[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Sizeman21

Well atleast you have 4th safely secured for the season...here's a winners medal...the Raccoons thoroughly deserve it!

Good news! Participation trophies is what we live for here...

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Raccoons (75-74) vs. Condors (75-73) – September 16-18, 2041

Somehow, being basically .500 was enough to sit in second place, only four games out, in the CL South. The Condors still had an uphill battle here in a 4-game set that would open with a double header, against a team they had beaten only once in five tries this season. They were fifth in runs plated and sixth in runs given up, which sounded decidedly mediocre. Wow, I’m really talking down on a team not in danger to slide towards a -100 run differential with a steady losing streak at the end here…

Projected matchups:
Corey Mathers (0-4, 2.98 ERA) vs. Gilberto Rendon (13-8, 3.47 ERA)
Nelson Moreno (11-11, 4.88 ERA) vs. Tommy Kubik (11-12, 3.53 ERA)
Drew Johnson (6-14, 4.07 ERA) vs. Jose Lerma (9-13, 4.51 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (10-11, 3.68 ERA) vs. Edward Flinn (15-10, 3.30 ERA)

“Kitten” Kubik and toothless old beater Lerma (42 years old) would be southpaws, but let’s see whether they wouldn’t shake things up; some guys here would have to go on short rest.

Game 1
TIJ: LF S. Martin – 1B Willie Ojeda – CF Phinazee – SS Ragsdale – RF R. Phillips – 3B Toohey – 2B Shay – C J. Beard – P G. Rendon
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Trevino – SS Hunter – LF Fernandez – C Morales – CF Reyna – 1B Goetz – RF Balaski – P Mathers

Corey Mathers hadn’t enjoyed much luck (or run support) so far in his career with the Coons, and a Tony Hunter throwing error led to an unearned run in the first inning, allowing Dylan Ragsdale to single home Scott Martin. Three soft or infield singles and a walk led to another run in the top 3rd, but Hunter made it up to Mathers in the bottom of the inning. After Cosmo singled home Bill Balaski (leadoff single), Tony Hunter took the finest Costa Rican pitcher the Raccoons had ever employed deep to right, putting Portland up 3-2. Then bad defense caught up with the Condors, too, with Adam Shay delivering a 2-base throwing error in the bottom 5th that put Berto on second base. Cosmo was walked intentionally, Hunter struck out, but Manny Fernandez zinged a double up the leftfield line for two runs with two out in the inning. After Morales walked, Reyna fanned, keeping it at 5-2 through five innings.

Ryan Phillips and Adam Shay reached the corners with singles off Mathers in the sixth inning. With one out and Johnny Beard down 0-2, Shay took off, and would not redeem itself. While Beard looked at strike three, the same baseball was taken by Morales to catch Shay stealing to end the inning. Mathers lasted another two outs in the seventh before he ran into the mostly left-handed meaty part of the order while sitting on 98 pitches. Chuck Jones took over, faced four batters, and retired them all. A Balaski homer off Jamal Barrow in the bottom 8th took the save chance away, but don’t despair – we have Travis Sims! He issued a single, a walk, retired nobody, and then brought out Hamill in the ninth inning. Beard popped out, but a Berto error on Bill Moore’s grounder loaded the bases. Scott Martin singled home a pair, and Willie Ojeda hit a sac fly, narrowing the lead to one run. James Arnett pinch-hit for Mal Phinazee, but struck out. 6-5 Raccoons. Trevino 1-2, 2 BB, RBI; Balaski 3-4, HR, RBI; Mathers 6.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, W (1-4);

Game 2
TIJ: LF Scott Martin – 1B Willie Ojeda – CF Phinazee – SS Ragsdale – RF R. Phillips – 2B Shay – 3B B. Moore – C F. Chavez – P Lerma
POR: 2B Trevino – SS Hunter – LF Fernandez – C Kilmer – RF Ito – 1B Reyna – CF Anderson – 3B Trawick – P Moreno

Monday’s main event (going by crowd size) saw Nelson Moreno drop just two singles while whiffing six in the first five innings, which was so unlike Nelson Moreno that I had Cristiano call Gus, our equipment guy, three times to make sure that guy wearing #20 was actually Nels. The offense, however, was truly Portlandish. Through five they had three hits … and just as many double plays. There was a tight spot for Moreno in the seventh inning with a leadoff double by Ragsdale and all, but the runner was stranded on third base after three poor outs. Hunter hit a single in the bottom 7th, was caught stealing, and I sighed. Moreno then fell 1-0 behind in the eighth, fumbling Francis Chavez’ grounder leading off, and while PH Dave Trahan hit into a fielder’s choice, Scott Martin ripped an RBI double up the rightfield line. The Coons answered with a Van Anderson single leading off the bottom 8th. Trawick then grounded to short, but Ragsdale botched their fourth double play, retiring nobody. Balaski batted for Nels against reliever Matt Schwartz, walked, and three on and no outs sounded like crushing defeat was near. Lefty Brandon Bakst inherited the sticky spot, facing Cosmo, who hit into a force play at home. Hunter, not so much – he cracked a 2-0 pitch into the gap for a bases-clearing double, potentially making Nelson Moreno a posthumous winner! Manny walked and Kilmer hit an RBI single against righty Chad Sheff, 4-1, and an unretired Rikuto Ito (!) banged a double off the fence to plate two more runs. The Coons got a seventh run with two down after Anderson walked, Trawick hitting an RBI single off Gary Martin, who was about the number of pitcher in the inning that the Coons had piled runs on the Condors. Things ended with a Balaski grounder, finally. 7-1 Raccoons! Hunter 2-3, BB, 2B, 3 RBI; Kilmer 2-3, BB, RBI; Ito 4-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Moreno 8.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, W (12-11);

