[Westheim]

Raccoons (33-18) @ Thunder (25-26) – May 31-June 2, 2004

The Thunder knew how to make the most out of their mediocre .256 batting average, scoring the fifth-most runs in the league, while their solid rotation (4th) allowed them to rank just barely inside the upper half in runs allowed, too. They were still under .500, and the Raccoons had swept them in our first series this year.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (3-3, 3.38 ERA) vs. Aaron Anderson (5-3, 3.98 ERA)
Edgar Amador (5-1, 2.90 ERA) vs. Pancho Trevino (4-5, 2.58 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (4-4, 4.91 ERA) vs. Luis Martinez (0-0)

After Vernon Robertson retired last winter, Anderson is now the active player with the most major league wins, 219, which rank him 14th all time, five ahead of Milwaukee’s Martin Garcia, and eight ahead of Nashville’s Dennis Fried. The all-time leader, Woody Roberts, has 279.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – LF Beairsto – P Ford
OCT: SS Nixon – C De La Parra – 1B L. Soto – 3B Higashi – CF A. Flores – RF Rangel – LF C. Martinez – 2B H. Castro – P Anderson

The Thunder did not send a left-hander against Ford, who got double plays turned in his favor each of the first two innings. The Furballs moved ahead 1-0 in the second inning, when Sharp scored on Beairsto’s groundout. An Ingall single got us another run in the sixth, with little action in between. Ralph Ford faced the minimum inning by inning, and when somebody got on, he was double played away, like in the bottom 6th, when Cesar Martinez hit a leadoff single, then was doubled up when Al Martin (!) caught Hector Castro’s liner and gently strolled to first with the glowing iron in his glove. But Ford’s can’t-touch-dis streak ended in the seventh, when both Max Nixon and Antonio De La Parra hit singles to get going. We were up 3-0, and the Thunder didn’t hit for power, so Ford was granted a little more leeway. Luis Soto grounded hard to third, where Sharp got only the lead runner. Then Higashi got hold of one and ripped a game-tying homer to left. Yeah, the Thunder, they ain’t hitting for power. Both starters went eight before hitting the hay, and once Sancho Rivera and Ricardo Huerta had exchanged scoreless ninth innings, we went to extras – yay! Top 10th, Brady led off with a single to right. Torrez doubled, and Martin was walked intentionally to load them up with no outs. Rivera remained in the game, but he wouldn’t get out of this. Sharp and Ledesma hit RBI singles each, Ingall flew out, but Beairsto and Reece brought in another run each. And although we now led 7-3, Manuel Martinez couldn’t seal this one off. He allowed three singles, with a double play in between, and we had to bother Marcos Bruno. He drilled Hector Castro to load the bases, before Jesus Palacios popped up a 3-1 pitch before it could get really ugly. 7-3 Raccoons. Brady 2-5; Torrez 2-5, 2B, RBI; Sharp 3-5, RBI; Ingall 2-5, RBI; Ford 8.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K and 1-3, 2B;

Well, Ford was unlucky in this one. True, he got a lot of double plays, but Higashi’s homer was the only hard fly they hit in the entire game. We turned five double plays in total in this contest, and since the Titans were idle this Monday, we closed to within four games of them – whooo!!

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Sheehan – P Amador
OCT: 2B Palacios – SS Nixon – 1B L. Soto – 3B Higashi – RF Humphrey – CF A. Flores – C Baca – LF Walls – P Trevino

The Thunder, who didn’t hit for power, saw Luis Soto knock a 2-run homer off Amador in the first inning. The Fat Cat wasn’t right – at all. He walked the next three batters, before Alonso Baca drove in a pair, and Tom Walls also plated a run with a single. 5-0 Thunder, and Amador was all over the place. He stumbled through a few scoreless innings after that, but a leadoff walk to Soto in the fifth was the final nail in the coffin. By then the score was still 5-0, with Trevino giving the Raccoons quite the handling, striking out nine of them through five, against only two singles. It was not 5-0 for much longer. Huerta walked the bags full, before Alberto Flores chopped a 2-run single into center. No outs. Nordahl came in and wiggled out of the inning while conceding one more run to make it 8-0. Trevino went eight innings, whiffed a full dozen, and the Raccoons did not return to form against Jose Ochoa in the ninth either. 8-0 Thunder. Ledesma 2-3; Nordahl 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

