[Westheim]

Raccoons (3-2) vs. Condors (2-5) – April 13-15, 2015

The Raccoons’ 9-year run of handling the Condors to win the season series had ended in 2014, when the Condors had come up on top, 6-3, for the first time since 2004. While having played the most games so far in the new season, the Condors ranked 11th in runs allowed in the CL, but where only eighth in runs scored, too.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (1-0, 4.50 ERA) vs. Michael Colvard (0-1, 6.75 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Ethan Knight (0-1, 5.06 ERA)
Hector Santos (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Troy McCaskill (0-1, 21.60 ERA)

Another left-handed pitcher was awaiting the Raccoons in Ethan Knight. McCaskill allowed eight earned runs in his first outing of the season, his first career start. The 23-year old right-hander had been used as reliever over 43 games in 2014, putting up a 4.86 ERA and 1.70 WHIP.

Game 1
TIJ: SS Eroh – 1B Jaeger – RF Branch – LF Eichelkraut – CF Feldmann – 3B Fish – C Bedinghaus – 2B Valles – P Colvard
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS McKnight – P Brown

Jimmy Oatmeal was batting .091 coming in and struck out to end the inning and put Brownie past Kisho Saito in career strikeouts. Brownie had tied Kisho by striking out Ezra Branch before, but that already came after Kevin Jaeger had crashed a diminished fastball for a solo homer that set the Condors 1-0 ahead. The Condors further stomped him for a 3-run second inning, which snowballed once Michael Colvard, the pitcher, hit a grounder through the left side that missed Nunley’s and McKnight’s gloves by about four inches each, and plated Tom Fish from third base with two outs. Melvin Valles moved to second, and both scored on an incredibly long double that Ron Richards took forever to make a play on, hit by Ron Eroh, opening the score to 4-0. The Raccoons made up a run in the bottom 2nd when yet another team neglected to walk Ronnie McKnight intentionally with first base open and two outs, and McKnight singled to score D-Alex, but that was as much as a generally disinterested offense was willing to do for Nick Brown, who got ultimately shamed in the sixth inning when Jimmy Oatmeal, after two strikeouts, took him well deep to almost straight center. In a 5-1 game, the Condors hit three soft singles to knock out Brown with another run scoring already, with Entwistle retiring Ron Eroh to end the inning.

Also in the sixth inning, the Raccoons lost McKnight to injury on a throw. Canning replaced him, and Maud had to pour me a glass of cheap booze and throw in a handful of Aspirin. The further happenings in the game didn’t help to ease the pain. Entwistle put two on in the seventh, was yanked, and Chris Mathis allowed a 2-run double to Tom Fish with two outs. The Raccoons dared to score a run in the bottom 8th, Murphy singling home Richards, but in response the Condors shat another four runs on Tom Constantino, including a 2-run homer by Ezra Branch and a 2-out, 2-run bloop single by Bill Bedinghaus to complete a horrendous rout. 12-2 Condors. Richards 2-3, BB, 2 2B; McKnight 2-2, RBI;

Maud? Where’s the good paper and pen? – No, I want the good paper for the suicide note.

Game 2
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B Jaeger – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – C J. Vargas – SS Eroh – 2B Lafon – P E. Knight
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 3B Nunley – SS Canning – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – P Toner

The Condors took another 1-0 lead in the first on Jonny Toner, with the run unearned, but Toner had made the incriminating error himself, dropping Kevin Jaeger’s bouncer long enough for Jaeger to reach first base before allowing two hard singles. An earned run followed before long, as Toner drilled Craig Dasher to start the third inning and lost him on Will Newman’s double to left. The Raccoons didn’t get into scoring position until the fourth inning. Murphy hit a leadoff single, Bednarski walked, but Nunley hit into a double play. Runner on third, two outs, and Batting canning things looked bad enough, but Canning walked, and successive singles by Danny Margolis and Jason Bergquist not only plated Murphy, but also loaded the bags for Toner, who didn’t bite against Ethan Knight and drew a 4-pitch walk, forcing home the tying run. Ricardo Carmona came up, 0-for-7 in the series, and rolled to the first baseman Jaeger to end the inning…

