Byline: Max Offen Sichtlich
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A Look at the New Bats
August 3, 2055
If the past week’s games are an indicator, GM Ron Collins’s incessant and quite possibly insane quest for offense has been paying off.
Or not.
Really, who can tell in a sample of only six games? But here’s the quick run-down of this week’s games and the performance of the team’s bast during them:
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Game 1: Louisville 2, Sacramento 1: Bottom line, the bats as a while did some serious quiet quitting. If there’s a bright side for Collins’s activities it would be that the lone run was on a Kobayashi homer, and that Bob Dempsey made his debut and at least went 1-4. I mean. Not the best result, right? Oh, yeah, Lee Stone pinch hit and struck out swinging with a runner at second base. Meh.
Game 2: Sacramento 3, Portland 2: Take the win when you can, right? Kobayashi again had a hit and an RBI, so that’s a point in Collins’s favor. It’s of some note that the team’s first run came on a GIDP, so carried no RBI at all, and that Kobayashi’s RBI was in the bottom of the ninth, tying the game.
Dempsey was hitless in four at bats.
Game 3: Portland 5, Sacramento 3: Kobayashi continued to impress, pelting a double and homer, but one questions whether it makes sense to ask if any of the other hitters are actually carrying bats. Okyay Nisanci managed a triple. So there’ that.
Sure, Dempsy endeared fans by leaving two guys on base, but he wasn’t alone. The team as a whole left 14 --- seven to end the inning.
Bottom line, a tepid showing at home against a tepid staff.
Game 4: Sacramento 5, Portland 0 – This is the game the actually rings in the full new offense, being the tilt that saw Stone, Dempsey, and Curt Lehman debut in the lineup together or the first time. I’d say it went fine. Dempsey walked and scored a run, Lehman went 2-for-4, and Stone 2-for-3 with an RBI. Add in Unem Ploid’s two RBI, and you almost have an offense.
Game 5: Hawaii 4, Sacramento 0 – Well, it was fun while it lasted. Kobayashi stepped back into the lineup and went hitless, Dempsey was 1-for-3, but this was a pretty ugly night overall. The team drew zero walks and scratched five hits as a whole, all five empty singles.
In the meantime, rival Hawaii blasted ten hits including a double, a triple, and a homer.
Talk about the land of the plentiful.
Game 6: Sacramento 11, Hawaii 3 – The ugly first: Bob Dempsey continued his tepid approach, going a big nothingburger for five appearances. The team has to be a little eworried, don’t they? But Curt Lehman made Collins look good, clubbing a single and a pair of homers that plated four runs. Stone also drove in a run, and the rest of the club seemed to catch a little fire, too.
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So, in summary, have the moves worked? And with Vasco Fonzarelli in the wings, are there more moves coming? Well, this reporter is neither convinced nor concerned. It’s just too damned early I say. Sure, Dempsey needs to shake it off, but you can give him a week to settle. The proof will be in the future, I’d say—though the future is closer than it might appear in the first baseman’s mirror.
Collins’s moves were quick to get him in here. One assumes they could be equally quick to get him out. That’s how it is when you hit .087.
In the meantime, the team will finish their important series with the Tropics, then hit the road for a piece. By the time they come back we should have some answers.