Tag: stadiums and ballparks

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 62-64: Alone in Second Place

Coming into this series with $24 and Some Change, Jack Bauer Squared had a chance to move into 2nd place in the National League West with a sweep. A tall order, sure, but we’ve started seeing results more in line with expectations. Sights are set on getting to .500 and contending for the playoffs.

The opener featured perhaps our best pitching performance of the season, as Burt Hooton allowed a single hit over 8 innings. The sixth-inning triple by Pete Rose (he did get a lot of hits, after all) broke up the no-hitter. Carlos Delgado hit his 10th homer and drove in three runs in a 4-1 victory.

Game 62

As in our previous post where we looked at the start breakdowns of two other members of the rotation, let’s look at how Hooton has fared. His record of 4-6 belies how effective he’s been, posting a 3.42 ERA in 15 starts.

  • 0 runs: 1 time
  • 1 run: 6 times
  • 2 runs: 2 times
  • 3 runs: 1 time
  • 4 runs: 2 times
  • 5 runs: 1 time
  • 6 runs: 0 times
  • 7 runs: 1 time
  • 8 runs: 1 time

What jumps out is giving up 1 run or fewer in almost half his starts, and he’s keeping us in nearly every game he pitches. Coupled with Bert Blyleven in what is supposed to be the back half of the rotation, these two have been closer to our aces.

Nothing is truly contagious in a sim, but we’ll take any explanation for a good start by Mike Cuellar. Buoyed by a grand slam in the 1st inning by Garry Maddox and a two-run shot by Gene Tenace, Cuellar allowed just 1 run on 2 hits in 7 innings. 

That’s only the second time Cuellar gave up 1 run or fewer, so we can only hope it’s the start of a trend. Maddox finished with 5 RBI, and we sailed to a 7-1 victory. That puts us in a tie for 2nd place with $24, so this final game of the series will put someone there by themselves.

Game 63

Despite falling behind 2-0 in the 1st inning, JBS battled back to score in each of the first four innings. Kal Daniels and Tenace homered to back Blyleven, who gave up 3 runs in 7 innings.

Bob Woodward came on to pitch the 9th and recorded his 15th save in 15 tries and kept his ERA at 0.00. It’s unusual to see a pitcher not give up a run this deep into the season, even if he has only pitched 14 ⅓ innings. (Psst, forum jinx, you didn’t hear me say that.)

Game 64

The three-game sweep did indeed put us alone in second place at 30-34, 6 games out of 1st but only 3 behind the current wild-card leader. Each league’s three division winners make the playoffs, plus the second-place team with the best record as the wild card. Since no one else is running away with this, we’re right in the thick of it now.

It’s also worth noting that our expected winning percentage continues to climb and is now at .520, and only the three division leaders are that high. That means we “should” be 33-31, which is exactly the record of the wild-card leader. We can easily point at a 7-12 record in one-run games and 1-5 in extra innings as the culprits. Those may even out yet.

Next up is a single quick interleague series against Throw the Spitball, Gaylord, starting off with our one visit to Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field to kick it off. Let’s keep it going, lads!

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 59-61: A Tale of Two Pitchers

Jack Bauer Squared needed a rebound after the sweep in Dodger Stadium, and though you wouldn’t generally think a trip to Yankee Stadium is a way to make things better … well, in this case it worked out well enough.

The opener saw Mike Cuellar do typical Mike Cuellar things for us. He gave up 5 runs in 6.2 innings. In his 16 starts now, here is a breakdown of runs allowed (earned and unearned combined): 

  • 0 runs: 1 time
  • 1 run: 0 times
  • 2 runs: 1 time
  • 3 runs: 2 times
  • 4 runs: 3 times
  • 5 runs: 4 times
  • 6 runs: 3 times
  • 7 runs: 2 times

That’s pretty much how you end up with a 5.35 ERA and ongoing scorn in these posts. When 75% of the time you give up at least 4 runs, you are not helping your team win games. The underlying code that represents our maligned Mr. Cuellar is better than that, otherwise I wouldn’t have drafted him in the second round. He’s doing worse than pitchers who aren’t as good, so he’s suffering some bad luck. In theory, the law of averages should catch up and he should fill the top half of that list up as the season progresses. In theory anyway. The reverse jinxes aren’t helping any, clearly.

As it happens we pulled out the series opener anyway with a couple runs in the top of the 9th on Kal Daniels’ RBI double and a wild pitch. That gave us a 7-5 win and the end of the little three-game losing streak.

