[Westheim]

Raccoons (39-58) vs. Bayhawks (65-35) – July 25-27, 2000

One of those series, where you know you’ve lost already, and it is still Monday morning. And that is your OFF day and the Bayhawks aren’t going to invade until TUESDAY. 3rd in runs scored, 2nd in runs allowed, best rotation – should be enough reasons for us to get torn up once more.

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (9-6, 3.46 ERA) vs. Ricardo Sanchez (13-8, 3.51 ERA)
Ralph Ford (3-11, 4.82 ERA) vs. Miguel Diaz (8-4, 3.08 ERA)
Paco Martinez (0-1, 5.40 ERA) vs. Henry Selph (9-2, 3.16 ERA)

Game 1
SFB: RF Javier – 2B H. Ramirez – LF W. Jackson – 1B D. Carroll – 3B B. Hall – C G. Ortíz – CF Marquez – SS T. Smith – P R. Sanchez
POR: 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – 2B Ingall – RF Brady – CF Parker – SS Guerin – LF Richardson – C Mata – P Farley

The Bayhawks did enough damage just by hitting balls in the general direction of Richardson, who failed to make any play in the first two innings, as three doubles fell in and the Bayhawks scored two runs on them. While the Bayhawks were hitting doubles, the Raccoons were occasionally hitting a single, maybe two, but were in any case routinely leaving a pair of runners on base. Farley pitched to the best of his abilities, which was by far not enough to carry a team consisting in entirety of shadows of former selfs and some dead weight, and was knocked out in the eighth with a 2-run single by Bob Hall that ramped the score to 5-1. Manuel Reyes, the useless piece of dirt, immediately gave up a 2-run home run to pinch-hitter Luke Black to load Farley with a sixth run. Manuel Martinez gave up a 3-run home run in the ninth to Dave Carroll to turn it into a rout for good. 11-1 Bayhawks. Ingall 3-3, 2 BB, 3B; Richardson 3-4; Mata 2-3, BB, RBI;

Bayhawks: 15 hits (including two home runs and seven doubles) and four walks for 11 runs and 8 left on base. Raccoons: 10 hits (including one triple) and five walks for one run and 13 left on base.

Manuel Martinez was deposed of. Time to give Nordahl another try.

Why exactly did I trade for Manuel Reyes? It’s got to have been some worrying that the particular printout I had of our pitching staff hadn’t enough fat stains on it already, right? Because that’s what he amounts to. An ugly stain on our roster.

Just like everybody else.

Game 2
SFB: 2B H. Ramirez – C G. Ortíz – 1B D. Carroll – CF Black – LF Cavazos – SS B. Hall – RF Marquez – 3B T. Smith – P M. Diaz
POR: 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Richardson – RF Brady – CF Parker – SS Guerin – C Mata – 3B Caddock – P Ford

While Diaz was eaten up early by the Raccoons with a pair of 2-out doubles – Parker in the first and Mata in the third – and five runs total over three innings, Ford was so uncontrolled in his delivery the Bayhawks hardly ever put a ball into play. They either walked or hacked themselves out swinging. They didn’t get a hit until the fifth, and then it was a homer by Marquez straight away, cutting the score to 5-1. Ford would finish with a horribly skewed line, with three quarters of the runners he put on reaching by a walk. He still pitched seven innings of 1-run ball, so he was at least successful in throwing bubbles, more than most other pitchers on the team could claim. In the bottom 8th, the Raccoons had one of those most-horrible moments again. With two down, Lyon was on first base, and Daniel Sharp hit for Martin. Sharp fired a shot to right center, hitting off the wall, and Lyon was sent around third in anticipation of Sharp’s first big league RBI. However, Lyon was nailed out by Marquez, and Sharp came up lame at second base and had to leave the game right away again. While I lost consciousness in my office with perfect view of our $1.13M draft expense hobbling off the field, bumped against the plexiglass and then fell to the side and crashed into a table made of actual glass, at least Elliott Meeks pitched a perfect ninth. 5-1 Raccoons. Martin 2-3, BB, 2B; Sharp (PH) 1-1, 2B; Parker 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Ford 7.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 6 BB, 8 K, W (4-11) and 1-3;

Daniel Sharp’s knee was a bit sore, but had no structural damage after he almost fell over second base. The trainer told us to leave him alone on Thursday, and maybe he would be fine again on Friday.

