[Westheim]

When the Coons embarked on a 4-city road trip on Sunday night, they took Justin Dowsey with him. Luis Silva eventually opined that he had only a bruised wrist and would be day-to-day for another couple of days, but all was gonna be fine. He was not going to be in the lineup at least on Monday, though.

Raccoons (53-52) @ Knights (54-50) – August 1-3, 2067

Station one on the road trip was Atlanta, where the Knights and the Raccoons had a 3-3 season series to sort out. The Knights had lost four in a row, so both teams had gotten swept on the weekend. They ranked fourth in runs scored and ninth in runs allowed, with the rotation struggling especially. Outfielder Jake Evans was the only DL occupant for the Knights.

Projected matchups:
Ryan Musgrave (8-7, 3.60 ERA) vs. Vince Ellison (9-8, 4.31 ERA)
Shoma Nakayama (8-7, 4.25 ERA) vs. Ivan Rodriguez (0-0, 4.34 ERA)
Gabriel Rios (9-7, 4.15 ERA) vs. Luis Briseno (7-11, 4.44 ERA)

Only right-handers on offer from those Knights.

In fact, nobody was in the lineup on Monday, since the opener of the series was rained out and a double header scheduled for Tuesday, making future starting assignments increasingly harder to schedule for the Raccoons, who had not played exactly one game on any day since Friday, and wouldn’t to so again until Wednesday, presumably. Still no Dowsey in the first game on Tuesday, though.

Game 1
POR: CF Wilson – C Lopez – RF Corral – 3B Monck – 1B Starr – SS Novelo – 2B Gutierrez – LF Matas – P Musgrave
ATL: CF Fumero – C Hart – LF J. Acuna – RF S. Giles – 2B J. Munoz – 1B J. Paez – 3B Schomer – SS C. Ramsey – P Ellison

When baseball was finally being played on Tuesday, Ramon Lopez’ homer to left in the first inning gave Portland a quick 1-0 lead. Musgrave got two outs to begin the bottom 1st, then walked the bags full with Javier Acuna, Steve Giles, and Jorge Munoz before Juan Paez grounded out to Monck. Musgrave went on to have a 7-pitch second inning, followed by 24 more in the third inning – despite the Knights not getting on base in either one. The Raccoons were not exactly pushing for more offense until the fifth inning, not having even another base hit until Joel Starr singled in the fifth. He advanced on Novelo’s groundout before Carlos Gutierrez walked and Carlos Matas hit an RBI single to right-center. The Carloses moved into scoring position on a rather late throw home, allowing Musgrave to stretch his own lead to 3-0 with a sac fly to center. Wilson then walked, there was a double steal, but Lopez hit into the final out, and the two runs were then taken away again by the Knights in the same inning with always-on-the-trading-block Casey Ramsey singling to left, a walk being issued to Carlos Fumero, and an RBI double for Justin Hart and a sac fly for Acuna. Musgrave hit Giles with two outs, but Munoz grounded out, leaving two on.

Rich Monck extended his hitting streak to 15 games in the sixth with a single to left, soon followed by more hits by Starr, who singled, and Novelo, who based an RBI double to right, 4-2. One Carlos was then walked intentionally, and the other Carlos hit another sac fly. Musgrave struck out, then gave up another run on a walk to Schomer and a Ramsey double in the bottom 6th.

Ex-Coon Angel Alba was in for relief in the seventh, putting the 1-2-3 on base with two hits and a *hit* Jose Corral, who we had just pried back from the DL. Monck laid off the junk to draw a walk and force in a run, but the next three batters struck out, popped out, and struck out. We managed to drag Musgrave through seven innings with a 6-3 lead, and then got to use the reliable right-handed part of the pen. Both Carrington in the eighth and Dover in the ninth put a guy on base, but the Knights didn’t get either of them around to score in those late innings. 6-3 Raccoons. Lopez 2-5, HR, RBI; Starr 2-3, BB, 2B; Musgrave 7.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 4 K, W (9-7);

The Knights’ starter for game two, Ivan Rodriguez, had made 21 relief appearances so far this year, but had been a regular starter with the Falcons for most of the decade.

