Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[Westheim]

It’s about two more weeks before Nick Brown can realistically start a rehab assignment, and we might want him to make two starts for the Alley Cats to get warmed up, so his return will most likely only take place on the very end of August.

Which sucks.

Raccoons (49-52) @ Thunder (59-44) – July 31-August 2, 2006

We are entering the middle week of a 20-game string without an off day, the last two weeks of which will take place on that old road, with highwaymen and … lichs waiting for us to pass through in the darkness. The toughest piece of that grueling 14-game road trip will be these Thunder, who are still very well in contention in the CL South, using their awesome rotation (2nd with a 3.46 ERA) to great effect. They also scored the third-most runs in the Continental League. So how the **** have they lost five of six to the Raccoons so far?

Projected matchups:
Kenichi Watanabe (5-10, 4.46 ERA) vs. Luis Martinez (6-7, 4.12 ERA)
Tim Webster (3-0, 2.81 ERA) vs. Francisco Garza (9-6, 4.55 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (2-3, 5.73 ERA) vs. Aaron Anderson (15-1, 2.28 ERA)

Well, Wednesday’s game is lost already. But there’s an opening for a series win, if only because of injuries to the Thunder. SP Vaughn Higgins is out for possibly the rest of the season, and they also have Tomas Cardenas and Jesus Palacios on the DL. Palacios’ replacement at second, Max Nixon, is laboring on an oblique strain, too.

And then we DID get an off day. The opener was rained out and pushed on to Tuesday for a nice double header. Yeah, more of those please.

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – CF Fernandez – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – C A. Ramirez – 3B Sharp – RF Mays – SS Yamada – P Watanabe
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – RF Takizawa – 3B Arreola – CF McCormick – C De La Parra – SS Heathershaw – 2B H. Castro – 1B J. Vargas – P F. Garza

The Raccoons got a hit early, but managed to mess up and Garza saw only the minimum 15 batters through five innings, while Watanabe was mildly overwhelmed by the four left-handers atop the Thunder order. Perennial batting title challenger Victorino Sanchez just refused to be sat down by Watanabe, and with his at-bats all trouble usually started for Watanabe. Not that Watanabe was bad – he just had no answer to one of the best batters in the league, at all. He survived the first inning, but Sanchez hit an RBI triple in the third, in which the Thunder scored two runs. Watanabe got a BIG strikeout in against Wes McCormick that ended the bottom 5th with three Thunder stranded. He went six and two thirds in a really decent effort without having anything to show for it. Garza pitched into the ninth completely obliterating the Raccoons and striking out ten against just two measly singles, half of those by Watanabe. 2-0 Thunder. Watanabe 6.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, L (5-11) and 1-2;

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – 3B Flores – LF T. Castro – RF Brady – C A. Ramirez – 1B Sharp – CF Crespo – SS Pena – P Webster
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B J. Vargas – 2B Takizawa – RF Gonzales – SS Heathershaw – 3B H. Castro – C Washington – CF McCormick – P L. Martinez

A leadoff walk to Nomura and Vic Flores’ third homer as a Furball provided offense rather quickly for the Coons in the back end of the double header. Ten Critters came to the plate and four runs scored in that top of the first, with Castro and Sharp contributing doubles. After Nomura stranded a full compliment in the first, they left two more runners on in the second. It was not that big a deal then because Tim Webster had been very good recently, but when Webster inexplicably lost control in the fourth inning, things went south quickly. He had already walked the lefty Sanchez on four pitches in the second, then started the third with a 4-pitch walk to Haruyoshi Takizawa. Heathershaw walked as well and then Hector Castro hit a bomb that Tomas Castro didn’t need to run after – it was GONE. That cut our lead to 4-3, and Jorge Gonzales’ swat in the sixth would tie the score at four, and while the Raccoons didn’t do **** with the bats, Webster loaded the bases with walks to Rusty Washington and Ignacio Arreola sandwiching an Alberto Rangel single with no outs in the bottom 7th. And Sanchez was on deck in what had gone from 4-0 in the first to a devastating soul cruncher. Ed Bryan held the Thunder to a single tally on Sanchez’ sac fly, but that was enough for the home team. The Thunder bullpen pitched perfect ball against the Raccoons over three innings. 5-4 Thunder. Flores 3-5, HR, 2 RBI;

And now it’s August 1 and we didn’t unload. Great.

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – RF Brady – 1B Quebell – LF T. Castro – 3B Sharp – CF Crespo – C Bowen – P F. Garcia
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – RF Takizawa – 3B Arreola – CF McCormick – C De La Parra – SS Heathershaw – 2B Nixon – 1B H. Castro – P A. Anderson

The Thunder probably expected to have Felipe Garcia for breakfast – which was not an outrageous expectation in itself – but to their shock had to witness their guy getting torn up first. Aaron Anderson had the third inning from hell, starting with a Bowen double, a Nomura single, then walks to Flores and Brady, the latter for the first run of the game, and then finally a bases-clearing double into the left corner by Quebell to run the board to 4-0. But we had seen that before. In this park. This week.

Garcia was helped greatly be the defense, however. With two on and one out in the bottom 1st, Nomura made a nifty grab to start a double play, and in the fourth Arreola went first to third on De La Parra’s single to center, but was thrown out by a bullseye throw by J.C. Crespo. When the Thunder did get on the board in the fifth, it was nothing defense could help with: Max Nixon took a bean out of the park to cut the lead to 4-1. And everything simply stopped working by the sixth. Takizawa reached on a drag bunt that Garcia was too lazy to dig out, and then he walked Arreola. The next two guys hit singles, and there was still nobody out. We hurried Marcos Bruno into the game, who had Bradley Heathershaw at 1-2 before Heathershaw grounded into a run-scoring double play, then struck out Nixon to at least preserve a 4-3 lead after six.

The meltdown continued, however, in the seventh. Rockburn got Castro, but then left-hander Vonne Calzado pinch-hit in the #9 hole. Ed Bryan came out, gave up a single to center and with the tying run arriving on base, Crespo made an incredibly stupid pickup error that cost an extra base, and soon the whole game as the chain reaction got put in motion. Sanchez doubled, we were forced to switch pitchers again, and Adam Riddle got whacked enough for two runs to score and the Thunder to take the lead. The Raccoons had pinch-runner Yoshi Yamada swipe second base with one out in the eighth, but between Tomas Castro and Daniel Sharp, two terrible bums made two terrible outs. 5-4 Thunder. Quebell 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Bowen 3-4, 2B;

Clyde Brady has one hit in his last 28 at-bats. But well, it’s the second half of the year!

Thank god we weren’t sellers at the trade deadline and didn’t jeopardize our playoff chances.

Raccoons (49-55) @ Crusaders (57-51) – August 3-6, 2006

Second in the division behind the Indians and trailing by four games in early August, the Crusaders were in the best position since times immemorial to play meaningful games in September. To achieve that they would have to bother their league-best pitching to at least give 60% against the puny Raccoons offense. Them scoring the sixth-most runs in the CL was in general a hindrance for their aspirations, but should suffice to pour out nine or ten runs in a 4-game sweep. We are 4-3 against them this season, but lost a dozen last year.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (9-9, 3.09 ERA) vs. George Kirk (10-5, 3.08 ERA)
Jose Dominguez (11-8, 4.15 ERA) vs. Angel Javier (13-3, 2.25 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (5-11, 4.36 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (5-9, 3.59 ERA)
Tim Webster (3-1, 3.25 ERA) vs. Russell Benson (6-6, 3.04 ERA)

That’s all right-handers. Stanton Martin is still on the DL for them, but might return as early as for the second game.

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – 1B Quebell – LF T. Castro – CF Fernandez – 3B Sharp – RF Mays – C A. Ramirez – P Ford
NYC: CF R. Pena – RF Britton – LF M. Ortíz – 3B J. Henry – C J. Lopez – 2B J. Hernandez – SS Guerin – 1B B. Taylor – P Kirk

New York jumped on Ford early with a 2-out, 2-run double by Jorge Lopez in the first inning, but the Raccoons jumped back onto the evil George Kirk and knocked him out after four innings. Key in that and their 4-2 lead then was a 2-run triple by Tomas Castro in the third inning, with Fernandez plating him with a groundout, while Ford doubled home Mays in the fourth. Mark Jones, a left-hander, replaced Kirk, but also got whacked around with a homer by Danny Sharp in the fifth, preceding a Mays single and an RBI triple by Ramirez. That 6-2 lead still didn’t mean they weren’t about to blow it up. Bottom 5th, Roberto Pena led off the inning with a single, then stole second, moved to third on Ramirez’ throwing error, and then stole home against a clueless battery. The thrower part of the clueless battery opened the bottom 6th with a home run conceded to Jorge Lopez before Julio Hernandez tripled. That moved us to switch that thrower part for somebody less aggravating, but Rockburn allowed the runner to score anyway. The Coons got a run off Tom Watkins in the top of the seventh inning before having two on in the eighth with Fernandez lining into a double play. Moreno and Bruno carried the game to Angel Casas, who – in a 7-5 game – quickly nixed the first two men he faced in the seventh before Ape Britton and Martin Ortíz both singled in 2-strike counts. Jerry Henry singled on the first pitch, allowing Britton to score. Oh no, what’s going on NOW? Next man, Jorge Lopez, also a 2-2 count and contact. But this time the ball came favorably to Casas and he managed to get it to first base without further accidents. 7-6 Raccoons. Nomura 2-4, 2 BB, RBI; Castro 2-5, 3B, 2B, 2 RBI; Mays 2-5; Ramirez 2-3, 2 BB, 3B, RBI; Brady (PH) 1-1; Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K;

Thus Ralph Ford, despite getting shelled, became the Raccoons’ first true 10-game winner this season. And with Brownie’s return timetable, he might well remain the only one. Next on the list after Brownie with seven? Watanabe and Riddle(!!!) with five.

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – 1B Quebell – LF Castro – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Crespo – C A. Ramirez – P Dominguez
NYC: CF R. Pena – 1B J. Lopez – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – SS Rice – 3B J. Henry – 2B J. Hernandez – C D. Anderson – P A. Javier

The Critters went up in the first inning, put their middle infielders on and Brady zinged a single just out of reach of returnee Stanton Martin to plate both of them. Nomura added a run in the second inning before things got wicked again. Up 3-0, Jose Dominguez gave up a first pitch RBI double to Angel Javier in the third inning, then drove in a run himself in the fourth. In the same frame, we had to switch catchers after Ramirez came up lame after a hit and had to be replaced with what looked like a hamstring having gone south. Dominguez got whacked for two runs in the fifth and we were again in one of those unhappy games, and maybe Gary Rice was in a horror year (magnitude of underwhelming performance similar to Sharp) and batting .225, but it was enough to tater one off Dominguez to tie the score in the sixth.

Wicked games call for wicked moves. When Quebell singled with one out in the seventh, we sent Eddie Fernandez to hit for Castro against lefty Mark Jones. It paid dividends immediately, with Fernandez tripling up the leftfield line to bring in Quebell, then score on Brady’s sac fly to right to bring the score to 6-4. The game remained a squeezer, and we were running out of bullpen. Preserving Angel for the ninth (or at least trying to) we had to throw Kaz into the eighth with that 6-4 lead. Stanton Martin hit a leadoff single before Gary Rice rocked a pitch to center that sure looked like it was going before suddenly dropping into Fernandez’ glove. Kaz made it through the inning in one piece. With Nick Lee holding the Raccoons down in the ninth, Angel Casas inherited another 2-run lead and went to 3-1 on his first batter, Daryl Anderson, immediately, but Anderson grounded out. Ian Burns singled, Roberto Pena struck out, and then Jorge Lopez grounded hard to the left side, where Vic Flores made the play deep behind his position before firing a beam to first base, where ball and batter arrived roughly at the same time. The umpire brought up the first, the Crusaders were up in arms, but this game was put to bed. 6-4 Coons. Nomura 2-5, RBI; Flores 2-5; Quebell 2-5; Fernandez (PH) 1-2, 3B, RBI; Ramirez 1-2, 2B;

The team voodoo priests confirmed the hamstring strain the next morning, and Antonio Ramirez went to the DL after doing absolutely nothing in 44 AB since being traded for. This looks like one of those six week things, too, so he won’t even be back at a decent hour. Not quite Itchy or Raúl Castillo, but from the same album.

Bob Wood’s line in AAA was .189/.267/.264 in 53 AB – roughly similar to his major league line this year, and I was not in a mood for that. We had one decent catching prospect in Erik Ruff, but he had been demoted from St. Pete to Ham Lake four weeks ago and then had been found drifting face down in DL Lake last week with – a hamstring strain! It’s epidemic, hurray! Sergio Esquivel was putting up a .719 OPS in AAA, which was really nothing special, and neither were his defensive abilities, but it was more than Bobo Wood brought to the table, and we want a third catcher in September anyway. So we called up Esquivel, 23 years old, right now. He was dragged out of some gutter in Puerto Rico by Vince in 2002. His power is limited, but he doesn’t strike out a lot, and has decent contact abilities. He is also a switch-hitter.

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – CF Fernandez – 1B Quebell – LF Castro – RF Brady – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – SS Yamada – P Watanabe
NYC: CF R. Pena – 1B Nava – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – SS Rice – 3B J. Henry – 2B J. Hernandez – C D. Anderson – P Connor

Yoshi-N’s leadoff double was left unused, and the remaining offensive effort was completely abandoned when Yoshi-Y hit into an inning-ending double play with two on in the second inning. Watanabe made the most of his skill set, allowed no hits the first time through the order until Pena singled with two outs in the third. We’ll ignore Watanabe drilling Nava, because he got out of the inning and the game remained scoreless through five innings. Then suddenly, scientists found life in the Coons’ dugout. Fernandez singled past Nava in the sixth inning and Quebell made a big swing count for two with a homer to right center, his ninth (…) of the year. It could have all been well, but now with the pressure of maintaining a lead, the beleaguered Watanabe flat out crashed into a tree and was rocked for three runs in the bottom of the same inning. Watanabe was gone after that, and the overused pen had to take over early again. The Crusaders kindly invited the Coons back into the game in the eighth with Anthony Duhamel pitching. Brady chipped a single into no man’s land on the right, then advanced on a balk. On the next pitch, Craig Bowen doubled to plate Brady and tie the game. They walked Sharp intentionally(!?), and it was inviting to hit for Yamada with one out, as he was 0-3 on the day, but we’d much rather hit for Ed Bryan behind him with Vic Flores. Yamada grounded to first for one out, or no out at all, as Jorge Lopez mishandled the grounder badly, loading the bags with the error. Flores hit for Bryan, fouled out, and then Nomura hit a single to left center for the go-ahead run to score against new pitcher Tom Watkins. Fernandez came up with Sharp, Yamada, and Nomura on the bags, singled softly to left, and Yamada was waved around. Nomura followed around second, Ortíz’ throw was cut off by Hernandez and fired to third, where Nomura was tagged out, but not until after Yamada had crossed home plate for a 6-3 lead.

We were REALLY strained in the pen. Moreno was unavailable, and Bruno was almost unavailable. We had to try and make it with a lot of Riddle, and as little Rockburn and Casas as possible. When Riddle got three easy groundouts in the eighth and the lead remained 6-3, we stayed with him in the ninth as we had to retire the 6-7-8 batters. Jerry Henry flew out to right, but Riddle walked Hernandez and we had Angel get ready. Anderson struck out, bringing up left-hander Ming Kui to pinch-hit for Charlie Deacon. Kui grounded a 1-0 pitch to left, Sharp with a stretch, up, throw – out! 6-3 Coons! Nomura 2-4, 2B, RBI; Fernandez 2-5, 2 RBI; Brady 2-3, 2 BB; Bowen 3-5, 2B, RBI; Sharp 1-2, 2 BB; Riddle 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K, SV (1);

While we’ve now won three straight against New York, the Indians are also streaking upwards, so we’re gaining no ground in the standings.

Am I really still looking for the Indians??

