Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog

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Re: Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog

#46 Post by Fishermen »

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#18. August 7th, 2028

The pushing upstairs of former manager Morales and the promotion of Oshima at the All-Star break has certainly made an impression. There is still a few grumblings in the shadows but most say they’re ecstatic about the Harpoon’s current situation. So they should be too, since the PEBA resumed after the break Hartford are 18-6 and currently flying. Going into the break we were five games below .500 and sliding out of contention for the wildcard let alone the Seaboard pennant, now we’re seven games above .500 and nosing our way right into the centre of the IL Wildcard race. We’re on our second six-game winning streak of the season and now have a 16-game homestand to try and really cement our place in the race. With series against San Juan, London, Arlington, Scotland and Kentucky over the next three weeks we should be looking at maybe even mounting a run at West Virginia who are only nine games ahead. The spanner in the works could well be our home record, we are only 25-27 at home while our away record is actually much better at 34-25. The most crucial games could be the middle of this run when we have four games against our closest Seaboard rivals, Arlington, and also the three-game set against Scottish who are fractionally ahead of us in the Wildcard standings as I speak.

Last week turned out to be a clean sweep for us. Seaboard basement dwellers, Amsterdam, really came to try and pick up some points for their new GM. The first game was a tense affair with both side’s pitchers not allowing many hits, the game was won eventually when we strung three hits together in the bottom of the sixth and allowed Carlos Ryan to scoot home for the game’s only run. Maxime Labrie gave us seven strong innings allowing just six hits and one walk while striking out six. Haden Shawver showed some real improved form, going 3-3, all singles though. The next day we were into August and the team were determined not to let Amsterdam run them close again. Ron Myers virtually assured that when he hit a 3-run homer in the bottom of the first. Alfredo Zambrano was back on the mound after his recent DL stint and he was able to give us six innings without giving up a run. His control waivered a bit as he walked two but only allowed three hits. In the meantime, we had run our lead up to 7-0 before Curt Mills, now back in the bullpen, gave up the Lions only two runs in the top of the ninth. The third game was nip and tuck as neither side could gain a commanding lead. Three times Amsterdam took the lead in an attempt to avoid the sweep but three times we pegged them back. The visitors grabbed a 4-3 lead in the top of the seventh off reliever Juan 'Grinder' García who had come in for Eduardo Romano after six. Garcia had the last laugh though as he grabbed his fourth win when a single by Walter Daniel drove in two runs in the bottom half of the innings. Amsterdam couldn’t peg back our first lead of the game and the 5-4 win gave us the series sweep.

We weren’t particularly hopeful popping down to Florida to face Dixie leaders Featherheads, but our run of form carried us through. We groaned when Featherheads hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first, but we managed to scratch out a run in the third & fourth innings to tie the game up. That’s were it stood for the next nine innings as the respective bullpens kept it clean. Ten of the game’s 19 hits came in the extra innings along with three walks, but still no-one could get across the plate. Finally in the top of the 14th a Jack Allen single allowed Mark Edwards to get home from second which proved to be the winner as we won 3-2 in 14. Florida thought they were back on top in the fourth innings of the second game when two doubles, two singles and a wild pitch scored four and turned a 2-0 Hartford lead around. Walter Daniel’s sixth innings homer brought us closer before Myers hit a two-run shot to give us the lead 5-4 after seven & a half innings. Mills gave up a bottom of the ninth solo shot to send us into extras for the second game running. Top of the tenth an error & a walk gave us two baserunners and Masakado ‘Stubblebeard’ Kato sent the ball over the fences for an 8-5 lead. Mills atoned for his error in the ninth with the help of a double-play as he kept Florida away from the plate. Outhitting Featherheads 12-4 in the final game we took until the sixth innings to turn a 1-2 deficit into a 4-2 lead as we scratched out three runs in the sixth. Labrie picked up his second straight win in the week while Mills added a pair of clean innings giving up nothing and seal our second series sweep in the week.

Six straight wins has our team bouncing, Haden Shawver is finally settling in with eight hits from the last five games, backup catcher Neil Avery has hit his third homer and upped his batting average to .286 while Luis Cedeño has become the second player to pass the 100 hit mark. He, at 30-yrs-old, is also one stolen base away from a second straight 50+ steals year and now has 362 steals in his eight years in the majors. Labrie who signed a new 4-year, $24 million contract at the start of 2028 has been ramping it up since coming off the DL and now has three wins in his last four starts. In that time, he has struck out 20 batters in 26.2 innings pitched and only allowed four runs. Avery has also been rewarded for his solid play with a 2-year, $8.6 million extension.

