[Westheim]

Raccoons (0-0) @ Crusaders (0-0) – April 4-6, 2072

The Raccoons would spend the first week of the new season on the East Coast before getting a 2-game homestand in moist and cold Portland. First up were the Crusaders in a 3-game series on Monday. New York had been through a couple of forgettable seasons and the Coons had pounced on them for 13 wins in 18 games last season. If I had my will, we’d do that again this year!

Projected matchups:
Nick Walla (0-0) vs. Dennis Marck (0-0)
Aldomiro Campion (0-0) vs. Paul Egley (0-0)
Jimmy Wharton (0-0) vs. Nate Freeman (0-0)

The Crusaders would only show us right-handers here, but as we saw in the season-opening post, the margins between our lineup variants were small.

I had a hard time deciding between who’d come second behind Walla and ultimately we went for Campion for bullpen reasons: both Campion and Tony Gaytan had very high stamina and might pitch the most innings, so by keeping them apart (Gaytan was the #4), we might maximize bullpen savings. And on a team with no budget, savings were always appreciated. (spends $175 on seven hot dogs as snack for the first couple of innings)

Game 1
POR: LF Humphries – 2B Yocum – SS Katzman – RF V.D. Morales – C Rivas – 3B Gonzales – CF Hamel – 1B Woodley – P Walla
NYC: 3B Lacatelli – RF Spicer – 2B McNulty – 1B Ledesma – LF Griffin – SS Joe King – C Marty – CF DuKate – P Marck

The Raccoons went down in order in the first inning, but Nick Walla was tagged for two runs early as Chris McNulty singled and Raul Ledesma homered to left in the first inning. Tony Griffin hit another single before Joe King ended the inning with a pop. The Coons’ new arrivals Victor David Morales and Edgar Gonzales hit singles in the second, but Jack Hamel and Josh Woodley both struck out to end the inning.

Walla struggled and labored and didn’t find any meaningful stuff in this opening game, and then it started to drizzle on top of everything else. Walla drew a walk off Marck, but Marck singled off Walla the first time they faced each other, but neither on-base appearance by the pitchers led to a run. The Coons’ first stolen base of the year went to Jack Hamel in the fifth as he hit a leadoff single and then stole second. He scored when Woodley singled up the middle, and that cut the deficit in half. Walla failed to get the bunt down and struck out, which eventually cost the tying run after Steve Humphries forced out Woodley and then only reached third base on a Adam Yocum hit. John Katzman flew out to Tony Griffin in deep left to end the inning.

90 pitches and not a lot of great pitches ended Walla’s Opening Day start after six innings once Woodley led off the seventh inning with a double to left, putting the tying run in scoring position against reliever Josh Jackson. Phil LeVan pinch-hit and grounded out, but advanced the runner to third base, and Humph tied the game with a sac fly to center. Yocum ripped another double to right, but Katz flew out again to end the inning.

Bottom 7th, and Ron Rismiller came in, getting an out from PH Kyle Reber before Willie Ospina singled. Gabriel Rios replaced Rismiller, walked PH Jonathan Merrill, and then had PH Josh Roza at 1-2 before giving up a grounder to second. Merrill broke up the double play by clobbering Katz, and Katz left the game with an apparent injury right after that, replaced by Brian McFarland. Roza stole second, but Rios walked Chris McNulty anyway, and then, with three on and two gone, was replaced with Cam Jackson, who gave up a sharp liner to Raul Ledesma that struck him in the shoulder before caroming high over the infielders and into no man’s land in shallow left-center, allowing two runs to score. Jackson was on the ground, whimpering, and was collected by Luis Silva while I was in the stands, turning whiter than a freshly washed bedsheet. Todd Sullivan became the FOURTH reliever of the inning and got a grounder to short from Tony Griffin to end the bloody, bloody inning. The Raccoons then rather limply tumbled towards an Opening Day loss. 4-2 Crusaders. Yocum 2-4, 2 2B; V.D. Morales 2-4; Rivas 2-4; Woodley 2-4, 2B, RBI;

Cam Jackson had a cracked shoulder blade from taking a missile off his shoulder (not the throwing side, at least…) and would miss at least one month. He was moved to the DL and replaced with Noah Newhard. No clue what’s wrong with Katz now, so he was still on the roster on Day TWO of the new season.