Game 4
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – 1B Quebell – LF Castro – CF Fernandez – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – P Webster
NYC: CF R. Pena – 1B Nava – RF S. Martin – LF M. Ortiz – 3B J. Henry – SS Rice – C J. Lopez – 2B Caraballo – P Benson

Both teams had three hits through three, but didn’t get anybody across, with the middle infield turning a double play twice in support of Webster, an ordinary 4-6-3 in the first, and then a rather less ordinary 8-4 in the third, with Roberto Pena tagging up from first on Jose Nava’s fly to center and trying to beat Fernandez’ arm – but he couldn’t. In the top of the fourth Benson gave up a leadoff walk to Fernandez which then rapidly devolved into pain for him when Bob Mays took him deep just inside the foul pole to give Webster a 2-0 lead. 2-0 instantly became 2-1, with Stanton Martin socking a home run off Webster in the bottom 4th. We got a run in the fifth, 3-1, but Webster continued to find trouble. The Crusaders had two on with two out in the bottom 5th. First base was open and the batter was righty Stanton Martin. An intentional walk would bring up Martin Ortíz, a left-hander, and both could mean sudden death for Webster. He was a southpaw, so in the end, we put S. Martin on, and an 8-pitch battle with Martin O. resulted in a bases-loaded walk and a lead reduction to 3-2. Jerry Henry’s 2-run single then gave them the lead.

Webster started the seventh inning, quickly put a man on, and when Law Rockburn came in, it just got incrementally worse. Rockburn allowed two doubles, and Nomura made a throwing error to unravel the inning into a 4-spot for the Crusaders that decidedly averted getting swept for the Crusaders. One of those doubles was to Stanton Martin, who already had a single and a dinger, and came up again in the bottom 8th where the Coons just tried to finish out this game and move on to the next city – all across the continent. In that, we used Ed Bryan. There were two outs, a man on, but please, Ed, just get out of this one. He didn’t. Stanton Martin fired a blazing line into the gap in left center, Brady and Castro were scurrying after it, neither got a good play on it, and Martin turned second by the time Castro threw the ball in. But Castro had no arm whatsoever, and Stanton Martin arrived at third base, standing up, having completed the cycle.

Easy Eddie then threw a wild one, drilled Ortíz, and we REALLY had to bother another pitcher to get the final out, which was actually logged when Esquivel threw out Ortíz stealing. 10-5 Crusaders. Nomura 2-4, 2B; Castro 3-5, 2B, RBI; Mays 3-4, BB, HR, 2 RBI;

Well, for all the misery and pain Stanton “Clockwork” Martin has suffered through this year, he has now been rewarded with a entry in the history books, hitting for the 37th cycle in ABL history, and the first in Crusaders history. There had not been a cycle in almost two years (and safe for a certain Mr. Kirk there has not been a no-hitter in almost five years!) since Jose Paraz’ in 2004. It is the second cycle on August 6, after OCT Tyler Burch’s in 1990. Finally, it’s the second cycle against the Raccoons. Charlotte’s franchise hits leader Hubert Green ticked all four boxes in 1999.

In other news

August 2 – The Capitals get 3-hit by SFW Jose Marquez (7-10, 3.69 ERA), losing 7-0.

Complaints and stuff

Yeah, dropped straight out of the upper half in the power rankings again. 12th to 17th. We reached 400 runs scored on Saturday in our 107th game. Still not scoring enough to not be rightfully contracted from the league.

And cycles and no-hitters might roughly happen equal amounts of time – but I don’t particularly care about a cycle (unless I hate the player), while a no-hitter will stink up the whole month. Or offseason, if it happens on October 1, by a certain Crusaders scumbag.

Whitebread compiled a scouting update on our roster this week. It’s grim. He took Vince’s old ratings, and slashed bits off left and right. Daniel Sharp, Bob Wood, Angel Casas, Clyde Brady, Bob Mays, Felipe Garcia – all took ratings hits. On the other hand we might have something in prospects Matt Pruitt, Derrek Fredlund, and Ricardo Martinez.

No scouting changes with Ryan Miller, who should get his shot in September – but for now hit the DL with a strained rib cage. He should be good by September, but … ugh, I don’t know…

Anybody spotting me noobing into having Antonio Ramirez starting both ends of the double header wins a cookie. When the opener was rained out and the Thunder switched their starters, my brain just shut off. There are REASONS why we haven’t covered playoffs here in a while.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (52-56) @ Canadiens (55-55) – August 7-10, 2006

Four in Elkland, that’s never any fun. Never mind that we are 7-3 against them on the season. In this situation, you can expect the pendulum to come swinging back and hit you straight in the face. Dark clouds aside, they were fourth in offense and t-7th in runs allowed, with a +40 run differential that didn’t quite fit their .500 record.

Projected matchups:
Felipe Garcia (2-3, 5.68 ERA) vs. Carlos Camacho (3-9, 5.60 ERA)
Ralph Ford (10-9, 3.29 ERA) vs. Juichi Fujita (11-8, 3.02 ERA)
Jose Dominguez (12-8, 4.23 ERA) vs. Rod Taylor (13-7, 3.59 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (5-11, 4.37 ERA) vs. Scott Spears (5-10, 4.80 ERA)

The Elks had quite a bit of pitching on the DL, missing Daniel Dickerson (ETA: next July), Albert Matthews and Cal Holbrook. Infielder Jim Phillips was also on the DL but could potentially return in the latter half of the 4-game set, in which we will miss Dickerson’s replacement in the rotation, 38-year old Manny Rios (0-1, 8.53 ERA) who required the second baseman to play in and make sure the little cart with his oxygen bottle didn’t fall over.

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – 3B V. Flores – 1B Quebell – RF Crespo – LF Castro – C Bowen – CF Fernandez – SS Pena – P F. Garcia
VAN: 2B Dobson – 1B Theobald – CF E. Garcia – LF J. Gonzalez – 3B Suzuki – C G. Ortíz – RF P. Flores – SS Rodgers – P Camacho

While Felipe Garcia was little else than an automatic rout for us, the Canadiens would see that their 1-0 lead in the first and their 4-1 lead in the second went bust immediately both times. Camacho couldn’t retire any of the first six Raccoons in the top of the third inning, a flurry of singles and the odd walk in between tying the score at four and loading the bases with no outs. All of a sudden, Camacho struck out Bowen and Fernandez, but then walked Cesar Pena on four pitches to force in the go-ahead run and bring up Garcia, who had started the inning with a single, and now ended Camacho’s day with his second single in the inning, this one plating two runs. Gustavo Rodriguez managed to retire Yoshi on a grounder to short to end a frightening 6-run inning, which saw the Coons take a 7-4 lead. But… Garcia was still in the game. Bowen dug him out in the bottom 3rd by throwing out his second runner of the game, and in the top 4th J.C. Crespo hit a 2-piece off Rodriguez to get to 9-4. Garcia, the bum, allowed another run despite getting awesome double plays turned in the fifth and sixth, of which the former was especially spectacular, Vic Flores intercepting a screaming one-hopper from Jose Gonzalez to start a 5-4-3 break for Garcia, who didn’t even deserve it… After a rather calm seventh, the Raccoons had Nomura (infield single) and Flores (double) in scoring position with one out in the eighth. Quebell was walked intentionally, which worked out too well for the Elks as neither Crespo nor Castro managed to get a runner in. You were just waiting for another bang from the Elks, and when Moreno came into the bottom 9th, allowed a single to Ken Rodgers and then walked Alex Rivas with no outs, trouble had arrived. Angel Casas was thrown into the fray, striking out Dobson before he walked Theobald to load the bases. When Enrique Garcia grounded to third, Vic Flores threw to second base – or maybe over it. Nomura leapt, couldn’t catch it, and the Elks scored on the error, the Raccoons’ third on the night. The winning run appeared at the plate, Angel struck out Gonzalez, and struck out Suzuki, and a capitally messy game was finally over. 9-6 Raccoons. Nomura 2-3, 2 BB; Flores 3-5, 2B; Crespo 2-4, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Castro 2-5, RBI;

That was … wild. Apparently it takes a wild game to outpace Garcia’s pitching.

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS V. Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – CF Crespo – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – P Ford
VAN: LF P. Flores – 2B M. Ramirez – CF J. Gonzalez – 3B Suzuki – 1B Trinidad – RF E. Garcia – C F. Diéguez – SS Rodgers – P Fujita

After the Brownshirts took a 1-0 lead on a Bob Mays leadoff triple and Bowen’s productive groundout in the second inning, Ford blew that advantage conclusively in the bottom 2nd in which he allowed five singles, even got a double play, but still served up a 2-out, 2-run single to Juichi Fujita to the amusement of the smelling home crowd. Amazingly this blended over into the next hard inning for the Elks, with Fujita not retiring any of the first four Raccoons in the third inning, tying the score and having the bases loaded with no outs, with Daniel Sharp singling in a pair to make it 4-2.

Ralph Ford had little to no stuff ready and relied on the defense, also getting a few foul pop outs. However, pitching like that usually doesn’t work out to a complete game, and it didn’t in this case, either. Ford allowed a leadoff single to Diéguez in the seventh, tried to go on, but Pedro Flores doubled in the run to cut the lead to 4-3. Marcos Bruno came in to replace him and got Miguel Ramirez on a medium difficulty fly to Brady in left. Tommy Briggs walked Sharp and Fernandez in the eighth, but the Raccoons failed to get a hit and didn’t score, because why would they… To our great shock and disbelief, Marcos Bruno was then taken apart in the bottom 8th, allowing a 2-run home run to Enrique Garcia, instantly doubling his earned runs allowed on the year. The Raccoons got a pinch-hit single from Esquivel in the top 9th, with two out, and while Yamada ran for him, Bob Mays harmlessly flew out to center. 5-4 Canadiens. Nomura 2-4, BB; Flores 2-4, BB, 2B; Esquivel (PH) 1-1;

Marcos Bruno did what? How come!?

I still blame the offense. And the rotation. And Communists! Those are the worst!

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS V. Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – CF Crespo – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – P Dominguez
VAN: 2B Dobson – 1B Theobald – LF J. Gonzalez – 3B Suzuki – C G. Ortiz – RF Richardson – CF P. Flores – SS Rodgers – P R. Taylor

… and we continued to wonder what exactly Jose Dominguez was getting paid for (and worried about $1.68M for next year…) as he was getting whacked, whacked, bumped, whacked, and whacked in the first inning. Five singles, four of them quite hard, plated three runs for the Elks. That would never stop. Dominguez didn’t make it out of the fifth inning, allowing six runs on 11 hits and two walks – and no strikeouts, because those might keep him from losing. Adrian Quebell had plated three runs with two extra base hits – and the Raccoons trailed hopelessly despite that. Kaz Kichida was way unsuccessful in picking up the pieces and allowed a 3-run homer to Mitsuhide Suzuki in the sixth to bloom the deficit to six runs. Not even long relief could be gained from this crumbling staff! The Coons would get back into slam range in the eighth, scoring two runs off Taylor, who still ended the inning with his tenth strikeout, then participated with the bat in the deconstruction of yet another pitcher as Domingo Moreno was beaten senseless for the second time in the series, getting blown out for five runs. It was so bad, Angel Casas had to come into the game with the Raccoons seven runs down, because the nightmare wasn’t ending. He conceded the last of Moreno’s runners, and the situation was so bad that with two out and two on he faced Suzuki who had a chance at both the cycle and a 6-hit game, lacking a triple. Instead, Casas got him to fly out to Mays. The Inepticoons had been destroyed regardless. 14-5 Canadiens. Flores 2-4, 2B; Brady 2-4, 2 RBI; Quebell 2-4, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Mays 2-4; Castro (PH) 1-1;

(stands in the office, slowly, steadily banging the head against the door frame, while Slappy is casually standing by with a bottle of Capt’n Coma)

Game 4
POR: 2B Nomura – 3B V. Flores – RF Brady – 1B Quebell – LF Castro – CF Fernandez – C Esquivel – SS Pena – P Watanabe
VAN: 2B Dobson – RF Richardson – CF E. Garcia – LF J. Gonzalez – 3B Suzuki – C G. Ortíz – 1B J. Phillips – SS Rodgers – P Spears

No, the pain didn’t stop, like Watanabe could make any pain subside even temporarily! The first three Elks hit singles before he walked in a run, and with two outs allowed a bases-clearing double to fresh-off-the-DL Jim Phillips. 4-0 down, just like that. The Failcoons managed one hit in five innings. The Stinkers merely managed ten, plating six runs against Watanabe. When the Raccoons’ 1-2-3-4 batters all singled in the sixth inning they would manage three runs, and still didn’t even come particularly close. At least the bullpen abstained from getting raped for one short night… 6-3 Canadiens. Nomura 2-4; Quebell 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Moreno 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K; Rockburn 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

At least I had one thing working to my advantage that the suckers on the travel crew didn’t have. I could cry myself to sleep in my OWN bed.

There was a roster change after this series. The hapless, useless, clueless Cesar Pena (squid-for-19) was sent to AAA. We needed another arm! Right-hander Claudio Salazar came up to help out for a few days. He had appeared in one game earlier this year, allowing two runs in two innings.

Raccoons (53-59) @ Scorpions (55-61) – August 11-13, 2006

The Scorpions were third-worst in offense and fifth-worst in pitching in the Federal League and at 18 games out in their division they were hardly relevant. Well, cry us a river, Stingbeetles. We have not faced them since 2002 and we have not won a series since 1996, having won two games in the last four encounters…

Projected matchups:
Tim Webster (3-2, 3.60 ERA) vs. Chad Wright (6-14, 5.67 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (3-3, 5.32 ERA) vs. Carlos Castro (12-10, 3.54 ERA)
Ralph Ford (10-9, 3.32 ERA) vs. Manny Guzmán (1-3, 5.52 ERA)

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF T. Castro – 1B Quebell – CF Crespo – RF Mays – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – P Webster
SAC: CF Cavazos – C Gibson – 2B A. Munoz – 1B Cain – SS Butler – RF J. Rivera – 3B V. Nava – LF A. Johnson – P Wright

Before the perpetually assaulted veteran Chad Wright (64-103, 4.85 ERA for his career) registered an out, the Raccoons had already crossed home plate five times on a bases-loaded walk to Quebell and then a 2-run single by Crespo. Webster even managed to put up a zero in the first, courtesy of not one, but TWO awesome catches by Castro in leftfield, but soon enough this became another game of who would collapse a little less rapidly. The Scorpions collected three hits and a run off Webster in the second while Wright fell victim to a 2-out, 2-run triple by Danny Sharp in the third, then plated him with a wild pitch past his confused catcher Rodney Gibson. Wright was not seen after that, presumably executed by his manager, if he ticked any bit like me, while Webster relied on the defense more than made a casual witness comfortable. The Scorpions stranded pairs in the third and fifth innings, but got a run on a 2-out RBI double by Avery Johnson in the sixth, while their long reliever Drew Bush shut out the Critters over three innings. Webster somehow survived seven innings with eight hits and three walks against him. Actual damage was limited to two runs, with Bob Mays making another strong catch to end the seventh with runners on the corners. Ed Bryan pitched a scoreless eighth, allowing a hit to Vincente Nava, but then starting a double play to clean up. The Coons had been entirely silent ever since Wright had vacated the premises, put a runner on third base in the ninth when Flores singled and stole a bag, but left him on. Salazar got the ninth, couldn’t lift it, and Marcos Bruno had to come in to get the final two outs with K’s. 7-2 Coons. Nomura 2-5, 2B; Flores 3-5; Crespo 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Sharp 2-4, 3B, 2B, 2 RBI;

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – P F. Garcia
SAC: CF Cavazos – 2B R. Jackson – 3B S. Reece – 1B Cain – SS Butler – LF R. Anderson – RF A. Johnson – C Mata – P C. Castro

The offensive onslaught continued, on both sides. The Raccoons scored pairs of runs in the first two innings, and Garcia had nothing better to do than giving back as many runs as he could. The Scorpions scored three times off him in the early going, then drew advantage when Garcia drilled Avery Johnson to start the bottom of the fourth. Mata and Jackson doubled, and Cavazos singled in between to give the Scorpions a 5-4 lead, chase Garcia, who was full of ****, and Ed Bryan struck out Sonny Reece to at least get out of the inning trailing only by one run. The Scorpions continued to have their own pitching woes, though, as Kevin Poisson retired Nomura to start the fifth, but then allowed three singles to Flores, Brady, and Quebell to load the bases. The Coons looked almost done with the inning when Mays hit a fly to center that was barely enough to plate Flores for a sacrifice, but then Sharp hit an 0-2 pitch to right to score Brady, Fernandez walked, and Bowen’s grounder was misfielded by Reece for a run-scoring error and a new 7-5 lead, that grew to 8-5 the next inning when Poisson brought home Flores with a wild pitch, but the Raccoons could always match any amount of mess. With Adam Riddle in his second inning of work, Quebell made a really excruciating error that led to an unearned run in the bottom 6th, and Marcos Bruno was brought into the inning to retire Sonny Reece and Sammy Cain. Reece was a left-handed batter, but Bryan was gone and Moreno was way overworked.