Game 2
POR: CF Matas – SS Novelo – 1B Starr – 3B Monck – RF Milian – 2B Bonner – C Aguilar – LF Tallent – P Nakayama
ATL: CF Fumero – 3B Schomer – LF J. Acuna – RF S. Giles – 2B J. Munoz – 1B J. Paez – C McLaren – SS C. Ramsey – P I. Rodriguez

Matas in the leadoff spot was a bit of an “aw shucks!” assignment, but he hit a leadoff triple in the third inning and then scored the game’s first run on a Novelo single to center. Starr singled, Monck had singled his first time around, but this time forced out Starr with a grounder to Ramsey; however, David Milian finally got a hit with his new team, dropping an RBI single into left. Bonner (double) and Aguilar (groundout) both added on runs, while Tallent (intentionally) and Nakayama (unintentionally) walked with two outs to re-fill the bases. Matas then struck out to complete the inning that he started, but now with the Coons up 4-0. Through five frames, this was the only half-inning in which runs were scored, while the Raccoons had ten hits against the Knights’ three.

Come the sixth, the Raccoons were up against Bob West, who had been released by the Brownshirts in June and had joined the Knights after two weeks of strife. He would walk three Raccoons, but somehow still managed two scoreless innings. Nakayama out-did him by five-and-two-thirds, maintaining a 3-hitter until the pitch count turned sour on him and he was replaced with Yamauchi amid a defensive shuffle on three of the four corners that gave Rich Monck the rest of the day off. Yamauchi got Fumero to fly out to Milian in left to complete the bottom 8th, and between him and Alvey the 3-hit shutout was completed without hiccups. 4-0 Raccoons. Matas 2-5, 3B, 2B; Novelo 3-5, RBI; Starr 2-3, 2 BB; Bonner 2-5, 2B, RBI; Nakayama 7.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K, W (9-7);

Even better news than a swept double-header: on Wednesday Justin Dowsey was finally back in the lineup!

Game 3
POR: CF Wilson – C Lopez – RF Corral – 3B Monck – 1B Starr – LF Dowsey – SS Novelo – 2B Gutierrez – P Rios
ATL: CF Fumero – C Hart – 1B M. Medina – LF J. Acuna – 2B J. Munoz – RF J. Paez – 3B Schomer – SS C. Ramsey – P Briseno

Fumero, Acuna, and Munoz filled the bases in the bottom 1st before Juan Paez grounded out calmly to short to leave them all stranded, and that was not the last time the bags were filled with Knights against an erratic Rios, who issued a hit and two walks to Acuna, Munoz, and Paez to fill ‘em up with nobody out in the bottom 4th. In between, though, Dowsey had been hit in his first at-bat back in the lineup in a second inning in which Starr and Gutierrez hit singles, the latter plating the former for the game’s first run, and in the fourth Dowsey singled and scored on a Novelo triple. That 2-0 lead was then in danger in that bottom of the fourth inning, and the Knights made it quick. Jon Schomer shrugged at the garbage that Rios tossed up there and drew a bases-loaded walk, before Ramsey raked a bases-clearing double into the right-center gap, which made it 4-2 Knights. Rios sucked a while longer, giving up another walk to Fumero and an RBI hit to Hart, and then was yanked down 5-2 after 3.1 ****** innings. Holzmeister then came in and surrendered his leftover runners on a pair of 2-out hits by Acuna and Munoz, burying the Raccoons five runs down after a 7-run fourth…

The score didn’t budge from there while Briseno kept clicking off innings and the Coons went through another full inning of Holzmeister, and gave the sixth to Yamauchi. Evan Alvey then got the ball to somehow get the game over with, partly because the Raccoons needed a spot starter on Thursday, and for better or worse would have to use Chance Fox for that. Alvey had a quick seventh, but got beaten around a bit for an extra run in the eighth inning, doing it all against almost exclusively right-handed opposition (which was another reason not to bother Chance Fox with putting pants on). 8-2 Knights. Gutierrez 2-3, BB, RBI;

The Knights also killed Rich Monck’s 16-game hitting streak as they brushed us out the door.

