[Westheim]

Raccoons (11-7) @ Falcons (11-8) – April 27-29, 2020

Third in the South and 1.5 games off the leading Aces, the Falcons ranked third in runs scored in the league with average pitching (6th in runs allowed). In their case the mix comprised a struggling rotation with an ERA of just over 4.50 and a strong bullpen that helped keeping **** together. Charlotte was still missing primary catcher Ryan Holliman, who was on the DL, but could come off any day now. Holliman was regularly good for a .270 clip and 20 dingers, and had batted .353 with two home runs in the first eight games of the season.

The Raccoons had won the season series for two straight years, with a 7-2 record attained in 2019.

Projected matchups:
Cole Pierson (2-1, 3.92 ERA) vs. Juan Ortega (3-0, 4.05 ERA)
Bobby Guerrero (0-1, 1.86 ERA) vs. Alex Vallejo (2-1, 4.03 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (3-1, 1.93 ERA) vs. Denzel Durr (0-2, 2.66 ERA)

All their starting pitchers were right-handed. Ortega was undefeated so far this season, but in his 15-year career had led the league in losses twice, including last year with the Wolves.

Game 1
POR: LF Carmona – 2B Nomura – 3B Nunley – 1B Mendoza – RF Jackson – C Margolis – SS Petracek – CF DeWald – P Pierson
CHA: SS Good – 3B Mathews – 1B Fowlkes – RF Feldmann – LF Benson – CF Haines – C Magee – 2B B. Reyes – P J. Ortega

Both teams got a man on in each of their first three batting innings, but performance was consistently poor as soon as a runner was on base. The Raccoons scattered three hits in the first two innings, but got onto the board in the third thanks to a 1-out triple by Cookie into the far right corner. Yoshi grounded out to Bob Reyes, but that was good enough to bring Cookie home with the first run of the game. The Falcons had no hits early on despite putting men on base; Pierson walked two, and Nunley made an error to create some traffic. While Pierson maintained a no-hitter with six soft outs in the fourth and fifth innings, the Raccoons had a scoring opportunity in the top of the sixth. Cookie opened with a single to right and Yoshi hit one such single to left. Nunley struck out, and Mendoza legged out a roller in the infield for the third single of the inning, loading the sacks for Eddie Jackson with one out. Jackson had a few bad hacks in that at-bat, but at 2-2 hit a soft line to center for an RBI single. Margolis scored another run with a grounder to third that ex-Coon Joey Mathews could only take to first base, and Petracek’s RBI single ran the score to 4-0 before DeWald flew out softly to Ryan Feldmann to end the inning, leaving runners on the corners. Mathews went on to break up Pierson’s no-hitter with a 2-out double to right center in the bottom of the inning, but Nunley made a nice play on Pat Fowlkes’ grounder to end the inning, and the Falcons didn’t get onto the board until the eighth, then down 5-0. Bob Reyes hit a 1-out double, PH Ralph Myers flicked a single to left, and Reyes scored handily from second base. Pierson faced Matt Good at the top of the order – the left-hander led the CL in stolen bases with nine – and got him to hit into a fielder’s choice, but then left the game with a pitch count just over 100 and right-handers approaching. Joel Davis came into the game, fanned Mathews, and in the top of the ninth the Coons saw another one of their former team mates (although only a team mate for a select few of them) in Brendan Teasdale. Nunley mercilessly homered to center off Brenda, because some things never change. The run was not needed in the final tally (though who are we to spit an extra run in the eye?), with Joel Davis logging the final four outs on just nine pitches. 6-1 Raccoons. Carmona 2-5, 3B; Nomura 2-4, BB, RBI; Nunley 2-5, HR, RBI; Mendoza 4-5, 2B, RBI; Petracek 2-3, BB, RBI; Pierson 7.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (3-1);

Both Cookie and Yoshi extended their hitting streaks to 12 games with multi-hit outings, while the Coons grabbed sole possession of first place in the North thanks to the competition being mostly idle on this Monday.

