The halfway point of the season is fast approaching, and Jack Bauer Squared has largely pulled out of the deep hole we started in. We might have been a bit too optimistic about getting to .500 by the 81-game mark, but we definitely needed to keep moving closer.
Entering a three-game series at home against Royal Gamers, we needed to win two to keep the forward progress. It didn’t happen. Alas, we folded.
In the opener, Bobby Bonilla hit a two-run homer in the 1st inning for a promising start, but we didn’t score again. A couple errors, one by Bonilla, hurt our cause as we watched Royal Gamers rally for a 5-2 victory.
Mike Cuellar took the mound for the second game, and it’s worth noting that he’s turning his season around nicely now. Cuellar allowed 3 runs (2 earned) in 7 innings, marking the 9th time in 10 starts he allowed 3 earned runs or fewer — a far cry from what he was doing earlier in the season. His ERA over those 10 starts is 3.00, so he’s dropped his season ERA to 4.79, the lowest it’s been all season.
Alas, it wasn’t enough to secure a win. The game went to extra innings, and again Bonilla made a costly error that helped Royal Gamers put up 3 runs in the 10th inning. Their 6-3 win left us badly needing a win to avoid a sweep.
It didn’t happen. Our old enemy, the one-run loss, came to play again as we fell victim to the three-game sweep, 3-2. Another error led to what proved to be the winning run, and defensive woes cost us in a big way in this series.
Dropping to 34-41 wasn’t the worst part. It’s looking at the next two series on the schedule and seeing the top two teams in the league back-to-back, and both on the road. We’re going to need to play respectably in these six games to avoid losing all the gains we’d made to get into the race.
If we don’t, we might be looking at a really long second half.