This had nothing to do with mixing and matching or some other clever form of bullpen usage strategy – it was throwing as much **** at the wall until something would stick and we held an 8-6 through six and then through seven when Rockburn turned in a scoreless frame, then found trouble in the eighth. Julio Mata, of all scums, hit a leadoff single, and Anastasio Munoz also hit a single to right. Mata went to third, but there was thrown out by Mays. Rockburn was replaced with Kichida, which was not a stellar choice to begin with, and he immediately got torn apart, with Ramiro Cavazos hitting a single, and Rickey Jackson smacking a double that got the Scorpions to 8-7 with the winning runs in scoring position. Kichida gave an intentional walk to Sonny Reece before Angel Casas replaced him. Angel struck out Sammy Cain, then got a grounder to short that Yoshi Yamada converted into the third out and the Raccoons – total undeservedly – remained ahead by one tiny run. Casas was due to bat in the ninth with Quebell on first and two outs, but we had nobody available that could be trusted with the ninth inning and Angel had to bat, resulting in a strikeout, but bounced back in the bottom of the inning to three times get groundball fodder for the Yoshi to either side of second base. 8-7 Coons. Nomura 2-5, RBI; Flores 3-5, 2B, RBI; Brady 3-5, RBI; Quebell 2-4, RBI; Casas 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, SV (32);

What is this week!? So far we have scored 36 runs and conceded 40!

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Esquivel – P Ford
VAN: CF Cavazos – C R. Gibson – 2B A. Munoz – 1B Cain – 3B S. Reece – SS Butler – RF J. Rivera – LF Dubois – P Guzmán

We were just begging for a decent pitching performance from Ralph Ford here. Anything better than three runs in six innings we would gladly take.

No runs through three innings for anybody! Not even a hit the first time through the lineup for either team, if you were willing to ignore the hit batsman Sammy Cain. Both teams got a proper hit from the top of their lineup fairly soon, and the Raccoons even took a 1-0 lead in the fourth on hits from Brady and Mays. Ralph Ford had traffic on the bases in every inning past the first, and in the fifth bloked by surrendering a double to the opposing pitcher that led to Rodney Gibson’s 2-out RBI single to tie the game. Top 6th, Brady singled with one out before Quebell grounded to the second baseman, but Munoz missed the pickup and didn’t get two, not even one, but the Critters had two men on with one out. Bobo Mays cashed in by ramming a 3-run homer into the rightfield stands! That 4-1 lead was no way safe – Ford kept creating a mess on the base paths. In the bottom 6th Clyde Brady had to run every which way to collect three outs to strand the two runners Ford put on base anyway, and Brady made another great catch on Rodney Gibson’s looping fly at the leftfield line before bouncing off the wall in foul ground, a catch that ended the seventh inning. We needed three relievers in the bottom 8th after Raw Lockburn had his hair set on fire by Sammy Cain’s 17th homer of the season, chipping our lead to 4-2.

Top 9th, Sharp worked a walk against lefty Jerry Paul and was run for by Yamada, who was caught stealing. Esquivel singled, and when Tomas Castro hit for the pitcher he hit a triple to get us to 5-2 (but we now had officially lost a run). In a perfect world we would have hit a right-hander for Nomura, who was 0-4 on the day, but we were a man short and had no infielders left. Nomura struck out, which made the ninth Angel’s. Angel didn’t get ahead of any batter. Jesus Rivera singled before Jean-Paul Dubois and Julio Mata struck out in full counts, but then Ramiro Cavazos singled on a 2-0 pitch, bringing PH Avery Johnson up as the tying run. Finally Angel got ahead, 1-2, before Johnson made contact. Oh ****, that one is deep. Brady racing back, Brady looking up, he jumps at the wall and makes the catch! 5-2 Critters! Brady 2-4; Mays 2-4, HR, 4 RBI; Castro (PH) 1-1, 3B, RBI; Ford 7.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, W (11-9);

Ralph Ford might have gotten official credit for the win, but Clyde Brady is due at least 75% of it… also, 90% of the save!

In other news

August 7 – The Indians take a hit as a bruised wrist will send 1B/3B/LF David Lopez (.255, 20 HR, 73 RBI) to the disabled list for three weeks.
August 7 – MIL 1B Paco Batlle (.235, 7 HR, 39 RBI) has strained an oblique and is out for a month.
August 8 – SFW 1B Raúl Bovane (.315, 9 HR, 67 RBI) gets a hit in the Warriors’s 2-1 win over the Stars and extends his hitting streak to 20 games.
August 8 – The oblique strains continue: DAL OF Cesar Morán (.321, 13 HR, 67 RBI) is the next victim and figures to miss a month’s worth of games.
August 9 – There had not been a cycle in the ABL for almost two years until last Sunday, now there have been two in four days: ATL C/1B Jason Clark (.276, 1 HR, 36 RBI) times the occurrence of his annual home run perfectly, hitting it off Oklahoma’s Pancho Trevino in the first inning, with a triple, double, and single to follow for the FIRST REVERSE NATURAL CYCLE in ABL history! The 38th cycle in league history is the third for the Knights (Jai Utting, 1993; Edgar Morris, 1997),

Complaints and stuff

Strange week… Wednesday was the game where it became clear for good that the Raccoons weren’t going anywhere, would never ever be going anywhere anymore, and in short were a terrible **** parade in every aspect of the game. It was not just that we fell to ten games out. We were never in contention in the first place. But the profound drubbing we were handed was just too clearly formulated to be misunderstood.

Nick Brown will start a rehab assignment early next week, and we’re looking for two starts in AAA for him before he will return to the big league team, so he might start for the Brownies as early as the weekend series against the Knights. Remember that we will have Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day on August 26, and the first 15,000 fans in attendance will receive a wonderful Daniel Hall Bobblehead, with 223 of those being signed.

By the way, Jose Dominguez’ ERA for the Raccoons? 7.97 …

No matter what we do. If we trade for somebody, he immediately throws up the paws and dies. If we trade somebody away, he starts spinning shutouts and gets a shoe contract.

Where have the good times gone?

[Texasborn]

2 in one day?

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Texasborn

2 in one day?

True Raccoons fans can endure this much suffering! And I had today off from work to watch NASCAR on Sunday night and post at such an ungodly hour

---

Raccoons (56-59) vs. Capitals (54-63) – August 15-17, 2006

Hey, off day! After that, our old friends, the Capitals. They are in no better a situation than us, fifth place, out of anything you keep breathing for, although they didn’t have their ace on the DL. Their ace was Randy Farley, and with 14 wins and his 2.40 ERA you wonder what the heck went wrong in Portland – again.

Overall, the Capitals were bad at scoring runs, second last in the FL (say hello, little Furballs), and also were conceding the fourth-most runs. Basically, their whole pitching staff aside from Randy Farley was junk. On top of all that, they had a bottom 3 defense. We lined up with them last year, losing two of three.

Projected matchups:
Jose Dominguez (12-9, 4.45 ERA) vs. Chris York (7-10, 4.49 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (5-12, 4.61 ERA) vs. Harry Wentz (11-10, 4.08 ERA)
Tim Webster (4-2, 3.51 ERA) vs. Dean Merritt (6-11, 5.39 ERA)

The Capitals have an outfielder, Raúl Vázquez – who is NOT … THE Raúl Vázquez, the home run leader. This Vázquez is 25, looks decent, but not Hall of Fame material.

Game 1
WAS: SS Lulli – 3B Matsumoto – RF J. Gomez – LF R. Vázquez – C Case – CF E. Wood – 1B R. Vargas – 2B F. Adams – P York
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Castro – 1B Quebell – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – P Dominguez

The Coons fell behind in the second inning, the blame being on Yoshi Nomura throwing away a grounder from Elvis Wood, the guy the Coons wanted, but weren’t allowed to get, in the second inning, with Roberto Vargas singling home Wood quickly. The Raccoons had the bases loaded with two outs and Dominguez at the plate, but nothing was going to transpire from that. Obviously, when Chris York led off the third inning with the bat, he singled, Dominguez balked, then walked Adriano Lulli, and ex-Titan Masaaki Matsumoto hit a screaming double into the gap to jump the Capitals to 3-0, and then that young Vázquez would get a single to right in to plate Matsumoto and run the score to 4-0. Dominguez would bunt into a double play and allow five runs in five and two thirds, four of which were earned, and for which he was relentlessly booed by the home crowd, and the two runners he left on in the sixth inning were almost surrendered by Adam Riddle with a deep drive to left center by Adriano Lulli, but Fernandez was on his post and made the out, but what Riddle didn’t get done there, him and Bryan achieved in the seventh inning, putting up another 3-spot for the Capitals while tossing batting practice. Somewhere along this unhappy road the Raccoons had scored a run in the third inning. Not that it mattered too greatly, even when the Critters put up a 4-spot in the bottom 7th against a tiring York who issued a number of walks, then didn’t get too good relief. All runs scored with two outs on a Brady single, Sharp walk, and Fernandez single. The team even got the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning with a Yamada single and Sharp taking one too close for comfort, but once Fernandez stepped in against Jose Escobar with two outs, all too quickly the game ended with a strikeout. 8-5 Capitals. Nomura 0-1, 4 BB; Yamada 1-1; Brady 2-5, 2 RBI; Fernandez 2-4, BB, 2 RBI;

But hey, progress! Dominguez shaved off .35 from his ERA and now is tossing at a 7.62 ERA rate for the Portlanders. That’s true, genuine progress!

**** my …

Game 2
WAS: SS Lulli – 3B Matsumoto – RF J. Gomez – LF R. Vázquez – C Case – CF E. Wood – 1B P. Brown – 2B H. Cardenas – P Wentz
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Castro – 1B Quebell – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – P Watanabe

Between W. Atanabe and W. Entz there could be only one W. In, but countless bad puns – and a few runs here or there. The Raccoons got a good start, with three straight singles from their top 3 batters, and with two outs again a single from Sharp and a double from Fernandez to quickly race out to 4-0 lead. That lead had to rest in Watanabe’s unqualified paws however. How unqualified were those paws? Very unqualified. In the top 2nd, the Capitals came close to home runs twice, with Brady and Castro making catches on the warning track, hit two singles anyway, but didn’t score. In the bottom of the inning, Watanabe led off with a double to right – except it was no double, and he was out, for he had cut first base by several feet…

It was one of those stunning games. Most stunned was Wentz, who couldn’t get anybody out if not for extraordinary stupidity by his opponent. After that non-double, Nomura walked, Flores singled, and Castro cashed in with a 3-run homer. Quebell singled, Brady singled, and then Wentz was no more in the game. Jesus Longoria would surrender one of the runs, leaving Wentz with an ugly 1.1 IP, 8 ER line. Longoria would not be left unscarred, however, with the Coons having Castro double in a pair in the third to reach double digits – IN THE THIRD INNING. Watanabe didn’t allow runs through five innings, although both teams had the bases loaded in the fourth, and neither scored. By the bottom 5th, Castro had a shot at the cycle, but lacked the hardest part, the triple. We were satisfied with a single over the shortstop for the moment, especially as it set off another 3-run inning with Quebell getting on, and then Brady plating one, and Sharp two, with hits. Apparently, a 13-run lead was exactly the sweet spot for Watanabe, who reeled off a number of strikeouts in the sixth and seventh. Kichida appeared in the eighth, loaded the bases, but got out of it. All in all, the Capitals managed five hits in a shutout in which their pitching was conclusively dismantled. 13-0 Furballs! Flores 3-5; Castro 4-5, HR, 2B, 6 RBI; Quebell 2-5; Sharp 2-4, BB, 2B, 3 RBI; Fernandez 3-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Crespo (PH) 1-1, 2B; Watanabe 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K, W (6-12);

Whenever one of those laughers happens, you hope that you crippled their bullpen for the remaining games in this series. But it probably is not the case here. While we sent Wentz and Longoria crying, they only used two other guys and should have five relievers available tomorrow.

Game 3
WAS: SS Lulli – 3B Matsumoto – RF J. Gomez – C Case – LF R. Vázquez – CF E. Wood – 1B P. Brown – 2B F. Adams – P Merritt
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Castro – 1B Quebell – 3B Sharp – RF Brady – CF Fernandez – C Esquivel – P Webster

The Critters got a highlights play early. Lulli had singled to start the game and had a running start with one out and Gomez batting. Vic Flores leapt to snare Gomez’ soft line, then comfortably doubled up Lulli, who had already made it to second base. The Raccoons got handed a 1-0 lead on a wild pitch from southpaw Dean Merritt in the bottom 1st. Merritt remained wild, throwing another pitch past his backstop in the third inning, which then helped the Raccoons to a run indirectly, moving runners to second and third with one out and giving Fred Adams the chance at only the out at first when Quebell grounded one to him. Then the score was 3-1, with Webster giving up many singles and being unable to strike out anybody. The Coons added a run on in the fourth after an error by the catcher Aaron Case on Clyde Brady’s stolen base attempt. Brady moved to third and scored on Fernandez’ groundout. But mess worked both ways at times, and did so in this game. Three singles loaded the bags with Capitals in the fifth and an unravelling Webster balked and surrendered another run on a sac fly before Case grounded out to end the inning with only a 4-3 lead remaining. Webster allowed another two singles before he got yanked in the sixth. Rockburn collected the last two innings in the frame to keep the Capitals at bay. The Coons also got a run on a balk in the seventh, but then – once more – it all came apart.

Top 8th, Moreno in the game against left-handers when suddenly the Portland weather remembered that it had to suck. Moreno got doused and chased after a 67-minute delay that didn’t end the game however. When Angel Casas resumed the game, the tying run was at the plate in Elvis Wood with a runner on first and one out. Wood, the guy the Coons wanted and couldn’t get, tripled, and the roof caved in. Phil Brown hit a sac fly, and there was a lead no more. The Raccoons got Yamada on base but didn’t score, and the collapse continued in the ninth. Casas put two men on, Bryan came in and couldn’t solve the problem, with Aaron Case driving in the go-ahead run.

Could there be a recovery against Jose Escobar? Flores struck out. Then Castro singled. And Quebell singled. Mays hit for the luckless Bryan and – singled! Castro around third, coming home, and he scores, tied at six! Brady was next, singled to load them up, and then Fernandez put the first pitch into play, up the middle, and PAST the infielders! 7-6 Raccoons! Nomura 2-3, 2 BB, 2B; Flores 3-5, 2B; Castro 2-5; Mays (PH) 1-1, RBI; Brady 2-5; Fernandez 2-5, 2 RBI; Yamada 1-1;

Well, the offense seems to have woken up, finally. But the pitching is … unnnggghh!!

To be precise, we have scored 98 runs this month – in 17 games!! They used to take 38 games to score a hundred!

… and we are just seven and a half back. These goddamn delusions!

Raccoons (58-60) @ Indians (67-54) – August 18-20, 2006

The Indians led the division by three, although still nobody quite knew how they did it. They had the Raccoons’ number however, beating them eight out of eleven this season, but overall they were only seventh in scoring and fourth in avoiding to be scored on. The Indians missed one third of their killer middle of the order, with David Lopez on the DL. Alston and Paraz were alive and well, though.

Projected matchups:
Felipe Garcia (3-3, 5.85 ERA) vs. Curtis Tobitt (14-4, 2.25 ERA)
Ralph Ford (11-9, 3.23 ERA) vs. Bob King (9-9, 4.12 ERA)
Jose Dominguez (12-10, 4.52 ERA) vs. Ramiro Gonzalez (11-10, 3.63 ERA)

We start the series with a full bench, sending Claudio Salazar back to AAA and recalling Steve Searcy.