Game 2
POR: LF Humphries – 2B Yocum – C Rivas – RF V.D. Morales – 1B Woodley – 3B Gonzales – CF LeVan – SS McFarland – P Campion
NYC: 3B Lacatelli – C Marty – 2B McNulty – 1B Ledesma – LF Griffin – SS Joe King – RF Ospina – CF DuKate – P Egley

Yocum singled, Rivas doubled, and Egley balked in a run to give the Raccoons their first lead of the season in the first inning on Tuesday. Morales added an RBI single, but was caught stealing and the inning fizzled out from there. McNulty hit a home run off Aldo to cut the 2-0 lead in half right away. For the next three innings, neither team then hit much at all and mostly just went back and forth between the batter’s box and the dugout, but the Raccoons tacked on a run in the fifth inning on back-to-back 2-out doubles by Humph and Yocum, 3-1. Aldo allowed just a pair of hits through five innings, but also issued a pair of walks in the fifth inning and had to labor his way around those runners.

The sixth was uneventful, and Aldo reached base by dropping a roller that stopped dead *on* the third base line for an infield single. Humph also got on, but Yocum hit into a double play to end the inning. Things then collapsed after the stretch with a leadoff single for Griffin, who scored on Joe King’s double to right-center, 3-2. Ospina and Brad DuKate also reached base on a single and walk and the Crusaders had three on and nobody out. Aldo struck out Egley, then was replaced with Ricky McMahan when Merrill pinch-hit for Miguel Lacatelli. He got the batter to 2-2, and then gave up a 2-run single through the left side as the Crusaders flipped the score. Marty and McNulty made outs, but the damage was done. Down 4-3, Gabe Rivas led off the eighth inning with a single against Egley, but the Raccoons then made three poor outs in a row. Newhard retired the 4-5-6 batters from New York in order in the bottom 8th, and the Raccoons sent the bottom of their lineup against right-hander Leo Garcia, who had already saved the opener, in the ninth inning. LeVan fanned, Sam Brown pinch-hit and grounded out to short, and then Hamel pinch-hit and kept the game alive with a double to left. A K to Humph ended the game with the tying run in scoring position. 4-3 Crusaders. Humphries 3-5, 2B; Yocum 2-4, 2B, RBI; Rivas 2-4, 2B; Woodley 2-4; Hamel (PH) 1-1, 2B;

No news on Katz still. Or when we might win a game.

Game 3
POR: LF Humphries – 2B Yocum – CF Hamel – RF V.D. Morales – 1B Woodley – 3B Gonzales – C Brown – SS McFarland – P Wharton
NYC: C Marty – SS Joe King – 2B McNulty – 1B Ledesma – LF Griffin – RF Spicer – 3B Reber – CF DuKate – P N. Freeman

The Coons started another game with a 2-spot as Humph and Yocum did a good job and reached base to begin the game before a pair of groundouts got home Humph and a Woodley single plated Yocum. Gonzales hit another single into center, but Brown grounded out. Jimmy gave a run right back on a King single and McNulty RBI double, but kept the tying run on base at least… Yocum drove in McFarland, who drew a leadoff walk, to make it 3-1 in the second inning. Woodley singled in the third, but got doubled up by Gonzales, while the Coons couldn’t turn the double play on King after a Marty single to lead off the bottom 3rd, and that led to a 2-out run on a Ledesma double in the same inning. The Crusaders left the tying run on once more, though.

Jimmy doubled to right in the fourth inning, but with two gone and nobody on, and Humph reached only on an error by King. Yocum grounded out to McNulty to keep them on the corners, before Hamel and Morales put their furry tushes in scoring position to begin the fifth inning, cracking a single and double, respectively, off Freeman. Nobody scored while Woodley whiffed and Gonzales fanned. Brown drew a walk in a full count, and McFarland flew out to right to end the inning with the bases still loaded.

