[Westheim]

2047 CONTINENTAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
Portland Raccoons (104-58) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (108-54)

The circus came to Portland, where the Thunder divined that they would open the road portion of the series with their lefty option, Danny Orozco.

Game 3 – Victor Merino (14-10, 3.34 ERA) vs. Danny Orozco (9-5, 3.20 ERA)

Orozco, who had missed a few months to injury, had faced the Raccoons only once, allowing no runs in eight innings in a no-decision in July. Merino hadn’t been on the DL, but had also only faced the Thunder once, giving up three runs (two earned) in seven innings in September, the opener to his season-concluding 3-game losing streak.

The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by publicly acclaimed Honorary Mayor, Mrs. Felicitas Sturgeon, who identified as pigeon rather than a human. She threw a perfect strike to Ruben Gonzalez, then flew onto the roof above section 29 of the stands to watch the game from a perch up there.

OCT: CF J. Price – 2B Ban – RF Benavides – LF Humphreys – 1B R. Cox – C Adames – 3B Greer – SS Lujan – P Orozco
POR: RF Mercado – SS Adame – 1B Maldonado – SS Waters – C Gonzalez – CF Herrera – 3B Coen – LF Baskins – P Merino

As against Okuda two days before, the Thunder did not go all-out righty lineup against the left-handed starter, which could only be to Merino’s advantage, since his struggles against all-righty lineups were just all too obvious. Even then, only Price, Benavides, and the pitcher would approach him for the left side here…

Ironically Benavides doubled off Merino in the first, but nobody else got on base and the runner was stranded. Maldo hit a 2-out single and was stranded just the same, while the top 2nd began with a single by last game’s chief coonskinner, Ryan Cox, who then ended up caught stealing. After the Coons got Coen on with a single, but no further, the top 3rd began with a T.J. Lujan-sponsored screamer into the rightfield corner for a leadoff triple. Even with the pitcher up next, the run was gonna score, as Merino gave up a 1-0 lead to the Thunder when Orozco flew out to Herrera.

After Mercado hit a single and was stranded in the bottom 3rd, continuing a pattern that already annoyed the crap out of me, Cox drew a 2-out walk in the fourth, and was caught stealing by Gonzalez yet again. Bottom 4th, the Raccoons were less wasteful with runners, going down 1-2-3…

Ben Coen (where did he actually ever come from…?) then opened the bottom 5th with a surprise jack to right, which was a bit of a head scratcher. The Raccoons now had three homers in the series, none of them by a player you’d name as a major offensive force on the team.

The Coons aggressively batted for Merino in that fifth inning, but it got them nowhere really, except into their pen, so Merino was left with a no-decision in a 1-1 game. Aaron Curl took over to begin the sixth, getting two outs for a Jonathan Ban single, but when Preston Porter replaced him, he rung up Benavides to get out of the inning. The Coons then got free runners to begin the bottom 6th: Adame walked, Maldo was nicked (grumbles), but Waters flew out to Jim Price. Gonzalez was next and hit a better one – high and deep to left, and OUTTA here!! 3-run homer, and a 4-1 lead! After Herrera doubled and Coen was walked intentionally (hah!), Derek Baskins hit into a fielder’s choice. We would have wanted to keep Porter for the seventh, but it was runners on the corners and two outs now, of course we sent a batter up there. Martell had been used in the fifth, so Mills grabbed a stick and grounded out.

Adames reached on an error by Josh Rella in the top 7th, but the next batter, Greer, hit into a double play to make the blemish go away. Bottom 7th, the 1-2-3 batters all reached against Orozco as it began to rain. Three on, nobody out for Waters, he hit an 0-1 pitch to right. Benavides caught it, Mercado went for home – and was thrown out, which was at least a novel way to plump away these fat chances, with a 9-2 double play. Except – there were still two on with two outs, and Gonzalez kept pouncing, singling both in on a 2-2 pitch that finally sent Orozco home.

