Great, now all my sins from the last 30 years will be uncovered.
Raccoons (68-34) @ Aces (37-69) – July 30-August 1, 2007
The Aces were on a 10-game losing streak, and how embarrassing would it be to let them back in, out of the rain? We’re playing for more, too, with this being our second 6-0 team so far this season. We blew up against the Knights, maybe we can keep this one going and go 9-0 against a CL South team for the first time ever. We had to overcome an average offense soiled by the second-worst pitching in the league, with rotation and pen both ranking second-worst in ERA.
Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (11-6, 2.61 ERA) vs. Jim Pennington (5-7, 3.53 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (13-1, 2.14 ERA) vs. Juan Valdevez (4-7, 4.86 ERA)
Cássio Boda (5-1, 3.17 ERA) vs. Roberto Muniz (3-10, 7.27 ERA)
With Sunday’s rainout, we simply push everybody back a day. If it’s Dominguez, you skip ‘em. If it’s Brownie, you shift ‘em. They have a rotation entirely composed of right-handers.
Game 1
POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – SS R. Miller – P Brown
LVA: SS F. Soto – 3B Warrain – C Durango – RF R. Garcia – CF Cameron – LF L. Taylor – 2B Dahlke – 1B McDermott – P Pennington
The series started with an error by Inaki-Luki Warrain on Tomas Castro’s grounder, with Castro eventually scoring on a 2-out single by Craig Bowen. He would also score the second run of the game with a leadoff jack in the third. While Brownie started out well initially, soon enough his recent wildness caught up with him in a horrendous bottom 3rd. While the Aces got only one run out of that inning, they got that on a single, a walk, and all that bookended by two hit batsmen. In a 2-1 game, Castro reached for the third time with a single to start the fifth inning. Quebell hit his third single on the day, and while Pruitt hacked out, Duke Smack roped a double into the corner in right field, plating Castro for the third time and putting two more in scoring position for Bowen, but the catcher whiffed and Sharp flew out to Garcia in right. Brown drilled Warrain for the second time (and his third man overall) in the bottom 5th, but Ricardo Garcia’s hard grounder was taken for two outs by Sharp to bail out Brown in the inning. Warrain and further down young Tom Dahlke were the biggest boons for Brown. The latter walked twice in the game in lengthy AB’s and ran up Brown’s pitch count even further, while the Raccoons kept leaving runners on base rather indifferently, stranding two men on four different occasions through seven. The bottom 7th saw Brownie retire the Aces in order and without drilling Warrain to hand a 3-1 lead to the pen. Ed Bryan managed to retire the 3-4-5 batters (including left-handers at either end) in the bottom 8th without overly loud sounds or crowd ecstasy, before the Aces’ Alfonso Munoz walked Castro, Quebell, and Pruitt in succession to start the top 9th. C’mon boys, get a hit here. Black struck out before Bowen drew the fourth walk of the inning. Sure enough, Sharp hit into a 4-6-3 inning-ender. Thankfully, Angel Casas was reliable. 4-1 Brownies! Castro 2-4, BB, HR, RBI; Quebell 3-3, 2 BB; Pruitt 2-4, RBI; Nomura 1-2, BB, 2B; Gutierrez (PH) 1-1; Brown 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 10 K, W (12-6);
Notes include Tomas Castro scoring all runs in this game, and the first career hit for Jose Gutierrez, who pinch-hit for Yoshi against a left-hander late. Also, we left on eleven as a team, and 30 individually, which are some nasty numbers.