Game 2
POR: RF Carmona – 2B Nomura – SS McKnight – 1B Mendoza – 3B Nunley – C Margolis – LF DeWeese – CF Bareford – P Guerrero
CHA: CF Good – 3B Mathews – 1B Fowlkes – LF Feldmann – RF Benson – 2B Tanaka – C Vanderzee – SS J. Estrada – P Vallejo

Again, no score in the first three innings. Vallejo was quite good at missing bats, striking out five along the way, but he also had some gross misses, like hitting Mendoza to start the fourth inning, then balking him over. Nunley’s grounder moved Mendoza to third, and Margolis’ fly to center scored him for the first run of the game. Both our guys at the top of the lineup had their hitting streaks in danger, not getting a ball to fall in the first two times through the order, and things didn’t get better in the sixth. Cookie reached on an error for the second time in the game, but Nomura hit into a double play before the Coons rapped off three straight 2-out singles, Nunley driving in McKnight to make it 2-0. Margolis sent a floater to left that Feldmann tried to catch, but couldn’t make it, and because he didn’t pull up early, he then overran the bouncer. Margolis got a single and an RBI as Mendoza scored, 3-0, before DeWeese struck out. Cookie got a 2-out single in the sixth, stole second, but Yoshi grounded out.

Guerrero was nursing a 3-hit shutout through five innings, but wasn’t as K-happy as Vallejo was. The Falcons hurler had claimed eight victims in six innings, and then led off the bottom 6th with a single to right, crisply hit and no doubt about it. Joey Mathews also found a single with one out, sending runners to the corners before Guerrero reached back and whiffed both Fowlkes and Feldmann to keep the Falcons shut out. The lead got to 4-0 in the seventh. Margolis tacked on yet another run with a 2-out RBI single, again scoring Mendoza and then again DeWeese made the third out with a harmless pop to the shortstop. Guerrero was knocked from the game by a hard 2-out double to the fence in rightfield off Matt Vanderzee’s bat in the bottom 7th, but his ledger remained clean, with Jason Kaiser retiring Juan Estrada to get out of the inning. Yoshi got another turn at-bat in the eighth, with the bases loaded after reliever Bill Dean had walked Bareford (tough task!) and had allowed singles to Jackson and Cookie. Yoshi ended his hitting streak in style, rolling to Ryozo Tanaka for a run-scoring double play, 4-6-3. Despite being up 5-0, the Coons stuttered some in the bottom 8th, for which they needed three pitchers, although the Falcons got on base in the first place on a throwing error by Ronnie McKnight, who allowed Matt Good onto second base with one out on an errant delivery, which also knocked out Kaiser. Chun replaced him, walked Mathews and allowed the (unearned) run to score on Feldmann’s 2-out single. Thrasher came in and struck out Travis Benson to kill off the Falcons’ charge with the tying run in the on-deck circle, and also pitched a scoreless ninth for the save. 5-1 Raccoons. Carmona 2-5; Mendoza 2-3, BB; Nunley 2-5, 2B, RBI; Margolis 2-4, 3 RBI; Jackson 1-1; Guerrero 6.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K, W (1-1); Thrasher 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K, SV (4);

Game 3
POR: RF Carmona – 2B Nomura – SS McKnight – 1B Mendoza – 3B Nunley – C Margolis – LF DeWeese – CF DeWald – P Toner
CHA: CF Good – RF Benson – C Holliman – LF Feldmann – 1B Fowlkes – 3B Mathews – 2B Tanaka – SS J. Estrada – P Durr

To the shock of all of us, the Falcons, having lied down motionlessly for the most part of two games, were right into Jonny Toner’s innards from the go sign in this game. He lost Matt Good to a leadoff walk in the first and things deteriorated rapidly from there. The returning Holliman singled, he threw a wild pitch, and Feldmann plated two with a single to left center, then scored himself on Fowlkes’ single to right. Three runs on the board in no time at all! Toner’s pitching didn’t get any better in the bottom 2nd, although the Falcons didn’t score mainly because after leadoff man Estrada singled he right away was caught stealing by Margolis (5-for-7 now). The Druid intercepted Toner on the dugout steps and declared that the spirits had told him that he was hiding something. Toner nodded, the two vanished in the tunnel to the clubhouse, and Adam Cowen got ready to pitch in long relief.

