[Westheim]

The opener of the Titans series was a nail biter. Christopher Powell, back from a 6-run, 1-inning outing against the Capitals, went against former Raccoon Bruce Wright and managed to mess up a 4-0 lead, but was back in the hunt for the win when he was pinch hit for in the bottom 7th and the Raccoons scored three in the inning. O’Rearden allowed a run in the eighth, 7-5 now, and then Hatfield had another shoddy save attempt. One run scored and the speedy Francisco Dominguez was on first with two outs, but Hatfield somehow groundballed his way out there in the 7-6 win. It was his first save of the season and maybe his last, as I didn’t really like what I saw. Gaston was much, but he wasn’t any worse than that. Ben Cox was 0-5 with 6 LOB, but Kieran Lawson provided two clutch hits, going 2-3 with 3 RBI. Not bad for a backup catcher batting sub .200 …

This made for back-to-back wins for the Raccons on August 19 and 21 (off day in between). When was the last time the little fur balls won two in a row? Hold on to something: July 12 and 13. That’s almost six weeks ago. That’s how awful this team is. It gets worse: we only have four streaks of more than two consecutive wins, twice while sweeping the Condors, and once while sweeping the Titans. Is there hope to repeat?

Nope. Ocasio started with two walks, and although the damage wasn’t done in that inning, he eventually took the loss, 3-2. Daniel Hall surrendered two poor ground balls in RISP situations that cost dearly, including the bottom 9th with two out. At least Tony Lopez seems to be back on track, recovered from his adventures as a makeshift starter, pitching two scoreless frames with 3 K. This was the 81st loss of the season for the Raccoons on August 22. Loss #82 followed right away. Gary Simmons was rocked for five runs in six innings (bit by bit, stretched out over four innings), and the Raccoons lost 5-3. Johnston twice made embarassing outs with two down and two runners in scoring position.

The first guy I went after for an extension was Wally Gaston. He is still only 23, he could still become a star reliever along the way. His arbitration estimate was $89k, he wanted $139k to start with. I offered two years at $77k apiece, but guess where we met? At the arbitration estimate. To the point.

First negotiations with Hoyt Cook and Angel Costa were unsuccessful. They were demanding too much for their limited results. I would take both to arbitration in case that beating sense into them would not be successful.

The Knights came to town, and they were one of the most difficult teams for the Raccoons to get over, with a .292 win ratio so far. With Jerry Morris opening the series against them, I didn’t expect much, and I certainly didn’t expect Morris delivering a 7-hit shutout, in which he struck out just one batter though. He covered the nine innings in 97 pitches and the Raccoons won 3-0. All runs were unearned after throwing errors by the Knights.

There were still problems. Daniel Hall had not hit a ball in about a week and I sat him down a bit to get him straightened out. Pickett started in left, Zuniga in right. At least until Pedro Sánz would come off the DL for the next series and we’d shuffle things anew.

To no avail. Christopher Powell officially sucked again as he surrendered seven runs in five innings of work in game 2. Now, the Raccoons came back to TIE it on a homer by grandpa Johnston in the seventh, but Ben Jenkins was blown apart in the eighth and the Raccoons lost 11-7. That was nothing compared to Roman Ocasio’s performance the next day. He allowed nine runs in 4.2 innings, including a big home run to opposing pitcher Luis Nunez before getting yanked. Ocasio was actually yanked all the way to AAA ball, to possibly grow old there. 11-3 in the end, Craig and Lopez allowing single runs to score. Simon was 2-3, both hits leaving the park.

With the Falcons next, we banished Ocasio and recalled the recovered Logan Evans and his 1-0 mark with a 0.82 ERA from April. Remember that he had led the league in ERA before tearing his triceps. Evans was slotted to #4 in the rotation, with Simmons and Morris moving up, making Evans the guy to start the third Falcons game, which also gave him an extra day of rest from his last AAA start. He had gone 2-1 with a 3.78 mark there.