Game 2
POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – SS R. Miller – P Yates
LVA: SS F. Soto – CF Cameron – RF R. Garcia – LF L. Taylor – 3B Warrain – 1B McDermott – C C. Parker – 2B Dahlke – P Valdevez
Longing for that 9-0 season against the Aces, we sent our best guy out, and he got mauled. Yates allowed two singles in the second inning before Dahlke came up with two outs. Despite first base open, we had Yates pitch to him, resulting in a crack and a 3-run homer. While the Furballs pulled back two on a 2-out single by Bowen in the top 3rd, Logan Taylor hit another 2-out homer, this time counting for two to give his team a 5-2 lead. Top 5th with Castro on, Pruitt hit a 3-0 pitch sharply to Dahlke at second, who mishandled it and threw it into Soto’s feet for an error, only for Luke Black to hit into the double play to end the inning, Sharp got doubled up in the next inning, and in the seventh Quebell and Pruitt left two men standing in a forever futile attempt to mount a comeback. Ryan Miller managed a 2-out, 2-run single through a diving Sean McDermott in the eighth inning to get back to 5-4 while Riddle and Bruno held the fort in relief of Yates, who had the worst game with no walks and ten strikeouts in human memory. The top 9th saw Castro leading off again facing Munoz, the same gut that had walked four batters the previous day. The count on Castro ran full, he struck out, and then Quebell came up and ripped the first pitch for a line drive home run to right center – tied game! Bruno managed a second shutout inning to send the game to extras, where Bowen drew a leadoff walk off Munoz. In a perfect world, Trevino would have run for him – but Sergio Esquivel had pinch-hit earlier and we had no catcher left. Instead, Sharp bunted him to second, and then Jose Gutierrez singled. Ryan Miller lined a pitch to shallow right, where Garcia just couldn’t get it, and Bowen scored on the single as the Raccoons took the lead! Manny Silva replaced the sparkless Munoz to retire Trevino and Castro, but with the impenetrable Angel Casas, one run was going to be enough. Everybody knew it, and once Barry Stafford struck out on three pitches to end the game, it was official. 6-5 Coons! Castro 3-6; Quebell 2-4, HR, RBI; Miller 3-5, 3 RBI; Bruno 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K, W (5-0);
Wow! This game was SO lost! And they pulled it out of the trash can and scavenged it for a half-eaten tuna sandwich and a few grapes! Amazing! Wow!
Adrian Quebell, who did not hit a home run clean through the All Star break, now has hit four, and three in his last five games, including a pinch-hit grand slam. Since the first homer, a PH job in the final game of the 4-game sweep over the Elks, he has slugged .742;
Game 3
POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – SS R. Miller – 2B J. Gutierrez – P Boda
LVA: SS F. Soto – CF Cameron – C Durango – RF R. Garcia – LF L. Taylor – 3B Warrain – 1B McDermott – 2B Dahlke – P Muniz
In a recurring theme, the Raccoons were unable to get to a pitcher with an ERA north of seven. The game was scoreless through two outs in the bottom 4th when Logan Taylor hit an innocent single off Cássio Boda with nobody on, yet that single opened the gates to hell. The Aces reeled off four more singles, including one by the pitcher Muniz to crumble Boda and put up a 3-spot. In Boda’s six innings, the Aces reached base only four more times, never threatening, while through six the Raccoons had four hits overall against the usually irrelevant Muniz, who had been charged with seven earned runs in each of his last three starts. Here, he was unscored upon through seven. Castro doubled in the eighth, and when the red-hot and unretired Quebell singled after that it brought the tying run to the plate with one out. Pruitt took the first pitch to the warning track for an RBI double, and the Aces, after not removing Muniz against any of the three left-handers that had just reached, didn’t remove him against the right-hander, either. Duke Smack unleashed a howling drive to right – and it was CAUGHT by Ricardo Garcia! Garcia especially (but all three outfielders) had so far sucked up almost everything even remotely in their zip code. That brought up Daniel Sharp, who sat in a rather deep hole at this junction, fell to 1-2, then poked and sent a hobbler up the middle, past the mound and over the second base bag between the launching Soto and lunging Dahlke and into centerfield to score the tying runs. Because baseball is weird that way. And after all that hard work, John Bennett was taken deep by Logan Taylor in the bottom 8th. Because baseball IS weird that way. 4-3 Aces. Quebell 3-3, BB;
Foiled again.
(sobs)
Raccoons (70-35) vs. Loggers (53-55) – August 2-5, 2007
Heads down, and only 2 1/2 up in the division, we trudged back home to face the Loggers who had won their last nine straight and were hungry for some raccoon between halves of bread. They were seventh in offense, eighth in pitching, and probably not worthy of last place (or a tie for fifth that they had forced as the series began), but that was baseball being weird again. We were 4-3 against them this season.
