[Westheim]

To start a new month against a team we had an 0-6 record against was not too promising. We started off well, though, facing the Condors away on August 1. Sullivan hit a rare triple in the top 1st and was scored by Sánz. Juan Berrios rode that 1-0 lead for a while. The Condors jammed the Raccoons in the bottom 8th, scoring a run to cut their deficit in half. With the bases loaded, Kevin Hatfield came in to record a 4-out save in the 2-1 win for the Raccoons, fanning two. Sánz had gone 3-4 in a bid to get back into the batting title race, where he had recently slumped to below .330, almost 20 points behind the leaders in the category. The Raccoons were then walked seven times and hit five times against Condors starter Gerardo Dias. And still lost, 3-2. Nothing chained together, ever, during the whole game. Ned Ray was good for his standards, but that was less than enough. The last game was a messy affair, with three errors in the first two innings combined and six in total (four for the Condors). Neither side got up significantly for seven. The Raccoons led 3-2 then, but added two in the eighth, and then another three against Joseph Meyer in the ninth to win 8-2, taking two of three against the Condors.

We went home to face the Titans for four and then the Loggers for three. We had played the Titans only seven times so far in the first four months of the season, so they would be frequent opponents down the road. Of course, the Raccoons had been beaten so far, having lost five of seven.

Game 1 vs. the Titans was scoreless through eight innings. Then Stanton Coleman came in and served up a 2-run homer that lost the Raccoons the game in the 2-0 Titans win. I had seen enough of Coleman and his 6.92 ERA – he was sent off to AAA, and another reliever in Jose Vazquez was called up (he had been one of the pitchers I had sent down when I set this game up after I had signed new pitchers). The struggles against the Titans continued. Key to their lineup was leadoff batter LF Fernando Dominguez, who led the majors in steals, and the Raccoons were unable to contain him. He scored thrice in the second game, plus Berrios was rapped for five runs in the second inning, as the Raccoons lost 8-5. But if there was one thing weak about the Titans team it was the bullpen and the Raccoons got to that successfully in the third game, turning starter Jorge Martinez upside down early, then continued to score against the troubled Titans pen, going away with an 11-1 win. Ed Sullivan was 3-4 with two homers, and Sam Moran hit an unlikely grand slam, which was a prelude to a game 4 win in equally strange circumstances. Alex Miranda had given up two runs early and we were 2-1 behind in the bottom 6th. Moran made the first out and Miranda, who was batting soundly below .100, came up to bat. He bombed the ball out of the yard to tie the game and spark a 4-run inning that placed enough distance between the Raccoons and the Titans to win the game, 5-3. Vazquez got his first time on the mound, retiring the Titans 1-2-3 in the eighth, including two strikeouts.

The Raccoons opened the series against the Loggers with a 2-0 win. Powell struck out eight in 7.2 innings, but the Raccoons lost both Ed Sullivan and Pedro Sánz to injuries in collisions on base – both in a play where they had just batted in a runner. Sullivan’s injury was a very mild groin strain, and he was available again the next day, but Sánz had hurt his ankle and was at best available for pinch hitting here and there. Game 2, and we lost Jorge Lopez, who had just replaced Sánz in rightfield. He was hit by a pitch in the foot, breaking it. While the Raccoons rallied from a 2-run deficit in the seventh to scored eight runs in the bottom 8th and won 11-4, we slowly became ever thinner populated in the outfield, with Lopez going to the DL now. The not-hitting David Correa was recalled from AAA.

We had a chance for something new here: finally sweep a series. The Raccoons led 5-1 after six innings, but we needed four pitchers to go through the seventh, and it was not pretty. Tied 5-5, Wyatt Johnston became the match winner, scoring a run on a sac fly. Johnston homered twice and batted in all six runs in the 6-5 Raccoons victory – the first sweep in Raccoons history (well, the first successful at least) was complete, done August 8-10, 1977!

The sweep of the Loggers also assured us of a winning season matchup against at least one opponent that was not an interleague rival, since we were now 10-5 against them. We also had won five in a row now, a tie with our season high, and were looking at something special now: our interleague series in Salem, just up the road. Unfortunately we had a pile of injured players to replace. MR Justice, MR Miller, C Maloney, RF J. Lopez, and RF Sánz were all either disabled or in the case of Sánz day to day.

Game 1 against the Wolves was won mainly on a base-clearing double by Ben Simon in the top 4th. From there, both teams only scored an odd run here and there and the Raccoons held their neighbours off in a 6-3 win, getting our streak to six wins. The streak ended there: the Raccoons lost 3-2 the next day. Two first inning runs agains the otherwise solid Christopher Powell was already almost all the Wolves needed to tie the series. The last game became a pitchers duel. Juan Berrios held the Wolves down into the eighth inning with only a single run as support. Hatfield blew the save in the bottom of the ninth, as the Wolves tied the game with two outs and sent it to extra innings. Four scoreless innings were delivered by Vazquez, before the lefty Padilla came in. The first four batters he would face were all lefties. All of them reached base, bringing in the winning run for the Wolves for the 2-1 after 14 innings.

Wyatt Johnston had gone 9-19 with three homers and nine RBI the last week and became Player of the Week in the Continental League.

It was the middle of August and I went into extension talks with a few more players: Darryl Maloney, Ben Simon, and Freddy Lopez. Simon was without a doubt the most important of them. All of them were arbitration eligible, but I wanted to lock down Simon for long, very long, and for very cheap. Lopez was only backup in the infield, but he was reliable and although a younger player might come in cheaper, I preferred him, at least for another year. I had no promising prospects in AAA anyway to replace him. Maloney was the least terrible of my catchers anyway. Let’s see how these go, then I will hit on Powell, my new starter, who seems to be quite reliable. He was only 2-3 since joining the team, but with an ERA of 2.55, and I didn’t dare to ask for more with my sub-.400 team.

We started a 2-week home stint now with the last interleague series against the Topeka Buffaloes to lead off there. The Canadiens, Indians, and Aces would all come to town after that. We would end the month with a series in Atlanta, the last one against the Knights in ’77. Miller and Maloney would both be able to come back during the first week at home. The question was whether Miller should go back on the majors roster at all. Maloney of course was welcome, since both Sanderson and Moran were hitting very weakly – even for catchers.

In other news:
August 1 – William Williams of the Atlanta Knights shuts out the Loggers on two hits in a 15-0 blowout.
August 5 – The Crusaders’ SS Ralph Nixon suffers a thumb injury, benching him for two weeks. Nixon was a hot candidate for the batting title and had 79 RBIs.
August 6 – Boston Titans staff confirmed that 3B Riley Simon was out for the season with a broken finger. Simon had hit .340 thus far and had been a constant threat with the bat.
August 6 – Jorge Alaniz and the Richmond Rebels shut out the Capitals 2-0, as Alaniz goes the distance and allows only two hits.
August 12 – Sioux Falls’ Chris Smith hits 5-5 against Vancouver in a 16-2 wipeout. He only lacks a triple to hit for the cycle.

Look at the FL West – that thing is wide open.