Game 59

The second game featured an excellent start from Bert Blyleven, who despite being drafted as a fourth starter has performed the best so far. He pitched 7 shutout innings to improve to 8-4 with a 3.21 ERA. We won 5-0 to take the first two games of the series.

Seems like a good time to compare Blyleven’s 15 starts to Cuellar’s:

  • 0 runs: 3 times
  • 1 run: 3 times
  • 2 runs: 2 times
  • 3 runs: 1 time
  • 4 runs: 2 times
  • 5 runs: 3 times
  • 6 runs: 1 times
  • 7 runs: 0 times

In contrast to Cuellar’s only yielding 3 or fewer runs in 25% of his starts, Blyleven has done in 9 out of 15 times, or 60%. I think my inner geek is showing a bit here, so let’s move on.

Game 60

The final game of the series started with each team scoring twice in the 1st inning and then zeroes until A Rod broke through with two more in the 7th. We squandered scoring opportunities in the 6th, 7th, and 8th and couldn’t get a run home. So the 4-2 loss ended the road trip and left us at 27-34, 8 games out of 1st place but only 5 games out of the wild card.

Game 61

Next up: Another divisional battle against $24 and Some Change, who sit just above us at 29-32. A good showing here could put us a step closer to contention. At this point, the first goal is to get to .500 on the season, hopefully by the halfway point in 20 games. We’d have to go 14-6 to do that, but that’s possible to be sure.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 56-58: Wrong Kind of Sweep

There is an absolutely proven to exist thing called a forum jinx. If you post anything good about your team or a player, the coding somehow reads it and causes bad things to happen to you. There is also a Sasquatch-like reverse jinx that some claim to have seen, where you can post about underachievement and get the luck to change.

I feel like I might have reverse jinxed Jack Bauer Squared into staying off the scrap heap of the season, but it also seems that whenever I write about a little success we are doomed to have a setback.

So it was for our four-game winning streak heading into a series with first-place Steroids Make You Fast, one into which we carried dreams of a legitimate run at the leaders. And the forum jinx laughed, and spat out a three-game losing streak instead, the wrong kind of sweep.

Things were looking good in the series opener at Dodger Stadium (the park I’ve seen the vast majority of my big-league games in), as JBS took a 3-1 lead on Bobby Murcer’s three-run homer and Bert Blyleven’s 7 innings of one-run ball. Then we gave up a homer in the bottom of the 8th to cut our lead to 3-2, left the bases loaded in the top of the 9th, and then with two outs in the bottom of the 9th yielded a tying homer to Milt May.

That sent us to extra innings, and in the bottom of the 10th it was time for their third homer in late innings. Willie McCovey did the honors with a walkoff two-run shot and a 5-3 comeback win for Steroids.

Game 56

The second game of the series followed a parallel script. We took a 3-0 lead in the top of the 1st and ran the advantage to 5-1 in the 6th. That held until the 8th inning, when Steroids pushed across the tying runs on a three-run homer by Tony Gwynn.

We went to extra innings again, and once again McCovey came up with a chance to end it … and did. His two-run homer in the 11th gave Steroids a 7-5 victory, both now on extra-inning walkoff shots by McCovey.

Game 57

The series finale required no dramatics. Steroids busted out to a 4-0 lead in the 4th inning, opened it up to 7-0 in the 7th and sailed to a 4-2 win and a three-game sweep.

Game 58

So that put us 8 games behind in the division and erased all the gains from the previous series. Next up: a three-game set in Yankee Stadium against A Rod, some Wood and a Big Unit, the only team trailing us in the National League West.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 49-52: A Pair of Splits

We are closing in on the one-third mark of the season, and thanks to a five-game winning streak Jack Bauer Squared is at least moving in the right direction. We split two interleague two-game series to leave our record at 22-30, 7 games out of first place. 

We have now scored exactly as many runs as we’ve allowed, 236, which usually would indicate we should have a record closer to 26-26. The continuing culprit preventing that is the one-run losses, as we are just 5-12 in those decisions.

In our previous report we had wrapped up a three-game sweep and had won four straight, looking to sustain the momentum (not that code knows such a thing, of course) against 576. (That’s 24 times 24, in case you missed it.)

We were scoreless into the 6th inning of the opener at Olympic Stadium until Carlos Delgado belted a two-run homer, his 8th. Then after giving the lead away, JBS responded in the 8th inning with a two-run homer by Kal Daniels and a grand slam by Garry Maddox.

