Category: Jack Bauer Squared

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 136-138: Fighting for First

Dear Reader, I failed you in maintaining a real-time running story of this sim season and fell a bit behind. The present drama, however, argues for catching up when I can and keeping you informed to what is unfolding down the stretch. So the posts might not fit chronologically, but I’ll get it all here eventually.

So, with the miracle of getting into a first-place tie duly noted, we have to be realistic about where this Jack Bauer Squared team stands now. We have a 9-game road trip that includes the league’s two best teams coming up, and a slip back is certainly to be expected soon. 

That puts a premium on winning against anyone else as the season starts to run out of games. This home series against Royal Gamers definitely fit into that category. 

Teddy Higuera was up to the task in the opener, extending a run of strong starts with 1 run allowed in 7 innings. Higuera improved to 4-2 with a 2.92 ERA across his past 10 starts.

Bobby Murcer tied the game in the 2nd inning with his 21st homer, and then he drove in the go-ahead run on a 6th-inning single. That proved enough for a 2-1 victory and keeping pace atop the division. That made us 15-21 in 1-run games now, which still isn’t good but it’s closer to even anyway.

Game 136

The second game was the opposite of the opener, a true slugfest. The Mr. Hyde version of Mike Cuellar showed up for this one, as he allowed 8 runs in 5.1 innings. 

There is just no pattern to Cuellar’s runs totals recently. Working backwards, here are the runs he’s allowed: 8, 1, 5, 0, 7, 5, 0, 0, 3, 7, 2, 6. Sometimes he’s really good, sometimes really bad, and rarely in the middle.

Nonetheless, JBS rallied from a 9-4 deficit to tie it in the 7th, keyed by a 3-run double from Garry Maddox. Royal Gamers jumped ahead in the top of the 10th with 3 runs, and we threatened in the bottom of the inning before stranding two runners and losing, 12-10.

Game 137

That dropped us a game behind Steroids Make You Fast heading into the series finale. The Gamers jumped out to a 6-2 early lead, however, and we couldn’t put a good rally together until the 9th. 

Down 3, we loaded the bases with one out. But we failed to score and dropped the finale 7-4 and remained one game back in the division and just one game ahead of third place. We may be only 67-71, but if you get into the playoffs anything can happen.

Game 138

The toughest remaining piece of schedule looms now, a series at Hitmen 24×24 (85-53) followed by one at Piazza Blues (84-54), the two other division leaders in the NL. We have gone 4-5 against Hitmen thus far, and we need to get a win or two to keep from slipping.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

A Little Foreshadowing

My running recaps of the Sim League Baseball season are behind by a few days, but I’m working on catching up to the live schedule. In the meantime, here’s a photo of the division standings from earlier today.

Yup, this sad-sack team I gave up on early in the second half is somehow tied for first place. So at least now you know where the plot is headed.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 91-93: A Little Bit Better

At 38-52 through our first 90 games, Jack Bauer Squared isn’t looking like much of a contender at this point. We had a little run to get close to a wild card at 34-39, but then we dropped 13 out of 17. 

But the best medicine for teams in the league has been playing Todd Helton???, so at least a series at home against the league’s other big disappointment was an opportunity. Not that we took full advantage, alas.

We opened the series at Olympic Stadium with … a one-run loss, of course. It was another close game throughout that we just couldn’t pull off, a 5-4 defeat. Burt Hooton dropped to 4-11 despite a decent 4.14 ERA.

Game 91

In the second game, Mike Cuellar had one of his rare good starts with 6 innings of one-run ball as we put up a 3-1 win. Bob Woodward earned his 18th save without a blemish and kept his ERA at 0.00. The deeper it gets in the season like that, the more you wonder if he can do it all year!

Game 92

The rubber game was again close and low-scoring. Bert Blyleven kept us in it with 2 runs in 6.2 innings, Carlos Delgado hit his 15th homer, and Woodward earned his 19th save in a 3-2 win.

Game 93

Yes, a one-run victory! And a series victory! This is what we’re reduced to at this point, improving to 4-8 in the second half.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 85-90: Interleague Struggles

Jack Bauer Squared took a 5-game losing streak into a set of three interleague series, our only look of the season against three more AL teams.

We opened with Scarlett Saguaro, who came into Olympic Stadium with a bang. They roughed up Bert Blyleven for 8 early runs, and Fernando Valenzuela threw 7 scoreless innings en route to a 10-1 victory.