Game 3
TIJ: 2B Shay – 1B Willie Ojeda – CF Phinazee – SS Ragsdale – RF R. Phillips – LF Trahan – 3B B. Moore – C J. Beard – P Kubik
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Trevino – LF Fernandez – C Kilmer – RF Ito – 1B Goetz – SS Nickas – CF Nettles – P Johnson

Two clumsy walks by Kubik and Stephon Nettles’ first RBI single in as long as I could remember gave the Coons a run in the bottom 2nd, but Johnson had already allowed a couple with pedestrian pitching. Shay had whacked a leadoff double and had been maneuvered around to score in the first and Bill Moore had bashed a solo homer in the second inning, and the Condors led 2-1, at least until Ryan Phillips ripped a leadoff jack in the fourth. Then they led 3-1…

The Condors loaded the bases against Johnson in the sixth on a walk, a single, and a nailed Bill Moore. Beard hit a 2-run single, and Johnson was yanked after receiving Kubik’s bunt for the second out. Brent Clark rung up Shay to keep the score at 5-1. Portland answered with singles by Cosmo, Ito, Goetz, and NIckas (!) in the bottom of the inning. The latter two each drove in a run and the tying runs were on base for … Tony Hunter. There was just no faith in Nettles, one RBI single here or there… and Hunter grounded out still. Nothing came out of Jay de Wit’s pinch-hit single to lead off the seventh (except for drinks on the house in every bar on Aruba), nor Ito’s 1-out double off Kubik in the eighth. Kubik retired Goetz and Nickas to complete eight. Instead, two doubles (Justin Simmons, James Arnett) off Josh Rella and a throwing error by Kilmer produced two more Condors runs (one earned) in the ninth inning. Down 7-3 in the bottom 9th against lefty Mario Benavides, Reyna drew a leadoff walk. Looking for a righty bat, we picked Chris Lancaster (the pickings were slim), who stunningly hit a 2-run homer to center, the second of his cup-of-coffee career. Steve Bailey now entered against the top of the order. Berto’s leadoff single brought the tying run to the dish, but Cosmo whiffed and Manny hit into a 6-4-3 game-ender. 7-5 Condors. Ito 2-4, 2B; Nettles 1-1, BB, RBI; de Wit (PH) 1-1; Lancaster (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI;

Oh well – relief is on the way! Nick Lando would come off the DL for Wednesday!

Yay. Excitement.

Slappy, excitement.

(Slappy raises his bottle of booze)

Game 4
TIJ: 2B Shay – 1B Willie Ojeda – CF Phinazee – SS Ragsdale – RF R. Phillips – 3B Toohey – LF J. Simmons – C J. Beard – P Flinn
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Trevino – SS Hunter – LF Fernandez – C Morales – CF Reyna – 1B Goetz – RF Balaski – P B. Chavez

This was in all likelihood Bernie Chavez’ final home start as a Raccoon, giving the schedule, his expiring contract, and the general aimlessness of the franchise as a whole. It didn’t take long for one more souvenir to leave the park – Mal Phinazee hit a solo shot in the third inning. That cut the Raccoons’ lead in half to 2-1; Balaski had hit a homer himself in the bottom 2nd, also of the solo sort, while the Raccoons had taken the lead in the first inning thanks to singles by Berto and Cosmo… and ultimately Edward Flinn’s wild pitch that bailed out a crummy showing of the 3-4-5 batters. The Condors would tie the game in the fifth when Willie Ojeda doubled home Adam Shay, who had singled and stolen second base. Bernie allowed four hits and whiffed as many through five, but was 2-for-2 at the plate, not that this had led to any tack-on offense…

Bottom 5th, the Raccoons began with Cosmo walking and Hunter doubling to left, putting a pair in scoring position with no outs. The Condors fiendishly walked Manny intentionally to doom the effort – almost. While Morales struck out, Reyna whipped a 2-run single. The bags would fill up again when Balaski drew a 2-out walk, but this time Bernie struck out to strand the bases loaded. He then shoveled the bags full himself in the seventh and left the mound in a pickle, having conceded singles to Simmons and Beard, then a walk to Martin. Chuck Jones got a pop from Ojeda, then was lifted when right-hander Bill Moore pinch-hit for Phinazee. Pointless Deadline Acquisition #2 walked in a run, 4-3, before Ragsdale flew out to center…

Ryan Phillips hit a leadoff double off Craig in the eighth, but got no support and was stranded at third base. The Raccoons failed to get on base at all in two innings pitched by Zach Warner, then sent Hamill into the ninth inning. Arnett rolled out on the first pitch. Martin flew out to Balaski. Ojeda singled to center, but Reyna remained master of Moore’s fly to center, and that ended the game. 4-3 Critters. Ramos 2-5; Reyna 2-4, 2 RBI; Anderson (PH) 1-1;

The Raccoons were then idle on Thursday, which also happened to be mathematical elimination day for them when the Loggers beat the Aces, 4-2, on homers by ******* Ted Del Vecchio and Jared Paul.