That was plenty to secure an 8-3 victory, our fifth straight. We headed next to Boston’s historic Fenway Park for our only visit.

Game 49

JBS belted two homers in the top of the 1st, by Daniels and Bobby Murcer, to take the lead. Delgado homered in the 3rd to retake the team lead from Daniels, 9 to 8, and we later broke a 3-3 tie with Daniels doubling in a run and later scoring in the 7th. 

The bullpen couldn’t hold the lead, however. This time it was Todd Burns yielding four runs in the bottom of the 8th, and our winning streak ended at five with a 7-5 defeat.

Game 50

From there JBS packed bags for the single trip to Seattle’s Kingdome, where we’d square off with 24×24 Kingdome Krushers, run by the league’s commissioner, footballmm11. Turns out he knows baseball darn well, too!

The Kingdome didn’t disappoint for Krushing, as each team had a three-run homer in the second inning (ours from Gene Tenace), and the game remained tight into the 7th inning. The Krushers worked over our bullpen to tack on 3 more runs and pulled away to a 9-5 win.

Game 51

That sent us back to Olympic Stadium, where Bert Blyleven joined the club as we recorded our third shutout in eight games after none in the first 44. Blyleven allowed 2 hits in 7 innings to improve to 7-4, and Rafael Ramirez drove in both runs in a 2-0 win.

Game 52

Next up: a three-game home series against 24 Hours at Wrigley. This is the part of the schedule where we start facing teams for the second time this season, and we lost 2 of 3 to these guys the first time around. If we’re going to make that march toward .500 stick, we’ll need to flip that around.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 46-48: OMG, a Winning Streak!

Dear Faithful Reader, perhaps there is finally a reward for sticking with the exploits of Jack Bauer Squared. Possibly even something good could yet come of the season. Because, yes, we actually have a winning streak going!

Fresh off our series win against Tigers of the Ontario Peninsula, we headed to Candlestick Park for three games against Todd Helton??? looking to sustain momentum. And, astonishingly, for the first time all season, we did.

We jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the top of the 1st inning, finding The Stick very much to our liking. Bobby Bonilla’s two-run triple started the scoring, and we went on to a 5-2 victory behind a strong start from Burt Hooton, who earned just his second win.

Game 46

The second game featured more unlikely feats based on how the season had gone so far. Mike Cuellar finally pitched like an ace, going 8 innings for our second shutout in three games after none all season before that. He improved to 4-5 and dropped his ERA to 5.40, still a long way from where it needs to be.

Bonilla continued to be a major lifter on offense with a two-run homer, his sixth, as we cruised to a 5-0 victory.

Game 47

In the final game, we again jumped out to an early lead with a four-run 3rd inning keyed by Garry Maddox’s two-run triple. Ryne Sandberg had a pair of triples and a double as we cruised to a 10-4 victory.

Game 48

The three-game sweep ran our winning streak to four games and gave us five wins in six games. A 20-28 record looks a lot more promising than 16-28 did, and if we can sustain this push we still have a chance to get into the race soon.

Next up: two more interleague series. Hopefully this trend continues.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 43-45: An Actual Series Win

What’s that saying about a blind squirrel finding a nut every now and then? Maybe that’s the best explanation for Jack Bauer Squared actually winning a series. Until we make a habit of it, that’s all we deserve.

JBS hosted Tigers of the Ontario Peninsula, and the opener featured a not-awful start by Mike Cuellar, one of the few times we’ve able to say that. Cuellar allowed 3 runs in 8 innings, and we actually won one of those 1-run games, 4-3.

Game 43

It’s been a long time since we won two games in a row, and so it’s no surprise we reverted to old form in losing a 1-run game right after winning one. The tiebreaking run scored in the 6th inning when catcher Gene Tenace tried to pick a runner off third base and threw it away. We twice couldn’t get a runner home from third over the final four innings and it finished up 6-5.

Game 44

The rubber game of the series featured an accomplishment we’d yet to achieve in the first 44 games. We didn’t give up any runs. And I’m pretty sure even the most casual of fans can tell you that you can’t lose if you do that.

Teddy Higuera went 8 innings, allowing 5 hits, to even his record at 5-5 and drop his ERA to 3.72. We didn’t score much, but we didn’t need to, taking the final game 2-0.

Game 45

If a sim could possibly comprehend momentum, maybe a win like that could propel us in a good direction. At 17-28 we are only 8 games behind in the NL West and still playing way below expected win percentage (.378 to .466). Granted, .466 still isn’t good enough to win, but it would be a lot more competitive.