Not that Denzel Durr was no mess. He threw wild pitches in the second and third innings, both times allowing the Raccoons to score a run to get back to 3-2. Thankfully for them, Cowen sucked colossally and was torn up for three runs right in the third inning. Mathews hit an RBI double, and with the bags full and two outs after an intentional walk to Estrada, Durr flicked a 2-run single to left. That 4-run deficit got molten down to one run by the fifth inning again. Durr just couldn’t pitch a clean inning, loaded the bases in the fourth and allowed two runs on Cookie’s 2-out single to right, and in the fifth Mendoza led off with a double to right and scored on a Margolis sac fly. Both teams now had the chance to turn a muddy game into an ‘at least we won’ affair, but the Coons didn’t get on against Durr in the sixth, while Chris Mathis put runners on the corners and owed Cookie a drink for a wonderful flying grab to retire Fowlkes on his line drive to end the inning. It was still the Falcons to score the next run, off Jeff Boynton, in the bottom of the seventh. Boynton retired the first two before drilling Estrada, then surrendered hard singles to Myers and Good to concede the run. Finally, Benson struck out.

In the eighth, Margolis’ 1-out single to right gave the Coons their first runner since the fifth inning. The Falcons replaced Mitch Onley with William Raven, righty for righty, to face DeWeese, who dumped under .200 with a double play grounder out of the inning. The Falcons added a further insurance run in the bottom 8th off Chun, who loaded the bases on a bloop hit and two walks and conceded a sac fly to Tanaka, which was doubly unfortunate given Yoshi Nomura’s 2-out, 2-run homer in the ninth inning off Ian Ward, that again left the Raccoons a damn run short. McKnight then singled, but Mendoza grounded to short. Estrada’s throw bounced in front of Fowlkes, then eluded him, and as the ball caromed into the Falcons dugout and caused mild havoc, the Raccoons had the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position for Matt Nunley, who grounded a 1-0 pitch to the left side. Estrada knocked it down, fell down, stood up again, rushed a throw to first, off Fowlkes’ glove, ANOTHER ERROR, and the game was tied! Ward, sobbing, was replaced by Blake Parr, who got Margolis to fly out to left. It was the last Raccoons at-bat in the game. Joel Davis lost Erik Pearcy to a leadoff walk in the bottom 9th. Pearcy was bunted to second by Matt Good, and then Travis Benson fired a howitzer shot over the rightfield fence to end proceedings in Charlotte for the month. 10-8 Falcons. Margolis 2-3, BB, RBI;

Back home in Portland, I found that the suicide hotlines were overloaded with concerned Raccoons fans calling after Jonny Toner had left the game after only two innings. I know that because I was on hold for 45 minutes.

In the end, the stinking loss aside, things turned out to be not quite as black as initially assumed. Jonny Toner had a mild ankle sprain, and was listed as day-to-day. He would not go to the DL, but we were not sure yet whether he could make his next start on time. With Thursday off, he would get the ball on Tuesday. Maybe we need to shift things around a bit.

Also, with our loss, the Titans led the division by themselves.

Raccoons (13-8) vs. Loggers (11-10) – May 1-3, 2020

The Loggers had lost both of their games to the Coons at the start of the season, but had since recovered to join the rather dense top of the division, currently three games behind the leading Titans(!?) and two games behind the Critter Brigade. They were sixth in runs scores and seventh in runs allowed, so if anything they hadn’t yet hinted at greatness being in the making again this year, and their run differential was actually negative at -6.

Projected matchups:
Tadasu Abe (2-1, 4.91 ERA) vs. Julio San Pedro (1-0, 5.65 ERA)
Hector Santos (3-0, 3.16 ERA) vs. Chris Sinkhorn (2-2, 3.58 ERA)
Cole Pierson (3-1, 3.18 ERA) vs. Ian Prevost (2-1, 3.89 ERA)

Left-hander on Saturday, although I wouldn’t have minded facing their other southpaw instead, Luis Guerrero (1-2, 7.91 ERA). The Loggers had no injuries to worry about right now, and Chris LeMoine sat on a strong six home runs, but was batting only .232 right now.