Nope, Toner had to come up again to get the offense moving further along… He faced righty Frank Guggenheim in the bottom 6th with Canning on third base and two outs – Canning being Knight’s responsibility still. Guggenheim had already moved Canning to third with a wild pitch, and now surrendered the go-ahead single to Toner, a hard liner to shallow left center, uncatchable for anybody, and the Coons were up 3-2. Not for long, though. Toner ****ed up the seventh inning, despite removing the first two batters. Then, Bedinghaus doubled, Toner walked TWO, and threw an 0-2 wild pitch, before striking out Will Newman. Toner still wound up with another lead in the bottom 7th, in which Sandy Sambrano hit a leadoff double and eventually scampered home on Nunley’s 2-out single to right, all off Guggenheim, who also loaded the bases in the inning, but Bergquist’s deep drive to right was caught by Ezra Branch to end the inning. Sugano removed Branch to start the eighth, but Chris Mathis struggled and put two men on. Angel Casas, who had yet to pitch in a save situation this year, only getting a junk inning in Sunday’s loss to the Thunder, was called on to get four outs starting with normally negligible second baseman Roland Lafon. The normally negligible Lafon singled to center, scoring pinch-runner Leon Martinez with ease, and Casas cocked up another single to Bedinghaus, this one giving the Condors the lead. Fortunately, the Condors weren’t beyond dumb stuff and blowing leads. Jose Sanchez got the ninth inning for them, and Stan Murphy homered off him right away, tying the game at five. After Bednarski and Nunley went down, we emptied the bench by pinch-hitting Richards and D-Alex in succession, and both left-handers walked against the righty Sanchez. That was not much help with Bergquist batting, however, and now the bench was dry, save for Nick Brown, who still sat there stary-eyed and wondered what had happened on Monday. Bergquist grounded to third, Melvin Valles to first, … PAST first, into the dugout, and Ron Richards was awarded home on a 2-base walkoff throwing error. 6-5 Blighters. Murphy 2-4, BB, HR, RBI; Reya (PH) 1-1; Toner 7.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K and 1-2, BB, 2 RBI;

Cookie is now 0-for-10 in this series and down to .250 on the season. Well, we’re in a string of 13 games without an off day, and everybody will eventually get one. His might come sooner than expected.

Game 3
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B Jaeger – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – C J. Vargas – SS Eroh – 2B Lafon – P McCaskill
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS Canning – P Santos

Cookie ended his Condors futility with a leadoff single, was caught stealing, but the Coons had two on when Sandy and Richards walked, just in time for Luis Reya to wonk his first Raccoons homer, a long 3-run shot to rightfield. That was not all for McCaskill, who – despite two outs – allowed another two runs on four straight base hits, starting with a Nunley double, and ending with back-to-back RBI singles by Canning and Santos before Cookie lined hard to center, but right to Ryan Feldmann, leaving the score at 5-0 after one. While Santos did not allow a base runner the first time through the lineup, the Raccoons added two more runs in a mess of a third inning, with the runs being produced with the help of a gross fielding error by Feldmann, a passed ball, and finally a 2-out RBI single by Cookie, 7-0.

But Santos also got his bell rung in due time. Craig Dasher hit a leadoff single in the fourth, and Jaeger and Feldmann both hit RBI doubles to at least get the Condors noticed. The Coons had chances to knock over the Condors for good, but Reya hit into a double play in the bottom 4th and they left the bases loaded in the sixth when D-Alex flew out to left. Jose Vargas, guilty of two passed balls by then, homered off Santos with two outs in the seventh, getting the Condors back into slam range, but it was also their last output in the game. They got another runner in the ninth on a Reya error, but Ron Thrasher and Marcos Bruno ended the game without the run scoring. 7-3 Coons. Carmona 3-5, RBI; Richards 3-4, BB; Murphy 2-5; Nunley 2-3, 2 BB, 2B; Canning 3-4, RBI; Santos 7.2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 11 K, W (2-0) and 1-3, RBI;

In other news, the Druid finally came back with the report that he could not find any structural damage in Ronnie McKnight’s barking elbow – which was semantically different from there being NO structural damage – but nevertheless proclaimed confidence that McKnight would be fine after another one to two weeks of rest and a treatment of the elbow in question with molten bee wax every other day. The burns would encourage the healing process.

McKnight was thus placed on the DL (and left to his fate with the Druid). Palmer Taylor was called up in the meantime.

Raccoons (5-3) vs. Indians (3-6) – April 16-19, 2015

The Indians had scored 16 runs in their second game of the season (against the Crusaders!), but only 21 runs in their other eight games. This put them eighth in runs scored, but they were 11th in runs allowed – the same ranks the Condors had occupied before the previous series. We had gone 11-7 against Indy in 2014, and have not lost the season series since 2011.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (0-1, 2.57 ERA) vs. Kyle Lamb (0-1, 1.35 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-1, 8.31 ERA) vs. Tristan Broun (1-1, 4.20 ERA)
Nick Brown (1-1, 6.94 ERA) vs. Tom Weise (0-1, 14.63 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (1-0, 1.29 ERA) vs. Alejandro Mendez (0-1, 4.85 ERA)

We get two more left-handers to start this series in Lamb and Broun. Unless anything changes, we will have seen lefties and righties equally two weeks in, something out of the ordinary compared to the last few years.