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Castro – 1B Quebell – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – P F. Garcia
IND: CF A. Solís – SS J. Lopez – LF Alston – C Paraz – RF MacKey – 1B Battle – 3B Fugosi – 2B J. Miller – P Tobitt

Garcia allowed a leadoff jack to Angel Solís, put Lopez on with a single, then had Sharp start a double play. No, said Garcia, I want to create a blowout in the first inning! Paraz singled, and then he walked two. Sharp got Fugosi’s grounder, and telling Garcia to **** himself, and that he was an ***hole, retired Fugosi with a strong throw. Garcia almost surrendered a 3-run homer to Ron Alston in the second, but Fernandez caught it at the warning track, and made two more strong catches behind the useless donkey **** Garcia, who, in five innings, allowed five hits and five walks while striking out absolutely nobody. He was hit for in the top 6th, still in a 1-0 game. Tobitt had been perfect through four until Quebell drew a walk in the fifth. By now he had struck out nine, but had just allowed a leadoff single to Craig Bowen. Mays singled, but Nomura hit into a double play, and nobody scored. Tobitt would strike out a dozen Critters before on-and-off rain brought the tarp on by the seventh inning and Tobitt had his stellar outing cut short. Domingo Moreno held the Indians short for eight outs after Garcia’s departure, and the Raccoons still trailed by Solís’ leadoff jack in the ninth, facing Iemitsu Rin. Crespo struck out, Nomura grounded out, Flores struck out. 1-0 Indians. Mays (PH) 1-1; Moreno 2.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

Two hits in the game. Way to deflate. No surprise, though. It’s a **** team after all.

Garcia was designated for assignment and Sergio Vega called up.

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – 3B Sharp – RF Mays – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – P Ford
IND: CF A. Solís – RF B. Miller – LF Alston – 3B Fugosi – 2B J. Miller – C L. Paredes – 1B Brantley – SS C. Aguilar – P B. King

Yoshi led off with a single, casually hustled to second, but was thrown out there. The Coons didn’t score, but the Indians scored two in the first on RBI extra-base hits by Fugosi and Miller. While the Raccoons struggled to make any kind of contact against the Indians’ Bob King, Ford gave up hard hits readily, and was stuffed for five runs in four innings, but was squeezed out for six anyway. The Raccoons had nothing against King until James Miller played on into their lap with an error in the seventh inning. Searcy and Nomura were on for Vic Flores, who singled to left and scored Searcy for an unearned run, but Brady quickly rolled up and died – as did the hope of ever winning a game against these Indians. Sergio Vega, who would not make a start until next week, appeared in relief in the eighth, walked the first three batters he saw, and was charged with two runs. 7-1 Indians. Flores 3-4, RBI; Sharp 2-4; Searcy (PH) 1-1;

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Castro – RF Brady – CF Crespo – 1B Sharp – C Esquivel – 3B Searcy – P Dominguez
IND: CF A. Solís – RF B. Miller – LF Alston – C Paraz – 1B Battle – 3B C. Aguilar – 2B Brantley – SS J. Lopez – P R. Gonzalez

Yoshi drew a leadoff walk and would score after cheap singles by Castro and Brady, when Crespo hit a fly to Alston in left. When Steve Searcy retired Ramiro Gonzalez on a foul pop to start the third inning, it was a Great Moment in Humanity: Jose Dominguez’ Portland ERA had dropped below seven, at 6.99; Promptly Solís and Bill Miller reached base, but Alston and Paraz made poor outs to the dismay of the home crowd.

Dominguez hit a sac fly in the fourth, bringing the lead to 2-0 before Nomura left another runner stranded. The Indians had runners on the corners in the bottom 4th but didn’t score when Nomura then caught Ramiro Gonzalez’ liner before it could do damage. Top 5th, bases loaded for Sergio Esquivel who sent a fly to right center, but Bill Miller was there. Angel Solís hit a leadoff single in the bottom 5th but again the middle of the order failed to get good contact off Dominguez. Somehow, Dominguez made it through six innings on close to 110 pitches without surrendering a run, while giving his defense a workout and getting doubled off second base on Flores’ liner in the top of the sixth.

Jose Paraz became the center of attention by the seventh. He was an awesome player, with one flaw: he had a pathetic arm, and you could usually run against him at will. Both Castro and Crespo stole bases off him in the seventh, taking away a double play from Brady, and motivating the Indians to have reliever Iván Lopez walk Sharp(!) intentionally. Which was fine: Esquivel singled in Crespo to make it a 4-0 game, before two left-handed pinch hitters (Quebell and Mays) plainly failed against the righty Lopez to end the inning. Filippo Fugosi had entered in a double switch with Lopez, playing third, and made a grave throwing error on Nomura’s grounder to start the eighth. Brady would plate Nomura with a single, 5-0, while Ed Bryan saw five left-handers and switch hitters and sat down all of them between the seventh and eighth. In the ninth, it became a rout. Quebell and Bowen drew walks off Lopez, bringing in Ricardo Sanchez to finally subdue the Coons. Instead, he hit Nomura. With the bags stuffed, Flores and Castro would both stroke hard hits off Sanchez, both plating two runners. But even in a rout, some bloke had to do something annoying. Kaz Kichida was tabbed for the ninth (because why would be take Bruno?), got the first two Indians, then allowed a homer to Jose Lopez. 9-1 Coons. Flores 2-6, 2B, 2 RBI; Castro 4-6, 2 RBI; Brady 2-6, RBI; Crespo 3-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Sharp 2-3, 2 BB; Dominguez 6.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K, W (13-10); Bryan 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Yoshi Nomura has been hit ten times this season. I am starting to get the impression that other teams hate him.

In other news

August 14 – Sioux Falls’ Raúl Bovane (.314, 9 HR, 68 RBI) has his hitting streak end after 23 games, behind held dry by the Thunder despite the Warriors clubbing Oklahoma, 12-4.
August 16 – SFB SS/2B Juan Barrón (.306, 3 HR, 43 RBI) joins the 2,500 hits club, with a 3-4 day in the Bayhawks’ 5-2 win over the Pacifics. Barrón’s single off Brian Patrick in the first inning achieves the milestone, and at 34 years old, Barrón still has excellent chances to reach 3,000 hits. A .307/.348/.389 career batter with 31 HR and 811 RBI, and 168 SB, Barrón was originally drafted sixth overall by the Falcons in 1990, and has spent his entire career in the CL South for the Falcons, Condors, and Bayhawks, winning four Gold Gloves along the way, one at second, and three at short. He led the league in 1994 with 60 doubles.
August 16 – SAC 1B Sammy Cain (.234, 21 HR, 71 RBI) is on fire, swatting three home runs to plate half a dozen runners in an 11-5 romp over the Condors. It is the 16th time an ABL batter has achieved three dingers in a single game, the first time for the Scorpions, and the second time this year after L.A.’s Yohan Bonneau did it to the Stars on June 6.
August 17 – Milwaukee’s SP Roy Thomas (5-8, 6.51 ERA) 2-hits the Miners in a 7-0 shutout.
August 18 – Cincy’s own veteran, LF/RF Dan Morris (.325, 25 HR, 82 RBI) has put together a 20-game hitting streak with three hits in an 11-5 romp over the Miners.
August 18 – The Warriors and Gold Sox clobber another, with the Warriors taking the game 14-11, but man of the game was Denver’s Jose Correa (.321, 3 HR, 40 RBI), who has five hits and drives in six runners.
August 18 – TIJ CF/LF Ramón Perez (.303, 9 HR, 42 RBI) will miss a week with a thumb contusion.
August 20 – TOP CL Ryosei Kato (5-0, 2.53 ERA, 33 SV) brings a lead to safety for the 300th time in the Buffaloes’ 3-2 win over the Blue Sox. A 5-time All Star and 2005 Reliever of the Year, Kato is 34 and should have ample time for a push to 400.
August 20 – Dan Morris (.322, 25 HR, 82 RBI) only makes it to 21 games with his hitting streak before getting silenced by the Miners on Sunday.

Complaints and stuff

Me watching what is developing in first place is of course the desperation of a physically, mentally, and foremost spiritually broken man. There is no actual point to it.

Tuesday was Nick Brown’s first rehab start. He walked six and lasted only five innings, conceding three runs. He also struck out six and took a meaningless win. Sunday’s start was WAY better for him: he went seven innings, allowed two hits, and struck out a dozen while walking one. That Brownie please, with the loads of sugar on it, to go, please!

We will add him to the roster after Vega’s start early next week. We have that double header next week, so somehow, somewhere, we need a spot start. I’m looking at Kaz, but it’s convoluted: we have Monday off, then three against the Titans. Right now we have Watanabe, Webster, Vega tabbed. Friday is our double header with the Knights. Regular rest does put Brown on Friday, going along with Ford. Then we would have four more before an off day, with Dominguez slated to pitch on Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day – first 15,000 fans receive a Daniel Hall Bobblehead, with 223 of those signed by the appreciable Daniel Hall – and then it would be Watanabe on Sunday on regular rest, and the following week it’s Webster, a big question mark, and then …? We might have to keep Vega around unless we want to start Brown on short rest right away. Or Ford on short rest. I don’t like keeping Vega around, since he’s essentially useless and occupies a valuable roster spot. As it is, we will already go to a short bench when Brownie returns, demoting Searcy.

Felipe Garcia suffered addition by subtraction for like the third time this year. We will bridge our way to Brown’s return in whatever condition with a spot start by Sergio Vega. You may remember him, although it’s not mandatory. Completely unremarkable right-hander with no stuff, little control, and failed auditions every year from 2001 through 2004.

The FL Player of the Week hit .375 with 4 HR and 13 RBI. He is on the Stars. His name is Christian Greenman.

Stats time! Here are the career home run leaders – by franchise! Players with an asterisk are still active with the respective franchise.

CIN – Dan Morris – 329 *
LAP – Anibal Rodriguez – 318
ATL – Michael Root – 284
DAL – Mac Woods – 252
WAS – Jeffery Brown – 243 (HOF)
MIL – Bakile Hiwalani – 229 *
POR – Daniel Hall – 223
RIC – Raúl Vázquez – 207
IND – David Lopez – 205 *
OCT – Dave Browne – 194
SAC – Aaron Jenkins – 179
NAS – Horace Henry – 173
TIJ – Preston O’Day – 165
BOS – Luis Lopez – 161 *
NYC – Avery Johnson – 160
VAN – Miguel Guzmán – 154
SAL – Benny Carver – 148
TOP – Corey Patel – 144
LVA – Javier Vargas – 140
SFB – Pedro Perez – 135
DEN – Dale Wales – 133
CHA – Hubert Green – 132 *
SFW – John Hensley – 120
PIT – Carlos Torres – 109

I hope the “bench player” thing on player strategy works and the AI doesn’t go nuts to start Brown before I can get him up. I set it to five days starting Monday…

[pgjocki]

[Westheim]

Raccoons (59-62) vs. Titans (62-63) – August 22-24, 2006

The Titans were similar enough to the Raccoons this season, scoring little (10th in CL), and pitching more or less respectable (4th in CL). The difference was significant however. Their run differential was -3, the Coons’ was -29. We had played a dozen so far, and had split those brotherly. By now, they had last year’s surprise slugger Jim Brulhart back, who had appeared in two games since being activated from the DL, not getting any hits.

Projected matchups:
Kenichi Watanabe (6-12, 4.38 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (11-7, 3.07 ERA)
Tim Webster (4-2, 3.61 ERA) vs. Ray Conner (9-11, 4.39 ERA)
Sergio Vega (0-0, 18.00 ERA) vs. Paul Kirkland (10-10, 4.65 ERA)

Conner might get skipped, in which case we’d get Bryce Hildred (6-13, 4.40 ERA). At least no veteran coonchoker in Jason O’Halloran this time through.

Game 1
BOS: 2B D. Silva – 3B M. Austin – LF Brulhart – RF G. Munoz – SS Hutchinson – C Rosa – CF Walls – 1B L. Lopez – P Chapa
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Crespo – RF Brady – 1B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – 3B Searcy – P Watanabe

But here come the Victims: Vic Flores threw away Daniel Silva’s grounder to start the game, giving Silva second base and the Titans a rather easy, unearned run to get this opener going. This was only the first act to a soul-and-mind cruncher of a game. Watanabe was simply not up to the task, allowing a home run to Gonzalo Munoz the second time through, and then Jim Brulhart’s first hit of the year was also a long one, counting for two and making it 4-0 in the fifth. Watanabe did not survive the sixth inning, when shoddy defense on Searcy’s part became coupled with his no-stuff, leaving two men on with no outs in the inning. Domingo Moreno was called on to deal with switch-hitter Luis Lopez, who was weaker against left-handers, but just managed to master Moreno and hit a 3-run homer that put the game to a very definite rest, since at that junction the Raccoons were getting 1-hit by Jorge Chapa, who had always been full of miracles. He would surrender one run on a few cheap first-pitch singles in the eighth inning, but the Raccoons could never stop the bleeding, Kichida getting tagged for one run, and Adam Riddle for three, in a game in which they allowed 18 hits for 11 runs. 11-1 Titans. Sharp 3-4, 2B; Mays 1-1; Quebell 1-1, BB;

There were scarcely over 16,000 people at the park. I don’t think there will be much fight over the 15,000 bobbleheads on Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day, this Saturday, as the Raccoons face the Atlanta Knights.

Game 2
BOS: CF Garrison – 2B Heffer – SS Hutchinson – LF Brulhart – RF G. Munoz – C Rosa – 3B M. Austin – 1B H. Ramirez – P Conner
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – RF Crespo – 1B Quebell – LF Castro – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – P Webster

Just like the last bubble of air was escaping the Raccoons’ imaginary playoff bubble (if all other teams lose all their games…), Tim Webster, pretending to be a pitcher, also started to lose his false color coating and was exposed as the dirty piece of **** that he was. The first inning went something like that: Garrison double, Heffer walked, wild pitch; then a sac fly by Hutchinson, and Brulhart homered. Munoz walked, Rosa doubled, another sac fly, another wild pitch, and some miraculous play in the field to keep the score at a manageable 4-0. In an eventful day, Webster spent 100 pitches on six innings of work, both driving in a run with a double, and conceding a run to the opposing pitcher Conner, while always maintaining a safe lead – for the Titans. Conner’s RBI would be their only one past the first against Webster, but despite two triples by J.C. Crespo and a Quebell home run, the Raccoons still trailed, 5-4, when in the sixth they first had Castro thrown out stealing, then hit another three singles, and still didn’t score. Domingo Moreno absolutely found it necessary to surrender a home run to the old wailer Freddy Rosa, giving the Titans that insurance run you don’t want to give up. But hey, maybe we can still make it way worse! Moreno drilled Garrison at the start of the ninth inning, and we went to Marcos Bruno to get it over with – and Bruno got soiled relentlessly. Four hits, a hit batter, two walks (one intentional), and when HE left with his head hanging in shame to cut himself, Ed Bryan kept the line moving. 11-4 Titans. Crespo 2-5, 2 3B; Quebell 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Castro 3-4; Fernandez 3-4, RBI; Mays (PH) 1-1;

We out-hit them 15-14. How is something like that even possible!?

If there was any way to dump Webster to Siberia, I would be all in. But sadly, we can’t have Nick Brown pitch six days a week. Some baboon has to take the ball four out of five days. And Vega has to be eliminated first.

But sssshhh. Don’t tell him until after his start.

Game 3
BOS: C Rosa – 3B M. Austin – LF Brulhart – RF G. Munoz – SS Hutchinson – CF Garrison – 2B H. Ramirez – 1B Heffer – P Hildred
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – CF Crespo – C Bowen – P Vega

Sergio Vega for a while enjoyed the privilege of playing against a team in which desperation had bred idiocy. In the third inning alone, the Titans had Freddy Rosa ejected for arguing balls and strikes (mainly strikes, and he wasn’t quite arguing, either), and had TWO runners thrown out on the base paths. They still scored a run on two walks and three hits, none soft, to go up 1-0. The Coons would follow up that challenge with leaving runners on first and third in both the third and fourth innings.

