Boston Globe

BOSTON, MA – The Bootleggers woke this morning in a position they were not expecting to be in after a promising spring training.  The 3-11 Bootleggers find themselves alone in last place in the LL Frazee Division.  The first 14 games of the year have been marred by inconsistency and underperformance.   The glaring issue is run scoring.  The Bootleggers are 2^nd in the LL in hits, lead the league in doubles and stolen bases, yet are a distant 5^th in runs.  Perhaps still adjusting their new surroundings in Boston, the Bootleggers will need to quickly turn around their early season team wide slump.

Gaston Couture

“It’s still early, but in this division we can’t afford to keep playing this way.  We’re lucky to be behind only 2.5 games.  On the other hand, every team is going to go through a rough stretch like this at some point. For us, it just happens to be early in the season,” explained veteran Gaston Couture.

The problem right now comes down to scoring runs.  The offense is producing hits, but turning those hits into runs in another story.  Slow starts from outfield cohorts Couture and Martin Arrendondo are not expected to continue and a few extra base hits could quickly turn the season around.

It hasn’t been all bad.  New arrival, prized free agent Abel Kulk has

Abel Kulk

come as advertised banging out 21 hits in 55 at bats, a .382 clip while stealing 6 bases and running a .452 on base percentage. Also, coming as a surprise, has been the performance of veteran lefty Jin-haeng Chung after a tough first game.  Since his first start he has given up only 5 hits in 13 innings and brought his ERA down to 2.04.

So, although the season is off to a slow start it wouldn’t be surprising to see them turn things around be the end of next week.  So Bootlegger fans, hold off on the panic button for now, hope they drive in some runs, and stay tuned.

In other news, Randy Baker (.326/3/6) left a game last week injured for the 6^th time since the CBU’s inception.