Oh well. Maybe next year.

At this point the Loggers were one game up on the Crusaders, who were shedding players [see below], while the damn Elks were technically alive but not really, being seven games out.

Raccoons (78-75) vs. Titans (68-84) – September 20-22, 2041

20 games out, the Titans were unfamiliar territory, but that was the result of sitting in the bottom three in both runs scored and runs allowed. In fact, only the Titans were scoring fewer runs than the Raccoons. Of course they had nevertheless long wrapped up the season series, 10-5, over the hapless Portlanders.

Projected matchups:
Josh Brown (14-6, 3.66 ERA) vs. Philip Wise (11-12, 4.72 ERA)
Jake White (0-2, 7.82 ERA) vs. Adam Howell (7-12, 3.68 ERA)
Corey Mathers (1-4, 2.77 ERA) vs. Seth Green (3-9, 5.65 ERA)

Those would all be right-handers.

Game 1
BOS: RF M. Avila – 1B A. Zacarias – LF W. Vega – CF Vermillion – C Duryea – 3B Rangel – 2B Leveque – SS J. Rodriguez – P P. Wise
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Trevino – SS Hunter – C Morales – 1B Reyna – RF Balaski – LF de Wit – CF Anderson – P Brown

Boston went up on an unearned run, courtesy of a Ramos error, in the first inning. It put Alex Zacarias on the bases, which filled up with Willie Vega (walk) and Mark Vermillion (single). Michael Duryea hit a run-scoring single before Ruben Rangel ran into a comebacker for a force out at home and Wayne Leveque struck out. But didn’t Wayne Leveque have the ring of a potential terrible coonskinner? We’d have to see.

While the Raccoons stranded pairs without plating anybody in the first and second innings, the Titans crowded Brown again in the top of the third. Vermillion hit a double, Duryea also reached base, and Rangel hit an RBI single. The runners moved up on Reyna’s late throw to home plate, and – didn’t I ******* call it?? – here was Wayne Leveque, slapping a 2-run single, his first major league hit an RBIs. And the Raccoons? Hunter hit a 1-out double in the bottom 3rd… and was stranded. But when Rangel hit a double off Brown in the fifth inning, he wasn’t stranded. Leveque, the ugly little rat, ripped a 2-out RBI triple to get him.

With Brown out of the game after five horrendous innings, the Raccoons crowded Wise in the bottom 6th. Jay de Wit hit an RBI single with one out. Wise walked both Anderson to fill the bases, then Ito to push in a run, shortening the score to 5-2. Berto hit a 3-2 pitch into rightfield for an RBI single, 5-3, knocking out Wise for lefty-hander Emanuel Caceiro, who struck out Cosmo, but walked in another run against Tony Hunter with two gone. Tony Morales was ready to ground out, but Juan Rodriguez botched the grounder and conceded the tying run on that erroneous play. Kilmer hit for Reyna, but flew out to right to keep the bases loaded, but Brown was off the hook in a 5-5 tie (not that he deserved it). For a stunner, the Raccoons then remained in the tie by three shutout innings delivered by Angelo Montano, who had been inserted just to kill time. No reward in W shape came unto him, though; the bottom 9th saw Tony Morales hit a leadoff single… and be picked off by Logan Bessey, sending the game to extras, where Josh Rella allowed a walk, but no runs in the top 10th. De Wit then hit a leadoff single in the 10th, still against Bessey. Anderson flew out, but Ito singled to move the winning run to second base. He didn’t remain there for long – when Berto singled up the middle, de Wit went like lightning and easily came around to score and end the game. 6-5 Raccoons. Ramos 2-5, BB, 2 RB; Morales 2-5; de Wit 3-5, RBI; Ito 1-2, BB, RBI; Montano 3.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

They are having fireworks in Aruba, Maud? – Don’t they always do?

We’re always glad to jump-start people’s careers up here, and we don’t even charge a ******* fee.

Another player rejoined from the DL at this point, and it was Jesus Maldonado! He was the last guy to return – relievers Ramirez and Lindstrom would not make it back for these last eight games.

Game 2
BOS: 3B Rangel – 1B A. Zacarias – CF Vermillion – RF M. Avila – C Duryea – 2B Santillan – LF Liceaga – SS Toney – P Sciulli
POR: 2B Trevino – SS Hunter – LF Fernandez – CF Maldonado – C Morales – RF Ito – 1B Goetz – 3B Trawick – P White

The Raccoons saw spot starter and professional redhead Blake Sciulli (0-