At first glance, Vega would make a good start. 97 pitches for six innings of 1-run ball. Putting it that way was a great injustice to the 11 Titans runners that reached against him and somehow vanished in the void. He was still on the hook, since the Raccoons just didn’t hit. The Titans would amount to 13 hits in their nine innings this time, but didn’t score again against the parade of Rockburn, Kichida, Bryan, and Casas (who had to get work). We faced Manuel Martinez (who had pitched the previous days just to get work) in the ninth, still trailing 1-0 with Bob Mays leading off, and he struck out. Sharp singled, but Yamada had already been used to no effect in the eighth. Crespo struck out before Fernandez hit for Bowen, grounded to second – and Hector Ramirez threw it away! That put the winning runs in scoring position and we had to hit for Angel Casas. Our choices were Searcy and Esquivel. Felt like a funeral as Sergio Esquivel grabbed a bat and walked out there. He grounded to second, Ramirez played it again, but this time found his first baseman. 1-0 Titans. Nomura 2-4; Flores 2-4, 2B; Sharp 1-2, 2 BB;

I just want to die.

But that would be a shame, now that I have made it that close to Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day, with the first 15,000 fans receiving a Daniel Head Bobblehall this Saturday before the game against the Atlanta Knights!

Raccoons (59-65) vs. Knights (65-60) – August 25-27, 2006 – DANIEL HALL APPRECIATION & BOBBLEHEHAD WEEKEND!!

The Knights had a run differential of +9, with every game basically descending into wildness. With a league average ERA of around 3.90, the Knights were scoring over 4.9 runs per game, and allowed just below 4.9 runs per game. No lead was ever safe when they were involved, but two of their key outfielders were on the DL in Rodrigo Lopez and Stephen Ware, the latter being lost for the season. We had won four of five against them this season, and we’d play four games on the weekend, with an opening double header before we would then have Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day on Saturday for game 3.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (7-3, 2.62 ERA) vs. Jong-suk Lee (12-11, 4.12 ERA)
Ralph Ford (11-10, 3.38 ERA) vs. Eric Stevens (7-9, 4.85 ERA)
Jose Dominguez (13-10, 4.35 ERA) vs. Greg Grams (6-5, 4.40 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (6-13, 4.54 ERA) vs. Johnny Collins (8-11, 4.69 ERA)

Stevens is the only left-hander in their rotation. We miss the worst guy they have to offer, Vicente Perez, with a 6.07 ERA.

Game 1
ATL: RF Plummer – 3B C. Martinez – CF J. Morales – 1B J. Garcia – 2B J. Gutierrez – 2B A. Rodriguez – C Hurtado – SS Fish – P J.S. Lee
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – CF Crespo – C Esquivel – P Brown

Nick Brown’s first major league game in two months began with a 7-pitch strikeout to Doug Plummer. He also struck out Jose Morales in a perfect first, before Brady doubled in Yoshi Nomura in the bottom of the inning. The 1-0 lead became a 3-0 lead in the second inning, with Brown singling home a run with a chop job over Jorge Garcia, but struck out with the bases loaded to end the third inning at 4-0 against a rapidly imploding Jong-suk Lee. He left the game in the fourth after Nomura’s leadoff single with an apparent injury. Brown was perfect the first time through the Knights’ order, but Plummer’s leadoff triple in the fourth brought a run home for the Knights quickly, cutting the lead to 4-1, and the Knights were far from defeated, stranding two men in both of the next two innings with the tying run at the plate grounding out to Flores both times to end it, and the comfort zone got even smaller in the seventh inning. The Knights had a man on first when unheralded Tom Fish doubled to right, and the run scored, 4-2. With two out, Plummer grounded to Quebell, who blew it, and suddenly the tying runs were on the corners. Here, we wanted Brown to face the right-hander Carlos Martinez rather than bring a right-hander, have him fail, then go to a left-hander immediately. If Brown loads the bases, or allows a single, he can still pitch against the left-handers behind Martinez, with Morales and Garcia combining for 45 home runs on the year. We had another game to play after all!

But Brown left on a high note, striking out Martinez to have a very decent comeback, two runs in seven innings, whiffing eight. You were longing for an insurance runs, but for some time they were only grounding out to the middle infielders in this game. Moreno came in to face the monster left-handers, retired Morales on a foul pop, then was taken well deep by Garcia, cutting Brownie’s lead to 4-3. Yamada ran when Sharp drew a leadoff walk against Clyde Henderson. He got to second without much effort on Henderson’s wild pitch to Crespo, who was then walked intentionally, only for Esquivel to hit into a double play and for Castro to ground out terribly. No insurance! Angel retired the first two Knights in the ninth, then Plummer hit a single. OH MY GOD THE NERVES!! Full count on Martinez – who grounded to Nomura, to first, out! Phew!! 4-3 Brownies!! Sharp 1-2, 2 BB, 2B; Brown 7.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, W (8-3) and 1-3, RBI;

Game 2
ATL: RF Plummer – C J. Clark – CF J. Morales – 1B J. Garcia – 2B J. Gutierrez – LF A. Rodriguez – 3B C. Martinez – SS T. Pena – P Stevens
POR: 2B Flores – RF Crespo – CF Fernandez – LF Castro – 1B Sharp – C Bowen – SS Yamada – 3B Searcy – P Ford

With at best three relievers available, Ford had to show something in this night cap. And with that we didn’t mean showing the Knights the way onto the scoreboard, but Juan Gutierrez homered in the second inning anyway. Ford was struggling, the Knights went to 2-0 in the third, and the Raccoons had runners on the corners with one out, but between Searcy and Ford to bat you better didn’t expect anything but tears. Having their first two men, Castro and Sharp, on base to start the fourth didn’t help either, as when Castro ran, Sharp ran, too, and was thrown out. Castro was kept pinned by Bowen’s ****ty groundout to third, and we didn’t score again. After a few dull innings, the bottom 6th opened with singles by Crespo and Fernandez, putting the tying runs on first and second like two innings earlier. We moved on when Stevens drilled Tomas Castro to load them up. And then – Sharp flew out poorly to right, keeping everybody pinned against Doug Plummer’s brutal arm. Bowen struck out. Brady hit for Yamada, but grounded out. The next inning finally brought relief. Searcy and Flores were on with one out for Crespo, who doubled to deep right, and even Plummer couldn’t keep Flores from scoring all the way from first base on this one, and it tied the score. Crespo would then score the go-ahead run without any help from the lineup, on a wild pitch and an error by Garcia.

Although we had a 3-2 lead through seven, and Ford was on 112 pitches, we couldn’t remove him. Morales and Garcia were leading off the eighth, and what had not been publicly announced, was well known to us: neither of our left-handed relievers was available – and we had to use the left-handed starter to get those two out. Morales hit a fly to deep left, but had it caught, and Garcia grounded out, and then Ford promptly was removed on 121 pitches. Adam Riddle was tasked with Gutierrez with the intent of saving Law Rockburn for the ninth inning. This barely worked – Gutierrez hit a looper into the gap, but Castro managed to blink himself there and snagged it. Law didn’t have that much himself, having pitched two days in a row, but he was aided greatly when the Knights fouled out twice in the ninth inning, and Rockburn struck out the middle batter as the Coons squeezed through again. 3-2 Coons! Crespo 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Fernandez 2-4, RBI; Nomura 1-1; Ford 7.2 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (12-10);

We didn’t use Kaz in the double header. You don’t want to use Kaz in a 4-3 game.

Next will be an event you don’t want to miss: Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day. Don’t miss tomorrow’s appreciating and mind-bobbling bonanza, with the first 15,000 fans receiving Daniel Hall Bobbleheads, 223 of those being signed by Daniel Hall!

Game 3
ATL: RF Plummer – C J. Clark – CF J. Morales – 1B J. Garcia – LF A. Rodriguez – 2B J. Gutierrez – 3B C. Martinez – SS T. Pena – P Grams
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Esquivel – P Dominguez

Dominguez was of course a disgrace to Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day, but we kinda were on a tight schedule here. He allowed a run in the first, then pretended to be decent for two innings before one hell of a fourth, in which he walked three, including one when the bases were already loaded. The Knights took a 3-0 lead, moved to 4-0 on Carlos Martinez’ homer in the fifth, and the Raccoons – were they playing or were they occupied bobbling and appreciating their Daniel Hall Bobbleheads? After six, we trailed 5-0, with two hits to our credit. Daniel Hall was not actually seen weeping when presented with the rather pathetic look of this outfit, but on the inside you bet he was. The Raccoons didn’t get a faint glimmer of offense until the seventh when Clyde Brady hit a fly to left that for half a second looked like it might be going, but soon enough dropped into Rodriguez’ unhustled glove in slightly deeper-than-average leftfield. Another run scored off Marcos Bruno in the ninth in the most horrible week he had had in years. Offensively, there was not the slightest sign of life as the Raccoons’ lineup lay down like rocks strewn across a desert. 6-0 Knights. Kichida 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Daniel Hall, 51 and having a grayish fuzz appearing around the temples, handed out bobbleheads along our regular crew on one of the gates before the game, then was the center of festivities before the actual game. We honored him with a banner showing his number #15 and his name (HALL), black lettering on brown ground, being unveiled on the front face of the upper deck of the stands in leftfield. The attendance was treated of highlights from his playing career (which was light on playoffs for the reason of too many hospital bills), but hardly anybody remembered his first major league hit (a pinch-hit RBI single on September 1, 1978 in a 5-1 win over the Loggers), and unfortunately there was no footage to be found of his first major league home run in the same series, which game in a non-televised game. But quite a number of people remembered the Daniel Hall Game, April 11, 1984, driving in nine runs in a 14-12 knife fight with the Bayhawks, in which he hit for 11 bases.

During the game, Dan The Man shook hands with fans, signed all kinds of stuff in different sections of the ballpark. Caps, yearbooks, a kid’s arm cast, and I *heard* that some guy also had his wheelchair-bound mother-in-law signed to make her more likeable. Can’t verify that.

Despite the game being a real mood killer, Dan afterwards and into the night hung out with us select few, you know, Slappy, me, Honeypaws, and Tim from Accounting, who showed Daniel the "I [heart] DAN THE MAN" tattoo on his left buttock that he had gotten himself in 1982. Drank a few, remembered the old times, cried a bit.

Those were manly cries, of course.

Game 4
ATL: RF Plummer – C J. Clark – CF J. Morales – 1B J. Garcia – LF A. Rodriguez – 2B J. Gutierrez – 3B C. Martinez – SS T. Pena – P J. Collins
POR: 2B Nomura – CF Fernandez – RF Mays – LF Castro – 1B Quebell – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – SS Yamada – P Watanabe

Watanabe didn’t have a clean inning until the fifth, and also didn’t strike out anybody until the fifth (and then it was Collins), but at least the Knights left all their runners on in those five innings. But so did the Raccoons. But Watanabe would have two singles with the bat, which didn’t get the offense going however. The first was one to lead off the third, which quickly led to a double play, and the latter came with two outs in the fifth, moved Yamada to second, but Nomura was something of a black hole in this game and kept being oh-fer, then blew the game in the top 6th when he got a grounder from Morales and mishandled it. Instead of a double play, Watanabe got two on and no outs, then had Fernandez drop Rodriguez’ soft fly to load the bases on the second inexplicable error of the inning. OF COURSE Juan Gutierrez hit a COMPLETELY UNEARNED grand slam after that, which was more than enough to sink the Raccoons in this one. Watanabe went six and two thirds, got no love whatsoever and probably cried all night like me. 4-0 Knights. Castro 2-3, 2B; Watanabe 6.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, L (6-14) and 2-2;

And just like that we haven’t scored in 19 innings.

In other news

August 22 – SFW INF/RF/CF Ramón Garza (.308, 3 HR, 61 RBI) has suffered an intercostal strain and will miss about a month.
August 27 – The Loggers pick up scruffy utility player Orlando Rios (.273, 10 HR, 44 RBI), who is 36 years old, from the Wolves, parting with two not-too-great A level players that go to Salem.

Complaints and stuff

First thing Monday morning, I will commission a Dadaist painting, perhaps 12 by 20 feet, of Sunday’s top half of the sixth inning. You know, one of those things that tell a story with everything happening at the same time, inside differently colored cubes. Or – … is M.C. Escher still alive?

I’m told by Whitebread, no.

What a nightmare!

That’s only #2 in our week in disarray. Shameful story of the year from Portland (and if the Agitator picks this up, it could get really bad), but … right now my office is occupied by 827 Daniel Hall Bobbleheads, because we have no other way to store them. We had 15,000 of the little fellas. There were 17,115 tickets sold to Saturday’s game. Tickets … SOLD. Actual attendance? 14,173. That includes season ticket holders not appearing (really puzzling!), guys that had tickets and couldn’t make it, corporate suites not occupied, yada-yada-yada. Anybody want a bobblehead? Actually we have 82*6* left - I managed to break the bat off one of the little guys - and any number of them might be signed.

Brownie – 64 wins, 1,073 strikeouts, and we keep counting. As we’re counting beans, I missed the following last week: Ralph Ford might have been choked by the Indians, but he struck out Ron Alston in the game to reach 1,000 career strikeouts himself. Ralph Ford – always overlooked, always his own fault.

Also overlooked: Daniel Sharp. On Sunday, for a very brief moment, his batting average reached .250; but that’s not the point. For years I have been bitching and moaning and throwing knives and snakes at him for his ****ty defense. He had 88 errors in five-and-a-bit seasons mostly manning third base, and two full dozen last year. He has only made THREE errors this year! He actually gained a quarter of a point of WAR from defense this year, for the first time in his career!

Not that it offsets the fact that he and his bat just dropped off the table, through the floor, through the floor underneath that, and then impacted the ground in the cellar to leave a 12ft deep crater…

AA CL Derrek Fredlund, whom we acquired like three weeks ago from the Warriors, has torn a flexor tendon and is out until next season, maybe late April, early May.

[Questdog]

10 out with 34 to play is a pretty tall order. Still tall, but not so tall we could not climb it is 20-14 to finish at .500.....

Oh, well, at least I went home with 3 bobble heads! I got mine and one a fella asked me to hold his while he went in to the john (I said, "Sure!" and then went back to my seat) and another I took from a stroller when no one was looking......

I got them home and I made me a big kind of a fork where I could tap all their heads at the same time to make them bobble in unison, but the springs are Chinese crap and the tensions are not the same, so no uni-bobbing possible. And now I am guilty of multiple thefts to no purpose.....

[Texasborn]

Originally Posted by Questdog

10 and another I took from a stroller when no one was looking.....

Hey!!! I wondered where that went!! Aw well, saw a guy at the gate dump an entire box of signed bobble heads into the trash.How much to you think I can get on EBay for these things?

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Questdog

I got them home and I made me a big kind of a fork where I could tap all their heads at the same time to make them bobble in unison, but the springs are Chinese crap and the tensions are not the same, so no uni-bobbing possible. And now I am guilty of multiple thefts to no purpose.....

Ya, well. We're the Raccoons. We can't afford a major league lineup. What makes you think we can afford quality parts for giveaways?

For the 20-14 thing ... I'd prefer 21-13 ... and ... at least we will have Nick Brown going rather than continuing to give starts to pushovers like Felipe Garcia.

No, the pushovers Webster, Watanabe, and Dominguez have not been replaced yet. Maybe we can find a few pitchers in our christmas stockings come December, and as always, everything will be well next year. (You know that Ralph Ford will be a free agent, don't you?)

[Westheim]

Why, we haven’t even cleared 100 losses yet, and still it’s September Callups Week already. How depressing.

Raccoons (61-67) @ Falcons (75-54) – August 28-30, 2006

The Falcons’ 669 runs scored where not only an insane mark (5.2 R/G) to begin with, and ranked them tops in the Continental League, they also had the Raccoons beat by a smothering 176 runs with that, as we ranked 11th with 493. For what it was worth, our pitching wasn’t that much worse than theirs – but still worse. Neither team had a stellar rotation. We have lost four of six against them in 2006, but took the season series three out of the last four years.

Projected matchups:
Tim Webster (4-3, 3.87 ERA) vs. Larry Cutts (13-4, 3.27 ERA)
Nick Brown (8-3, 2.61 ERA) vs. Jesus Hernandez (6-2, 4.02 ERA)
Ralph Ford (12-10, 3.34 ERA) vs. George Allen (6-11, 5.17 ERA)

Throwing three straight left-handed pitchers at them isn’t the worst thing that could happen. Their lineup leans heavily to the left side, so we might actually have an easier time. Have there ever been easy times in Portland??

