[Westheim]

The Federal League wiped the Continental League 15-5 in the first All Star game. Ben Simon homered in a pinch-hitting appearance. Sánz also pinch hit (for a K), while Flores was 0-2 after pinch-hitting and playing in rightfield.

For the home series against the Loggers Johan Dolder came back into the lineup in CF. Swift was still out. The Raccoons had exactly eight hits in the first game, one by each position player that started the game. Berrios did not hit anything but air, but at least limited the damage he did to five runs (three earned) in 6.2 innings. The defense committed three errors, two of them two-base throwing errors. We still managed to win 6-5. Ned Ray pitched to start game 2 and got himself wrecked once more. Why can’t you idiots just ONCE pitch a solid series??? Raccoons were downed for five runs in the first inning, and 9-2 overall.

But it was the third game in the series that really killed my mood. The Raccoons lost 4-0, shut out by Mike Anderson, who came into the game 0-14 and with an ERA over 7 … and that lifeless bunch of suckers was shut out by that guy. THAT guy. I $&%#ing can’t believe it!!

With a 6-2 consolation win in the fourth game of the series (I could feel, my laptop was absolutely intent to please me, after I had already opened the window and had placed him conveniently close to it), this series ended up tied again, just like the one ten days before, and we and the Loggers remained in a tie for last place.

The trade deadline was approaching fast. I tried to make something work to get a starting pitcher to shore up my horrible rotation. Offensively, we were 6th in the Continental League, which was okay (for playing .500 at least), but in defense, we were 10th, and the pitchers were to blame.

One candidate was Michael Ball from the Gold Sox, who was a tad above average, but was 35 and was earning a lot of money. The Knights actually would give him up, but had their demands. I was willing to readily pair two of the following: Ben Green, Matt Huber, Ed Sullivan (whose contract was up and who refused to resign), and Wayne Johnston (who wanted to be traded), except for packaging the last two together, but no combo worked for the Knights, understandably. I had a possibility to trade Sullivan for Jorge Velazquez from the Cyclones, but that was an infielder and was not entirely helpful. Oh dear, why can’t anything work in here …!?

The Ball deal was not going to work out. I then turned my attention to their #3 starter, 28 yr old Christopher Powell, who was 7-6 with a 3.99 ERA. His stuff left some things to be desired, but he had strong movement and control. The Gold Sox, last in the FL West, were ready to swallow Matt Huber, if I bundled a starter prospect in the deal we had no high opinion of anyway. They even offered another prospect back for him. It even saved $50k for this year and some $100k in the next. DEAL!!

Powell was moved into the #2 slot, Berrios down to #3, Ray to #4, and Padilla took over mop up duties. Powell would not start until the next series in Atlanta, having just pitched the day before the deal was completed on July 18.

But first came the Indians, whom I so hated to play. Salah Brunet and Juan Berrios went against each other, the only two pitchers to no-hit a team so far. Both fanned seven in seven in this game (this sentence is correct as it is), and allowed only three (Brunet) and four (Berrios) hits – Berrios was the losing pitcher. The Indians pushed two across in the first inning and that was it, a 2-0 loss. A question next: how many runs will you give up on 19 hits, seven walks and four errors. Answer: FOURTEEN. Game 2 was a stinging 14-1 loss to the Indians, who hardly ever scored, but an abyssmal performance by the Raccoons makes things possible. Ray, Jenkins, Green, and Miller were all hit for multiple runs, only Wally Gaston pitched two scoreless to end the game. I hate those guys. I hate those guys!!

The Raccoons won the last game in the series by the score of 10-0. No errors, seven hits, one walk, but seven strikeouts for my pitchers. Let’s just say, they had been pretty motivated after I seemed to have publicly declared after the last game that the next guy to botch a game would be personally strangulated by me. I didn’t even remember saying that. I read it in the paper this morning.

The next four series were all against the CL South, against the Knights, Falcons, Thunder, and finally Condors. We had a grand record of 3-15 against these teams so far, with no wins at all against the Knights (0-3) and Condors (0-6). The only other team the Raccoons had not won against so far, but had already played, were the Bayhawks: 0-6 there. The lineup needed rebuilding, since we had suffered two injuries in the last game against Indianapolis. Jose Flores had a sore shoulder and would better be relegated to pinch hitting duties, while Darryl Maloney was unavailable after a collision sliding into base, diagnosis pending. Anderson took LF for Flores, while Sanderson was catching. Swift batted leadoff. No callup for another catcher yet. (Maloney eventually was diagnosed with a strained PCL and would miss about a month, sending him to the DL. 23 yr old Sam Moran was called up from AAA three days later.)

Christopher Powell made his first start for the Raccoons to lead off the Knights series in Atlanta. He went eight frames of 7-hit, 1-run ball. The run was unearned. The game was 1-1 through seven, before the Raccoons loaded the bags with two out in the top 8th. Tim Anderson came up and became the hero of the day, being plunked for a run. Hatfield failed to close the game, loading the bases with two outs, instead getting a hold, when Ben Green (of all people) got the final out to save the 2-1 victory. Of course, more than two wins in a row would be awful, so the team K’ed fourteen times the next day to lose 3-2. We also lost Ken Miller to a sprained ankle, of course. Bruce Wright was called up again. Ned Ray pitched reasonably well in the rubber game. The Raccoons led 5-1 through the middle innings before the bullpen glitched again, but still held on to a 5-4 win, barely. It was the first series win for the Raccoons in six weeks.

Alex Miranda pitched a good game and batted in three in a complete game 5-2 win over the Falcons in Charlotte to start that season. C Sam Moran got his first majors hit and also scored one on a sac fly. Of course they lost the next, since we were not allowed to win more than two in a row, 4-2 after a 2-run homer off our new pitcher Christopher Powell in the eighth, before Berrios pitched a complete game as well to finish the series for a 4-2 win.

Trade deadline coming in, and teams started to encroach me to get Juan Berrios. Never ever. The Rebels also offered infielder Bernardo Berrera for my reliever Ben Jenkins. Berrera was certainly not bad, with some power, but he would not be able to beat out my established infield with Johnston, Simon, Swift, and Sullivan. Hmmm. Nooo.

We went home for only one series against Oklahoma City. To make a very sad story very short, the Raccoons were swept 6-0, 2-1 (10 innings there), and 5-3, while they struck out about a thousand times over the course of the series.

This ended the month of July, only two more months to go in this nightmare. We would play the Condors away to start August, followed by a home stint against the Titans and Loggers, before we would get the last interleague matchups of the season against the Wolves and the Buffaloes. Yeah, Wolves, we’ll see who rules Oregon then!

In other news:
July 17 – Billy Robinson of the Indians shuts out the Canadiens, allowing only one hit.
July 22 – Juan Correa and the Bayhawks shut out the Loggers 2-0, marking already the 20th win for Correa this season. His ERA is 0.82! His nickname is “Mauler” for a reason.
July 24 – The Bayhawks’ Rafael Lopez (.318, 5 HR, 51 RBI) suffered a strained hip muscle, putting him on the 15-day DL.
July 27 – The Loggers trade outfielder Dan Nelson to the Capitals in exchange for reliever Henry Peters. Peters had a reputation for eating batters, with a 0.91 ERA in just below 30 IP.
July 27 – The Denver Gold Sox acquired 1B Samuel Serra (.337, 7 HR, 70 RBI) in a deal for 3B Rich Ploughman, who didn’t have very impressive stats, but maybe the Dalls Stars saw something in him the Gold Sox didn’t.