Wharton was much sharper in the middle innings, allowing only one runner to the Crusaders while getting up to seven strikeouts through six innings, but without exploding the pitch count, which was at 75. The Crusaders’ 7-8-9 batters disappeared on ten pitches in the seventh, but it all came crashing down AGAIN in the eighth when Marty and Merrill bashed doubles to right against Jimmyboy and tied the game that way. Holzmeister made his first appearance of the season and got a pair of stingy outs from McNulty, who grounded out to short, and Ledesma, who popped out, all of which kept the go-ahead runner at second base, before giving up a homer to Tony Griffin. 5-3 Crusaders. Yocum 2-5, RBI; Woodley 3-5, RBI;

Raccoons (0-3) @ Knights (2-1) – April 8-10, 2072

The Knights had taken two of three games from the Condors to start the new season, while the Coons so far had no wins, no homers, and no ******* luck. More on that in a second. Atlanta had only allowed four runs in three games, but had also only batted .188 and scored just nine runs. Early days, though. Only the Raccoons were already in the toilet, although Knights starter Rob Wilkinson was still on the DL after Tommy John surgery, and Tomas Guangorena was day-to-day with a mild calf strain. The Raccoons had gone 5-4 against the Knights last season.

Projected matchups:
Jaquan Riggs (0-0) vs. Scott Triebwasser (0-0)
Tony Gaytan (0-0) vs. Justin Kent (0-0)
Vinny Morales (0-0) vs. Adam Lunn (1-0, 1.13 ERA)

Kent would be our first southpaw to face this season.

But – Hold on. Wait a minute! What’s Jaquan Riggs doing starting the FOURTH game of the season, and where’s Nick Walla??

Well, apparently Nick Walla found it prudent to hit a roadside bar on our day off and arm wrestle some truckers, and ended up with a sore wing after that. He’d miss his start against the Knights. The Coons yoinked Jaquan Riggs to start the opener instead to utilize the roster spot opening by Katz’s disablement for torn thumb ligaments (almost cries), which would keep him out of action until late May at least.

We haven’t won a game yet. No wins. No homers. Three injuries. Depression.

Game 1
POR: LF Humphries – 2B Yocum – C Rivas – RF V.D. Morales – 1B Woodley – CF Hamel – 3B Gonzales – SS McFarland – P Riggs
ATL: CF J. Soto – 1B DiPrimio – RF D. Mendoza – LF Marcotte – C Hart – 2B Ehlers – 3B J. Munoz – SS Guangorena – P Triebwasser

The Coons again scored first as Yocum doubled and was singled home by Morales in the first inning, but the Knights made it up right away with straight, sharp hits by Kris DiPimio, David Mendoza, and Eddie Marcotte, the longtime Titan, off the surprise assignment Jaquan Riggs, who became an even bigger upset once he followed McFarland and a 2-out walk into the batter’s box and smashed a 2-run homer to left in the second inning.

Like, what?

Marcotte made an error to give the Coons an additional run in the third inning, dropping Hamel’s fly with Rivas and Woodley on the corners after a pair of singles off Triebwasser. Edgar Gonzales left the remaining runners on base, and Triebwasser then drew a walk off Riggs in the bottom 3rd and scored on more sharp base knocks, 4-2. Humph homered to center in the fourth, 5-2, but Riggs tried to lose the game by walking Joel Ehlers and Jorge Munoz to begin the bottom 4th, until the limp Guangorena hit into a double play. Xavier Contreras then grounded out in the pitcher’s spot. But if you succeed at once, try again! Riggs walked Jorge Soto and DiPrimio to begin the bottom 5th, then gave up a game-tying homer to David Mendoza – all even at five!