There has been quite a few transactions as well, Zambrano and Walter Winston have returned from the DL causing Mills to head for the bullpen and waiver pickup Katsuhiko Araki to be optioned to Lincoln. He can consider himself a bit unlucky having hit .385 with four RBI in four PEBA starts. In another minor league trade right on the trade deadline we sent Lincoln’s Ramon Guzman to Bakersfield in exchance for Alex Flores. Flores will compete at Lincoln with Jorge Perez, also newly-acquired, for a shortstop role in Hartford in 2029.
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Re: Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog

#47 Post by Fishermen »

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#19. August 23rd, 2028

After going 18-6 straight after the All-Star break and approaching a 16-game homestand against close rivals, optimism was high in Hartford that they could burst back into a contender’s position. It wasn’t to be though, lack of form, sloppiness and unlucky bounces saw us win just six of the sixteen games leaving us in a real dogfight for an IL wild card slot. Alfredo Zambrano had given us a great start to the homestand with six strong innings conceding just one run to San Juan. Leading 3-1 going into the ninth it looked wrapped up, but the bullpen conspired to blow it, allowing five runs as Hartford lost 6-3. Down 2-0 early on in the second game we dug in and a Walter Winston solo-homer in the bottom of the ninth sent us into extras. The comeback didn’t last though as Wayne Prior coughed up two hits to Coqui in the 12th, allowing a sac fly to get the winning run home. Pryor got his revenge in the final game of the series though as we finally got on the board. He was on the mound when we scratched out a run in the bottom of the eighth to take a winning 2-1 lead.

London offered a chance to get back on track but we hadn’t the best of times this year against the Underground despite their trouble and so it proved again. The offence went missing again, producing just nine hits in the first two games as we went down 2-5 & 2-3. Ralph Morris & Maxime Labrie were tagged with the losses but the games felt different. Morris looked completely out of control and only lasted five innings, thanks in part to the five batters he walked. Meanwhile Labrie, although he gave up the same three runs, was unlucky in defeat. He went seven innings, but the 3-run shot he had given up in the sixth condemned Hartford to their fourth defeat in five games. Again, we were able to prevent the sweep in the final game of the series. Four hits in the seventh plated three runs and a Walter Daniel solo shot in the eighth sealed a 5-2 win. Six games into the homestand and we had a disappointing 2-4 record.

Opening the vital series against our nearest division rivals Eduardo Romano, Pryor and Matt ‘Zippy’ Brown combined to shut out Arlington 6-0 before Jose Morin put us on the way to a 5-2 win as our win streak hit three. Morris once again looked poor, down 1-0 Haden Shawver’s first Hartford triple broached the way for three more hits to give us a 2-1 lead. Curt Mills almost blew it coughing up two ninth innings runs allowing the Alleghenies to tie it at five but Ron Myers rescued it with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth to stretch the winning run to four games. Arlington kept themselves in the Wild Card race by seizing the final game of the four-game series. Despite outhitting the visitors 10-7 we fell to a defeat as Labrie twice walked a better before allowing a two-run homer. The bullpen cleaned up the last four innings, but the damage had been done. With 10 games gone of the homestand we were 5-5, not terrible, but not likely to get us to the front of the Wild Card race.

The Scottish series was the one all our fans feared. We knew that we had to gain an inroad into Claymore’s lead in the race, but they all knew that we had just one win in nine against the Highland warriors. Zambrano, who hasn’t really been back on his best form since returning from the DL, set the tone for the series in the first innings. Having already walked two to load the bases we stood and watched as Scottish’s 3B Bob Swift smacked a Grand Slam. We never once held a lead then in the series. 4-8, 3-5 & 1-3 defeats left the season series standing 11-1 in favour of Claymores and finally wrecked the homestand. We now needed a sweep of Kentucky to even come out of this Homestand with a .500 record and that series could go either way.

In a blaze of offence, the Thoroughbreds outhit us 19-10 in the series opener. The five hits for the visitors in the third included a 3-run shot and we were already 8-0 down before we even got going. Morris was yanked two outs into the fourth having given up 14 hits and nine runs. We tried to claw our way back into it, but it was gone, and we lost 10-7. A two-run bottom of the first in game two gave us hope, but it was soon gone. At the mid-point of the game we were 4-2 down and the second half of the game held just a single run for us in the eighth. The final game was ours once more despite Kentucky taking a 2-0 lead in the first. We were level after three and Carlos Ryan’s sixth innings solo-homer gave us a winning lead. Ryan scored again in the eighth for the insurance run.