Top 8th, Rella began with a pop coaxed from Lujan, after which left-hander Jayden Lockwood pinch-hit for reliever Jon Craig (still not the ex-Coon, but the left-hander, or the black one). Up by five, the Raccoons got cocky. They sent Oscar Alcala into the fray! He gave up a single to Lockwood, but got a double play grounder from Price, concluding eight. Then the rain got heavy, and we had to sit out a rain delay of about an hour – no early-bird eight-inning wins in the postseason…! After the rain delay, righty Ray Thune put Coen and Baskins on with singles, then walked Tony Morales. Nobody out with the bases loaded again! Mercado’s RBI single and Adame’s bases-clearing triple to center put the game in blowout territory, and got us a new pitcher in Oliver Delcid. Maldonado hit him for an RBI single, then was run for by Van Hoy, because why take risks? Delcid would concede a run after a Gonzalez double and a wild pitch, giving the Coons a 6-spot in addition to the six they already had banked! Benavides and Cox touched Hitchcock for a run in the ninth, but it didn’t really matter.

Raccoons 12, Thunder 2 – Portland leads series 2-1

Mercado 3-5, RBI; Adame 2-4, BB, 3B, 3 RBI; Maldonado 2-3, BB, RBI; Gonzalez 3-5, HR, 2B, 5 RBI; Coen 3-4, BB, HR, RBI; Merino 5.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K;

Game 4 – Jeremy Baker (4-4, 3.32 ERA) vs. Felix Alvarez (4-3, 2.56 ERA)

So here were two 26-year-old fill-ins / rookies that nobody had put on their fantasy team and that somehow had come through to have quite impressive half-seasons (although Alvarez had pitched mostly from the pen). Alvarez had faced the Coons three times; twice in relief in May and once as a starter in September. He had won the start, and overall had gone 1-0 with a 1.54 ERA. Baker had not met the Thunder in person so far.

I had considered starting Tony Morales with a right-hander back on the mound, but after a 5-RBI game it was not possible to remove Ruben Gonzalez. Coen (hitting 4-for-7) remained in the lineup, with Maldo moving to first base and Van Hoy (0-for-5) taking a seat.

The ceremonial first pitches were offered up by Hector Santos and Ron Thrasher, who had been pitchers on those late-2010s teams that had always gotten stuck in the CLCS. – Maud? – Maud, can we talk about bad omens for a second??

OCT: CF J. Price – 2B Ban – RF Benavides – LF Humphreys – 1B R. Cox – C Adames – 3B Greer – SS Lujan – P F. Alvarez
POR: RF Mercado – SS Adame – 1B Maldonado – 2B Waters – CF Herrera – LF Baskins – C Gonzalez – 3B Coen – P Baker

Price started the game with a single, but was immediately doubled up by Ban. The Coons began with two outs in the bottom 1st, but then Maldo singled. Alvarez threw a wild pitch, walked Waters anyway after that, and then gave up an RBI single in right-center to Armando Herrera. Baskins grounded out to Cox, leaving two aboard, after which the Thunder started the top 2nd with not one, but TWO singles that did not leave the infield. I cussed at the baseball gods that that was unfair, but Humphreys and Cox were both driven home by Marshall Greer to flip the score, and T.J. Lujan had another base hit for four singles in total, but those last two runners were at least stranded by Alvarez and Price…

Gonzalez and Mercado singles left us even at two after as many innings, but Baker could not find any sort of groove. After an uneventful third inning, the Thunder got a leadoff single from Adames, a walk drawn by Greer, and quickly an RBI double by Lujan in the fourth. Alvarez hit a sac fly, Oklahoma going up 4-2, before the inning ended on consecutive first-pitch fly outs. No, Baker was not fooling anybody. He was hit for in the bottom 5th, where his spot led off the inning. Martell popped out, but Mercado and Adame put their fuzzy tails on base with one out as the tying runs. Depressingly, Maldo found a double play with the shortstop…

With Gonzalez’ double play from the fourth, and the one Baskins hit into after a Herrera single in the sixth, the Raccoons found two-for-ones in each of the middle innings, while Preston Porter and Jake Bonnie wasted the remnants of their youth for scoreless innings in the 4-2 ballgame.

Van Hoy hit a pinch-hit single with two outs in the bottom 7th, but Mercado grounded out. Bob Ibold then turned in a scoreless inning, but again the Raccoons only got on with two outs in the eighth when Waters singled, knocking out Alvarez in favor of Spencer. Herrera grounded out, concluding eight. A 1-2-3 by Nelson Moreno followed against the 7-8-9 hitters, and then John Steuer was back for the bottom of the ninth inning and the 6-7-8 batters up agains the right-hander. Baskins grounded out to first. Gonzalez grounded out to short. Coen grounded out to the pitcher himself.