Riggs was hit for in the sixth inning for no good results, and the Knights took a 6-5 lead against Newhard in the bottom 6th as he gave up nothing but rockets and surrendered a run on a Guangorena double and Santiago Valdez’ pinch-hit RBI single. Rios held the score there in the seventh before the Raccoons got Morales on base in the eighth inning. With two outs, Nick Luebbert batted for a 2-for-15 Gonzales and rolled a single through the right side to score Morales and the tying run from second base, but was left on by McFarland. Sullivan held the game tied in the bottom 8th, while the Coons’ offense in the ninth didn’t reach beyond a 2-out single by Yocum and leaving him at first base. Soto led off the bottom 9th with a single off Holzmeister, then stole second base, but the next three Knights made outs and sent the game to extras, although Hamel had to run quite a ways to catch Mendoza’s fly ball.

Victor David Morales then smashed his first Coons homer off Alex Dominguez leading off the tenth inning, breaking the tie again. Woodley walked, Hamel reached on an error by Guangorena, and then the bottom of the order croaked big time as Luebbert, McFarland, and Brown didn’t even get anybody to third base, let alone plate a tack-on run. Pedro Valentin then made his first appearance of the season; Justin Hart, Dan Eggert, Jorge Munoz disappeared in order, and the Coons got into that dreaded W column…! 7-6 Critters. Yocum 2-5, 2B; Rivas 2-5, 2B; V.D. Morales 3-5, HR, 2 RBI; Luebbert (PH) 1-2, RBI;

Pedro Valentin got the first save of the year aaaand then spent the rest of the night in Luis Silva’s office.

By Saturday, he was on the DL with a vague, hand-wavey “paw soreness”? Truth be told, we didn’t quite know what it was yet, and we were running out of bodies, four games into the season. So Valentin to the DL, Riggs back to AAA, and we called up Justin Tarasewicz, a former third-rounder we had signed as minor league free agent a while ago. He was 25 and nothing special for sure. The arm was still on, though. Furthermore, Katz’ spot got taken by no-longer-ranked prospect Ramon Mata.

Game 2
POR: LF Humphries – 2B Yocum – C Rivas – 1B V.D. Morales – RF Hamel – CF LeVan – SS McFarland – 3B Luebbert – P Gaytan
ATL: CF J. Soto – 1B DiPrimio – RF D. Mendoza – LF Marcotte – C Hart – 2B Ehlers – 3B J. Munoz – SS Guangorena – P Kent

The Coons disappeared in order the first time through the lineup, but the Knights did anything but, piling up three hits and three walks, plus a hit batter, against Gaytan. Soto and Marcotte singles gave them a 1-0 lead in the first inning, and they loaded the bases in the third inning before Jorge Munoz flew out to Hamel in rightfield to end the inning. Gaytan tossed *71* pitches in those three innings. Yocum and Morales came up with singles in the fourth inning, but Hamel grounded out to leave them stranded. Gaytan pitched another two innings for just one more runner, but that was enough to put him at 98 pitches and he was hit for to begin the sixth inning against Kent, who had five strikeouts for just two hits on his ledger.

Tarasewicz then made his ABL debut in the bottom 6th and walked the first two Knights he faced, Joel Ehers and Jorge Munoz. Guangorena popped out, Kent bunted, Soto hit an RBI single, 2-0, and then DiPrimio grounded out to Luebbert to leave a pair on base. On offense, it didn’t get better, only dumber. Gabe Rivas hit a leadoff double in the seventh inning, got to third base on Morales’ out, and then made for home when Jack Hamel hit a liner to center. Only problem was that Soto caught that ball and then doubled Rivas off third base with a quick throw to Munoz while Rivas stood 20 feet from home plate.

So we tumbled towards the ninth inning, still down just 2-0, and once there, Woodley drew a leadoff walk off Alex Dominguez, batting for the pitcher in the #9 spot. Humph flew out to center, Dominguez advanced Woodley with a wild pitch, and then Yocum drew another walk, so the tying runs were on base. Rivas, who had already stupidly ended the seventh inning, also stupidly ended the ninth by hitting into a 3-6-3 double play. 2-0 Knights.