Next up we face Todd Helton???, which is tied with Tigers of the Ontario Peninsula at 20-25 pulling up the rear of the NL East. Another series win wouldn’t be too much to ask for, I’d think.

We’ll be playing in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, where I once had the, uh, privilege to see a game. The ‘Stick was not a great place to play baseball, largely because of wind. And compared with the beautiful park the Giants replaced it with, there’s no reason to have much nostalgia for it. 

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 40-42: It’s Not Getting Better

Jack Bauer Squared came home to Olympic Stadium for a three-game series against Piazza Blues, and about the only good news is we didn’t lose any games by 1 run. Oh no. We lost all of them by 2 or 3 runs instead!

After Bobby Bonilla doubled in a run in the 1st inning, our offense went nowhere the rest of the series opener. We managed only four hits in a 4-1 loss.

Game 40

As the second quarter of the season began, we again failed to muster much offense in a 5-2 loss. Mike Cuellar was charged with only 2 earned runs due to a pair of errors. In his 11th start, this marked the first time he didn’t allow at least 3 earned runs. None of that is impressive in the least.

Game 41

Trying to emerge from the final game of the series with some respectability, we at least kept it entertaining. Bonilla doubled in the 6th inning to tie the game 1-1, and then no one scored again until the 15th inning. 

Burt Hooton and the first five relievers to follow him yielded just the lone run and seven hits through 14 innings, but in came long man Orlando Pena for the 15th and things got out of control quickly. After allowing only one run in his first seven appearances, Pena allowed six straight runners to reach base in the 15th and was charged with 5 runs.

We didn’t give up, though. Out of position players, JBS had to send up Bert Blyleven to pinch hit to start the inning, and he predictably struck out. But then two singles and two doubles put 3 runs on the board and we had a little hope. Alas, that was as close as we could get and lost 6-4.

Game 42

The three-game sweep put us at 15-27, 9-14 at home and 6-13 on the road. Worst record in the National League. There are still 120 games to play, though, so we can try to find glimmers of hope that a turnaround remains possible.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared MLB Sim Baseball

Games 36-39: Here We Go Again

Dear Reader, I beg your forgiveness. The results in this 24×24 league have been so disheartening, I practically wanted to scrap this project. Or at least stop narrating this seemingly doomed season and focus on any other one. Literally any of my other ones would be better, as this is the worst team I have going out of 18. Aren’t you lucky, Dear Reader?

But let’s soldier on, as we aren’t even a quarter of the way there and a run of luck could still even the tables for us.

We have two home-and-home interleague sets to catch up on, and the highlights have been few. We started off with the animals of The Hawk, the Bird, Simba and a Moose, and they mauled poor Teddy Higuera with a pair of three-run homers in the early going to take a huge lead.

We did flex some of our own power with a three-run homer by Carlos Delgado and a two-run shot by Bobby Bonilla, but there wasn’t enough to come back as we lost 8-5.

Game 36

The second game marked our lone trip to Oriole Park at Camden Yards (fitting home for a team of that name, too). This time it was our turn to take a big early lead, as we chased Mark “The Bird” Fidrych after 4 innings. 

Mike Cuellar pitched well enough to earn his 2nd win, giving up “only” 4 runs in 7 innings, and Bob Woodward kept his ERA at 0.00 by earning his 10th save in the 6-4 victory. This marked the 4th straight time we followed a loss with a win, so our recent history looked like this: L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W. 

Game 37

Our second interleague series of this set against 24 Lines About 24 Players (still in awe of the genius of the team name, I must confess) went a lot like much of the early season. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but we lost twice by one run. We fell to 4-11 in such games, and it’s taking a lot of wind out my sails and variety out of my prose. There are only so many ways to say that your team fell just short, again.

Rickey Henderson led off the opener with a home run, something he did far more than anyone else in MLB history, 81 times. This is seemingly true of Rickey’s records, where he put huge gaps ahead of second place in the books. He hit 50% more leadoff homers than the next closest (Alfonso Soriano with 54). Rickey stole 1406 bases, and second place still belongs to Lou Brock with 938.

I digress, but since this is our only series facing Rickey I might as well indulge in some appreciation. After all, he helped beat us the way he famously did. He stole two bases, scored three runs, and 24 Lines beat us 3-2. 

