[Westheim]

Raccoons (25-18) @ Knights (19-24) – May 25-27, 2010

The Knights hit all the homers the Coons didn’t, uncorking the second-most long balls in the Continental League, but overall they were only scoring the ninth-most runs, and thus significantly less than the Critters. Their pitching was also quite sub-standard with an 8th-ranked rotation and the second-worst pen.

The Raccoons hadn’t played the Knights so far this season, but had taken the season series every year since 2006, with a 5-4 advantage in 2009. All-time we were one game below .500 against them.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (8-1, 1.24 ERA) vs. Steve Rogers (3-4, 4.05 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (1-4, 5.36 ERA) vs. Johnny Krom (2-2, 4.62 ERA)
Javier Cruz (3-4, 3.90 ERA) vs. Domingo Cruz (4-5, 5.71 ERA)

Good news. I found the left-handed starters that have gone missing from all the other teams. The Knights have four of them in their rotation, with Cruz the only right-hander and also the guy with the worst ERA.

Game 1
POR: CF Castro – 1B Merritt – LF Pruitt – RF Ayers – C Bowen – 3B R. Martinez – 2B Nomura – SS Canning – P Brown
ATL: SS Hibbard – 1B Bond – LF J. Morales – 3B C. Martinez – CF Kelsey – C Delgado – RF J. Garcia – 2B Hilderbrand – P Rogers

Steve Rogers, a long time ago one of the best hurlers in the Federal League, was not quite as good anymore in the latter half of his 30s and bled singles early. The Coons strung up enough of them to allow Ayers and Martinez to plate single runs in the top 1st before Ricardo Martinez’ glove reared its ugly head in the bottom of the inning. The Knights’ first runner was on a flubber by Martinez, putting Kevin Bond on base, but after a walk to Morales, Bond thrown out at home by Keith Ayers on Carlos Martinez’ single, and Brown got out of the inning unharmed. He struck out pairs in each of the first three innings before getting none in the fourth, which started with him drilling John Kelsey. Delgado grounded right to Canning to get two before Jorge Garcia singled and T.J. Hildebrand grounded to Canning again, only for the young shortstop to miss the ball this time. However, Rogers popped up and out, leaving two men stranded. Two men stranded was also the battle cry for Yoshi Nomura on this dark Tuesday, as he batted with two on and two out in the first inning, in the third, and in the fifth, and his loot was rather small: squid. The Knights would also leave two on in the bottom of the inning, another runner being put on base by being hit by the pitch. Then it was Brown in the top 6th to start a rally himself with his second single on the day (and how does he do that??), which was followed up on by Castro with a walk, and then Jon Merritt tripled them in before scoring himself on a Pruitt single, opening the score to 5-0. Brownie pitched only one more inning, getting over 100 pitches already with two outs in the sixth, but he wasn’t scored upon and struck out ten Knights. Quebell hit for him in the seventh with the middle infielders on the corners and hit an RBI single to right and well in Kevin Bond’s reach, the first dip in another 3-spot. Despite the off day on Monday the pen was still not quite rested after the disasters of the previous week, so with Reese and Slayton lined up for the last three innings, technically the 8-0 lead wasn’t safe. However, Reese pitched two innings rather efficiently, and the Knights never got even close to threatening again. 8-0 Brownies! Merritt 2-4, BB, 3B, 2 RBI; Pruitt 3-5, RBI; Martinez 2-4, BB, RBI; Quebell (PH) 1-2, RBI; Brown 6.0 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 10 K, W (9-1) and 2-3; Reese 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Merritt’s ABL-leading 10th triple (nobody else has more than six, and only two players have more than four) was the only one of our 15 hits that went for extra bases. Something’s awkward about this team…

We also stole an outrageous amount of three bases in this game (Castro, Martinez, Ayers). Look out, leaderboard, we’re comin’!