The Crusaders had lost on Wednesday, putting the Raccoons in first place by half a game to start this series.

Game 1
IND: CF J. Wilson – C Padilla – RF Gilmor – 2B Kym – LF M. Cruz – SS Mathews – 1B Shank – 3B Dawson – P Lamb
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – SS Canning – C Margolis – P Conway

The Indians had two hits, Murphy made an error, but they still didn’t score in the first, thanks to Ron Richards throwing out John Wilson at home plate on Nick Gilmor’s single to left. Bednarski doubled home Sambrano in the bottom of the inning, but Joey Mathews took Bill Conway way deep to start the second inning for an early 1-1 tie. Richards would come up with the bases loaded in the bottom 3rd after singles by Conway and Carmona and a walk drawn by Bednarski. Lamb had only one out, ran the count full, and then lost Richards on a ball in the dirt, a go-ahead, bases-loaded walk. The next two batters also ran 3-ball counts. Murphy popped out in a full count, but Nunley forced home another run with another walk before Canning popped out over the first base line. 3-1 Coons, though Conway really wasn’t taking good care of it. He issued a leadoff walk to Manny Cruz in the fourth and allowed two more singles, scoring Cruz and leaving the tying run on third base when John Wilson lined out to Richards in left to end the inning. The Critters continued to find runs in odd places, scoring a run in the fourth on Sandy’s sac fly, and another in the fifth after a leadoff double by Richards, who was singled home by Walt Canning with two down, 5-2. Conway, however, found ways to stink, issuing two walks and throwing a wild pitch in the sixth to concede another run.

Conway was hit for in the bottom of the sixth, which a) didn’t help, and b) made things even worse. The Raccoons’ pen collapsed instantly. Sugano got two outs in the seventh before allowing a single to Nick Gilmor, and when Entwistle replaced him, Jong-beom Kym and Apasyu Britton rapped hard singles to score one run, and Joey Mathews doubled to flip the score, 6-5 for the Indians, who added on in the eighth against Constantino, who drilled Marc Thompson and allowed him to score on Dave Padilla’s 2-out single. The Coons never gave another squeal. They had Bednarski on with one out in the ninth, but Richards’ and Murphy’s flies to left were not even close to generate excitement. 7-5 Indians. Carmona 2-4, BB, 2B; Bednarski 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI;

The Raccoons now had five relievers with ERA’s of five or higher, plus Angel Casas, with 100% blown saves and no inherited runners stranded, with Sugano the only exception. The overall pen ERA of 8.02 is not only horrendous, it’s also – obviously – the worst in the league. Not that three of five starters are that good…

Game 2
IND: CF J. Wilson – 3B Mathews – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – LF M. Cruz – C Denny – RF M. Thompson – SS Dawson – P Broun
POR: CF Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – SS Canning – 2B Bergquist – P Dickerson

The Raccoons hit into double plays in the first (Bednarski) and second (Canning) before taking a break. Dickerson, who had allowed 11 hits in 4 1/3 innings in his first season start, allowed only one hit in the first four to the Indians, but Manny Cruz hit a bloop single to start the fifth and then scored on a gasping bobble by Murphy, who got an easy 2-out grounder from Ryan Dawson and still misfiled it up his furry arse. The Coons, down 1-0, continued to play disjointed baseball, foremost Canning, who was on first with two outs and Dickerson batting in the bottom 5th, then got picked off, which not only ended the inning, but put Dickerson up to lead off the sixth.

… or he would have, had he survived the top of the sixth. Three of the first four Indians singled, putting them 2-0 ahead with Mathews and Kym on the corners and Manny Cruz batting with one out. Cruz bounced one right into Nunley’s glove, quick throw to second base, and Bergquist simply took a dump on the play and dropped the ball. Mathews scored, there were still two on, and Dickerson had nothing whatsoever. Mike Denny singled, loading the bases, and Dickerson was yanked. Mathis replaced him, allowed a run on a grounder to Nunley that could have retired two (Bergquist looking bad again), then brought in another run with a WILD pitch. Ron Richards drove in a run in the bottom of the inning, barely scratching the 5-0 deficit, before Bruno allowed doubles to Wilson and Mathews in the top 7th, which now didn’t cost a run since Wilson was caught stealing third base prematurely. Entwistle wobbled in the eighth but didn’t fall for once, and Sugano handled the ninth, and while the home team wasn’t doing anything, the umpires had everybody wait through a 55-minute rain delay in the middle of the ninth inning before the Raccoons finally went down feebly against Jarrod Morrison in the bottom 9th. 5-1 Indians. Nunley 3-4; Bednarski 2-4; Richards 3-4, 2B, RBI; Murphy 2-4;

Lots of losing-team baseball to be seen here. The last few games have been appalling.

