Karachi in Wild Card Hunt

[Karachi_GM]

Karachi in Wild Card Hunt

by Hasan Khan, Sports Editor (Karachi Dawn)
August 17 2105

It’s been awhile since we reported.  The Pakistani Government decided to shut down the Karachi Dawn for awhile for suspect reasons.  But now we are back.  Let’s catch up a bit.

The Falcons are amongst a whole host of teams battling for the two wild card berths.  Singapore has a solid hold on the first wild card spot.  Karachi is currently leading for the second spot, but London, Mumbai, and Paris are all less than two games back.  It will be a fight to the finish.

On the offensive front, Konosuke Sanu leads the way with 38 home runs and 89 runs batted in.  He leads the IBL in homers and is just one behind for the RBI lead.  Toshikuni Hashimoto is also bashing the ball: 30 HRs and 77 TBIs.  The most pleasant surprise has been the emergence of second baseman Luo-lang Wang as a solid offensive threat.  He has 13 HRs along with 13 triples and 26 doubles for a nice .459 slugging percentage.  His 13 triples leads the league.  Finally, Erwin Beza has successfully made the jump from AAA Faisalabad and is patrolling left field as a regular.

Pitching-wise, the Falcons are not as strong as they would like to be.  That said, free agent signee Fernando Cuevas is having a nice season (11-4, 3.95).  And Dermott Baldwin, expected to be a reliever, has done very well in the rotation (9-5, 3.27).  Closer Myeong-hwan Lee is a rock with 34 saves in 36 tries, and trade acquisition Jin-suk Kim has recovered from a horrific start to be a steady and reliable set-up man.

The biggest news we have to report is the rapid development of the team’s top two draft picks in the 2105 draft.  First rounder El-Fatih Mwendapole started his professional career at Multan in Class A.  He was 4-3 there with an ERA of 3.72.  Promoted to AA Gujranwala, he started eight games, posting 4-1 mark with a 2.70 ERA.  Promoted yet again to AAA Faisalabad, he has been lights out so far with a 4-0 record in four starts and an unbelievable ERA of 0.96.  Meanwhile, second round pick  Bhuvanesh Chandak started in rookie ball at Sargodha where he was 2-0 in five starts before being promoted to join Mwendapole at Multan (A).  He was 3-2 there  and was promoted to AA Gujranwala concurrently with Mwendapole.  In AA he was 6-1 with a 2.28 ERA.  Again the pair were promoted as a pair to AAA.  Chandrak had a disastrous first outing with Faisalabad but has recovered nicely (3-1, 3.91).  There is every possibility that these two guys will be in Karachi rotation next season.  It has pretty much been decided that neither will make a major league debut this year, but expect to see them both at Spring Training in 2106.