[Westheim]

The team was playing .333 ball in June, and here came a tough road trip to Boston, Oklahoma City, Atlanta, and Indianapolis, strong teams or teams that we have done historically bad against regardless of their general performance. F.e. the Titans had a losing record so far, but the Raccoons had never achieved a winning season against them despite a long row of disappointing seasons for the Boston teams.

With the Raccoons’ slow offense and the rotation completely off their game …

Raccoons (34-33) @ Titans (32-38)

Boy, did the fans get to see some awful pitching in the first game of the 3-set! Raccoons and Titans evenly split 32 hits between them and the Raccoons were able to nip the Titans, 9-7, in the contest. They took seven walks to the Titans’ one. Every Raccoons starter (including pitcher Jerry Ackerman) got at least one hit, Borjón and Workman got three. Workman was the only Raccoon with more than one RBI: 2; an unrested Grant West made an emergency save when the ninth got away from Jason White.

Steve Walker was hit by a pitch in the top 1st of game 2 and left the game. The pitch had hit his hand and broken his thumb – he was out for six weeks. That forced the also ailing Ralph Nixon to play with his bad shin. Hall and Green had a day off, and their replacements (Guerrero and Sánz) were not getting anything done. The whole team didn’t get anything done. Romero surrendered nine hits in seven innings and took the 2-1 loss. Edgardo Gonzalez had two of the team’s five hits.

The injury to Walker made a bad team even worse. The problem was finding a replacement at AAA. Jayson Bowling was one option for a middle infielder, or Angel Costa, who had been demoted before the season after waiving his 10/5 rights. In any case, it made the bench much poorer. Costa had a bad knee and Hector Mendez, another AAA infielder, was also injured, so we could not call up anybody for game 3 and Nixon played with his bad shin at second. It had to be. A loss would drop the Raccoons to .500 for the first time in 1982.

On the mound we had Christopher Powell (9-2, 3.27), the best we had, and he faced 23-yr old Roberto Sanchez (7-2, 2.42 ERA). Sanchez had control problems, other than that he was a rising star. Powell in turn made a fielding error in the first that put a runner in scoring position with one out, but found his way out of the mess. The Titans went ahead 1-0 in the second, but Sanchez was far beyond control issues. He was wild! He walked two in the fifth (seven total up to there) who were brought in by Borjón. 2-1 Raccoons. Sanchez was gone in the sixth and Powell coupled with some great defense made the Raccoons look like winners. Green’s RBI double in the top 7th made it 3-1. Powell was pinch-hit for in the bottom of the inning. It was still 3-1 into the bottom 9th. Grant West was unavailable and the Titans wrecked Wally Gaston. 4-3 Titans. The Raccoons’ winning record is history.

Raccoons (35-35) @ Thunder (41-31)

Jayson Bowling was called up again to replace the injured Steve Walker, who was out until the end of July.

There was no hope. The Thunder had the best offense of the league, and while they had a weak bullpen (worst in the CL), they had no reason to worry that the Raccoons would ever face any member of the pen.

The Raccoons were shut out to start the series, 2-0, with the loss to Logan Evans, whose pitching was good, but nobody’s pitching will ever be good enough if your team doesn’t score for you at all. Enrique Sanchez was 3-4. The rest of the team was 3-28. The next day was even worse: three hits in a 4-0 loss.

Jerry Ackerman had his 5th RBI of the season in the top 2nd of game 2, scoring Bowling from third with a sac fly, followed by a 2-run shot by Edgardo Gonzalez. 3-0 Raccoons in the top 2nd – would they hold on? In fact, they added and chased starter Hunter Frazier early on. Now they faced the pen, and tortured them. I felt some anger being released by my batters. The Raccoons rocked the Thunder, 11-3, in this game, although it was closer in hits: 18-15. Ackerman went six frames of 1-run ball, Lopez coughed up two in the ninth. Gonzalez 3-6, HR, 2 RBI; Borjón 3-6, HR (10th), 2 RBI; Bowling 4-6, RBI; Sánz 3-5, RBI; Ackerman 2-3, 3 RBI(!!!!);

Pedro Sánz became the all-time hits leader for the Raccoons with 748, passing Ben Simon’s 746. Simon still leads in home runs with 88, 32 ahead of Johnston and 34 ahead of Hall, who is the closest starter, as well as in RBI’s with 410, 102 ahead of Johnston, and 197 ahead of Hall, again the closest current starter.