Game 2
POR: CF Castro – 2B Merritt – LF Pruitt – RF Ayers – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – SS Canning – P Umberger
ATL: CF Kelsey – 3B Bond – LF J. Morales – RF G. Munoz – 2B C. Martinez – 1B J. Garcia – SS Hibbard – C Tizzard – P Krom

While extra-base hits remained hard to impossible to come by for the Fuzzballs, the Knights used a Jose Morales double to plate Kelsey in the bottom 1st for a 1-0 lead that would stand for a good long while. Umberger went six and allowed eight hits, continuing an unfortunate H/9 history, and while the Coons also hit safely six times in six innings, they only got six bases out of those hits and remained far away from home plate. The only two players to even send hard drives where Ayers and Bowen, both to right, and both were caught by ex-Titan Gonzalo Munoz. Both starting pitchers after six innings, the Coons instantly got a big chance in the top 7th when Bradley Heathershaw, batting for Umberger to start the inning against lefty Carlos Camacho, was safe on a roller that died halfway to third base, then moved to third base himself on Castro’s single to center. Merritt merrily kept the line moving with the game-tying single between Bond and the rookie Devin Hibbard, and then Pruitt’s drive to left was finally not caught by Munoz and instead clanked off the wall in an inconvenient manner, just enough for Pruitt to stretch those paws on the way across second base, sliding in safely with a 2-run triple. The inning would be one of those mind-crumbling ones for the Knights’ fan base. New pitcher Kurt Doyle couldn’t retire anybody, either, and the Raccoons scored seven runs before Bowen’s groundout brought up the first light in the “OUT” box. The Critters kept batting, however, with Greg Grams eventually replacing Doyle. Grams was cleaning up for the Knights now and allowing more than a run an inning, and all in all the Coons sent 13 men to the plate and scored eight runs until Munoz hustled in to snag a soft line off Pruitt’s bat to finally get the third out. The Coons reached double digits on a 2-run double by Walt Canning in the eighth, completing back-to-back routs of the Knights with Pruitt hitting into a run-scoring double play in the ninth. 11-2 Coons! Castro 2-5, BB, RBI; Merritt 3-5, BB, RBI; Pruitt 3-5, BB, 3B, 2 RBI; Quebell 3-5, RBI; Martinez 2-4, 3B, 2 RBI; Bowen 2-5, RBI;

Game 3
POR: 3B Merritt – 2B Nomura – LF Pruitt – 1B Quebell – RF Ayers – C Bowen – CF Trevino – SS Canning – P J. Cruz
ATL: CF Kelsey – 3B Bond – LF J. Morales – RF G. Munoz – 2B C. Martinez – 1B J. Garcia – SS Hibbard – C Tizzard – P D. Cruz

While Yoshi’s double in the first didn’t lead to a run, Ayers’ to start the second inning did when Trevino plated him with a sac fly. While that gave Portland a 1-0 lead, the Knights were quick to whack our Cruz, landing three base hits to start the bottom of the same inning and ultimately taking a 2-1 lead. The Coons had Pruitt lead off the fourth, when things went something like single, single, double play and no runs scored once Ayers got hold of a stick. In the sixth, it was Ayers at the plate again, still in a 2-1 deficit and with the bases loaded after Nomura singled and Domingo Cruz walked Pruitt and Quebell. The count ran full before Ayers popped out, and then Bowen fell to 1-2, still made contact, but grounded out to Carlos Martinez. Welp.

While our starter had gone six innings only the last two days, Cruz got stuck before that. Garcia singled to start the bottom 6th, and then Cruz misplayed a Hibbard grounder, trying to get the lead runner at second base and ending up getting nobody. Tizzard’s strikeout and Domingo Cruz’ bunt gave him two more outs, but when the lefty-laden top of the order came to the plate, Donald Sims (he with the miserable %IR) replaced Cruz, but got John Kelsey to ground out. Top 7th, Trevino got on. Canning grounded out, Castro whiffed, but then Merritt took Cruz off the hook with his 11th(!!) triple, but was left on when Yoshi grounded out. After that hard bit of work, Beltran started the bottom 7th with walks to Kevin Bond and Jose Morales, and Law Rockburn just barely found a way out of this mess, but kept the game tied. The same couldn’t be said for Angel Casas. The Raccoons kept scuffling and didn’t get anything mounted at all, but when Angel was put into a non-save situation for the first time this season, he immediately was eaten. Kevin Bond doubled, Jose Morales singled, and things were over as quickly as that. 3-2 Knights. Nomura 2-4, 2B; Ayers 2-4, 2B; Rockburn 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

Well, there were good news still. Not only was Ron Alston ready to go in the weekend series after this sad loss, but we also were able to activate Pat White off the disabled list. Santiago Trevino, not faring too shabbily, was handed back to AAA.