We had won just six out of 16 games and at 65-62 we were 12 games behind West Virginia in the Seaboard division and almost as many behind Scottish for the first wildcard. We were in a five man tussle with Arlington, Kentucky, San Juan and London for the final wild card slot, a desperate struggle as barely a few games separated the five of us.
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Re: Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog

#48 Post by Vic »

Hard to explain the Claymores’ record against the Harpoon this season. But don’t feel bad, I’ve had a terrible time against the Calzones. It all combines to make the last month of the season all the more interesting. Better this than just playing out the string!
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Re: Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog

#49 Post by Fishermen »

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#20. September 25th, 2028

A conscious decision was made when roster expansion came around, that the franchise should look to the future. Sure we still had a chance of going deep into the Wildcard race, maybe even into the post season, but the chances of staying there long was so remote that the management team felt the best use of September would be to assess just what we needed to do in certain areas for 2029. So it was that recent acquisition Alex Flores got his first real PEBA ‘cup of coffee’, he had had a single AB for Bakersfield the previous year but this was to be a proper audition for the vacant role of 2029 shortstop. Mark Edwards had decided he didn’t want to return next year and probably wasn’t affordable anyway. Min-u Yi would get a chance to show that with regular AB’s he could be a viable option and Flores too would compete in a head-to-head showdown. Waiver claim Katsuhiko Araki would return from Missouri so we could get a better look at him. Heading back to Hartford with him would be pitchers Masaharu Konishi & Takejiro Daikawa. Ralph Morris had really trailed off as the season wound down, from the end of July to the start of September his record had slipped from 6-5 to 6-10, and Konishi would take his spot in the rotation having gone 4-1, 1.32 ERA in Triple-A on his demotion. Meanwhile Daikawa for most of his 30 bullpen outings in Missouri had posted an ERA below 1.00 and so would get a chance in the Harpoon bullpen.

Things did not start well in September; we were seven games into a 16-game road trip that had so far just yielded two wins in series at Amsterdam and West Virginia. The remaining three series against Havana, Kentucky and San Juan eventually saw us win just two games as we returned back home with a 4-12 record from the trip. We had also slipped three games back of Arlington and Kentucky who seemingly would fight out the final IL Wildcard spot between them. Neither Flores or Yi were really showing they could lead the team and to be honest the whole team needed a freshening up. Araki was given the RF role as Walter Winston slumped and Shojiro Kotara took the other corner OF role in an effort to turn things round. And slowly it did . . .

Diakawa who had given up four runs in less than an inning on his PEBA return turned it round and in his last five outings hasn’t given up a run or hit, Konishi only gave up one run in wins against New Orleans and Arlington, Araki had two multi-hit games while Kotara had three as the team lifted. They only managed one win in the opening series of the homestand against Havana but took two out of three against New Orleans including a fantastic 14-0 shutout where Maxime Labrie went the distance, allowing just six hits. We finished off the week with a three-game sweep of Arlington, a real spanner in their Wildcard hopes and throwing the IL 2nd Wildcard slot wide open again with just a week left of the regular season.

With six games left in the season Arlington (79-77) still just have the drop on us and Kentucky, both locked on 78-78, but we have the momentum. Hartford are on a four-game streak, Kentucky haven’t been able to put a string of results together recently while Arlington are on a four-game losing streak. Most importantly we finish the season with three at the Bureaucrats, another sweep there and it could give us an unlikely Wildcard spot. Certainly, it could be vital for Bureaucrats with three against Amsterdam first, win them and a single win against us should make them fireproof. Kentucky have it tough with three against Trans-Atlantic division winners Havana followed by three against Seaboard division winners West Virginia. Finally, we have to try to overcome West Virginia too as we finish our final homestand against them before our Arlington series.

One week, six games, Post Season or not?
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Re: Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog

#50 Post by Vic »

That final series against Arlington should be a barn burner! Hoping the Harpoon flies straight and true!
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Re: Shoot from the Hartford, A Hartford Harpoon Blog

#51 Post by DrewV »

Looking forward to the lase RS sim, and I enjoyed the update. Interesting year for sure! I have a similar issue with SPs who tear up AAA but struggle to stay below 4.00 in PEBA.
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