Raccoons (55-53) @ Crusaders (56-51) – August 4-7, 2067

New York was certainly not where they aspired to be in a transitional season. Fourth in runs scored and fifth in runs allowed with a +38 run differential, things just didn’t add up for them this year. They were up 5-2 on the Raccoons, but besides defense were not excelling in any area and were mostly waiting for better days. Paul Labonte was the only injury on the major league team.

Projected matchups:
Chance Fox (0-2, 4.03 ERA) vs. Jerry Washington (10-4, 3.36 ERA)
Nick Walla (7-6, 2.94 ERA) vs. Jarod Nesbit (5-3, 3.25 ERA)
Tony Gaytan (7-10, 3.59 ERA) vs. Erik Lee (8-9, 4.28 ERA)
Ryan Musgrave (9-7, 3.61 ERA) vs. Ramon Carreno (7-4, 3.49 ERA)

The only people happy about a spot start by Chance Fox against the Crusaders were probably Chance Fox’ mom, lovingly known as “Mrs. Fox”, and, in all likelihood, the Crusaders.

New York brought up only right-handed pitchers, including a spot starter in Nesbit on Friday. Nesbit had made nine starts earlier this year in June and July, but his last four out of 32 total appearances had all been out of the pen.

Game 1
POR: CF Wilson – C Lopez – RF Corral – 3B Monck – 1B Starr – LF Dowsey – SS Novelo – 2B Gutierrez – P Fox
NYC: CF Box – 2B O. Sanchez – 1B Starwalt – C D. Johnson – RF Takeuchi – LF Ambriz – 3B Frasher – SS Masterson – P Jer. Washington

On the bright paw, Chance Fox hit an RBI single in the fifth inning for the first Coons run of the ballgame. And, hey, he made it to the fifth inning! But no, it was not pretty, and our assessment that he was washed didn’t really change in the process of some really hard to watch six innings that he put up in this Thursday opener. He was constantly behind in the count and issued four walks against just one strikeout through the first five innings, allowing one of those singles to David Johnson before he got taken deep to left by reigning CL Player of the Week Kazuhide Takeuchi in the bottom 3rd. It was still 2-1 New York when Fox – on 82 pitches – was sent back out against the bottom half of the order in the sixth, but walked the leadoff man Jose Ambriz before getting two groundouts from far behind in the count from Eric Frasher and Scott Masterson. Jerry Washington then hit a solid fly to left and sent Dowsey back a bit, but it was caught for the third out of the inning. The Coons had just two hits through six innings – so Fox was half the offense – and it didn’t get much better from there. Lopez drew a walk and stole second in the eighth inning, but was left stranded. McMahan and Carrington held the score at 2-1 through the end of eight, while Washington was replaced with Dave Hyman for the ninth inning, which Monck led off with a grounder to third base. Starr drew a walk, which was good as it got before two pops ended the game. 2-1 Crusaders. Gutierrez 1-2, BB;

Fox’ ERA actually went down, but he was now even for walks and strikeouts, 31 apiece through 44 innings of “can we make him wear a paper bag over his head in the team photo?” duty this year…

Game 2
POR: CF Wilson – C Lopez – RF Corral – 3B Monck – 1B Starr – LF Dowsey – SS Novelo – 2B Bonner – P Walla
NYC: CF Box – 2B O. Sanchez – 1B Starwalt – C D. Johnson – RF Takeuchi – LF Ambriz – 3B T. Villarreal – SS Masterson – P Nesbit

Nesbit had even more walks (47) than strikeouts (44) this season, so there was some hope for offense from the Raccoons, who got Wilson on with a single to begin the game and saw Lopez and Starr draw first-inning walks, but who also had Monck and Dowsey line out to infielders to ultimately keep the bases loaded in the inning. In turn, Nick Walla had a first inning from hell with four full counts, an Omar Sanchez single, Danny Starwalt reaching on a Bonner error, a 2-out hit-by-pitch to Takeuchi, and then finally two (unearned) runs driven in by Jose Ambriz. Lopez was charged a passed ball to move both remaining runners into scoring position, but Tony Villarreal flew out to right to strand them there – all in all Walla threw 32 pitches. He singled in the top 2nd, but was left on, and was still behind almost everybody and their mother until the third inning, when something suddenly clicked and he began to get a few strikeouts. His pitch count was in the toilet by then, while the Coons managed to get four hits and four walks in four innings against Nesbit, and then scored a flat zero runs from that…

