[Westheim]

Last series against the Knights, who were on a 5-game winning streak. The Raccoons scored first on a passed ball, but then lost Ned Ray to a dead arm early in the game. The injuries kept piling. The passed ball run by Greg Swift was all the runs scored in the game, and the Raccoons won 1-0 on strong relief performances by Jenkins, Gaston, and Hatfield, who combined for 4.2 innings with two hits, no walks and four strikeouts. The Raccoons went through another stretch of poor hitting now with very few hits and close to no home runs. They lost the next game 4-3, with the tying run not proceeding past first in either of the last three innings. Miranda went the distance in that game to conserve the pen to accommodate for Ned Ray, who’d miss a start and would have to be replaced by Padilla. Game 3, and an early heavy rain chased both starters out in the first innings. The Raccoons loaded the bases in four of the first six innings, once with two, twice with one, and once with no outs. How many runs did they get in from there? Two. Pathetic. No clutch hitting to find here. The Raccoons still won 5-1 thanks to sheer volume of hits and walks.

We went to Boston for four games. The series and September began here, and we could have called up some AAA players or so – if there only had been one worth taking. My AAA and AA teams were already bled thin, too. We didn’t call up anybody yet.

Game 1 at the Titans was a 7-3 win. The Raccoons plated six in one inning, but mostly by a costly error of the Titans, which made five runs unearned. The Titans got their own 6-run inning in the next game in smashing Armando Padilla, who was just misplaced as a starter, this became more and more clear. Raccoons went down 9-4. The Titans lost 1B Ken Adams to a quad strain sustained in crashing into second base, his season was over.

Game 3 was a 2-1 loss in which the Raccoons dropped so many chances to score a run or two, it was a shame. We could have easily won 4-2 or 5-2 with a clutch hit here or there. Swift suffered a minor injury to miss the last game of the series. Mendez subbed for him at 2B, moving Simon to SS. Simon struck out in his first at bat, but later was walked intentionally twice with runners on second and third. Powell gave up eight hits but only one run, as the Raccoons tied the series with a 4-1 win. Sánz was 1-3 with a walk in his return.

We went home for just one series against the division-leading Crusaders. By now, we were fairly certain of finishing fifth in the inaugural season, 7.0 games behind the Canadiens, and 10.5 ahead of the Loggers. Now the goal was to save some dignity and avoid 100 losses (we were scratching right along that line at the moment) and in the best of worlds rally to finish above .400.

Another thing I was monitoring closely now was my budget. I had eaten up my $5.2M budget to the point - $9,200 were projected to remain by season’s end. I’m that good. However, with a bunch of home games remaining, we’d make almost $7M in revenue, generating a huge profit. I was hoping a bunch that this would be reflected in next year’s budget. Right now it was actually projected to decrease by $100k...

The Crusaders opened the series with a 4-2 win, outhitting us mightily, and it was a small wonder that we weren’t tagged for ten or more runs. Ed Sullivan was injured crashing into second and would miss a few games with a sore ankle. Ned Ray was sharp in game 2, allowing only four hits and one run, and led the team in total bases (3), going 2-2 at the plate as well! The Raccoons won 6-1. Game 3 was a nail-biter. The Crusaders scored first against Miranda, but the Raccoons tied the game 1-1 in the third. Three scoreless followed, before the top 7th. Johnston bobbled a ball that put a runner on first with no outs and while Miranda pitched well, he loaded the bases with two outs. Ben Green came in against lefty Hector Atilano to match up with him – and walked him on four straight to get the Crusaders ahead again. The next batter grounded out, and Darryl Maloney turned the game around with a 2-run homer in the bottom 7th. Green was next and I let him ground out, to face the next two lefty batters in the top 8th. He struck out the side. Up 3-2, Hatfield came in to close it. Groundout, walk, groundout: runner on second with two outs, but up was Bruce Farrell (.375). He was waved through intentionally to rather face Atilano – whom Hatfield walked to load the bases. He had to go through Ralph Nixon, who on a 2-2 count bashed a ball out to deep right. Sánz made an incredible leap to catch it and the Raccoons actually WON the series against the Crusaders! Whoooo!! While Sánz made the most memorable catch in the game, Flores in LF had actually done more defensive work in the game with at least four close calls – all reeled in. Flores was the real defensive cornerstone, and I had to get him to resign with the team for next season – and beyond.

We were now to face the Loggers in Milwaukee for the final series against them, then would return home for our final home stint of the season. Christopher Powell tossed a 2-hit shutout (with five walks) against the Loggers, but his performance was vastly overshadowed by the Raccoons offense: they tore apart the Loggers, 17-0! Freddy Lopez was 6-6, a new Continental League record, with two RBI, and Swift and Anderson had four hits each.

The more depressing was the next game. The Raccoons out-hit the Loggers 12-6, but didn’t get the runs across and lost 2-1. Ben Simon had one of his famous bases loaded-two outs-swinging strikeouts in the top 9th. Everybody rallied to down the Loggers 11-5 in the final game. They really got more runs than they deserved, involving two scratch hits and a throwing error in the bottom 9th alone.

The final home stint of the season was upon the Raccoons, going against the Titans and the last two interdivision matchups, the Condors and the Bayhawks (against whom we were a dreading 0-6).

In other news:
September 3 – Topeka’s Ramon Borjon, leading the majors with 23 homers, suffers a broken leg and is out for the season.
September 9 – 2B Alfredo Soriano of the Vancouver Canadiens extends his hit streak to 20 games.