Thunder 4, Raccoons 2 – series tied at two

Herrera 2-4, RBI; Van Hoy (PH) 1-1;

Game 5 – Jason Wheatley (13-8, 2.82 ERA) vs. Juan Ramos (19-11, 3.96 ERA)

Back to the start of the rotation then! Wheats vs. Ramos had ended well for us eventually the last time around, and it was a premise I liked for the pivotal Game 5 of the series.

Ruben Gonzalez had been back to bleak in Game 4, and Tony Morales got the nod behind the dish this time.

For this game, the ceremonial first pitch was delivered by Eddie Muller, best of class and commencement speaker of the Class of ’47 of the Willamette Institute for the Limbless and the Blind. His guide dog then tried to retrieve it from Tony Morales and nearly got violent.

OCT: LF Zurita – 2B Ban – SS R. Cox – RF Benavides – 1B Humphreys – C Adames – 3B Greer – CF J. Price – P Ju. Ramos
POR: RF Mercado – SS Adame – 1B Maldonado – 2B Waters – CF Herrera – LF Baskins – C Morales – 3B Coen – P Wheatley

No runs in the early innings, despite Wheats shoveling everybody and their mother on base. He allowed two hits in the first, a walk in the second, and a leadoff walk to Angelo Zurita in the third. Zurita was caught stealing (like Herrera in the bottom 2nd), but Ban then immediately got on when Adame dropped his pop in shallow left for an error. Wheats storked around that runner, too, but walked Greer in a full count in the fourth, and while he still didn’t allow a run, his pitch count had already blown through 60.

Neither team amounted to more than two hits or even a single run through five innings, despite working the pitchers extensively. The Raccoons drew 70 pitches from Ramos, and Wheatley even threw 77 in five frames.

A nine-pitch at-bat that ended with a fly to Baskins by Cox to begin the sixth didn’t make Wheats look any fresher, but he put the Thunder away 1-2-3 in the sixth inning of a pitchers’ duel. He also bunted into a double play after Ramos nicked Coen to begin the bottom 6th… and gave up a 1-out single to Greer, but pitched his way around that by retiring Price and Ramos, arriving unscored upon at the seventh-inning stretch, but at 103 pitches, he was done.

While Maldo was nicked (…!!) by Ramos in the bottom 7th, the Raccoons could not put anything else together and left Jason Wheatley with another one of those cherished no-decisions. We went to Curl for the eighth and the top of the order, although Nick DeMarco batted for Zurita and popped out. Curl walked Cox with two outs, the runner stole second, but was stranded when Benavides struck out.

Ramos retired the 6-7-8 in order in the bottom 8th, after which the conundrum was whether to send Lynn into the ninth textbook-style, or a right-hander considering the actual opposition. Lynn would be a much better match in the potential 10th. So it was Moreno that was sent out. He got Humphreys to ground out to short, but also got Adame to tweak his ankle on the play. He was removed by necessity; Waters moved to short, and Martell took over at second base and the second spot in the lineup, which would bat third in the bottom of the inning. Adames’ grounder to Martell and a K to Greer ended the inning. Ken Mills batted for Moreno then against Steuer to begin the bottom 9th. At 1-1, he singled to right, putting the winning run aboard. Mercado and Martell both flew out easily, not advancing the runner.

Enter Jesus Maldonado. Keen on carrying the team all by himself (which was all I could ask for $5.5M of Nick Valdes’ dosh per season), especially after Bryce Toohey’s regrettable demise in late September, he was raking formidably in this series, batting just over .400. He came up with two outs, took a loopy strike, and then zeroed in on a fastball on the outside of the plate. He drilled it down the rightfield line – Cox leapt in vain at first base, and Benavides had shaded to the gap instead. Mills was of course going full speed with two outs, and the ball made it to the corner! Mills around third! He was gonna …! They wouldn’t …! It was a walkoff!!!

Raccoons 1, Thunder 0 – Portland leads series 3-2

Maldonado 1-3, 2B, RBI; Mills (PH) 1-1; Wheatley 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 3 K;

Back to plain old Oklahoma then, huh?