The Falcons series was another one of those futile endeavours. The Raccoons were vastly out-hit and lost all three games, 2-1, 8-0, and 5-4. All but two runs were on the starters Simmons, Morris, and Evans. Yes, the 0.82 ERA was properly wrecked by the Falcons. I’m hardly leaving the sobbing corner in the dugout by now. Raccoons at 45-87 en route to not only 100, but rather 110 losses. The ABL record was 109 losses by the Loggers in 1977. These Loggers also beat the Aces 3-2 on August 29, making the Raccoons the team with the worst overall ABL record (179-277, that’s .393 if you’re not that quick to calculate that without pen and paper).

We were starting a string of 20 straight games and only had one off day remaining overall. We’d start in New York and then have two home stints and a road trip remaining. Pedro Sánz came off the DL on August 30, the off day before the 20-game string (or grind), and Dolder was sent to AAA. Whether Dolder would come back on September 1? Much more next April?

The outfield was rebuilt for the Crusaders series. Pickett had not delivered the last week and he was the one benched. Cox was moved to left, Zuniga to center and Sánz returned to right. The rotation was adjusted with the off day and Evans moved to #3 ahead of Morris.

Of course the Crusaders had better pitching and a heavy artillery regiment with Ralph Nixon, Hector Atilano, Jeremy Churchill, and Michinaga Yamada, all batting over .300, all with power, and all possibly deadly for my lame pitchers.

Then Ralph Nixon left in the third inning of the first game with an injury, taking a chunk out of the Crusaders’ power. Powell pitched not too bad, but still struggled, getting only one K over seven frames, retiring the catcher Miguel Fuentes with the K, which was the last out of his day. Then it was still a scoreless game! In fact it stayed scoreless through 12 innings, partly thanks to good pen outings by Gaston (who picked up slack left by O’Rearden) and Hatfield, before Tony Lopez delivered a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom 12th with all 3-ball counts, but still struck out two. Sánz made two great defensive plays, throwing out a runner at third and making a fabulous catch that uncaught would have lost the game with a runner on third and two out. The Raccoons scored one on a Wyatt Johnston sac fly in the top 13th. Two got on base for Lopez and he was lifted for Brett Justice with two down. Justice served Jason Short a long ball to the fence in right, where Sánz made his third sprawling defensive play to catch it and finally end the game with a 1-0 Raccoons victory, also ending a dreading 9-19 August on a high note. Two of those nine wins had been shutouts of the Crusaders.

Rosters expanded for the next day. We called up Jorge Romero (from his rehab assignement, where he was 2-0 with a 2.92 ERA in four starts), reliever Ned Ray for an extra left arm (I may or may not have said I would kill him the next time he stepped into Portland), young 3B Cameron Green (who was wrecking AAA pitching at a .325, 38 HR pace), R.J. Sanderson as third catcher (he was the worst of the three AAA catchers, but the only one already on the 40-man roster), and Johan Dolder. Green was called up to play 3B regularly with Sullivan slotting over to 2B, replacing our .180 bitter Angel Costa there. Costa was strong on defense, but his hitting made me cry. To accommodate Green on the 40-man roster, Ken Miller was waived. Miller had been with the Raccoons two years ago with a 5.10 ERA, and had not improved since.

Hall started again in LF on September 1, replacing Cox, who struggled. Of course Hall struggled as well, down to .231 with his batting again. Hall was 1-4, while Green went 2-4 with a home run and 2 RBI in his debut. The Raccoons still lost, 5-3, in what was scheduled to be Gary Simmons’ last start this year with Romero back up. I was still contemplating whether to send him to AAA. And Hall as well.

Logan Evans knocked out Jeremy Churchill with a pitch in the bottom 1st of game 3, which nobody in the park was too amused about. Evans wound up with the loss, although all three runs he surrendered were unearned, while going seven innings. Raccoons lost 4-0 and STILL have not won a series since July 12-15 against the Canadiens!

Next: 11-game home stint against the Loggers (4), Canadiens (3), and Crusaders (4). Bayhawks and Condors on the road before our last off day, Titans on the road after that. Going back to the Loggers’ 1977 109-losses season – will the 1979 Raccoons break that record? Place your bets now.

In other news:
August 27 – The Rebels lose SS Riley Simon, a perennial .300+ batter, to a torn meniscus for the season.