Game 3
POR: LF Humphries – 2B Yocum – 1B Woodley – RF V.D. Morales – CF LeVan – C Brown – 3B Gonzales – SS Mata – P Vin. Morales
ATL: CF J. Soto – 1B DiPrimio – RF D. Mendoza – LF Marcotte – C Hart – 2B Ehlers – 3B J. Munoz – SS Guangorena – P Lunn

For the second day in a row the Raccoons didn’t reach the first time through the order, and the Knights instead took a 2-0 lead in a messed-up second inning that began with Hart and Ehlers singles that put them on the corners, and then Munoz hit a sac fly to V.D., whose throw skipped past everybody and straight through the infield for an error, gave Ehlers second base, from where he stole third, and then scored on Guangorena’s groundout.

For the second day in a row the first Coons runner was Yocum with a single in the fourth inning. Nobody got added to that, he only advanced on an errant pickoff attempt, and was stranded at second as Woodley whiffed and V.D. flew out easily. In turn, Hart singled and Ehlers homered off Vinny Morales, extending the Knights’ lead to 4-0. Top 5th, and LeVan’s fly to center was dropped by Soto for a 2-base error to begin the inning. Sam Brown knocked a solid RBI single to left, 4-1, but the bottom of the order disappeared without a trace then, and Vinny Morales disappeared after five terrible innings and a 45-minute rain delay.

Humph walked and got doubled up by Yocum in the sixth, after which Woodley reached on Ehlers’ error and was stranded by V.D.; and LeVan led off the seventh with a single, but got doubled up by Brown’s grounder to short. After Vinny’s departure, Newhard and Rios pitched scoreless relief, but the Raccoons’ offense couldn’t open a bag of chips, let alone score a run, although by the time Munoz bobbled a Yocum grounder to begin the ninth inning in the 4-1 game, the Knights had already made FOUR errors. Woodley then immediately hit into a double play. Hamel pinch-hit and grounded out to end the game. 4-1 Knights. Newhard 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K;

Raccoons (1-5) vs. Condors (2-4) – April 11-13, 2072

It had only been a week, but the Raccoons already looked battered and had chunks of fur missing by the time they arrived home to play the Condors on Monday. Tijuana had actually scored the very fewest runs (11!!) to begin the season, although the Raccoons were not that far ahead with just 16 pathetic markers on the board so far. The Condors had otherwise been largely average, but at least they didn’t have half the team on the DL already. The Coons had gone 7-2 against them in ’71.

Projected matchups:
Nick Walla (0-0, 3.00 ERA) vs. Bryan Farris (0-0, 0.00 ERA)
Aldomiro Campion (0-1, 5.68 ERA) vs. Juan Ybarra (0-0, 1.80 ERA)
Jimmy Wharton (0-1, 5.14 ERA) vs. Gary Peoples (0-0, 7.20 ERA)

Farris was the Condors’ only lefty starter.

Game 1
TIJ: CF Pothier – 2B E. Campos – 1B D. Cline – LF Rugar – C R. Alvarez – 3B Forrest – RF Rafferty – SS D. Campbell – P Farris
POR: LF Humphries – 2B Yocum – CF Hamel – 1B V.D. Morales – RF van Otterdijk – 3B Gonzales – C Brown – SS Mata – P Walla

Walla claimed to be good after very much losing his arm wrestling encounter with a Western Star driver, but walked the leadoff man Matt Pothier, allowed a single to David Cline, and conceded a first-inning run on Josh Rugar’s sac fly. Bottom 1st, Humph singled and Hamel doubled, putting a pair in scoring position with one out, but Morales fanned and van Otterdijk grounded out, and nobody scored once more. The second inning was almost as depressing on offense, and Humph punched a K to begin the bottom 3rd, but then Yocum and Hamel drew a pair of 1-out walks from Farris. A double steal forced the issue a bit, and then Morales’ groundout tied the game, and van Otterdijk’s double to right gave Portland a 2-1 lead. Gonzales then grounded out to end the inning.