We had four hits. They had five.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – C Thomas – CF King – P F. Garcia
OCT: 2B Palacios – C De La Parra – 3B Higashi – RF Humphrey – CF A. Flores – SS Nixon – 1B H. Castro – LF Walls – P L. Martinez

Concie led off with a single and Danny Sharp drove a ball to deep left where it just fit over the fence for a 2-run homer in the top 1st. Garcia showed to be easily hittable quickly, however, and the Thunder got a run on three hits in the bottom of the same inning. Brady and Flores both hit home runs in the third inning, but Flores’ counted for two and the game was tied at three, before the Thunder took a 4-3 lead in the fourth. Garcia was no impediment to their scoring ambitions whatsoever. It didn’t get better once Garcia left after the fifth inning. Dave Williams got one out from Palacios in the sixth before De La Parra and Higashi singled and Humphrey sent a deep one outta there to make it 7-3. Corkum didn’t fare any better and three runs were charged to him in the seventh. It was so bad, Beairsto pitched in the eighth – and was not scored upon then. The Raccoons had hardly anything going through the middle innings and never scored again in the second consecutive thrashing. 10-3 Thunder. Sharp 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Martin 2-5;

Did you hear that sound? That was our bubble. It burst.

Raccoons (34-20) @ Crusaders (22-30) – June 4-6, 2004

The Crusaders had hoped that they could charge through the other teams and get back into winning ways, but they were tied for last with the Indians. While they were pitching decently, they weren’t scoring an awful lot. The good news was that we would get to bypass their better guys, Whit Reeves and Marvin Hall, and face the other three guys.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (7-1, 2.82 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (3-7, 4.60 ERA)
Randy Farley (4-4, 4.00 ERA) vs. Russell Benson (1-3, 3.78 ERA)
Ralph Ford (3-3, 3.38 ERA) vs. Kelly Fairchild (3-5, 4.25 ERA)

Those are three right-handers. We will have another off day right after this set.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – P Brown
NYC: RF Gonzales – 2B J. Hernandez – LF M. Ortíz – 1B Tinker – SS Rice – CF Britton – 3B A. De Jesus – C D. Anderson – P Connor

Two batters for Brown into the game we knew we had lost already. Jorge Gonzales was walked on four straight, and then he hit Julio Hernandez. Two bloop singles scored two runs for the Crusaders, and despair crept up early. While the Raccoons were shut down hard by Greg Connor, Brown sucked outright, hit another man in the fourth, and then hit Tinker and Rice consecutively with first pitches in the sixth, and inning he would not survive. He ended up stuffed with six runs, the Coons had zip. The only guy to get the ball past the infield more than once was the frail guy, but Neil Reece was robbed of run-scoring doubles twice on the warning track. The latter at least produced a sac fly that broke up Connor’s shutout bid in the ninth inning, as Miguel Ramirez came in to score, having replaced Al Martin due to injury. 6-1 Crusaders. Martin 2-3, BB, 2B; Sharp 2-4; Beairsto (PH) 1-1;

Al Martin had tweaked an ankle and would be severely hampered for about a week. We were advised to best not use him at all.

Nick Brown getting mopped up and swept into the gutter ended a personal streak of ten games in which he was undefeated. He lost the season opener, then also against the Crusaders. They are the only team to beat him this year.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 1B Sharp – CF Torrez – LF Reece – 2B Ingall – C Ledesma – 3B M. Ramirez – P Farley
NYC: CF Javier – RF Britton – LF M. Ortíz – SS Rice – C D. Anderson – 1B D. Carroll – 3B Edralín – 2B J. Hernandez – P Benson