Raccoons (36-37) @ Knights (33-42)

We skipped Jorge Romero’s turn in the rotation and sent out Christopher Powell to start the series. It was the last series in June and the first the Raccoons started with a losing record this season. The Knights were struggling, but we had never had any luck against them before, so I had no doubts about the collapse to continue.

Powell pitched well and was lifted in the top 7th for a pinch hitter to no effect. He left with a no-decision in a 1-1 tie. The Knights walked off against Wally Gaston (his fourth loss this year) with two outs in the bottom 9th, 2-1 Knights. I had hoped for *some* punch from the last game to carry over to this, but certainly was fearing that *none* did…

The Raccoons took a 2-0 lead in the top 2nd of game 2 with two unearned runs after an Armando Delgado error to lead off the inning. Evans gave away a run immediately, but had a 2-run double in the top 4th himself. Borjón had singled, Green walked, but Dawson hit into a double play. Sanchez was walked, and then came Evans with a long double into the extreme left corner. That didn’t make his pitching any better, though. He left after 5.1 innings with a 4-3 lead. The pen was shaky, but it held up, with a late insurance home run by Nixon for a 6-4 win, with the Raccoons’ runs pieced together from seven hits, four walks, and two errors.

Moran blew an early 1-0 lead (Workman double, Nixon RBI single in the top 1st) in the bottom 5th with a 3-walk, 2-hit inning. Up till there he had been strong with 1-hit ball and 4 K, but of course he found a way to lose the game. He was further shelled in the sixth and White and Lopez continued in that way. Knights won, 9-2.

In other news:
June 22 – Falcons outfielder Michael Watson hits a single in the eighth inning of his team’s 5-0 loss to the Aces, bringing a hitting streak to 20 games.
June 26 – Falcons 1B star Irwin Webster has a fractured rib and is out for a month. He’s batting .312 with no home runs – his worst season in quite some time.
June 27 – Cyclones star 2B Jeremiah Carrell (.361, 0 HR, 30 RBI) is injured in an on base collision with former Raccoon Ed Sullivan. He is out with a back injury for at least two weeks.
June 27 – The Falcons lose 5-2 to the Titans, but Michael Watson hits a double in the fifth to extend his streak to 25 games.
June 30 – Buffaloes reliever Jason Lyons (0.86 ERA in 26 games) suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament and is out for up to a year.

The Raccoons banished several players to the minor leagues on July 1. Gone was catcher Mark Mitchell (hitting .000 in the big leagues) and Spencer Dicks was recalled. Outfielder Eduardo Guerrero was taken off the roster for outfielder Ben Cox. Tony Lopez and Jason White were struck off the roster as well. Bill Craig and Yoelbi Maurinha joined the Raccoons. Craig was a righty reliever last with the big league team in 1980, and Maurinha was a left-handed starter that replaced Moran in the rotation.

Lopez and Guerrero are out of options. Losing either would not hurt me, both are failures and will always remain such. Signing Lopez out of Mexico was one of the biggest blunders I have made, and that blunder has lasted for five years now.

The Raccoons will lose against the following teams before the All Star break: Indians, Canadiens, Loggers. Gonna hurt.

Many zeros below. Maurinha was the only starter with not-too-shameful results at the AAA team. Craig had a 2.50-something ERA there. Cox was hitting almost .300 with power. Dicks failed there as well, but you can’t fail harder than hitting .000 and not getting runners out (which Mitchell was also guilty of).

Collapse. Nobody here to hand me a Kleenex or something? No?