Projected matchups:
Raúl Fuentes (8-6, 4.35 ERA) vs. Junior Diaz (6-9, 4.90 ERA)
Jose Dominguez (4-8, 4.86 ERA) vs. Fernando Cruz (7-5, 4.30 ERA)
Nick Brown (12-6, 2.54 ERA) vs. William Lloyd (10-8, 3.67 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (13-1, 2.35 ERA) vs. Roy Thomas (6-9, 4.80 ERA)
The two middle guys are southpaws, and we will miss their best guy, another southpaw. What’s his name? Oh, well, that Martin Garcia guy (13-4, 3.03 ERA). This is the first of back-to-back home 4-game series, with the Elks coming in next, all in the middle of originally a 20-game spell that had been changed to a 17-game spell with the rainout against Atlanta.
Game 1
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B Tolwith – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C J. Reyes – 1B T. Powell – LF C. Parker – SS M. Clark – P J. Diaz
POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – SS Sato – P Fuentes
While the Raccoons couldn’t do anything with Diaz – Fuentes was the only guy to reach base the first time through – Fuentes had traffic early twice, but twice with two men on managed to get a strikeout to end the inning. Mark Clark reached in the fifth with a leadoff infield single, got bunted over, and then doubled in by Bartolo Hernandez to give the Loggers a 1-0 lead. Fuentes also had the second hit for the Raccoons (…), another single to start the bottom 6th, before Castro singled on a 3-1 pitch, just over the second baseman Hernandez. Quebell drew four straight to load them up with nobody out, and Matt Pruitt singled to right to tie the score. Castro was sent around third, but chopped down by Bakile Hiwalani at the plate. Hiwalani was batting .219, far and away from former glory, but the arm still worked. But we still had two on with one out for Duke Smack, and when the Duke made contact with a Diaz pitch, the poor ball was fired outta here like being shot from a howitzer. 3-run homer, and the Raccoons were up 4-1! By the bottom 7th we faced lefty Leonardo Gonzalez, who put Sato and Gutierrez on, walked Quebell, and then fell victim to the Duke, a liner into left center that plated two more. From there, Rockburn had a quick eighth, and Bennett a ninth that stretched like gum, but the Loggers did not get back onto the board. 6-1 Critters. Black 2-4, HR, 5 RBI; Sharp 2-4, 2B; Gutierrez (PH) 1-2; Fuentes 7.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, W (9-6) and 2-2;
We got a breather as the Crusaders lost to the Elks, 5-4, and our lead grew back to 3 1/2. If those two teams would split their 4-game set, I would not be upset.
The Duke continues to be right up there in the home run race, trailing Charlotte’s Jose Lopez by one bomb. In the FL, LAP Stanley Murphy also has 22, with CIN Will Bailey at 21.
In a long stretch, we want to give everybody among the regulars a day off somewhere. The three outfielders and the two corner infielders are more or less starting every day now while we’re cycling through our middle infielders anyway right now. There is not good backup to Sharp on the roster right now, with Ryan Miller the best of a number of bad solutions. For the next two games, we will rest the left-handers, Pruitt, Quebell, and Castro.
Game 2
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – LF C. Parker – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – 3B Tolwith – 1B T. Powell – C Baca – SS M. Clark – P F. Cruz
POR: 3B Sharp – 1B Quebell – LF Crespo – RF Black – C Bowen – 2B J. Gutierrez – SS R. Miller – CF Trevino – P Dominguez
After only a soft hit per side through two and a half innings, Miller and Trevino hit singles to start the bottom 3rd. Dominguez hit a ball sufficiently deep to center for Miller to tag and score as Tim Austin caught it for the first run of the game. One became three in a hurry when Daniel Sharp took Cruz deep, and poor Fernando Cruz was romped in the inning. Quebell and Black reached, and Bowen singled home the fourth run. Of course, a 4-run lead was nowhere near safe with Dominguez on the mound, and he IMMEDIATELY got shellacked in the fourth inning. Tolwith brought home a run, and then Tyrone Powell hit a 2-bomb that cut the lead to 4-3, and the inning still continued. With a pair on and two outs, he couldn’t retire Cruz, who singled, before Bartolo Hernandez grounded out to short. What a dork.
