned Mike Cuellar gave up a three-run double to flip the script. In 1969, Cuellar went 23-11 with a 2.02 ERA for the Orioles. Even normalized because of pitching’s edge in that time, his ERA is still 2.08. He really should be much better than 5-7 with a 5.01 ERA.
We got within a run in the 9th and had the tying run on 2nd with no outs, but we couldn’t budge him and fell 4-3. That makes us 7-13 in one-run games now.
The offense rebounded in the second game of the series, fortunately. Bobby Murcer hit a three-run homer, his 8th, as we opened up an 8-1 lead and cruised to a 9-4 win.
Bert Blyleven notched his 10th win to lead the team. He’s 18th in the league in ERA, too, and again he was drafted as the 4th starter!
That brought us to the rubber game, and it would certainly have been nice to come out of this series a step closer to .500. Alas, Block Chain broke a 1-1 tie in the 6th inning with a pair of solo homers off Teddy Higuera, then tacked on three more runs off Rod Beck in the 8th to pull away for a 6-1 win.
At 32-37, Jack Bauer Squared remains 5 games out of first place and 3 behind the wild card leaders. To reach my goal of .500 at the 81-game mark, we’re going to need a really nice run now.
Next up: our first series with Tulo? More Like Too High since the season’s first three games. Always tough going against my friend NebHusker, whose team is also fighting to compete at 34-35. This is one of the teams I need to pass in the wild card chase, plus there is potential for trash talk if we can put up a good showing.