Walla was done after five icky innings, throwing 99 pitches despite SOMEHOW not walking anybody, and then his replacement Holzmeister was blown up for three screaming hits and two runs in the sixth, which he didn’t finish; nor did Scott Masterson, who tore out a leg from rioting too hard over Holzmeister along with his team, hitting an RBI double before leaving with calf soreness; Juan Ojeda replaced him, while McMahan had to relieve Holzmeister. Him and Dover would get the last seven outs together on the losing end while the Crusaders needed just Nesbit and five innings of Aiden Shaw for a combined shutout. 4-0 Crusaders. Wilson 3-5; Gutierrez (PH) 1-1;

The Raccoons had eight singles and six walks, but hit into three double plays and stranded a dozen runners to klutz this game away and like Walla himself fall to .500 … Since Walla didn’t allow an earned run in his five mucky innings, though, he did get up to third place in the CL in ERA, behind Boston’s Brenize and Bell, albeit 36 points behind Brenize.

Game 3
POR: CF Wilson – SS Novelo – RF Corral – 3B Monck – 1B Starr – LF Dowsey – C Aguilar – 2B Tallent – P Gaytan
NYC: CF Box – 2B O. Sanchez – 1B Starwalt – C D. Johnson – RF Takeuchi – LF Ambriz – 3B Frasher – SS Masterson – P E. Lee

Sore calf or not, Masterson was sent back out there by the Crusaders on Saturday, drawing a walk his first time up after Ambriz hit a 2-out double in the bottom 2nd. They were left on base by Lee, who nevertheless was already ahead 1-0 after the Crusaders had wasted no time to begin the game with a Bryant Box double to center and Sanchez’ RBI single off Gaytan. Box hit another double in the fifth after Gaytan inexplicably walked the opposing pitcher Lee, who then got thrown out at the plate in a 7-2 double play when Omar Sanchez flew out to Dowsey, ending the bottom 5th. In between, nothing of note had happened – unless you were into Lee seeing 15 Raccoons up and sitting 15 Raccoons down through five innings.

Justin Aguilar singled up the middle to lead off the sixth, so there went the perfecto, but then got immediately doubled up when Tallent grounded out to the one-and-a-half-legged Masterson, so there went all my hope. Masterson then clanked a pop by Gaytan for an error, Wilson singled, but Novelo popped out to Sanchez, and he managed to hold on. Gaytan managed to go seven innings despite giving up six hits and five walks – getting three double plays turned by an attentive defense helped with that for sure – but the Coons were still down by a skinny run after Yamauchi handled the eighth and were looking at Hyman again, this time with Novelo up. He grounded out to Eric Frasher, but Corral singled through the hole on the right to put the tying run on base for Monck, who had suddenly gone down the drain with the rest of the team, hitting 2-for-20 in his last five games. He singled sharply past Masterson here, though, and the line kept moving to Starr, who struck out, and to Dowsey, who … struck out. 1-0 Crusaders.

Blech.

In case you wondered, after three days in New York, the last Raccoons position player to drive in a run for the team in any circumstance had been Pablo Novelo in the fourth inning of getaway day in Atlanta.

Monck, Dowsey, and Corral all got a day off to sort out their thoughts on Sunday. If we were gonna get swept, we might as well get swept with the spares holding their bones into the danger zone.

Game 4
POR: CF Wilson – SS Novelo – C Lopez – 1B Starr – RF Milian – 3B Gutierrez – LF Matas – 2B Tallent – P Musgrave
NYC: CF Box – 2B O. Sanchez – 1B Starwalt – C D. Johnson – RF Takeuchi – LF Ambriz – 3B Frasher – SS Masterson – P Carreno