Dorkminguez was yanked in the fifth with two on and two outs. While the lead runner, Hiwalani, had reached on an error by Ryan Miller, he then walked Tolwith, which brought up Tyrone Powell again. Out with the chump, in with Marcos Bruno, who got a comfortable grounder from Powell to Sharp on the first pitch, ending the inning. A Bowen sac fly added an insurance run in the bottom 5th, and came up with another RBI chance in the bottom 7th, two on and two out. His soft line to center was snatched off the grass by Tim Austin to retire the Coons and keep the lead at 5-3. But we had used our best relievers already, Bruno and Rockburn carrying the game through seven. In the eighth, it was Kaz, who allowed a double to Powell with one out and was removed for Bryan to face Alonso Baca, the only left-hander in the lineup. Baca singled, scoring Powell, and after Clark popped up and out, Chris Delaney hit in the #9 hole, not much of a hitter at all, but enough to take Bryan deep and to give his team the lead.
In a game repeatedly botched by their hurlers, the Raccoons got another life in the bottom 8th. Leadoff single for Gutierrez, Trevino batted with one out and pressed a fly past Hiwalani for an RBI double, knotting the score at six. Pruitt hit for the chump Bryan, was walked intentionally, and that worked splendidly when Sharp hit into a two-for-one. Angel held the Loggers’ 2-3-4 down in the top 9th, giving the middle of the order a shot against righty Micah Steele. The blazing hot Quebell led off with a double to right that was just fair. Crespo grounded out to second, advancing the winning run to third base. The Duke with one out? What could go wrong! Perhaps an intentional walk. Bowen whiffed, and with the right-hander on the mound Nomura hit for Gutierrez. The Loggers didn’t twitch, had Steele pitch, and went into the ditch on a 1-1 pitch taken into left for a walkoff single. 7-6 Furballs!!! Sharp 2-5, HR, 2 RBI; Quebell 3-3, 2 BB, 2B; Black 2-4, RBI; Nomura (PH) 1-1, RBI; Trevino 2-4, 2B, RBI; Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;
The Crusaders shot down Rod Taylor early this Friday, plating six in the first two innings and winning comfortably, 8-3. So, the Elks drop back to 6 1/2, while our actual lead remains 3 1/2.
For both Powell and Delaney these were their first career home runs...
Okay, change of plan. Quebell just won’t sit down right now! We need him in the game. Games are close right now. He can have a day off after an oh-fer. We broke up our usual 1-2-3 against right-handers though and dropped Matt Pruitt to #6.
Game 3
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B Tolwith – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C J. Reyes – 1B T. Powell – LF J.R. Richardson – SS M. Clark – P Lloyd
POR: CF Castro – 3B Sharp – 1B Quebell – RF Black – C Bowen – LF Pruitt – SS R. Miller – 2B J. Gutierrez – P Brown
Duke Smack was denied a slam in the first inning solely by Castro getting thrown out stealing, but still hit a 3-run homer, and Bowen made it back-to-back, 4-0. After Bartolo Hernandez had grounded out to short to start the game, Brownie whiffed half a dozen in a row before Mark Clark singled in the third, but didn’t score. In quite the start, Brown then got a string of easy grounders to the middle infielders before bringing out more heat. He didn’t pitch in a 3-ball count until facing Tolwith (with whom he had some bodychecking history) with two outs in the sixth, but struck him out anyway, his ninth on the day. The Coons led 6-0 then after Pruitt and Gutierrez had driven in runs in the fifth. Jesus Reyes and Tyrone Powell hit first-pitch singles off Brownie with two outs in the seventh. Brown bore down on J.R. Richardson and struck him out. In the eighth, Mark Clark grounded out to short, Delaney whiffed, and Bartolo Hernandez hit a bouncer to Sharp to end the inning. In the bottom of the inning, Brownie singled off Leonardo Gonzalez and scored on Castro’s homer, then came up to bat AGAIN after the team put up a 6-spot on a rapidly exploding Loggers bullpen, and made the final out to Hiwalani. Up by a dozen, and nowhere near 100 pitches, he was back out for the ninth. Tolwith led off the inning with a double, by far the hardest hit the Loggers had had in the game. Hiwalani’s shadow struck out to fill that dozen as well, Austin flew out to left, and Reyes –
SCREEEEECH!!!