Since the offense had done good by accident, the Coons had to **** it up on defense after that. Walla got around a Mata error in the fourth against the bottom of the order, but Pothier led off the fifth with a single, stole second, and then Eddie Campos’ grounder was botched by Gonzales to put a pair on the corners on another error. Walla then melted down in sympathy with the rest of the miserable team and gave up RBI knocks to Rugar and Robert Alvarez to find himself 3-2 behind again.

Bottom 5th, and it got worse yet. Humph and Yocum led off with a pair of singles, but Humph also limped into third base and right away made for the dugout, knowing that he was injured. Luis Silva was sneaking around him in foul ground and there was some commotion because the Condors claimed that he had not waited for the safe sign by the umpire before limping away and Adam Forrest had tagged him with the ball off the base, but I was mainly concerned sneaking towards the cupboard with the blunderbuss without Maud noticing. LeVan pinch-ran for Humphries, Jack Hamel hit a 3-run homer for a 5-3 lead, but I felt like dying was a quicker way to end the season than playing another 155 games in a minefield.

Walla only pitched 5.2 innings, being undone by Mata ******* up Pothier’s 2-out grounder in the sixth and then walking Campos on straight balls. Rios replaced him and struck out Cline to get out of the sixth. The Coons then got four outs from Rismiller before double-switching in McMahan and Woodley as V.D. Morales left the game. McMahan got the last two outs in the eighth from Brian Robinson and Pothier, but Campos legged out an infield single to begin the ninth. Cline struck out, but the Raccoons then went to Holzmeister against the righty hitters coming up. He struck out Rugar, and then Alvarez grounded out. 5-3 Critters. Humphries 2-3; Hamel 2-3, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI;

Humph hit the DL with an intercostal strain, costing him at least four weeks, and we called up Jesus Guerrero.

We were also ******* DEAD with 155 games to play.

Game 2
TIJ: CF Pothier – 2B E. Campos – 1B D. Cline – LF Rugar – C R. Alvarez – 3B Forrest – RF Rafferty – SS D. Campbell – P Ybarra
POR: 2B Yocum – 1B Woodley – LF Hamel – CF V.D. Morales – C Rivas – CF LeVan – 3B Gonzales – SS McFarland – P Campion

Aldo struck out SIX the first time through the Condors’ lineup… but also found time to give up a run on a Campos double and Cline’s RBI single in the first inning. It got so much worse in the third inning with Pothier’s 1-out triple, and then the 2-3-4 batters went RBI single, RBI double, single to batter the score to 4-0. Nothing got better from there; Aldo got only one strikeout the second time through (against Ybarra), and it was the last strikeout he got. He shoveled the bags full again in the fifth inning, and then conceded two more runs on 1-out double by Robert Alvarez, then was yanked. Dusty Rafferty would drive in the remaining runners to put eight on Aldo in 4.1 ****** up innings, drilling a 2-out screamer off Todd Sullivan.

The less said about the rest of the game, the better. Rivas doubled home a meaningless run in the sixth inning on just the team’s third hit of the night, and the Condors fumbled another unearned run to the Coons in the seventh inning, but made up those with two runs off Holzmeister in the eighth inning. The Coons only amounted to six hits the entire game, half of them by Rivas. 10-2 Condors. Rivas 3-4, 2B, RBI; Tarasewicz 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

We’re so dead. (knots a rope, only to have it taken away by Maud)

Game 3
TIJ: CF Pothier – SS E. Campos – 1B D. Cline – LF Rugar – C R. Alvarez – 2B Schreiber – 3B D. Campbell – RF Rafferty – P Peoples
POR: 2B Yocum – 1B Woodley – LF Hamel – CF V.D. Morales – C Rivas – CF LeVan – 3B Gonzales – SS McFarland – P Wharton

Robert Alvarez had a nice day to end the series, and was of course not on our team. Jimmy Wharton was easily hittable and nobody was better than the Condors in picking up a waft of a dying animal, so they were soon all over him and picking away at the exposed bits of meat on Jimmy’s tush. Pothier singled and was caught stealing in the first, but the Condors hit a pair of singles in the second… and stranded those. However, come the third, Pothier hit another single, scored on Cline’s RBI single, and with two outs, Alvarez hit his first homer of the game. “First”, because there was a second homer when he was up in the sixth inning, then with nobody on base, and extending the score to 4-0. And no, the Raccoons, outside of a pair of 2-out singles by McFarland the first two trips through the lineup, were not doing anything worth the oxygen to talk about.