Eddie Torrez took Benson deep in the first, plating Guerin as well, for a quick 2-0 lead. Farley had a perfect first inning, before Gary Rice led off the bottom 2nd with a single to right which he tried to convince Clyde Brady was a double. Brady however was insisting that it was a single and threw him out at second base. Farley faced the minimum until he walked the pitcher. In the third he walked the bags full and was lucky enough that Dave Carroll hit into an inning-ending double play. Another walk in the fifth, that 2-0 lead, which was not going to be enlarged anytime soon by the hopelessly flailing Raccoons, was looking more than just flimsy. Bottom 6th, it was about to come apart, finally. Ortíz and Rice hit singles to get going, before Anderson grounded to the mound. Ingall dropped Farley’s throw to second, a run scored, and still two on and no outs. Ramirez then turned another double play on Carroll and Pedro Edralín grounded out to keep Rice starved at third base. The top 7th was the end for both starting pitchers. Farley was hit for, while Tony Vela replaced Benson and got a pop out from Brady to end the inning and keep two Coons stranded. Two more were stranded in the eighth despite Vela trying to help out by balking them into scoring position with one out, and the ninth, despite Charlie Deacon being the always ready scoring invitation. The Coons’ pen scrambled along, with Brady making a huge catch on a drive to deep right that Martin Ortíz hit off Williams. Bruno faced the 6-7-8 guys in the bottom 9th, went to full counts on Greg Andrews, Edralín, AND Hernandez – and whiffed them all. 2-1 Coons. Guerin 2-5; Sharp 2-5; Torrez 1-4, HR, 2 RBI; Sheehan 1-1;

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 1B Sharp – CF Torrez – 2B Ingall – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 3B M. Ramirez – P Ford
NYC: RF Gonzales – 3B A. De Jesus – LF M. Ortíz – 1B Tinker – SS Rice – CF Britton – 2B Edralín – C D. Anderson – P Fairchild

We plated two in the top 1st again. Guerin and Torrez hit singles, then stole in tandem while Ingall nursed a full count, then zinged a MARVELOUS INGALL SINGLE to left to plate both. Just like Brown on Friday, Fairchild didn’t have it. He was booked for 11 hits and five runs in four innings. Ralph Ford had control issues (like the entire rotation) and issued leadoff walks in the second and third, the latter instance leading to the Crusaders first run when De Jesus singled Anderson in with a single, their first hit of the day. They added a run in the fourth, 5-2, with the scoring runner again reaching via walk. The Furballs loaded them up in the top 6th after Torrez had already plated Guerin once more, 6-2, but Ledesma would then strike out against righty Bob Evans and left three men on. Guerin scored Beairsto in the seventh to make it 7-2, and it looked quite cozy there for Ford. Until it didn’t. The Crusaders rapped off three straight singles to start the bottom 7th to get to 7-3, two on and no outs, chasing Ford, and while Bill Corkum wiggled out of the commotion with three ground balls, we took a loss too hard to replace, as Concie left the game after getting bowled over by Daryl Anderson at second base. Bill Tinker homered off Moreno in the eighth to get back into save range, and after a Reece walk, Sheehan double, and intentional walk to Brady we had the bases loaded in the ninth, but an entirely luckless Danny Sharp found a way to hit into a double play. It didn’t matter to Marcos Bruno, who notched his 11th save of the year at a rapid pace. 7-4 Coons. Guerin 4-5, RBI; Sheehan 1-1, 2B; Brady 2-5, BB; Sharp 2-6; Torrez 4-4, 2 RBI; Ledesma 2-5, RBI;

Concie fell on his wrist when taken out by Anderson and will miss at least four weeks with a bad sprain.

In other news

May 31 – INF Jose Correa (.258, 1 HR, 22 RBI) will be sorely missed by the Gold Sox, as an elbow sprain should cost him a month on the DL.
June 2 – 37-year old veteran ATL SP Scott Murphy (2-5, 6.42 ERA) will have to undergo Tommy John surgery to repair a torn UCL. He will be out for a year, if he can return at all.
June 6 – 1B/3B/LF David Lopez (.248, 10 HR, 35 RBI) agrees with the Indians on a 3-year contract extension, which will pay him $3.18M.

Complaints and stuff

Are we ever going to play at home!?

Number of the week: Pablo Ledesma, **** of ****s, threw out his second base stealer this week, Gary Rice of the Crusaders. 23 made it to their bag safely over the year.

Next week on Fluffy Detectives: we try to resolve the mystery where Al Martin’s power has gone, whether there is life after Concie, and why all our pitchers had their candle blown out at the same time.

Sunday’s 7-4 marks our 2,200th regular season win.

The draft pool analysis post has been scratched due to irrelevance. I knew that drafts and prospects work differently from OOTP 12 to 16, but I have nevertheless been shocked by a draft pool full of scums. There are at most three players in there which have decent potential. Two of them are starting pitchers and we will pick eighth. So it’s a crap shot now, isn’t it?