Game 3
IND: CF J. Wilson – 3B Dawson – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – C Padilla – RF Gilmor – LF M. Cruz – 3B Mathews – P Weise
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS Taylor – P Brown

In an alarming trend of being completely ****, Nick Brown was torn up for four runs in the first inning. After striking out John Wilson, the next six Indians reached base one way or another, starting with a double by Ryan Dawson, Kym getting dinked, Guerra drew a walk, and then it went single, single, single before Nunley got hold of Joey Mathews’ grounder and turned a double play. Brown’s ERA shot over nine, the Raccoons made three outs on six pitches in the bottom of the inning, and I turned to a travel website to make arrangements for an October vacation on an uninhabited island.

The Raccoons happened into a run in the fourth when Weise had a wild phase, walked a pair, but Nunley’s RBI single was all that sprung out of it. The Raccoons had two on again in the fifth, and left those on consequently. Brown allowed only one hit from the second through the fifth inning before all things turned around once more in the sixth inning. A single to center, a single to right, Nunley with an error, and the bases were loaded with nobody out. The Indians continued to find the ****ing seams between the ****ing fielders, and hung another three runs (two earned) onto Brown, before he was yanked in favor of Bruno, who walked Ryan Dawson, but got out of the inning. The Coons also had the bases loaded with two outs in the inning, but Bednarski, hitting for Bruno, grounded out in poor fashion. Constantino pitched effective long relief after that, which ended up the team highlight of the game. The offense hit into double plays in the last two innings, and Weise almost threw a complete game, being removed after a 2-out single by Cookie in the ninth. 7-1 Indians. Carmona 2-5; Nunley 2-4, RBI; Taylor 2-3, BB; Constantino 3.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K;

I am hurting on so many levels right now…

Game 4
IND: CF J. Wilson – C Padilla – RF Gilmor – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – LF M. Cruz – 3B Mathews – SS Dawson – P A. Mendez
POR: CF Carmona – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 1B Reya – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – SS Taylor – P Toner

Staving off an embarrassing sweep would be quite a task for the heavily burdened offense once Toner was romped by a Jong-beom Kym 3-run homer in the first inning. As usual, a single here, a single there, and then the big knell. The Coons went down quickly in the first, but Luis Reya opened the second with a double into the gap in left center. D-Alex failed before Bergquist reached with an infield single, scoring Reya from third. Bergquist stole second base as Taylor struck out, moved up on Toner’s infield single, and Cookie walked to load the bases for Nunley, who snapped the ball right back to Mendez and was out at first by about 65 feet. Nunley also left runners on the corners in the fourth, in which the Raccoons had already scored an unearned run after a throwing error by Kym, but remained 3-2 down. Making an already bad impression worse, Nunley made an error in the fifth inning, but Toner managed to wiggle out to leave runners on the corners.

After a Bednarski double and Reya single, the Coons had runners on the corners yet again in the bottom 5th. D-Alex batted with one out, and his grounder to right was hard enough to beat Kym and find rightfield for the game-tying RBI single. A passed ball moved the runners into scoring position for Bergquist, who failed capitally with a foul pop. Taylor was walked intentionally for Toner to drive a ball to deep center, but not deep enough to beat John Wilson. The misery continued with Toner allowing a leadoff double to Joey Mathews in the seventh. He struck out Dawson and Mendez before John Wilson found his way up the leftfield line with a high fly that was not deep at all, but Ron Richards was pretty much beat by everything that was not right at him, and this was a single that scored Mathews easily. Bottom 8th, Taylor led off with a double to be the tying run. Murphy hit for Toner, was completely useless and grounded out to short, Cookie popped out, and Nunley, who had nothing but failed the entire game, singled to center and FINALLY plated that tying run, evening the score at four. Richards then singled, Bednarski singled, the bases were loaded, and Luis Reya grounded out to Kym to leave them loaded.