Game 1
MIL: C Denny – SS Burns – 1B Gore – RF LeMoine – CF Coleman – 3B Velez – 2B Farias – LF Tesch – P San Pedro
POR: RF Carmona – 2B Nomura – SS McKnight – 1B Mendoza – 3B Nunley – C Margolis – LF DeWeese – CF DeWald – P Abe

The Loggers stole bases in the first (Brad Gore) and second (Ian Coleman) off Margolis, and the latter one developed into having Coleman on third with two outs and Brad Tesch at the plate. He was batting only .190 and Abe would surely - … nope, single to right, the run was in and the Loggers were up 1-0. The struggles of Tadasu Abe were most mysterious at this point, striking out 11 per nine innings and tickling an ERA around five. The damage wasn’t permanent yet, with the Coons matching the single run in the bottom 2nd with 1-out singles by Nunley and Margolis, with DeWeese still not getting a proper whack at anything, but at least having the decency to stay out of the double play and make only one out on his run-scoring grounder to Gore at first base. Portland moved ahead in the third when Cookie and Yoshi hit doubles past either side of Brad Tesch for a 2-1 advantage.

In the fourth, Abe allowed a deep drive to center by LeMoine that DeWald took care of, then was almost impaled by a chunk of Ian Coleman’s shattered bat, but somehow it all worked out to a 1-2-3 inning and no DL or cemetery assignment for him. In the middle innings overall the game became more of a pitching duel with nary a runner on base. Abe was doing it with strikeouts, while San Pedro was doing it with poor contact and some luck, whiffing only McKnight in six innings. The bottom 7th then was led off by Nunley with a hard jack to right, moving the score to 3-1 and waking up a few patrons that had snoozed away in the tame previous innings when his ball rammed loudly off the facing of the upper deck. San Pedro got only one more batter, whiffing Margolis, before yielding to right-hander Ivan Morales, who K’ed DeWeese, but then allowed a double to right to DeWald with two down. Abe still had some juice in him; he batted! The first pitch was chipped into play on the right side, Emilio Farias, the long-time Thunder lunged but missed it, and the RBI single chased home DeWald, 4-1. Unfortunately, after Cookie grounded out Abe never retired another batter, getting yanked after Farias and Tesch had occupied the corners with two singles, soft singles, but singles they were. Joel Davis replaced him, facing left-handed pinch-hitter Javier Gonzalez, a 35-year old never-has-been who homered to center on the first pitch, and this game was tied. Davis got Mike Denny, but Burns singled, which dropped the hammer on Davis. Ron Thrasher replaced him and got out of the damn inning and also through the ninth, in the bottom of which Nunley drew a leadoff walk from Justin Carlin. Bareford ran for Nunley and managed to steal second base, for which there was no need. While Margolis was down 0-2 at this point, he laid off a pitch in the dirt, and Carlin came up again with the 1-2, right into the sweet zone. Margolis – who looked nothing like himself – got ALL of it and catapulted it over the leftfield fence – IT’S A WALKOFF!!! 6-4 Furballs! Nunley 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; Margolis 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Abe 7.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 6 K and 1-3, RBI; Thrasher 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W (1-0);

Danny Margolis, huh?

I will not go into the multitude of arguments for why this is a massive fluke and he will soon enter a 2-for-37 spill. They are all valid, let’s just leave it at that.

Game 2
MIL: 2B Stewart – C Denny – 1B Gore – RF LeMoine – CF Coleman – 3B Velez – SS Farias – LF Tesch – P Sinkhorn
POR: LF Carmona – 2B Prince – 3B Nunley – RF Jackson – C Margolis – SS McKnight – 1B Petracek – CF Bareford – P Santos

While we sprinkled in an extra off days for our everyday players here and there right now, the Loggers’ Chris Sinkhorn had walks as his big topic, having issued 23 of the buggers in 27.2 innings coming in. I told the boys to be patient, but they never listened anyway.