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – SS V. Flores – LF Crespo – RF Brady – 1B Sharp – CF Fernandez – C Bowen – 3B Searcy – P Webster
CHA: LF J. Flores – RF Reya – 3B J. Lopez – C F. Chavez – 2B H. Green – 1B J. Rodriguez – CF Burke – SS Starks – P Cutts

Facing Cutts when already loaded with a 19-inning scoreless streak can’t be good for any team, and then we had Tim Webster in this game, who – left-handed opposing lineup or not – just stunk up the joint by now, and came pretty close to already taking a substantial hit to the chin in the first inning, but Eddie Fernandez sucked up Javy Rodriguez’ drive to deep center to keep three Falcons stranded and none over home plate. We couldn’t even trust Fernandez, however, who made a pathetic error to get the Falcons going in the third inning. While all three runs for the Falcons in the inning were eventually unearned, that didn’t excuse Webster for being flatout horrible, especially with two out. In the bottom 4th – after the Raccoons actually snapped their drought after 22 innings with a 2-out RBI single by Searcy(!) in the top of the inning – Webster had nobody on with two outs, still managed to load them up and then surrender that 3-run triple to Javy Rodriguez he didn’t manage to serve up in the first inning. That gave Larry Cutts a rather definitive 6-1 advantage in the game, which he still managed to get into danger, but not out of it. Brady singled, Sharp took a close one, and Bowen walked in the top 6th before the Falcons replaced Cutts, who had cut down eight, with Jerry Scott with Webster due up and two outs. Webster would have been hit for anyways, and Bob Mays came out and singled to get a run home, but Yoshi flew out to center and that threat was over for the moment, but not permanently: the Critters came back to raise their tails and sniff on the grapes of victory a few more times as Adrian Quebell pinch-hit for an RBI double off Scott in the seventh, and Yoshi Nomura singled home Searcy with two outs in the eighth. Flores also got on, but Crespo struck out against Lewis Donaldson. Down 6-4 and facing the nasty Luis Hernandez in the ninth inning, Brady drew a leadoff walk off the right-hander! As soon as they were into it, however, they were also out of it. Quebell hit into a double play, and Esquivel flew out to right. 6-4 Falcons. Flores 2-5; Brady 2-3, BB; Quebell (PH) 1-2, 2B, RBI; Fernandez 2-4; Searcy 2-4, 2B, RBI; Mays (PH) 1-1, RBI; Moreno 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

We need starting pitching so badly…

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – CF Castro – RF Mays – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – SS Yamada – P Brown
CHA: LF J. Flores – RF Reya – 1B Tsung – 3B J. Lopez – C F. Chavez – 2B H. Green – CF P. Estrada – SS J. Rodriguez – P J. Hernandez

Brown singled in his own lead in the top 2nd, a 2-out knock to plate Daniel Sharp, before coming unglued not long afterwards. The Falcons had runners on the corners with two outs in the bottom 3rd and the count was 1-2 on Fernando Chavez. Brownie’s fourth pitch was wild, scoring the tying run, and then Chavez singled home another in a full count. Brown loaded the bases and had Brady make two strong plays in the inning to avoid getting shoved into the gutter early. He still trailed 2-1, and who was gonna help him with that? Right.

The Raccoons didn’t get on base until the sixth again before Mays and Brady singled back-to-back to go onto the corners with one out. That brought up Quebell, who had grounded into 14 double plays this year, including one to kill a last-inning effort last night – and you know where this is leading, right? Right.

Regardless of individual batting performances, Nick Brown was torn to shreds by Rodriguez in the bottom 6th when the increasingly annoying youngster hit another RBI triple, then stole home. After all, five runs were loaded on Brown in 5.2 innings, making for one ****ty line with 11 hits allowed and only four strikeouts, three of those in the first inning. For the Coons, it only got worse, giving up five more runs in the bottom 7th, with Fernando Chavez homering off Rockburn, and Mun-wah Tsung, a former Raccoons’ farmhand, belting a 3-run homer off an completely unhelpful Ed Bryan. 10-2 Falcons. Mays 2-4; Brady 2-4, HR, RBI;

Maybe starting Brown on short rest wasn’t such a bright idea.

That still doesn’t explain how they piled up 10 runs.

And who was the moron that thought Quebell might be a good replacement for Albert Martin, who is rotting with the Titans’ AAA team?

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS V. Flores – LF Castro – RF Brady – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – P Ford
CHA: LF J. Flores – RF Reya – 1B Tsung – 3B J. Lopez – C F. Chavez – 2B H. Green – CF Rincón – SS Starks – P Allen

The Falcons tried every chapter in the book to let the Raccoons lead on a high note, with errors in the first two innings (which still didn’t help), and George Allen loaded up the bases in the third to get Quebell a chance with one out. For once, he forewent the double play chance to lift a fly to right that was caught, but scored a run. Bobo Mays then doubled home a pair. But no, George Allen wasn’t a match, not even for the lowly Raccoons. When Tomas Castro tripled to run the score to 7-1 in the fourth, the Falcons went to their bullpen, out of which Rafael De Jesus plated Castro with a wild pitch. That made it an 8-1 game, and amazingly, the Raccoons dug into their bullpen in the same inning after Ralph Ford had gotten soaked for four runs in the bottom 4th, with two runners on base, and him making no moves and not hinting at any intention to get the left-hander Mun-wah Tsung out. Ed Bryan faced Tsung, got a grounder to third, but instead of ending the inning, Doofus Sharp chose this very moment to make an unforgivable error to load the bases. Marcos Bruno was then brought into the game – pulling him from the dinner table, as this was THE FOURTH INNING – and got Jose Lopez with a grounder to second to finally end the nightmare. Bruno faced five and retired five across three innings, and as soon as somebody else appeared, the gates of hell reopened. Moreno got stuck with the bases loaded in the seventh and Rockburn allowed one run while coming with one out, on a single by Falcons career hits leader Hubert Green. The Critters were scuffling through the middle innings. In the eighth they got Vic Flores to third base with one out then, but Brady struck out and Quebell was no help in whatever situation. When Bowen hit a pinch-hit double in the ninth of an 8-6 game, the Falcons walked Sharp intentionally(!?), then brought their closer to kill the bottom of the order, which worked well, but that was only two outs. Yoshi Nomura doubled into the gap to plate both runners and got the Critters to double digits. Up 10-6, Angel got the bottom 9th just to get some work after a dreadful losing streak, which he ended with a fairly painless inning. 10-6 Critters. Nomura 2-5, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Flores 3-6, 2B, RBI; Castro 3-5, 3B, 2 RBI; Bowen (PH) 1-1, 2B; Bruno 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

We had the final day of the month off. When the calendar flipped to September, the Raccoons were 11 1/2 games out. Even hopeless romantics and lunatics could not refuse to acknowledge that their faint, imagined chance at a playoff run was really, really over by now.

As we hit roster expansion, we added three arms in Sergio Vega (just demoted), Claudio Salazar, and Rémy Lucas (who had not been much good in AAA with a 3.60 ERA). We could NOT add a catcher – because we were out of them! We were down to eight catchers across the system with injuries to Antonio Ramirez and minor leaguers Erik Ruff and Juan Rios. All three of them were expected to return to work within two weeks, with Ramirez and Rios off by perhaps one week. Also hurt was Cesar Pena, out for another three weeks with an ankle sprain, and we didn’t give the call to Ryan Miller, who had entered a slump. We did call up 22-year old Matt Pruitt, though, who had been acquired last December and had hit 19 homers in AAA this year with a .292 average and .834 OPS. He’s another left-handed batter. In a vain attempt to balance out things, we also added Jose Lugo’s right-handed bat. Pruitt is mainly a leftfielder – but also has a lot of experience at first base! In place of Miller, we added Tom Ingram as defensive backup.

Raccoons (62-69) @ Crusaders (71-62) – September 1-3, 2006

In the thick of the playoff race – as unbelievable as it might sound – were the Crusaders, second place, out by three and a half games. They had also August’s CL Hitter of the Month going, Stanton Martin, who, if he had been healthy all year, wouldn’t have let his team’s offense get stuck in seventh place in the league. Their pitching, including their rotation, was the best in the league anyway, but somehow they had dropped seven of our eleven games so far this season.

Projected matchups:
Jose Dominguez (13-11, 4.46 ERA) vs. Angel Javier (17-3, 2.55 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (6-14, 4.34 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (8-10, 3.36 ERA)
Tim Webster (4-4, 3.95 ERA) vs. Whit Reeves (12-7, 3.30 ERA)

What kind of pitching they have. I am so envious. Can we kidnap one or two of them? Meanwhile, we will play 21 games in the next 20 days.

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Castro – RF Brady – CF Fernandez – 1B Pruitt – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – P Dominguez
NYC: CF R. Pena – 3B J. Henry – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – SS Rice – 1B J. Lopez – 2B Caraballo – C D. Anderson – P A. Javier

The Raccoons had a hard time getting anything off Javier. While the Crusaders took an early 1-0 lead off Dominguez, the Raccoons had only one hit until Craig Bowen homered to tie the score in the fifth. Dominguez went six and a third decent innings for a no-decision, and Moreno retired the last two men in the seventh to retain a 1-1 tie. Also no-decisioned was Angel Javier, denied his 18th win despite allowing only two hits in eight innings. Charlie Deacon pitched a scoreless ninth, and so did Law Rockburn to send us to extras, where the Raccoons continued to not hit at all. They remained 2-hit in the game, while Claudio Salazar didn’t retire anybody in the bottom 11th. Ortíz singled, Martin singled, Rice walked, and Lopez sent everybody home happy with another single. 2-1 Crusaders. Dominguez 6.1 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 K;

Matt Pruitt walked in his first two plate appearance, fouled out in the seventh, struck out in the tenth, and dropped a Martin Ortíz foul pop for an error. There have been better debuts.

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Castro – RF Brady – 1B Quebell – CF Crespo – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – P Watanabe
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B Grant – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – SS Rice – 1B J. Lopez – 3B Caraballo – C D. Anderson – P Reeves

Reeves, a tough nut to crack, walked Nomura and Flores to start the game before Castro’s single loaded the bases with no outs. Clyde Brady cashed in with a 2-run double, Daryl Anderson allowed Castro to score with a wild pitch, and Crespo plated Brady with a sac fly for an early 4-0 lead for Watanabe, or in other words: two innings’ worth of run allowance.

Hey – it’s not mean if it’s true! Watanabe may have allowed only one run in the first two innings in this contest, but Crespo alone sucked up three fly balls to deep center, including Ortíz and Martin. Crespo also did the good baseball gods’ work with the bat, hitting a 3-run homer that had Reeves evicted in the third inning. But even with a 7-run lead, the Raccoons couldn’t find inner peace. In the bottom of the same inning Tomas Castro hurt himself on a defensive play and had to leave the game, with Bobo Mays taking over. Watanabe outsourced all the hard work to the fielders, but that carried him quite a while, and he was still around to bunt in the eighth inning. On May 27, Visar Logoreci had been ravaged for seven runs in a spot start by the Raccoons. Here, he appeared in long relief and struck out five Critters in a row, and pitched 4.1 innings of shutout ball after Reeves’ demise. In the eighth it came apart for him, though. Crespo walked, and then Sharp and Esquivel hit back-to-back doubles to run the score to 10-1. Esquivel scored on a groundout by Yoshi Nomura before Watanabe allowed a leadoff single to Ape Britton in the bottom 8th and was removed. Bryan cleaned up, and then we got to see Matt Pruitt’s first career hit in the top 9th, a pinch-hit 2-out single off Byung-Kyu Huang. That kept the inning going to bring up Esquivel and Fernandez to have RBI hits to add to the rout, but it had to get ugly in the bottom 9th again. Sergio Vega got the inning, allowed a leadoff double to Stanton Martin, then walked two against only one out. Adam Riddle came in to replace him, threw one pitch for a sac fly to Daryl Anderson, then left immediately in discomfort. Two more runs scored off Kaz Kichida before we even managed to put our rout to rest. 13-4 Raccoons. Flores 2-4, BB; Castro 2-2, 2B; Brady 3-4, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Crespo 1-3, BB, HR, 4 RBI; Pruitt (PH) 1-1; Esquivel 2-5, 2B, 3 RBI; Fernandez (PH) 1-1, RBI; Watanabe 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, W (7-14) and 1-3;

Rosters expand, and the Critters drop like flies. Neither Castro nor Riddle were diagnosed initially.

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – CF Crespo – LF Brady – 3B Sharp – 1B Pruitt – RF Mays – C Bowen – P Webster
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B Grant – RF S. Martin – LF M. Ortíz – 3B J. Henry – SS Rice – C J. Lopez – 1B Caraballo – P Connor

Sharp gave the Coons a 1-0 lead with a 2-out RBI single scoring Nomura in the top 1st, but when the Woester couldn’t retire any of the Crusaders’ first three batsmen, they quickly got the score tied again, 1-1, and as soon as the tough customers in the #3 and #4 slots came up again they hit a double and single, respectively, and gave their team a 2-1 lead in the bottom 3rd. Webster went six, allowing for enough plate appearance to bring the odd Martin couple back up once more and Stanton Martin drove home another run for them in the fifth. Bobo Mays’ solo homer in the seventh – an impressive shot to dead center – left the Raccoons a run short at 3-2. Stanton Martin tripled off Claudio Salazar in the bottom 7th, but hurt himself and had to leave the game, breaking an enormous piece off the Crusaders’ playoff bid, and Britton, who ran for Martin, was left at third base when Law Rockburn struck out Jerry Henry after Rémy Lucas had uselessly walked Ortíz. While New York used one pitcher through eight innings, the Coons were on their fifth once Rockburn allowed a leadoff single to Gary Rice in the eighth. Bruno kept the Crusaders down, giving the Critters a chance against Deacon. We got a running start: Bobo Mays singled, stole second, and made it to third on Jorge Lopez’ ****ty throw, all with zero outs. Deacon struck out Bowen, got Fernandez on a sorry fly to short left, then had Nomura at 1-2 and knotted up, but that inside pitch hit him, bringing up Vic Flores, who hit the first pitch he saw right on the sweet spot and drilled it to deep right. Stanton Martin might have gotten it – but Britton didn’t. Flores raced all the way to third, and the score had been flipped! The only problem was that Angel Casas wouldn’t hold onto it. He walked leadoff man Roberto Pena, and Britton and Henry chipped singles to tie the score before Mays caught a howling fly by Gary Rice to at least delay defeat to a later date. We had fired all our bullets. The best option was to put in Kichida for as much breath as he had for extra innings. He had a clean 10th, but the 11th was a mess, two hits and a walk to load them up for Gary Rice, who drove a ball to right – but to Mays. Unfortunately, Kichida’s turn to bat came up with two on and two outs in the 12th. It was a chance we had to use, even though the best we could do between four sub-.200 batters on the bench was lefty Yoshi Yamada to face right-hander Nick Lee, resulting in a not-hard-to-guess-right strikeout. Top 13th, Anthony Duhamel was almost out of the inning when he Fernandez and Nomura on base with two outs (much like Lee in the 12th, two had nobody on with two outs). Now, Flores was up. Hero once is great, but hero twice has it beat: Flores doubled, both runs scored, and we stuck with Moreno in the bottom of the inning. There was a tired Ed Bryan and a dangerous Sergio Vega left in the pen. Everybody else had been used! Moreno made short work of the New Yorkers, striking out Ortíz to end the game. 6-4 Raccoons. Nomura 1-3, 3 BB; Flores 3-7, 3B, 2B, 4 RBI; Sharp 2-5, BB, RBI; Pruitt 2-5; Mays 3-6, HR, RBI; Moreno 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, W (3-2);

In other news

August 29 – The Gold Sox have to place INF Jose Correa (.330, 4 HR, 48 RBI) on the DL. He might miss most if not all of the rest of the season with a strained rib cage muscle.
September 1 – NO-HITTER! San Francisco’s Tyler Sullivan (13-11, 3.63 ERA) puts a spell on the Falcons and holds them hitless, striking out 13 noble birds against three walks to pitch the 26th no-you-don’t in ABL history, and only the fourth of the decade. It is also the fourth no-hitter in Bayhawks history (Rafael Espinoza, 1989; Chris O’Keefe, 1991; Henry Selph (2nd), 2001), tying them for most of all teams with the Raccoons. The Falcons are no-hit for the second time overall, with the first instance also by a Bayhawk, Rafael Espinoza.

Complaints and stuff

How do the Falcons romp us for 68 runs and 3,659 hits, and then get no-no’ed by an average guy like Sullivan? Ah, sorry. I forgot. It’s the Raccoons factor.