Game 3
SFB: RF Javier – C G. Ortíz – 1B D. Carroll – CF Black – SS B. Hall – LF Marquez – 2B V. Martinez – 3B J. Gomez – P Selph
POR: 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Richardson – RF Brady – 3B Crowe – C Mata – CF Lyon – SS Caddock – P P. Martinez

Dark clouds hovered over Portland as summer was about to end in these northern climates. We were going to get rain. Martinez pitched a bit like Ford the day before, just less successful, and less supported. While he also allowed a solo home run in the middle innings and was generally unsure of the proper size of the strike zone, and also struck out less, the Raccoons offered him one hit and no runs of support through four, but at least lost Cal Lyon to injury along the way. In the bottom 5th, Caddock and Martinez reached with singles and the count was 3-0 on Martin, when the young first baseman put the next pitch into play and grounded out to Vicente Martinez. I fell asleep again, bumped against the plexiglass and crashed into the trophy case, cutting the other half of my face on the 1993 World Championship trophy. I woke up as the tarp was rolled off the field, and the first thing that I was able to grasp then was Elliott Meeks giving up a home run to Jorge Gomez. No action was forthcoming from the brown-dressed team, which was held to four hits, neither before, nor after the rains. 2-0 Bayhawks. Martinez 6.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, L (0-2) and 1-1;

Cal Lyon had a sore elbow, which didn’t really change anything about my decision to part with the sucker. He was batting 1-19 with 9 K. Even with Luke Newton, we can still do better than that… Since Jesus Taramillo was fighting pains in the hand and I was not in the mood for Jason Kent, we called up Samy Michel.

The Bayhawks also showed some humor by offering a trade for Daniel Miller, tongue-in-cheekly offering their backup outfielder Ramiro Cavazos and a failed AA pitcher. Yeah, sure.

Raccoons (40-60) vs. Aces (42-60) – July 28-30, 2000

Although they scored more than the Raccoons, and allowed less scoring than the Raccoons, the Aces weren’t necessarily much better off in the standings. Well, they were a thoroughly below-average team and failed to rank very high in any given category except sunburns…

Projected matchups:
Scott Wade (4-8, 4.41 ERA) vs. Jou Hara (6-8, 3.89 ERA)
Bob Joly (4-7, 4.68 ERA) vs. Dan Moriarty (7-11, 3.79 ERA)
Randy Farley (9-7, 3.68 ERA) vs. Carlos Guillén (5-11, 4.57 ERA)

Game 1
LVA: 2B O. Torres – C De La Parra – 1B J. Vargas – CF McCormick – RF Ghiberti – 3B Combes – LF Wills – SS Bradley – P Hara
POR: 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Richardson – RF Brady – CF Parker – 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – C Mata – P Wade

The Raccoons again brought the paralyzed bats to the park, and while Wade held up well for some time, it didn’t help him a lot. The Aces scored one run in the fourth, and then hit three singles in succession right through either Guerin or Ingall to plate two more in the fifth. It got even worse in the seventh, where the Aces got balls past every infielder but Martin to sink Wade for good. Daniel Miller offered no relief, walking two runners in as the score again bloomed up into a rout, especially with the Raccoons doing absolutely NOTHING. The Raccoons were shut out for the second day in a row, while the Aces also exploded Dan Nordahl in his first game back from AAA to put up 18 hits and not that much less runs. 10-0 Aces. Martin 2-4; Brady 2-4;