Angel Casas held the Indians where they were in the top of the ninth, and when D-Alex doubled off Ed Bryan, the long-ago Raccoon, to open the bottom 9th there was another chance for a walkoff win. Bergquist was walked intentionally before Sandy hit for Taylor against the left-handed Bryan, who lost Sambrano in a full count, loading the bases with nobody out for Murphy, who had replaced Reya at first base. Come the **** on, Murphy! You don’t even have to get a hit to liven up your ****ty .231 clip, just hit one to an outfielder! He hit a 1-1 pitch up the middle, Tom Bowers, manning short, lunged at it, but couldn’t get it, and the ball made to center as Dylan Alexander crossed home plate. 5-4 Coons. Bednarski 2-5, 2B; Reya 2-5, 2B; Alexander 2-5, 2B, RBI; Bergquist 2-4, BB, RBI; Murphy 1-2, RBI;

In other news

April 13 – The Thunder are dealt a crippling blow with the news that 38-yr old RF/LF/1B Will Bailey (0-for-8) needs to have reconstructive surgery on his labrum and shoulder, putting him out for probably the entire season. Bailey hit 40 home runs and plated 200 for the Thunder between 2013 and 2014.
April 14 – BOS 1B Steve Butler (.281, 1 HR, 4 RBI) has his hitting streak end at 22 games at the hands of the Knights.
April 17 – The hitting streak of SFB 3B Javy Rodriguez (.333, 0 HR, 4 RBI) reaches 25 games with a single in the Bayhawks’ 5-0 defeat against the Knights.
April 17 – DAL OF/1B Hugo Mendoza (.447, 4 HR, 12 RBI) will miss about two weeks with an abdominal strain.
April 18 – SFB LF/RF Ron Alston (.362, 4 HR, 10 RBI) reaches 2,500 career hits with a single off Atlanta’s Shaun Yoder, who takes the loss in a 10-4 drubbing. Alston also has 414 HR and 1,371 RBI to his credit.
April 18 – The Thunder trade LF/RF Jose Gomez (.235, 0 HR, 2 RBI) to the Miners for LF Earl Clark (.300, 0 HR, 7 RBI) and a minor leaguer. Both Gomez and Clark are in their mid-30s and not what they once were.

Complaints and stuff

Jimmy Oatmeal homered off Nick Brown. Now I have seen everything. Turns out, the more you see, the more **** things get. But really, we’re behind the ****ing Loggers, so something has been going wrong colossally the last week…

Well, the team is 2nd/2nd/3rd in slashing in the CL, but is only scoring middling runs, which is not something out of the ordinary ‘round here, but what is the opposite of amazing is the bludgeoned pitching. The rotation is eighth in ERA, the bullpen is dead-last, and the defense is also dead-last, which fits well with the defensive shortstop already on the DL.

Fielding’s canning was somewhere between disinterested and quite frankly inept, and the Raccoons can’t go with that sucker in any capacity. Palmer Taylor is nothing special for sure, but at least he might be able to hold the fort for another ten days until McKnight comes back.

Dan Moon was traded once more this week in an odd early-season deal between the Knights and Condors. The latter receive him now along with infielder Aaron Nelson, while dealing C Bill Bedinghaus to the Knights. Nelson has no major league hits, and Bedinghaus had only nine AB this season. In terms of former Raccoons farmhands, 1B Ralph Myers, who is almost 33 and has his first starting assignment in the majors nailed down for the Falcons, had a 5-hit day on Saturday. Maybe a trade for Stan Murphy can be worked out.

Although the less you say about Nick Brown’s performance so far the better, but there’s still this to mention:

ABL CAREER STRIKEOUTS

1st – Tony Hamlyn – 3,872 (active)
2nd – Martin Garcia – 3,783
3rd – Woody Roberts – 3,313 (HOF)
4th – Aaron Anderson – 3,225 (HOF)
5th – Carlos Castro – 3,198 (HOF)
6th – Javier Cruz – 3,164
7th – Chris York – 3,103 (active)
8th – Carlos Asquabal – 2,995 (HOF)
9th – Arnold McCray – 2,900 (HOF)
10th – Bastyao Caixinha – 2,844 (HOF)
11th – Nick Brown – 2,808 (active)
12th – Kisho Saito – 2,800 (HOF)
13th – Kelvin Yates – 2,773
14th – Pancho Trevino – 2,766 (active)

Kel Yates retired during the winter and Chris York has ongoing issues as the air is getting thinner near the top. Pancho Trevino should overtake Brown at some point during the season. The next active player on the list is Rod Taylor, who has now broken into the top 20 with 2,548 K and is chasing down Pittsburgh’s Hall of Famer Craig Hansen.