Game 85

That took us on our lone trip to Milwaukee County Stadium, where our Teddy Higuera pitched like he used to when that was his home field for the Brewers. Higuera allowed two hits in 7 scoreless innings, and we ended the six-game losing streak with a 5-0 win.

Game 86

I’ve mentioned there is no momentum in sim baseball, so of course we couldn’t parlay the win into anything more. Did you have “1-run loss” on your bingo card? You’d be winning a lot this season if you did.

We traveled to Yankee Stadium to meet Gooden’s Marauders for the first time. The Marauders scored 3 in the 6th to take a 5-4 lead and shut us down the rest of the way to finish like that.

Game 87

Back home, we opened a 3-1 lead in an attempt to right the ship. Alas, the Marauders tagged Mike Cuellar for 2 in the 6th to tie it, then got to the bullpen in the next two innings and won 5-3.

Game 88

That made it a 1-6 start to the second half and a 3-13 stretch we’re mired in. We headed to Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium looking for any positive signs.

Instead Baltimore Bile jumped all over Bert Blyleven for four homers, two of them 3-run shots by Willie Stargell, and 9 runs in the first 4 innings. The 9-4 loss added another to that recent ledger of struggles.

Game 89

Game 90 was another chance for Higuera to shine. He threw 8 innings and allowed just 1 run, while Rafael Ramirez homered and tripled in an 8-1 win. 

Game 90

That wrapped up our interleague struggles, as the final 72 will all be in our league. We went 9-15 against the AL teams, so I don’t think we’ll be too sad to be done with them. 

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 82-84: Bad Start to Second Half

After finishing the first half with a disappointing 2-7 stretch and dropping 7 games out of 1st place, Jack Bauer Squared opened the second half needing some good news. We didn’t get it.

In fact, things got so discouraging this blog lost momentum for a couple weeks. But let’s catch up on what we missed now.

Tigers of the Ontario Peninsula came out swinging at Tiger Stadium and took a 7-0 lead after 4 innings and cruised to a 7-3 win. A couple late homers by Kal Daniels and Rafael Ramirez were all we could muster.

Game 82

The second game looked a lot like the first one, as we fell behind 5-0 in the second inning. We made a game of it when Gene Tenace hit a 3-run homer in the 6th to close the gap, but we wound up with another one-run loss, 5-4.

Game 83

The series finale was back and forth early, but Tigers took over with runs in five straight innings and cruised to a 12-5 victory and a sweep.

Game 84

Next up: three more interleague series.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball Sim Dynasty

Quick Updates

Dear Reader, I apologize for a few days’ hiatus in posts as my work schedule and other responsibilities took me away. Here are a few highlights and I’ll try to get us caught up soon.

As of this writing, my Jack Bauer Squared team that I’d basically left for dead early in the second half has somehow managed to crawl within 2 games of first place with 31 games to go. Our division leader is under .500, so that certainly helps!

Another Sim Dynasty season recently wrapped up. We had a furious wild-card race in the National League, and I held off Montreal by just 1 game to make the playoffs. 

But a return to the World Series was not in the cards, as the Chicago Street Hounds showed why they were the better regular-season team and survived a 7-game series to beat us and then went on to win the World Series. We’ve made a big offseason trade to try to make up some ground and get revenge on the Hounds next season, though.

And today is the MLB trade deadline. The Padres are making huge moves to give the Dodgers reason to worry in the NL West. Could we have an all-SoCal championship series played in Texas? Oh, we have to talk about that!

More to come soon!

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball Tournament

Back in Business with Tournament Talk

The start of the second half for my Jack Bauer Squared team was anything but what was needed. Instead of a push toward that playoff spot, we started 1-7 and tumbled into last place. I had a plan to keep updating that season, but I got busy and the losses piled up and I fell a few series behind.

I may still go back and catch up on that season drifting away, but what had my attention in the sim world over the past week primarily was a series of short drafts for a tournament I’m in the middle of.

Each year a longtime owner named thejuice6 puts on a multi-round tournament that draws so many owners the site puts up prizes in the form of site credits. Juice has a forum just for his tournament because it’s such a big undertaking, and he changes up the details every year.

Round 1 this year included 12 leagues of 24 teams each. Owners could select historical franchises with a particular set of two seasons for each. You had to build your whole roster from those two seasons of your team, plus two drafted free agents. The goal is to qualify your teams for Round 2 and keep moving forward.

