May 14 and 15
- Wizards 2 games, Lugnuts 0 games
- Lugnuts are 19-20 (.487)
- Third place, three games behind the Whitecaps and 1.5 behind the Battle Cats; two up on the Wizards.
- The division’s span remains six games.
That was awful. Sick is a good word. Can I turn those games in for something I really want? Please?
The homestand featured four pretty good games against one of the best teams in the league (Quad City), and four terrible games against one of the weakest teams in the league (Fort Wayne). Our guys split both sets, and I don’t think I like the implications. They’ve got to beat the bad teams and play even against the good ones; that’s how baseball works. Mr. Poldberg? I think you’re up….
Carlos Febles played an excellent game on Tuesday. The Dash for Cash was kinda fun to watch.
The weather’s improved, but it still needs some work.
By mid-May the season ticket fans have a pretty good idea of the team’s talent and the team’s character. As you can see, I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing. This will be an ongoing theme….
Once again: I’m pretty sure I was underestimating the impact of the team’s early-season injuries.
The typical Midwest League team wins about half of its games. In one sense, this is obvious–the league’s teams, as a group, win and lose exactly the same number of games. But it’s true on another level: In most years, between half and two-thirds of the league’s teams cluster around .500 at the season’s end. So win-a-couple, lose-a-couple is pretty much the league norm. (This can be interpreted to mean that the farm directors are getting the assignments right, by the way.)
There’s more than one way to combat the resulting frustration, two of which are demonstrated here: You can take a shine to one or two of the team’s players–Carlos Febles, perhaps. Or you can blame the manager.
In the event you’ve just stumbled onto this entry, here’s an explanation of what I’m up to.