Jesus Reyes homered on the first pitch to ruin the shutout, and got booed relentlessly by the home crowd. Tyrone Powell struck out, which was no consolation. 12-2 Brownies. Castro 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Sharp 2-5; Quebell 2-3, 2 BB; Bowen 4-4, HR, 2 RBI; Pruitt 4-5, 2 RBI; Gutierrez 3-4, BB, 2B, 3 RBI; Brown 9.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 13 K, W (13-6) and 1-4;
This was NOT Nick Brown’s sixth career shutout, but his 11th complete game. For the fifth time in his career, he struck out 13 or more (that more being 14 once).
The Elks lost a lead late in New York and went down 6-5 to drop to 7 1/2 games out.
Game 4
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – LF C. Parker – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C J. Reyes – 3B Tolwith – 1B T. Powell – SS M. Clark – P Thomas
POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – RF Black – SS Sato – 2B Nomura – C Esquivel – 3B R. Miller – P Yates
After Castro lined out, Quebell walked and the corner outfielders both singled to load the bases for Kuni Sato, who wasn’t much of a hitter, but chopped a single into shallow right for the first run of the game to score. Nomura stayed out of the double play, allowing Esquivel to plate two with a double that just beat Hiwalani’s shadow in right center, and the Coons were up 3-0 after the first again. The rout appeared to be on as early as the second inning. Yates and Castro hit grounders just past infielders for singles. Pruitt grounded hard to first, where Powell tried to turn two and threw to second before either Hernandez or Clark were in a position to field the ball, which went into left center and the bases were loaded. They were emptied soon enough when Duke Smack hit a liner into the gap in left center that scored all runners, 6-0, and the next time he came up he got goddamn all of Roy Thomas’ final pitch of the game, which sounded and sped like a stock car on the way outta here, casually completing the third leg of the cycle and pushing the score to 7-0 in the fourth!
Kel in general pitched very well and with very few results for the Loggers, but they got his pitch count up quickly with a number of full counts. While he only walked one (with two hits) through six innings, he needed 90 pitches to get there. After Tim Austin battled out a leadoff walk in the seventh, Kel angrily struck out the side, but that was the end of his game. Adam Riddle took over in the eighth and immediately the Loggers were on the upswing. Clark got on, Hernandez got on, but Riddle faced the toothless Hiwalani with two outs and undressed him with heaters inside that the old man tied himself into a knot on. Riddle finished the game, handing Tolwith a golden sombrero in the process. 7-0 Critters! Castro 2-5, 2B; Black 3-3, BB, HR, 2B, 4 RBI; Sato 2-4, RBI; Esquivel 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Yates 7.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 11 K, W (14-1) and 1-2; Riddle 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K;
11 runs scored in game 4 in New York – in the first inning! The Elks took a 6-5 lead, but lost 9-8 eventually, and thus dropped far behind. The Crusaders remain close however…
In other news
July 30 – The Bayhawks get shot down 9-0 by the Crusaders, managing only two hits against Angel Javier (15-3, 2.68 ERA).
July 31 – A first inning single in an eventual 6-3 loss to the Stars gives Pittsburgh’s Mohammed Blanc (.347, 5 HR, 56 RBI) a 20-game hitting streak.
August 4 – VAN SS/3B Gary Rice (.341, 10 HR, 47 RBI) will miss at least six weeks with a strained hamstring.
August 5 – A groin strain will cost CIN OF/1B Will Bailey (.362, 21 HR, 97 RBI) the rest of the month.
August 5 – The hitting streak of Mohammed Blanc (.348, 5 HR, 57 RBI) ends at 23 games with an 0-for-3 day against the Blue Sox.
August 5 – SAC 1B/2B/LF Dave McCormick (.285, 15 HR, 57 RBI) tore his meniscus in an on-base entanglement and might miss more than a month.
Complaints and stuff
Totally unsurprising, Adrian Quebell’s .619 (13-21), 1 HR, 1 RBI week netted him Player of the Week honors in the CL. That doesn’t even account for his 320 walks.
We could match last year’s win total next week by August 8.
The Pacifics offer Ken Potter in a waiver deal for Kuni Sato and pitching prospect Hector Santos. Now, Santos has a high upside, Potter, a rabid slugger, would knock Pruitt or Quebell out of the lineup, and he would never pass waivers, but this just reinforces my thoughts that we might have a gem in Santos, low stamina or not.
Hey, Christian Greenman’s on the waiver wire! Could I, should I …?