To bring down the mood we received news that Tomas Castro had torn ligaments in his thumb when he fell onto his left hand on Saturday, and was out for the season. One 22-year old’s brace and painkillers might be another 22-year old’s opening into the regular lineup in September.

18-10 for a winning record. Yeah. Sure.

[Questdog]

As always, fearful of a jinx, but nevertheless unable to keep my mouth shut, I smell a smell that reminds me of the brown-tipped nose of a certain teacher's pet that emanates from the nostrils of a young 22-year old outfielder just called up......

Pruitt's AAA numbers seem pretty impressive from the little you mentioned of them. Can we have a look at his numbers, please?

[Westheim]

Here's that former 37th overall draft pick, who is lacking in both power and defense when compared to that certain other Furball:

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Here's that former 37th overall draft pick, who is lacking in both power and defense when compared to that certain other Furball:

Well, you can't have everything...and you need somebody to love since you traded Greenman away.......

Did Pruitt rank among the league leaders in anything for Sarasota? With the minors using that new softer ball this season, his numbers look pretty derned nice.

[Westheim]

Matt Pruitt (whom I always want to call Scott...) ranked near the top in the following categories in AAA:

H - 152 - 4th
3B - 10 - 2nd
HR - 19 - t-3rd
SLG - .487 - 8th
RBI - 82 - t-2nd
ISO - .194 - 5th
XBH - 53 - 2nd
TB - 253 - 1st

Yeah, must be those jello balls.

[Questdog]

Well, I am ready to jump on that bandwagon!

And at 6-5, 230 lbs, I bet he's got more power in him than Whitebread is letting on......

[Westheim]

Ugly 8-game week as we are processing 21-in-20. Still looking for a spot starter. Might pick Sergio Vega. But shouldn’t we at least pretend that we try to win?

Raccoons (64-70) vs. Loggers (57-79) – September 4-7, 2006

Four games in four days with the Loggers, the easy part of the whole thing (not because of the Loggers, but because of the intricacies of the space-time-continuum. They were soundly in last place (though a sweep could to a lot with that soundly part), not hitting, nor pitching. They had the least runs scored, and the third-most runs allowed with a hefty -149 run differential. There was just nothing on this team that even a mother could love. Yet they had taken eight of eleven from the Coons…

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (8-4, 2.89 ERA) vs. Roy Thomas (5-8, 6.32 ERA)
Ralph Ford (12-10, 3.52 ERA) vs. Martin Garcia (10-5, 2.69 ERA)
Jose Dominguez (13-11, 4.36 ERA) vs. Junior Diaz (10-11, 3.82 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (7-14, 4.15 ERA) vs. George Norris (6-13, 5.72 ERA)

Game 1
MIL: LF Bayle – SS Tolwith – CF T. Austin – RF Hiwalani – 2B B. Hernandez – 1B Wheaton – C T. Phillips – 3B O. Rios – P R. Thomas
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – CF Crespo – RF Brady – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – P Brown

The Loggers had a rather dark hour at the start of the game, making three errors in the first two innings, which in addition to unsound pitching by Thomas (five hits, one walk) led to five runs, the amount of which that were actually earned was not easy to decipher. Two errors were made by normally sure-handed Bakile Hiwalani in rightfield. Hiwalani would single in the Loggers’ first run in the fourth inning, plating Aaron Tolwith, who had been plunked by Nick Brown. And we had seen that before… The run just surrendered was put back onto the board on Flores’ groundout in the bottom of the same inning, and the Raccoons exploded for four more runs on four extra base hits in the bottom 5th. Brady homered, Quebell and Pruitt doubled, and then Bowen homered to make it a 10-1 game. Vic Flores cost Brownie an unearned run in the seventh inning with an eror on Bartolo Hernandez’ grounder to start the frame. We tried to push Brown for eight, which backfired. With Tim Austin on second base and two outs, Hiwalani hit a double to get onto Brown’s line, who then walked a pair as he was clearly out of bullets. Law Rockburn appeared to surrender Tom Phillips and to keep the line fairly clean. In the bottom line of the score, another crooked number appeared in the bottom 8th against poor Francisco Gonzalez. He allowed a 2-out run when Fernandez singled home Pruitt, who drew the throw from Jimmy Bayle, but was well safe, with Bowen and Fernandez moving to third and second base, respectively. Yoshi Nomura, slumping, grounded to Tolwith, who made the fourth painful error for the Loggers on the day, throwing that grounder away. That plated two runs, 14-3, and then Vic Flores came not only through, but outta here. The Raccoons failed to score only in the third and sixth innings in a terrible thumping: 16-3 Brownies!! Flores 3-6, HR, 3 RBI; Crespo 2-4, BB, 2 RBI; Brady 3-5, HR, RBI; Quebell 2-5, 2B, RBI; Pruitt 3-4, BB, 2 2B, 3 RBI; Bowen 2-3, 2 BB, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Fernandez (PH) 1-1; Brown 7.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, W (9-4) and 2-4;

Note to all preschool Loggers fan kiddos: 16 is a number that comes well, WELL after 3. (grins)

I will pay for that, but we casually jumped to ninth in runs scored.

Adam Riddle was placed on the disabled list before the Tuesday game. He had suffered a forearm strain. It was extremely unlikely that he would return this year. We added Matt Cash to the roster despite him being thoroughly underwhelming. We were running out of decent 7th inning relief options…

Game 2
MIL: LF Bayle – 2B B. Hernandez – CF T. Austin – RF Hiwalani – 1B Batlle – 3B O. Rios – SS M. Clark – C T. Phillips – P M. Garcia
POR: SS Flores – CF Fernandez – 3B Sharp – 1B Quebell – C Bowen – RF Mays – LF Lugo – 2B Ingram – P Ford

Ralph Ford almost cried when he got wind of this lineup, but I was trying to balance facing a left-hander with giving a few guys a day off and at the same time prevent the lineup being overtaken by stragglers. You may note that Quebell has recently sat regularly against left-handers, but imagine him being replaced with Searcy. (shudders) Yet, if Ford pitches like last time out, a lineup with vintage 1985 Daniel Hall, Mark Dawson, and Tetsu Osanai couldn’t save him…

Ford would score the first run of the game, hustling home from first base on Eddie Fernandez’ third inning double that went all the way to the wall in left center and then bounced some. For a while it appeared that this one run might actually be enough. Ford was in the zone, and whenever the Loggers were thinking he would remain there, he threw them a hook. Through five, he allowed one hit against seven strikeouts, and when Tim Austin singled in the sixth he was promptly caught stealing. Meanwhile the replacement level lineup – as was to be expected – failed to keep a 16 runs pace, and through six innings they had only four hits and a walk to their credit. Hiwalani hit a leadoff single in the top 7th and moved up on groundouts by Batlle and Tolwith. Mark Clark was a soft-hitting, but right-handed shortstop, Ford was on 100 pitches, yet there was nothing indicating that anything particularly bad would – knock! Line drive to left! Flores – HAS IT!! Uh, that was too close for comfort. Ford would retire Phillips in the eighth before Chris Parker reached on an infield single on the oddly slow reacting Tom Ingram. Marcos Bruno replaced Ford with the tying run on base again and got through the inning. Clyde Brady pinch-hit for Bruno to start the bottom 8th, singled, then was caught stealing when Vic Flores swung through a breaking ball from Gabriel Garcia, THEN doubled on the next pitch. Clark’s error allowed Fernandez to reach base and Flores to go to third, when Matt Pruitt hit for Danny Sharp and peppered a pitch into right center for an RBI double, but he and Fernandez were starved by Quebell and Bowen. In the ninth, Angel Casas needed nine pitches to dispatch of the Loggers, striking out Batlle and Tolwith. 2-0 Coons. Flores 2-4, 2B; Pruitt (PH) 1-1, 2B, RBI; Brady (PH) 1-1; Ford 7.1 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K, W (13-10) and 1-2;

Unless Ralph Ford has both of his arms fall off, he can win a 14th game for the first time in his career. He might also post only his second winning season after going 13-9 in 2002 now that he is in his final year in Portland.

Game 3
MIL: LF Bayle – 2B B. Hernandez – CF T. Austin – RF Hiwalani – 1B Batlle – SS Tolwith – 3B O. Rios – C J. Reyes – P J. Diaz
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – CF Fernandez – RF Brady – LF Pruitt – 1B Quebell – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – P Dominguez

A pretty inept battery spotted the Loggers a pretty sizeable lead pretty early in the game, which wasn’t all that pretty after all. Orlando Rios took Dominguez deep in the second inning, and in the third the Loggers hit two sharp singles off Dominguez, executed a double steal, then scored on Sergio Esquivel’s throwing error when Hiwalani dinked a ball into the ground in front of home plate. The Raccoons did nothing in the first three innings, and the next three innings ended every single one on double plays without ever scoring a run. By then, a Hiwalani leadoff double, subsequent wild pitch, and so on had plated another run for the Loggers in the sixth. Eddie Fernandez threw out Bartolo Hernandez at home plate after a Tim Austin double in the next inning. Bottom 7th, Pruitt walked, and Quebell hit into another double play, the fourth inning in a row. Rémy Lucas’ general uselessness granted the Loggers an add-on run in the eighth, and in the bottom of that inning Esquivel led off with a single trying to not get shot after the game. Crespo hit for Rockburn and – double play. Ridiculous! 5-1 Loggers.

We added Antonio Ramirez off the DL. No point in sending him to AAA now for a rehab. He will split duties with Craig Bowen. That might actually be a permanent arrangement for the rest of the season.

Also: Yoshi Nomura is 3-for-22 in the last week or so. Not a good thing for a leadoff batter.

Game 4
MIL: LF Bayle – 2B B. Hernandez – CF T. Austin – RF Hiwalani – 1B Batlle – SS Tolwith – 3B O. Rios – C J. Reyes – P Norris
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – CF Fernandez – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – C A. Ramirez – RF Mays – 3B Searcy – P Watanabe

Eddie Fernandez was sent from first base on Brady’s double in the first inning, but was thrown out by Jimmy Bayle. In the top 2nd, with a runner on second and two outs, we did not walk Reyes intentionally, but rather had him retired. Norris then led off the third with a double. With Hiwalani batting and two outs, Watanabe and Ramirez were rather helpless against Tim Austin’s steal that opened first base. We rather walked Hiwalani, a right-hander, intentionally, to get to the left-hander Paco Batlle than having him hit more doubles. It worked, Batlle grounded out to Nomura and the board remained empty. When the Coons finally got two men on base to start the fifth against the oughta-be-pushover Norris, Searcy hit into a double play and Watanabe’s line drive to right was caught by Hiwalani. How I hate that guy.

The inept offense still wouldn’t wake up. When Nomura hit a leadoff double in the sixth, Flores lined out to Orlando Rios and Nomura was almost picked off second base. Then Fernandez grounded to third, and only Rios’ throwing error kept me from shredding Fernandez’ contract. Before Clyde Brady could ground into a double play, George Norris threw a wild pitch to plate Nomura for the first run of the game. Brady and Quebell made ****ty outs. In the top 7th, Norris hit ANOTHER double off Watanabe, which chased the starter with two outs. We brought Bruno, who surrendered a rocket to Jimmy Bayle that nevertheless lacked length and Bob Mays made the catch at the edge of the warning track to end the inning. Pruitt hit for Ramirez and singled to start the bottom 7th, then got forced by Mays’ grounder. Searcy walked, Sharp singled, bases loaded with one out and now the Loggers yanked their starter and went to righty Micah Steele against Nomura. In a 3-1 count, Nomura grounded out, Mays scored, but Flores whiffed, and we lost a big chance to put up a big number. Bruno struck out two, including Hiwalani, in a perfect eighth, which chased Angel and Salazar from their chairs. Salazar, if we scored a pair, Angel if not. It was Angel, and he got showered with left-handers, the first of which, Paco Batlle, singled to right. Chris Parker struck out, and Orlando Rios’ fly to right – was dropped by Bobo Babooni. Angel looked skywards, having the tying runs in scoring position with one out, and more left-handers lining up. The first was Dave Wheaton. He struck out. The second was Francisco Garza. He struck out! 2-0 Furballs! Brady 2-3, BB, 2B; Pruitt (PH) 1-1; Sharp 1-1; Watanabe 6.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, W (8-14); Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Raccoons (67-71) vs. Canadiens (72-65) – September 8-10, 2006

They were five and a half games out, but they were sniffing their first playoffs since 1990. We HAD to spoil it for them! It was a tough task. They were in the top 3 in both runs scored and runs allowed, and it was the best chance they had had in over a decade, despite their ace Daniel Dickerson on the shelf until next summer.

We would also play four, starting with a Friday double header to make up a rainout from July 6. We are 8-6 against them on the season.

Projected matchups:
Tim Webster (4-4, 3.99 ERA) vs. Rod Taylor (16-8, 3.48 ERA)
Sergio Vega (0-1, 7.36 ERA) vs. Scott Spears (8-11, 4.30 ERA)
Nick Brown (9-4, 2.85 ERA) vs. Carlos Camacho (5-13, 5.41 ERA)
Ralph Ford (13-10, 3.38 ERA) vs. Manny Rios (3-3, 4.98 ERA)

We will get one left-hander on Saturday, it seems, and we miss their best surviving arm in Juichi Fujita. There isn’t really motivation for them to use him on short rest. There are more games to win for them.

Game 1
VAN: 2B Dobson – RF P. Flores – C G. Ortíz – 1B Ramos – 3B Suzuki – CF E. Garcia – LF Trinidad – SS Rodgers – P R. Taylor
POR: 2B Nomura – SS V. Flores – 1B Pruitt – LF Brady – CF Crespo – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – P Webster

We had a double header on the plate – and the skies were dark and threatening. Add to that Tim Webster being handed a ball, which was little short of an arsonist being handed the keys to the match factory. Top 1st, Dobson singled, Flores got hit, and Ortíz singled. Three on, no outs, and then Tony Ramos lifted out to shallow left where Brady with a good hustle kept all runners honest, and Suzuki and Garcia popped out, and nobody scored. Rod Taylor fanned five while being perfect through three innings, but Yoshi Nomura led off the bottom 4th with a double, which led up to Vic Flores’ second 2-run homer ambush of the week, the first tallies in the game. We also got Pruitt and Brady on, Crespo removed a pair with another depressing grounder, but then Bobo Babooni doubled, 3-0, BUT managed to tweak his ankle and left the game, being replaced with Jose Lugo. Webster responded by collapsing, a Dobson double and two walks, all with one out in the fifth. The Elks held themselves to one run on Tony Ramos’ sac fly by just not waiting for Webster to throw ball four. Rain started in the top 7th with Webster putting Flores on with two outs. Time to remove him. Domingo Moreno hadn’t pitched at all in the Loggers series, and now was brought in to face the righty Gabriel Ortíz first. Flores stole second base on Moreno’s first pitch, and then the rain intensified and the tarp came on. After two hours, the umpires called the game. 3-1 Coons. Nomura 1-2, BB, 2B; Flores 1-3, HR, 2 RBI; Mays 1-2, 2B, RBI;

The Ortíz AB in the seventh would normally have been Rockburn’s job, but he’s been used basically two out of every three days since the month started. I wanted to save Bruno for a more critical situation. In the end, it worked perfectly because of the rain, and Moreno got his first save of the year despite not retiring anybody.

The weather report was grim initially, and everybody expected the latter half of the double header to get postponed again, but it suddenly stopped raining when it was already dark. But, the paying fans were here (some, not many, because who gives a **** about the Coons?), the umpires were here, and the teams were here. So, surprisingly enough, game 2 took place, although more ugly weather was on the way.