As we leave town, Matt Pruitt has an 11-game hitting streak going.

Raccoons (27-19) @ Thunder (31-17) – May 28-30, 2010

The Thunder were playing some obscene ball right now, having lost only three of their last 16 games. They came off a sweep of the Titans in which they had allowed four runs total and that was the main motive of this team: pitching, pitching, pitching, allowing a sliver over three runs per game, the best mark in the Continental League, with the Raccoons a not too distant second. They were fourth in runs scored and we had won two of three from them in April.

Projected matchups:
Kenichi Watanabe (2-2, 4.15 ERA) vs. Daniel Dickerson (5-2, 1.64 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (3-2, 3.75 ERA) vs. Edgar Amador (4-4, 3.84 ERA)
Nick Brown (9-1, 1.14 ERA) vs. Takeru Sato (3-2, 4.14 ERA)

The two best pitchers by ERA will pitch in this series, though not against another. Let’s hang a few on Dickerson, a right-hander. Of course we know the Fat Cat is right-handed as well, but Brownie will be in another southpaw match on Sunday. We’re still half a game off the Elks (matching them every day while we were in Atlanta), with the Crusaders slowly starting to creep into the picture after moving up to third place, three back of the Coons.

Game 1
POR: CF Castro – 3B Merritt – LF Pruitt – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – SS Canning – P Watanabe
OCT: LF Britton – 1B T. Cardenas – RF Tom Reese – 2B M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 3B Arreola – C Rucker – SS Vieitas – P Dickerson

Watanabe simply was no good and issued walks. With his limited stuff, walks were pretty bad, and then the Thunder also exploited Castro’s limited range in center to shove a few hits in there in the second inning, which opened with a walk, too, and scored two runs in that bottom 2nd. The Coons had Nomura and Canning on with nobody out in the top 3rd when Watanabe bunted into a force at third, and Castro and Merritt struck out. The Thunder plated four runs off Watanabe in five innings, while the Raccoons didn’t get to Dickerson for more than two singles in the same time. When Castro hit a leadoff single in the sixth he got caught stealing, and that game was pretty much lost by now. So throw in Slayton. He had two clean innings, during which the Coons with the greatest effort threw up one run onto the scoreboard, but a horrendous bottom 8th gave the Thunder two runs in compensation off Ray Kelley, one of those unearned after a Quebell error. The Coons’ biggest triumph on the day was to poke lefty Steven Anderson long enough in the top 9th to bring in the Thunder’s closer despite entering the frame five runs down. Then there were two out and two on in a 6-2 game for Walt Canning, who snipped a single to load the bases and bring up Pat White as the tying run. White walked, shoving in a run, but now Travis Owens hit for Kelley in Castro’s vacated spot. Owens lunged at the first pitch and knocked it softly to first base, a low line that went just over Tomas Cardenas, fell fair behind the bag, and bounced into the corner. Ayers, Canning, and White on the bags were scurrying like they were on the way to a buffet, Owens was scrambling around the bases, Ayers was home, Canning was home easily, and White was sent around third base, and – he – was – safe!! Tied game!!! Merritt grounded out, but the game was extended! And then came Donald Sims in the bottom 9th. Apasyu Britton singled. Tomas Cardenas singled. Jose Lugo walked. No outs. Well, he remained in for switch-hitter Marcos Garza, whom he struck out, before Law was thrown in, who got a bouncer back from Jose Gonzalez and nailed out Britton at home before Ignacio Arreola struck out to send the game – somehow! – to extras, where Ron Alston’s homer off Sergio Alvarez decided the contest in the 10th inning. Owens (PH) 1-1, 3B, 3 RBI; Pruitt 2-5; Quebell 2-4, BB, 2B; Ayers (PH) 1-1, RBI; Slayton 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

(eagerly tries to erase something from the loss column) Yes, I admit, I am a chronic quitter, and I quit on this one. It looked too borked up to come out a win. Twice.

