Falcons Forum

Sunday 8:00PM August 9th, 2026

Despite a bit of a scare in the top of the sixth, the Falcons held on for a 14-11 win over President's Division rival Broadway on Sunday night.

The rest of the Falcons' season, all five games of it, will revolve around a bunch of questions:

1. Can the Falcons maneuver themselves into the 2-seed over Storm?
2. Has Three-League Wally Pipp'd Speed Bump from the lead off spot?
3. Will Beatty ever get a website nickname?
4. Should you get an RBI if you hit into a double play where you yourself don't get out?

Let's get into it.

Even before the game began -- and indeed days before the game -- Falcons line up guru Shohei was struggling. Struggling is normal for Shohei, as he stares into his fridge and tries to decide which craft IPA to imbibe that day: Most IBU? Fanciest Can? Most hilarious name? But anyway, this was a different kind of struggle. Speed Bump, always thinking of the team's needs instead of his own (unless his family is locked out of the house, then it's "Falcons who?"), had asked out of the number one spot in the batting order. His .570/.592/.904 slash line was below his career .615/.620/.954 line, and since July 1 it was .463/.508/.685. He thought a change at the top might be a better option for the team.

So Shohei struggled. With whom do you replace Speed Bump, the team's lead off hitter as reliable as the sunrise? Fun fact: Dunner's world class website that houses, among other things, these recaps, our HOF, and our stats since 2007, and the ability to sort those same stats (on the page where you create the batting order and defence) by the last 6 games. You can see who's hot, who's not, and make any adjustments as necessary. Who do you bat at leadoff? Is it the guy with the highest OBP over the last six games? Maybe it should be. But that wasn't Shohei's struggle. The struggle was this: Since it was Shohei himself who led the team in OBP over the last 6 games, and Shohei would never put Shohei at #1 in the order, exactly HOW MANY TIMES do you tell everyone on the team that you're the team OBP leader over the last 6 games? Is it once? Is once enough for everyone on the team to know that you're the team OBP leader over the last 6 games? Twice? It seemed important for Shohei to let everyone know a couple things: He led the team in OBP over the last 6 games, and he's not going to put himself out there to prove it at the top of the order.

So without Speed Bump to put in at the top, Barry Guerrero Jr became the man. He's the man anyway, but still.... until he signed out of the games. Probably something about having to prepare his home for the team to destroy next week. Next up: Poutine. A fine choice, until you realize it's Poutine you put in there and he flaked out of the game on game day AFTER the 4pm deadline because of course he did. Your third-best option: Three-League.

And so it was that Three-League led off for the team and went a respectable 2-for-4. Time will tell if Speed Bump is the Wally Pip to Three-League's Lou Gehrig.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the game.

The game was mostly a defensive clinic put on by the home Falcons. Despite a third inning blip where Broadway scored three runs, the girthy Falcons D held the visitors to only 5 runners over the minimum through five innings. If you've been paying attention lately, you know a big Falcons lead isn't safe going into the last inning. So you'd be forgiven for thinking the Falcons would wait all the way to the seventh before allowing a big inning full of errors. In a game where the Falcons didn't hit either a triple or a home run, they led 13-3 going into the sixth. Broadway finally broke through, scoring eight to bring them within two. With their collars getting tight, the Falcons needed a response.

They scored one run.

But it was enough! A three-up, three-down top of the seventh secured the victory for the home side.

With the job done, it was on to other things: playoff speculation.

Storm was about to take the field against The Crew, and it was correctly assumed that Storm would walk away victors. Looking at the standings this morning, you'll find that the Falcons and Storm are in a tie for second, both 5 games back of Triple Play who, despite a loss to the Expos earlier Sunday, will still end up cashing a President's Division championship cheque.

It's a race to the finish for those two teams to see who gets the coveted 2-9-12 playoff pool (currently vs Sunbelt Surge and The Expos) for finishing in 2nd instead of a more precarious 3-5-8 pool (Isotopes and Broadway, though the 5 through 9 seed could shuffle a lot over the next few weeks).

Storm has seven games to go: Isotopes (twice), Broadway (twice), The Expos, Inglorious Batters and finishing off against Sunbelt Surge. That's a strength of schedule advantage for Storm, as those teams have a collective .377 winning percentage. The Falcons only have five more games (a crazy thing to write in the second week of August): Sunbelt Surge (twice), Triple Play, the Isotopes and Inglorious Batters to finish it off. Collectively those opponents have a .483 winning percentage.

So it'll be an uphill battle for the Falcons if they want to come out ahead of Storm. Even if they finish with identical records, Storm currently would hold a couple tie breakers: runs allowed and run differential. So the Falcons will have to come out ahead in winning percentage. If they can go 4-1 (completely probable), they'd finish at 28-8-2. Storm would only need to go 4-3 or better to secure the 2-seed. It could happen!

GAME NOTES: Beatty, in year five with the Falcons, remains nickname-less. "Schneids", for his resemblance to John Schneider, would allow for a bunch of "got off the schneid" jokes. We'll see. Maybe he'll crash Barry's boat next week and we'll really have something... In that case, his new nickname would be Jose Fernandez... Speaking of Beatty, he leads the Falcons in home runs with eight, putting him only 16 behind league leader and sometimes Hanet pickup Bradley Rodgers. He'll really have to swing it to win that trophy... Oh yeah, to answer question #4 above: yes. On the Falcons, yes... With only two games to go before the annual Falcons symposium talk begins of "Can Chad keep his hands to himself? Neighbouring firewood, and Arbour's groin want to know."

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