Game 38

Our L-W streak ended in the second game, as our trip to Sicks’ Stadium ended in a 10-9 defeat. Bobby Bonilla hit a grand slam, but the Jack Bauer Squared pitching gave up runs in six different innings. We had the tying and go-ahead runs on in the 9th with one out, but a pair of strikeouts ended the threat. 

Game 39

So it’s a 15-24 mark we carry limping back home in hopes of turning the tide soon. But hope is not a word well associated with this team much any more.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 31-32: Ending Slide, Trading Wins

When you can’t buy a win, you don’t care how you get one. Or who you beat. And after splitting two games with 24 Pack of 24 Distinct Ales, I’m fairly sure both sides feel the same way. 

Jack Bauer Squared came into the interleague series on a 7-game losing streak, and 24 Pack had dropped 9 of 10. So trading wins is a good enough outcome for both of us at this point.

In our game at Olympic Stadium, we rode a 3-run homer by Kal Daniels and 8 innings of 1-run pitching by Bert Blyleven to a 4-1 victory that ended our ugly slide. Bob Woodward made up for his awful extra-inning performance the previous time out with a scoreless 9th for his 8th save.

Game 31

Our visit to Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium to try for a sweep didn’t go quite as well. After taking a 2-0 lead, Teddy Higuera got roughed up for 4 runs in the 2nd inning and we could never regain the lead. 

The 5-4 loss ran our record in 1-run games to 3-9, so our 13-19 record should really be closer to 16-17 at this point. That’s hardly championship material, but it would be less to overcome to get into competition.

Game 32

Next up is a mighty challenge, too. We have to face the league’s best team, Hitmen 24×24, which at 24-8 is ahead of everyone else by 5 wins. Just have to hope we can put together a good series and maybe take two of three and gain some confidence.

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Baseball Jack Bauer Squared Sim Baseball

Games 25-28: Where Is This Train Headed?

The time has arrived, Dear Reader, to ask which of us likes suffering more. Is it me, for continuing to write my way through a season that is developing into a train wreck? Or is it you, for actually coming back to read about it?

It is quickly becoming time to recognize that this might be a disaster. We might be off the rails and careening through a long, painful process of trying to figure out what went wrong. I’ve committed to the telling of the tale, so hold onto your handrails.

We began a four-game series at $24 and Some Change in Metropolitan Stadium with an 11-13 record and a chance to establish ourselves in the division. Four games later, we left Minneapolis with our tails between our legs, whimpering.

The series opener was decidedly inauspicious. Mike Cuellar once again pitched poorly, and we trailed 9-3 going into the 9th inning. This time he gave up 6 runs and 9 hits in 7 innings, so basically that’s no really good starts and six bad ones in seven tries.

If you play enough sim games, enough unlikely events will occur, however, and somehow we scored 6 runs in the top of the 9th to tie the game. Carlos Delgado struck the big blow, the tying three-run homer. 

And then the game turned into a lengthy slog, staying 9-9 until the 14th inning. After a leadoff walk, closer Bob Woodward (who had been perfect on the season) came in and proceeded to walk the next three batters, forcing in the winning run. Just like that, the comeback was for naught, and we lost 10-9.

Game 25

Seven strong innings from the man leading our pitching staff, Teddy Higuera, put us in good position in the second game of the series. But the bullpen, so recently a strength, couldn’t hold the lead. Joe Sambito gave up two runs in the bottom of the 9th, and we lost our second straight on a walkoff and again a one-run loss, this time 3-2.

Why did I pick this team to chronicle again? Sigh.

Game 26

Forget about the bullpen being a strength anymore. Even when the offense picks up, the pen is finding ways to let us down. Desperate for a win and clinging to a 3-2 edge, Rod Beck took the hill for the third straight game but finally faltered. 

Beck allowed 4 runs in the 7th to put us behind 6-3, yet we had another comeback in us with a 4-run rally in the 8th to go back in front. But with our best relievers tired, we turned to a couple of long men to hold the lead and they couldn’t do it. $24 put up 3 more in the 8th and held on to win 9-7. 

Game 27

Desperate to avoid the sweep, we instead fell flat. Burt Hooton got roughed up for 8 runs and yielded three homers, and our losing streak stretched to five with a 9-3 loss. 

Game 28

Nothing’s going right, and we’ve fallen into last place. Is it time to delete this blog and start over with a better team?

Back to interleague play for the next four games, matchups with a pair of fellow last-place teams: 69-92 25 different teams and 24 Pack of 24 Distinct Ales. At this point, we need anything to get back on track before this train wreck of a season goes down the drain. Even the metaphors aren’t working well, alas.