Whenever you think it can not possibly get any worse…

Game 2
LVA: 2B O. Torres – C De La Parra – 1B J. Vargas – CF McCormick – RF Ghiberti – 3B Combes – LF Wills – SS Bradley – P Moriarty
POR: 2B Ingall – 3B Sharp – 1B Michel – RF Brady – SS Guerin – LF Richardson – C Jackson – CF Newton – P Joly

Joly was terrible again and got booked for four runs through four innings, including two RBI doubles by Gary Wills. The Raccoons failed to get a runner into scoring position until the fifth inning, and then Newton was left on third base by Sharp as the team was trying really hard to run their scoreless streak to 30 consecutive innings and beyond. They achieved the mark in style, not even hitting a ball past the diamond’s measurements in their 29th and 30th shutout innings, the sixth and seventh of this game, still trailing 4-0, and they didn’t get any better afterwards for sure, as the suckers were held to four hits. The Aces missed their chance to balloon the score any further in the last few innings, leaving six men on base after the sixth. 4-0 Aces. Guerin 2-3, BB;

Game 3
LVA: 2B O. Torres – 3B Combes – 1B J. Vargas – CF McCormick – LF L. Jenkins – C L. Paredes – RF Moreno – SS Bradley – P Guillén
POR: 2B Ingall – LF Parker – 1B Sharp – RF Brady – SS Guerin – C Mata – 3B Crowe – CF Newton – P Farley

McCormick brought a run home on an RBI groundout in the first inning, and the good news for Randy were that he could stop worrying, since unless the Aces would make four consecutive errors along the way, he was going to wind up with his eighth loss. The Raccoons left the bases loaded in the bottom 1st to go 33 innings without scoring. The counter would run to 35 before Julio Mata hit a leadoff jack in the bottom 4th. He did that after barely escaping the maniac with the bandaged face and the chainsaw who suddenly burst into the home dugout after Mata had made a terrible throwing error in the top 4th that plated a second run for the Aces. Farley pitched only six innings before he was tired and plunked the opposing pitcher and left 3-1 behind. As soon as the relief corps could their paws on the game, the score exploded again, with Meeks not getting the seventh mastered and Blanco coming in to surrendered a pinch-hit 3-run homer to Ricco Ghiberti. The Raccoons were standing by while they were steamrolled. They stood by well enough in the bottom 7th to draw three walks and get the benefit of the incapacitated on an error by John Bradley, scoring two runs, but things went wrong as soon as they actually poked at a ball. Or as soon as they pitched, especially if Dan Nordahl pitched. 7-3 Aces.

In other news

July 25 – The Loggers send backup outfielder Román Reyes (.250, 2 HR, 19 RBI in 52 AB) to the Buffaloes for two minor leaguers.
July 26 – The Loggers part with 2B/3B Jose Perez (.248, 4 HR, 37 RBI) and send him to the Gold Sox along with a minor leaguer to acquire SP Makoto Kogawa (9-6, 3.68 ERA).
July 26 – Bad news for the Indians and their 21-year old MR Iemitsu Rin (5-1, 2.42 ERA). He will miss a full year with a torn flexor tendon in his elbow.
July 27 – In a surprising move, the Titans trade CL Bill Corkum (1-2, 3.32 ERA, 25 SV) and a minor leaguer to the Pacifics for INF/LF Mark Austin (.317, 12 HR, 51 RBI) and a non-prospect.
July 28 – The Wolves bury their own team by acquiring MR Cesar Salcido (1-2, 2.72 ERA, 2 SV) from the Indians, giving up on two minor leaguers including AAA SP Chris Frazier.

Complaints and stuff

Unbearable.

There are about 3,000 things I hate about this roster, but let me pick just one: our young right-handed relief crop is posting an ERA over EIGHT.

How could ever come this far? How could this even happen? Where did we go wrong? Where did the points got set for permanent, terminal, total disaster?