Game 2
POR: CF Castro – 3B Merritt – LF Pruitt – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – 2B Nomura – C Owens – SS Canning – P Baldwin
OCT: SS Vieitas – CF J. Gonzalez – RF Tom Reese – LF Britton – 2B M. Garza – C Ledesma – 1B J. Lugo – 3B Arreola – P Amador

Baldwin’s control was pretty poor as well, and he pitched in a lot of high-ball counts and walked three early. The Thunder also got a run in the first, but that came on two singles and a passed ball charged to Owens. The Raccoons hit the ball hard a couple of times against the Fat Cat, but just couldn’t get those friggin’ balls to fall in. Quebell and Nomura then were on to start the top 5th, but Owens wiped out the inning with a double play. In the top 6th, Castro and Merritt drove balls to deep center, and Pruitt unleashed a liner to the right side, and they were all caught. Top 7th, Alston singled, Quebell singled, both softly to right. Maybe that was the key. Don’t mash the ball. Make tender love to it with your stick. Something like that…

Yoshi grounded back to the mound in a 3-1 count, but Amador had the ball bounce off his left foot at first and in the end couldn’t make any play. Bases loaded, nobody out in a 2-0 Thunder score. Owens hit a ball hard and high to left, but he obviously hadn’t paid attention earlier. It fell down into Britton’s glove for a sac fly, while Canning’s single up the middle restocked the bases. Pat White hit for Baldwin, rolled another grounder up the middle, the middle infielders didn’t get it, Quebell scored, and Nomura was sent and scored as well, as the Critters took the lead at 3-2. That lead wasn’t added to, leaving Ted Reese little room in the bottom 7th, where Arreola hit a leadoff single but got stranded.

The Coons had the sacks full again in the eighth, with the Cat still dealin’. Alston walked before Quebell doubled. With the open base, Yoshi was walked intentionally(!?) to get to the right-hander Owens, who had hit a bases-clearing triple in the same series. Owens hit the Cat’s 115th pitch quite hard to right, it fell in fair again, and while Tom Reese was to it before it reached the extreme reaches of Oklahoma and held Owens to a double, the bases were still emptied and the score ballooned to 6-2! While we were grinning for a moment, late-inning meltdowns had boomerang characteristics sometimes. Luis Beltran faced three in the bottom 8th, retired nobody, and left with Garza on second base, no outs, and a 6-4 score. Law Rockburn, in for the third straight day, at first seemed to make everything that much worse with a walk to Pablo Ledesma, but then the Thunder made three outs on easy bouncers and pops. And the meltdowns weren’t over quite yet. Top 9th, Luis Martinez got Merritt before Pruitt hit a soft bloop for a single. Alston walked, and once Quebell lined out to Tom Reese. With Martinez being a lefty, Bowen hit for Nomura and walked on four pitches. That brought up the Thunder’s nightmare, Travis Owens, who wrestled a 2-out, bases-loaded walk from Martinez’ left arm. With Angel having been out two days in a row, him having had a hard time, and a 3-run lead, Ray Kelley was assigned the bottom of the ninth and did a swell job, facing the minimum and striking out a pair. 7-4 Coons! Pruitt 2-5; Quebell 2-4, BB, 2B; Nomura 2-3, BB; Owens 1-3, BB, 2B, 5 RBI; Canning 2-4, BB; White (PH) 1-2, 2 RBI; Baldwin 6.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, W (4-2);

On this day, it happened: the Elks bungled a lead against the Condors, lost 5-4, and the Raccoons took back the lead in the North by half a game over them and four over the Crusaders.

Game 3
POR: 1B Merritt – LF Pruitt – CF White – RF Alston – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – SS Canning – P Brown
OCT: SS Vieitas – CF J. Gonzalez – RF Tom Reese – 1B Clarke – 2B M. Garza – LF M. Perez – C Rucker – 3B Arreola – P Sato

Top of the first inning, Merritt walked, and Pruitt singled. White grounded to short, and close to the base, with Vieitas getting entangled with a sliding Pruitt and fell onto Matt with Vieitas entire weight coming down on Pruitt’s shoulder in knee form. Matt Pruitt, who had just extended a hitting streak to 14 games, was clearly hurting and had to leave the game in favor of Tomas Castro. Alston would walk to load the bases, with the Coons ending up with one run on a Martinez groundout. Vieitas would then also ruin Brown’s day early with an infield single, and Brown walked Tom Reese to make it worse. When Marcos Garza singled to left, Vieitas scored, and Reese was sent, but thrown out by Castro to at least maintain a 1-1 tie. And Brown was struggling: after a Robert Rucker single to center he would walk Takeru Sato(!!) and the pesky veteran Vieitas before Jose Gonzalez romped a 1-2 pitch to deep left – but Castro caught it to end the inning. Things would probably not get any better with a 30-minute rain delay in the third inning, either…