Third time through, Hamel singled with two gone in the sixth and Morales drew a walk, but Rivas then floated out easily to Rafferty in right. LeVan dropped a fly ball by Peoples in the seventh, which was such a nice change of pace, not only to suck on offense and pitching, but also with the ******* leather, exactly what we’d hope for from an .053 batter. Jimmy pitched seven forgettable outings (unless you’re Robert Alvarez’ mom or aunt), and Newhard and McMahan filled out the back innings.

The Coons didn’t touch third base until the bottom of the ninth inning, and then only on an error by Cline, but that one was already loading the bases. Going back, Guerrero batted for Rivas against lefty Chris Thompson, but grounded out. Luebbert then singled in LeVan’s place, Gonzales drew a walk, and then it was McFarland to reach on the Cline error, which also brought somehow and completely without merit the tying run to bat. Sam Brown pinch-hit against the left, but ripped a double to right that brought in two runs and the tying runs were in scoring position with one gone. Right-hander Tyler Reed replaced Thompson, gave up the third run on Yocum’s groundout, and then lost Woodley on balls in a full count. And after all of that… Hamel struck out. 4-3 Condors. Luebbert (PH) 1-1; McFarland 2-4; van Otterdijk (PH) 1-1; Brown (PH) 1-1, 2B, 2 RBI;

In other news

April 4 – The Wolves riot all over the Stars on Opening Day, giving them a 15-4 thrashing.
April 4 – The Pacifics score seven runs in the second inning and then hardly stop adding in a 16-5 Opening Day beating of the Scorpions.
April 5 – NAS LF/1B/RF Tony Roman (.250, 0 HR, 0 RBI) hits a single off PIT SP Brian Jones (0-0, 0.00 ERA) in a 13-inning, 4-2 loss to the Miners, marking the 2,000th base hit of his career – all 17 seasons of which have been spent with the Blue Sox. A three-time FL home run king, Roman has batted .252 with 383 HR and 1,200 RBI in his career.
April 5 – Boston reliever Elijah LaBat is moved to the DL after suffering an elbow strain during a pre-Opening Day round of golf.
April 5 – The Cyclones take 16 innings to beat the Rebels, 4-3.
April 10 – PIT SP Brian Jones (1-0, 0.00 ERA) 2-hits the Pacifics with seven strikeouts in a 7-0 shutout.
April 13 – The Rebels acquire RF/2B/LF Tim Goss (.179, 1 HR, 4 RBI) from the Capitals for SP Pedro Acebedo (0-1, 7.15 ERA).

Player of the Week (FL): LAP OF Mike Hulett (.520, 2 HR, 9 RBI)
Player of the Week (CL): IND 1B Matt Rogers (.308, 3 HR, 13 RBI)

Complaints and stuff

(dead-eyed stare)

Oh well. Maybe next year.

Adam Yocum has only 13 hits, but still all his limbs on, which is not a given on this team. He’s stretched them perfectly to cover all nine games played this year. He also hit in the last ten games of the 2071 season that he was in (playoffs excluded), and so had an active 19-game hitting streak across seasons.

And yet all I wanted was to ride down the Willamette and Columbia in a wooden barrel.

Val Centeno cleared waivers, which I found surprising, but then again… we’ve seen him toss. He got sent back to St. Petersburg.

The rest of the homestand would consist of losing oddly to the Indians, getting blown out by the Loggers, and I’m sure we’d find a way to roll over against the Falcons, the only team that fell harder on the face out of the gates with a 2-8 start.

Fun Fact: The Raccoons started the season with 7,997 regular season wins.

And they’d surely get to 8,000 in the first three series, right?

Right?

(mopes)