The Coons took a 1-0 lead in the second inning, the never-ceasing-to-excite Margolis hitting a double and scoring on McKnight’s single. Sinkhorn walked the bases full after that, but Santos struck out for the second out of the inning, and Cookie flew out to center on a 2-2 pitch. Bottom 3rd, more walks from Sinkhorn, who walked Nunley and Margolis before allowing a 2-out single to McKnight. The bases were loaded again, Petracek hit an RBI single to left center, and Bareford put the first pitch into play, singling to center for two runs to score. Santos K’ed again, but the Coons were now up 4-0, and Santos had been perfect the first time through the order, but managed to blow that into the wind right away, drilling Tyler Stewart with his first pitch of the fourth inning. LeMoine singled with two outs, but Coleman popped out, leaving runners in scoring position after Santos had thrown a wild 0-2 pitch. Santos made it through five with a 2-hitter and seven strikeouts, while the Coons were through with Sinkhorn in the bottom of the inning. He walked Margolis, his fifth free pass in the game, and McKnight homered to right center for his first of the season and a 6-0 lead. Sinkhorn tooted his horn and sunk, bringing in Ivan Morales. The right-hander allowed four singles to the first four batters he faced, including Santos, who had an RBI to his single, as had Cookie, who extended his hitting streak to 16 games after starting the game 0-for-3. Prince struck out, bringing up Nunley, who also had a hitting streak budding at 11 games, and who also had yet to find success in the game, but grounded out to Gore to end the inning.

While Jackson hit a solo home run in the sixth, and Santos made it through seven on a 2-hitter, just like Abe the day before didn’t log an out in the eighth, but put two men on with a Farias single and a walk to Tesch. Chun replaced him, Javier Gonzalez was pinch-hitting again, but this time wasn’t going to hurt the Coons. He flew out to left rather easily, and Chun never let Farias reach third base, striking out Stewart before Mike Denny popped out. Cowen pitched the ninth and preserved the shutout. 9-0 Raccoons. McKnight 4-5, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Petracek 2-3, BB, RBI; Bareford 3-4, BB, 2 RBI; Santos 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 10 K, W (4-0) and 1-4, RBI;

Nunley went 0-for-4 and ended his hitting streak.

Game 3
MIL: 2B Stewart – CF Coleman – RF Gore – LF LeMoine – C Denny – 3B Velez – SS Burns – 1B Quebell – P Prevost
POR: RF Carmona – 2B Nomura – 3B Nunley – 1B Mendoza – SS McKnight – C Olivares – LF DeWeese – CF Bareford – P Pierson

Yoshi never batted in the game, leaving with an unspecified injury right in the top of the first inning. Prince replaced him and took part in a 1-2-3 retirement in the bottom 1st, but the Coons got Mendoza on with a leadoff double in the second. Olivares and Bareford both came up with RBI singles for two runs in the inning. Pierson got taken deep by Kyle Burns leading off the third inning, and in the fourth the bases were loaded after singles by LeMoine and Denny and Pierson smacking Alberto Velez in the thigh. There was only one out and Burns was up again. He was not a double play candidate anyway due to sufficient speed, but also hit the ball to center. Bareford came in to catch it, but still couldn’t prevent LeMoine from scoring the tying run. Adrian Quebell, hitting sporadically from his spot on the far end of the Loggers bench and batting 4-for-13 coming in, grounded out to first in this key RISP spot. WHO WOULDA THOUGHT??