No, Brownie didn’t get better. David Clarke homered off him in the bottom 5th to give the Thunder a 2-1 lead, while the Coons were not seeing Sato all too well since the second inning. Bottom 6th, Perez led off with a looping single, before Rucker hit a grounder off Yoshi’s glove that was scored a hit as the Thunder tried to get Daniel Dickerson the ERA lead. Brown retired Arreola before he drilled Sato, and that was clearly enough for him. Ted Reese replaced him and surrendered two more runs on a Vieitas single. Slayton pitched two clean innings, but the offense was still not helping. They scratched out one run in the eighth, but trailed 4-2 in the ninth with a full inning of closer Arturo Lopez coming up. The Furballs brought up the tying run when Bowen hit a 1-out single to right, and that tying run was on when Yoshi walked in a full count. In a desperate attempt, Travis Owens hit for Canning, hopping a grounder to third base slow enough for Arreola to not have a play and the bases were loaded with Keith Ayers batting for Slayton. Lopez got ahead, but Ayers hit a 1-2 pitch to right center, and Reese wasn’t getting it! That ball was in! Bowen scored, Nomura scored – tied ballgame!! That was all they got. Once the Thunder gave up on their non-closing closer and went to Sergio Alvarez, they got out of the inning on Merritt’s pop and Castro’s liner to left being shagged by Arreola. The Coons were now without a shortstop (Heathershaw trying to fill in) and without much relief pitching at all. We tried to get the game to extras with Kelley, who struck out two batters in the bottom 9th before allowing singles to Tom Reese, Britton, and the walkoff to Marcos Garza. 5-4 Thunder. Pruitt 1-1; Bowen 2-4; Owens (PH) 1-1; Ayers (PH) 1-1, 2B, 2 RBI; Slayton 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

Hnnggh! Well, at least Johnny Crum romped five hits as the Condors shellacked the Elks and we retain the lead.

This was the first weather-disturbed start for Nick Brown this year. By this time last season he had like five or six?

In other news

May 25 – VAN CL Pedro Alvarado (1-1, 1.57 ERA, 12 SV) saves his 300th career game in a 5-2 win over the Aces.
May 30 – MIL 2B Todd Moultrie (.333, 0 HR, 15 RBI) knocks six hits in the Loggers 17-2 demolition of the Aces, all but one double being singles. The Loggers already had the most 6-hitters of all teams in the ABL, and now extend their lead with the sixth such occurrence (Francois Dédé, 1978; Ethan Michael, 1978; Cristo Ramirez, 1998; Bartolo Hernandez, 1999 and 2005). This 46th 6-hit day comes only 12 days after LAP Jens Carroll achieved the feat.

Complaints and stuff

Well, we had some rally in us this week, didn’t we? Ultimately it only came out to a 4-2 week, but the Elks went 3-3 and that single game makes a lot of difference right now. The big downer this week was certainly the way the bullpen had all air squeezed out of it. Nick Brown pitched only six innings on Tuesday, and nobody would surpass that mark the entire week, and that leaves marks on the bullpen after six days. We have three more games before an off day, but after that we will have 20 straight games without a breather in between, and the starting pitching needs to get up to the task.

Matt Pruitt had his shoulder squeezed pretty good, but no structural damage could be found. But it looks like he will not be able to play for about a week. The way he’s going (or was before getting knee-slammed by Herberto Vieitas), you probably don’t want him to rot on the DL for longer than absolutely necessary, so like with Ron Alston, he’s not going on the DL.

Rob Howell cleared waivers on Tuesday, which admittedly surprised me somewhat since I had assumed him gone. Fine by me, though, because now we can see what a few weeks in AAA do to his broken bat. He batted .400 in his first four games, but I’m not getting the hype up yet.

Minor league SP watch: Rich Hood was promoted to AAA, where he got pummeled in his first start. Hector Santos keeps doing well, but the K/BB is only just over 2.1 and I don’t know whether he won’t have bad issues in the majors if promoted now. Then again, most of our rotation has pretty mad K/BB numbers, so how much worse can things get?