I entered seven teams in Round 1, and all of them advanced. I had two reach the World Series, with one winner. So that meant I had seven spots in Round 2, which comprised 10 leagues of 24 teams this time. We drafted from five-year ranges this time, and somehow I ended up with four of my seven teams from the Cleveland Indians franchise history.

All seven of my teams advanced once again, and one had the best regular-season won-loss record of all 10 leagues at 104-58. Alas even that squad was felled in the first round of the playoffs and none of my three playoff teams from the round made a World Series.

But because I kept all seven of my spots, I had to draft in seven of the eight leagues that comprise Round 3. My 104-win team earned me the right to choose any league to take the first pick in, and I hope I chose wisely. This round divided up so that each league included a range of years, and for each year you have to build your roster out of three selected teams.

So here are my seven entries in Round 3 as selected in the draft for each league:

  • League 1: 1906 Chicago White Sox / New York Highlanders / Cleveland Naps
  • League 2: 1920 Cleveland Indians / Chicago White Sox / New York Yankees
  • League 3: No team
  • League 4: 1950 Philadelphia Phillies / Brooklyn Dodgers / New York Giants
  • League 5: 1966 Los Angeles Dodgers / San Francisco Giants / Pittsburgh Pirates
  • League 6: 1985 St. Louis Cardinals / New York Mets / Los Angeles Dodgers
  • League 7: 1993 Toronto Blue Jays / Chicago White Sox / New York Yankees
  • League 8: 2013 Boston Red Sox / Oakland Athletics / Detroit Tigers

I’ll break down my picks in another post soon.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 79-81: First Half Concludes

We moved on to Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, a homer haven, for the final series of the first half.

The first inning started us off well as we parlayed a single and three walks into a 3-0 lead. Piazza Blues rallied to tie it, however, and through 8 it was still 3-3.

Bill Freehan put us ahead with a pinch-hit double, and another pinch hitter, Butch Davis, singled him in for a 5-3 margin. Bob Woodward nailed down the win with a perfect 9th for his 17th save.

Game 79

Fulton County lived up to its reputation in the next game, as the hosts hit four homers against Mike Cuellar and another against Rod Beck. All were solo shots, however, and Jack Bauer Squared was able to tie it in the 9th inning with a two-run rally.

Alas, the hosts didn’t need a homer or even a hit to create a walkoff rally. They combined two walks and a sacrifice fly to win it 6-5.

Game 80

That set up the rubber game of the series and a chance to end the first half on a positive note. It didn’t happen. Piazza Blues chased Bert Blyleven in the 6th after scoring 7 runs and hitting three homers. We were never in it and lost 7-2.

Game 81

So the first half ends with a 36-45 record, now 7 games out of first place and in third in the division. We are “only” 5 games behind the wild card leaders, but it’s a pack we’ll have to move through first. There are two teams tied 41-40, two more 40-41, another 39-42, then us and one other team at 36-45. 

The second half will begin with our third straight road series, at Tigers of the Ontario Peninsula at, of course, Detroit’s old Tiger Stadium.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 76-78: Tough Start to Trip

Jack Bauer Squared headed on as tough a road trip as we could imagine to end the first half, playing the two best teams in our National League back to back. First up was a visit to the Oakland Coliseum to face Hitmen 24×24. 

The first game was tight and low-scoring, as Mike Cuellar and Dennis Eckersley dueled to a 1-1 tie that went into extra innings. Unfortunately another error by Bobby Bonilla (his 16th) helped the hosts score in the 11th and win 2-1 and extend our losing streak to four.

Game 76

The second game was a case of karma coming back to bite me, as I had made light mockery of the opposing pitcher, La Marr Hoyt, during the draft. So of course he held us hitless through 5 innings as Hitmen took a 7-0 lead. 

We picked up a few late runs to make it a little close but lost 7-3, our fifth straight setback. To say the least, not the direction we wanted to be heading.

Game 77

We needed one win just to avoid a second straight sweep now. In the 6th inning, we racked up four runs on five hits to take a lead, but Hitmen closed the gap. In the top of the 8th, however, we picked up another four, including a three-run homer from Ryne Sandberg.

Sandberg has been light on first-half highlights, and this was just his 4th homer. But we’ll take the 9-4 victory and the end of the five-game slide for now. 

Game 78

Another tough series awaits, alas. Just trying to hang in these races.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 73-75: The Wrong Direction

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.

Game 73

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.

Game 74

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.

Game 75

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.