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.
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.
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.
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.