Chance Fox surrendered “most recent Critter to drive in a run” in the first inning when Wilson led off with a double, Novelo grounded out, and Lopez hit a sac fly to left-center. Moreover, Starr doubled to left and scored on Milian’s RBI single. Gutierrez added another single, but Matas’ K ended the inning. New York then loaded the bases immediately with one out in the bottom 1st on a Sanchez hit, a walk to Starwalt, and an assist from Gutierrez who bungled a Johnson grounder, but Takeuchi then hit into a double play to Novelo, and nobody scored for them. Portland added another pair in the second on Tallent and Novelo doubles and another RBI single for Lopez, while Eric Frasher’s solo homer in the bottom 2nd shortened the score to 4-1 again. His next time up, with two gone in the bottom 4th, Frasher tripled into the leftfield corner to drive in David Johnson, who had gotten on base to begin the frame against Musgrave, which meant that Frasher had all the technical parts of the cycle ticked off. Masterson lined out to Tallent to keep him on base, though, now in a 4-2 game. But the Critters frittered away a Milian double in the fifth, then saw Musgrave walk PH Jared McLaughlin before getting taken out of the box by Bryant Park, or something like that. That one tied the score at four.

New York led 5-4 after Johnson’s 2-out homer off Musgrave, who was then disposed off after five ****** innings. Holzmeister did put up a scoreless sixth before Matas and Tallent knocked 2-out hits off Ben Peterson to tie the game in the seventh inning… but briefly; Evan Alvey soon found a way to get slapped around by Box and Starwalt for the go-ahead run in the bottom of the same inning, 6-5, and before long the Raccoons were choked to death by Hyman again to complete an utterly dismal four-game sweep. 6-5 Crusaders. Novelo 2-5, 2B, RBI; Lopez 2-4, 2 RBI; Milian 3-5, 2 2B, RBI; Tallent 2-3, BB, 2 2B, RBI;

You lot got 13 hits – including EIGHT doubles! – off the Crusaders and couldn’t find a way to squeeze in front of them??

Frasher meanwhile got two more hits after the homer and triple, but both were singles and he was denied the cycle on the lack of a double, ironically.

In other news

August 2 – The Aces beat the Crusaders, 2-1 in 12 innings, while putting out nine base hits. Vegas RF/CF Aaron Warner (.248, 0 HR, 13 RBI) hogs five of those hits, all singles, leaving only four for his teammates, but uses the fifth single to put himself on base to score the winning run on a walkoff single by Vic Lorenzo (.360, 4 HR, 70 RBI).
August 3 – Gold Sox OF Chris Tuck (.291, 7 HR, 39 RBI) could miss most of the month after suffering an oblique strain.
August 4 – Cincinnati gets beaten 1-0 by the Buffaloes on a home run by TOP 1B Alex de los Santos (.238, 10 HR, 53 RBI).
August 5 – Condors outfielder Mike Pinault (.257, 9 HR, 36 RBI) is found to have a small tear in his labrum that he will try to rehab in order to get back to baseball this season. He will miss at least a month in any case.
August 6 – Loggers 2B/SS Fidel Carrera (.304, 16 HR, 86 RBI) reaches a 20-game hitting streak with a last-ditch, ninth-inning RBI single in a 4-1 win against the Indians.
August 7 – ATL SP Adam Lunn (8-7, 4.48 ERA) is done for the season after suffering a torn back muscle.
August 7 – Milwaukee 1B/RF/LF Cesar Ramirez (.359, 18 HR, 92 RBI) is going to miss at least a week with a foot contusion.

FL Player of the Week: DEN OF Matt Little (.249, 14 HR, 46 RBI), batting .474 (9-19) with 3 HR, 8 RBI
CL Player of the Week: MIL RF/LF Carlos Dominguez (.376, 12 HR, 69 RBI), bashing .500 (11-22) with 2 HR, 4 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Quite effortlessly, the team has found a new 5-game losing streak to buckle under. Of course, not scoring a lick is always a great starter. In those last five games the Raccoons have put up just eight runs.

All three of the regulars that got the day off on Sunday (Monck, Dowsey, Corral) were sent to pinch-hit in the course of the game, and all three of them were turned away. Remember we didn’t face a lefty starter all week long, and the whole group there still managed to work their way into a collective slump.

The team will still keep their shambles to the road next week, guesting at Indy and Dallas on the road back out west, including an off day on Thursday.

Fun Fact: Chance Fox had his 30th career RBI on Thursday.

We’ll just call that the highlight of the recent and very active 5-game losing streak.