The team more or less collapsed on all fronts in these middle innings and again undid a possible sweep. While Cookie and Nunley both lined over Stewart for base knocks in the fifth and Cookie came around to score, Pierson and Olivares already broke down in the fifth, putting Prevost on base leading off and moving him to scoring position with a passed ball. Somehow, the Loggers didn’t eat Pierson right there and then, but the middle of the order tore him apart in the sixth. LeMoine led off with a walk, and Mike Denny immediately homered to flip the score the Loggers’ way, 4-3. Burns hit a single, Quebell hit a ****ing triple, 5-3. DeWald pinch-hit and dumped a single into shallow right in the bottom 7th. Brad Gore grossly misplayed the ball for an error and an extra base that eventually led to a run on Prince’s 2-out single, but just before Quebell had snagged a hissing liner off Cookie’s bat that really could have turned things around if it had gotten to the corner. With the RBI from Prince, the Coons still trailed 5-4 when Nunley grounded out. Prevost was removed after a single by McKnight with one out in the bottom 8th, and the Loggers went to Justin Carlin, who had lost Friday’s contest, but now got a double play grounder from Olivares, and in the ninth it was Quebell who homered off Jason Kaiser to suck life out of the Coons for good. 6-4 Loggers. Nunley 2-4, RBI; Margolis (PH) 1-1; DeWald (PH) 1-1;

In other news

April 27 – The Rebels lead the Stars 7-0 in the middle of the eighth inning and somehow wind up losing, getting splattered for five runs in the eighth and three runs in the ninth. DAL INF Raul Maldonado (.376, 0 HR, 10 RBI) walks off his team with a 2-run triple.
April 28 – SFW 1B Mike Rucker (.350, 5 HR, 22 RBI) has his hitting streak end at 22 games with an 0-for-3 day in the Warriors’ 4-2 loss to the Blue Sox. Rucker’s was the last active hitting streak that had begun the previous season.
April 28 – The Aces will be without 2B/SS Bill Hebberd (.328, 1 HR, 7 RBI) for about a month. The 25-year old has suffered a strained hip muscle.
April 28 – ATL INF Tony Jimenez (.266, 1 HR, 6 RBI) draws a bases-loaded walk in the 12th inning for the only run in the Knights’ 1-0 win over the Indians.
April 30 – A groin tear puts NYC LF Jose “Dingus” Morales (.329, 9 HR, 19 RBI) on the DL for the next six weeks.
April 30 – The Indians trade RF Dave Carter (.188, 0 HR, 1 RBI) and wads of cash to the Warriors for 1B Mike Rucker (.357, 5 HR, 22 RBI) and interesting, but unranked prospect CL Rafael Urbano.
April 30 – NAS 1B Steve Butler (.384, 5 HR, 15 RBI) knocks two hits in the Blue Sox’ 12-4 win over the Warriors to extend his own hitting streak to 20 games. Butler has hit in every one of his games since Opening Day.
May 1 – TIJ LF Jimmy Eichelkraut (.185, 6 HR, 20 RBI) goes 2-for-5 in the Condors’ game in San Francisco. With two outs in the top of the ninth, Eichelkraut bombs Mike Stank for a come-from-behind grand slam to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 6-3 lead that the Condors’ pen promptly blows in the bottom of the inning. The Condors score four more off Mike Homa in the tenth inning and eventually prevail to win 10-6.
May 2 – The hitting streak of NAS 1B Steve Butler (.362, 5 HR, 16 RBI) ends after 21 games in a 4-3 win over the Blue Sox. Butler gets three at-bats, but no hits.

Complaints and stuff

Batting .387 with 9 HR and 30 RBI, Dumbo Mendoza was the CL’s Hitter of the Month for April. Has it been a while since we won one of these? Over in the FL, newly minted Capital Shane Walter (.377, 0 HR, 7 RBI) won Player of the *Week* honors for the last seven days, batting .583 (14-for-24) with 3 RBI.

Ezequiel Olivares got his first career RBI, and not a minute too soon. He is 29 years and 104 days old. Do days matter in this circumstance?

Did you know that Bill Hebberd’s name isn’t actually William? I saw this in the official league injury report that is mailed daily to the GM’s of all teams, and they list the actual given names for players. His name is actually Wilbur McKinley Hebberd IV - … yeah, I’d go with Bill, too.

Also, it’s May and Jonny Toner leads none of the team’s triple crown categories. That IS odd.

We have to look into a centerfielder because ours are killing us. And I sure would have hoped for DeWeese to get a hot start and then to find a dumb team buying into a 60 AB sample of .310 and four homers. Nothing of that remotely happened, and the only good news is that by the end of the month the remaining damage payments will drop under the $9M mark.

Are we first in runs scored? How did that happen!?