Game 2
VAN: 2B Dobson – LF Theobald – CF E. Garcia – 1B Ramos – 3B Suzuki – LF Richardson – C F. Diéguez – SS Rodgers – P Spears
POR: 2B V. Flores – CF Fernandez – LF Pruitt – 1B Quebell – RF Crespo – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – SS Yamada – P Vega

Nobody expected much from Vega, but … it was ugly. All the Elks had to do was to hold still and accept the walk. Or being drilled. They worked that for two runs in the first, then started swinging and made outs in a hurry. The Raccoons were silenced by Spears for three innings before they connected a few bloops and a walk to load the bases with nobody out in the bottom 4th. Quebell was the go-ahead run at first, and Crespo was batting. While Crespo singled to plate a run, Sharp poked for an out on a 3-1 pitch and Bowen and Yamada both struck out. Abysmal showing here in the late-night cap. Vega, despite being crap, lasted five innings, allowing no more runs, before being hit for in the bottom of the fifth. Sharp was up again with Quebell and Crespo on base and no outs in the sixth, still down 2-1. He popped out. Bowen struck out. Yamada lobbed out to center. The Raccoons’ pen continued to survive (just barely), but the offense kept killing itself. Crespo on first with two out in the bottom 8th, Brady hit for Sharp and grounded out. No, these were the Inepticoons, who dropped an entirely winnable trash can game started by non other than Sergio Vega. 2-1 Canadiens. Fernandez 2-4, 2B; Crespo 2-3, BB, RBI; Bruno 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Bob Mays had not done any grave damage to his ankle. He was available on Saturday. Not that we were keen on him.

Game 3
VAN: 2B Dobson – LF Theobald – C G. Ortíz – 3B Suzuki – CF E. Garcia – RF P. Flores – 1B J. Phillips – SS Rodgers – P Camacho
POR: SS V. Flores – CF Fernandez – LF Pruitt – RF Brady – C A. Ramirez – 1B Sharp – 2B Ingram – 3B Searcy – P Brown

Starting with Pruitt and ending with Sharp, the Raccoons zinged four consecutive 2-out singles in the first inning to score two early runs. Brown struck out only one the first time through the lineup and ran into trouble by the fourth inning when the Elks had three consecutive hits from their 4-5-6 guys to tie the score at two. Brown was pitching to too much contact and couldn’t get a grip on that really nasty screw he normally had. He had two on and started an inning-ending double play in the sixth, and had Dobson on base in the seventh with two out. Dobson turned second on Theobald’s single to right, but found himself thrown out at third base. Bottom 7th, Searcy walked to start the inning. Brown’s bunt was **** and Searcy was forced out, but Brown then gained a base on a wild pitch before Camacho drilled Vic Flores anyway. That made it two on with one out. Crespo hit for Fernandez – oops, double play. Brown was chased by a 1-out single by Mitsuhide Suzuki in the eighth, and the first thing Law Rockburn did was to balk. He managed to strike out PH Ramón Trinidad, before Ed Bryan got another pinch-hitter in Tony Ramos out, at least averting a loss for the ace on the staff. Pruitt led off the bottom 8th with a single and was run for by Yamada, who swiped second base instantly, although everybody on the Elks’ staff, and their mothers, knew it was going to happen. Brady grounded to second for what would have been a double play (…!), but now moved Yamada to third base. Camacho remained in the game against Antonio Ramirez, who had not homered since arriving from Los Angeles – but got a goodie and drove it. GONE!! Angel Casas put the tying runs on after a leadoff double by Jim Phillips and a walk to Jerry Dobson with two out, but struck out Theobald to end the game. 4-2 Coons. Pruitt 3-4; Ramirez 2-4, HR, 3 RBI; Brown 7.1 IP, 10 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K;

Back to 11th in runs scored, by the way, but still 54 ahead of the Loggers. Even if we just lay down at the plate and let everything happen, they probably would choke trying to catch us.

Game 4
VAN: 2B Dobson – LF Theobald – C G. Ortíz – 3B Suzuki – CF E. Garcia – RF P. Flores – 1B Trinidad – SS Palmer – P M. Rios
POR: SS V. Flores – CF Fernandez – 1B Pruitt – LF Brady – RF Mays – 2B Nomura – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – P Ford

The Raccoons fell into disarray rather quickly in the last contest between the two teams this season. Jerry Dobson reached first base on a drag bunt, then was running when Paul Theobald singled to right. Nobody was gonna get Dobson at third, Bobo Babooni tried anyway, and Dobson scored on his throwing error as the ball sailed far past third base. Suzuki doubled to make it 2-0, and after Garcia popped out, Ford inexplicably walked the next three batters to run the score to 3-0, and we were already pretty much out of the game. Ford never stopped being ****, allowed two more runs on three hits in the third inning and was finally yanked when Jerry Dobson, the dirtbag, hit a leadoff jack in the fourth. The Raccoons were runless, hitless, clueless. We quickly reached blowout territory by giving the ball to Salazar, who went to three balls on five batters, and to four balls on three, before Trinidad zinged a 2-run single. 8-0. Yes, this was still the fourth. We quickly found out that all those September callups weren’t even good enough to pitch mop-up. The Elks’ total in the R column kept growing against Cash and Lucas. This was double unfortunate given that by the fourth Manny Rios got whacked and quickly bled five runs, including 2-run homers by Brady and Fernandez. But the ****ty performance of the designated garbage men meant that we actually had to put our better relievers like Moreno and Rockburn into a blowout. A depressing blowout. 11-5 Canadiens. Bowen 2-4;

At least, the season series remains ours at 10-8…

In other news

September 5 – ATL RF/1B/LF Jorge Garcia (.208, 27 HR, 108 RBI) is shut down for the season with a sore shoulder.
September 5 – The hitting streak of DAL 2B/3B Hector Garcia (.325, 10 HR, 84 RBI) reaches 20 games after he singles twice in a 7-4 Stars win over the Gold Sox.
September 10 – DAL Hector Garcia (.330, 10 HR, 89 RBI) reaches 25 games for his hitting streak with a ninth inning RBI double in a 6-3 win over the Warriors.

Complaints and stuff

Nick Brown reached 100 more strikeouts than walks on Saturday, September 9. He missed two months with the shoulder issue, so he could have gotten there around the All Star Game. How awesome would that have been?

On bad prospect news, 3B Ricardo Martinez, just promoted to St. Petersburg at the beginning of the month, is out for the season with a broken ankle. It’s a pretty bad fracture and he will be in a cast for two months and then one of those strange plastic boots. (sigh)

In my time – I played some designated spectator in tee-ball – there was not so much fuss about complicated fractures. You amputate, give the guy a peg leg, and life goes on.

Also, with the A level season almost over, Jimmy Eichelkraut batted .236/.269/.325 with four homers in 71 games. That’s poor. Another first rounder for the dump.

[Westheim]

Three weeks left in the season, the Coons have to play .650 ball to furnish their first winning season since way too long. Bad news is: we only have six games remaining against losing teams.

Raccoons (69-73) vs. Crusaders (73-69) – September 11-14, 2006

The Crusaders had been so close – and now they have lost five in a row, tanked their way to fourth place, and 7 1/2 games out of the lead. They were about as done as the Furballs, against whom they had gone 5-9 on the year. Their league-best pitching and starting rotation had not been able to overcome a creaky seventh-place offense.

Projected matchups:
Jose Dominguez (13-12, 4.29 ERA) vs. Angel Javier (17-3, 2.51 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (8-14, 3.98 ERA) vs. George Kirk (11-10, 3.60 ERA)
Tim Webster (5-4, 3.82 ERA) vs. Whit Reeves (12-9, 3.81 ERA)
Nick Brown (9-4, 2.83 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (8-11, 3.48 ERA)

Those are all right-handers. Their sorry closer Charlie Deacon had a migraine attack and was listed as DTD.

Game 1
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B Grant – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – SS Rice – 1B J. Lopez – 3B Caraballo – C D. Anderson – P A. Javier
POR: 3B Flores – 2B Nomura – LF Pruitt – RF Brady – CF Fernandez – 1B Quebell – C A. Ramirez – SS Yamada – P Dominguez

… and then Jose was Jose, and pain on its way. Dominguez walked Roberto Pena to open the series, not wasting any time to throw a strike, before Bob Grant had his grounder thrown to third by Flores, but Quebell completely missed the ball. Ortíz walked to load them up. So did Stanton Martin. Gary Rice poked and flew out. Jorge Lopez was patient and walked. The next guy to walk was Dominguez – to the showers. Six batters, four walks, and it was not going to get any better. If we lose in a blowout, we can use somebody who makes a tenth of his money. Claudio Salazar came in, walked Francisco Caraballo (!!!!!), and at some point Eddie Fernandez dropped Angel Javier’s soft fly. All in all, the Crusaders scored five runs, all well earned – WITHOUT GETTING A HIT.

And with all children in attendance already dissolved in their own tears, the Raccoons came to bat for the first time.

By the third inning, the Coons were on their fourth pitcher after Salazar and Lucas had been stuffed by the Crusaders. Irony didn’t cut it: Rémy Lucas doubled in our first run of the game in the bottom 2nd, rallying to a 7-1 deficit, but it was already 9-1 after Martin Ortíz had shown him the way to the batter’s eye in the top 3rd. Matt Cash appeared. Stanton Martin grounded to Yamada, who blew that easy grounder for the Coons’ third error of the day. Yamada made another error the next inning. The Crusaders never scored for hitting into double plays both times. Cash would last us for a while, and struck out Bob Grant in the fifth inning. That was his 22nd out registered this season (against merely 11 earned runs), and the first by strikeout. The next batter, Martin “Thump-Thump” Ortíz, promptly homered to run the dozen full on Cash, but not on this particularly enjoyable contest, where the score was only 10-1 with that moon shot. At that point, they decided that it was enough, and preserve the other 15 runs their bats still had in them for tomorrow – unless Kaz Kichida would insist and throw a wild pitch with a runner at third. 11-3 Crusaders. Flores 3-5, RBI; Nomura 2-4, BB; Brady 2-4; Ramirez 2-5; Mays (PH) 1-2, RBI; Cash 3.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K; Moreno 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Okay – losing season. There is no reasoning with these ****s.

Matt Cash dropped his ERA by over seven runs with this outing. You can almost mistake him for a pitcher now.

Also, I’m done with Dominguez. For SF, he had a 3.91 ERA. For us, almost two full runs higher. Three runs were unearned in this game, but … wow!

Before the season began, I put a broken loser into the AAA rotation on a minor league deal. He got whacked around all year long, posting 5.01 ERA and 6-10 record in 27 starts. He might still be better than Dominguez. So, wretched Rhett Carpenter, 29, was added to the roster. He has a 3-2 record and 9.62 ERA in the Bigs, seven appearances for the 2001 Miners and 2003 Capitals. Either him or a fourth look at the frozen remains of Felipe Garcia. Or possibly Cássio Boda, but he had only been promoted to AAA at the beginning of September, and it hadn’t been pretty.

Game 2
NYC: CF R. Pena – 3B J. Henry – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – SS Rice – 1B J. Lopez – 2B Caraballo – C D. Anderson – P Kirk
POR: SS Flores – 2B Nomura – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – CF Fernandez – RF Mays – 3B Searcy – C Esquivel – P Watanabe

Jerry Henry was a player in this game for exactly two minutes, getting ejected when he loudly pointed out that Watanabe’s “strike three” had almost torn off his front foot. He was right about that, but still got tossed, and the Crusaders scored a run anyway. Henry was replaced by Marc Williams, who got his first hit of the season off Watanabe in the third. It was a game of same old, same old. Watanabe fell 2-0 behind early, but didn’t blow up completely. The Raccoons had NOTHING against George Kirk, which was a nice little tradition that was going for a while now. You know, like wearing dog-poo-ugly sweaters on Christmas. They’re itching, they’re a design crime against humanity, but they still give a cozy, warm feeling of familiarity with your surroundings. Like Kirk completely nixing the Raccoons. It took Steve Searcy to grab the measliest of hits off him, an infield single in the fourth inning, and not get soiled twice. An inning later we got an unearned run off him after a Caraballo error, and he walked five in the game and only lasted six innings, but left as potential winner, ahead 2-1. Watanabe pitched a complete game – ending the Crusaders’ season in passing when he beaned Stanton Martin – in what figured to be a losing effort until Bobo Babooni lined a leadoff double off thick-headed Charlie Deacon in the bottom of the ninth inning, bringing the winning run to the plate. And then – Pruitt grounded out in place of Searcy, Crespo struck out in place of Esquivel, and with Watanabe up, whom else could we entrust with our dear lives? How about Craig Bowen and his home run rip? Ya, and he struck out, too. 2-1 Crusaders. Watanabe 9.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, L (8-15);

Actually, Stanton Martin was hit in the thumb, which was swelled pretty good, but wasn’t broken. He was out for a few days though. He couldn’t hold a bat, nor feed himself with that ball-sized appendage to his dominant hand.

Watanabe’s second career game came like his first in a losing effort, since we had a grand total of three hits. We … (facepalm)

Game 3
NYC: CF R. Pena – C J. Lopez – RF Britton – LF M. Ortíz – 3B J. Henry – 2B J. Hernandez – SS Guerin – 1B Caraballo – P Reeves
POR: SS Flores – 2B Nomura – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – C A. Ramirez – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – CF Fernandez – P Webster

The Coons trailed 1-0 already when Tim Webster lost his marbles in the third inning. After Roberto Pena’s leadoff single, he went to 3-ball counts against everybody. Lopez and Britton walked, Ortíz singled, 2-0. Henry and Hernandez struck out in full counts and Guerin struck out well before that. Webster had already six strikeouts on the day, and 75 pitches. He wouldn’t strike out anybody else before being bombed from the premises by Francisco Caraballo’s 2-run homer in the sixth. We trailed 5-2 at that point, scoring with the help of a passed ball in the third, and on a few singles in the fifth. When the Critters scored again, it was the seventh, and they only had J.C. Crespo cross home plate for one of those famous, delicious Caraballo errors. No, there was no life in these bats. On their own, they weren’t getting anything done. Four relievers spun 3.2 shutout innings, but it didn’t matter. 5-3 Crusaders. Fernandez 2-3; Ingram (PH) 1-1; Crespo (PH) 1-2;

Game 4
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B Grant – RF Britton – LF M. Ortíz – 3B J. Henry – SS Rice – C J. Lopez – 1B Caraballo – P Connor
POR: 2B Nomura – LF Pruitt – 1B Quebell – RF Brady – C A. Ramirez – CF Crespo – 3B Sharp – SS Ingram – P Brown

Quebell made another error to put Brown into a bad spot in the top 1st. Brown had walked Pena to start the game, but now with runners on the corners and one out rallied and struck out both Ortíz and Henry, then drove in the first run of the game in the bottom of the second. With Crespo and Sharp on second and first, he singled to right, Crespo was sent, and Apasyu Britton’s throw had nothing on it, and he also hurt himself on it and the Crusaders had lost their second rightfielder in the series. The wretched throw also moved up the runners another base and allowed a second run to score on Nomura’s fly out to center. Brownie allowed no hits through four before Lopez and Caraballo led off the fifth with singles past Tom Ingram, who rested a far-run Vic Flores in this game (and Yamada was a black hole). Brown rallied and retired the next three guys to keep the Crusaders off the board. The bottom 5th saw the Coons loaded them up with one out for Ramirez, who hit into a double play. New York still had nothing going through seven, and Brownie hit a leadoff single in the bottom of the inning, then stole second base. The dismal top of the order never advanced him. Brown struck out two more in the eighth, but crossed 100 innings. Would be a tough call whether to stay with him, but maybe we could get a few add-on runs? Brady led off the bottom 8th against Connor, and socked one – home run! That was all, but the ninth started with a lefty. With Angel waiting, we’d take it one by one with Brown, and Ortíz grounded out to Nomura. Henry grounded out to Ingram, leaving it to Gary Rice, who would in any case be Brownie’s last batter at 115 pitches – and he walked him, and here came Angel. He got an easy fly by Jorge Lopez to Pruitt, and that was it. 3-0 Brownies! Quebell 2-4; Brady 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; Crespo 2-3, BB; Brown 8.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 10 K, W (10-4) and 2-3, RBI;

Tough with the shutout, but I blame the four walks. He had his stuff ready all day long!

Raccoons (70-76) @ Bayhawks (72-74) – September 15-17, 2006

The Bayhawks had the best bullpen in the league. Just like with the Coons, good relievers hadn’t covered up all the other holes for them. We were 3-3 against them.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (13-11, 3.61 ERA) vs. Iván Cordero (2-4, 5.66 ERA)
Rhett Carpenter (0-0) vs. Carl Bean (11-15, 5.05 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (8-15, 3.88 ERA) vs. Terry Sullivan (13-13, 3.62 ERA)

That’s left-right-left for us. For them it’s easy-as-pie, stealing-candy-from-a-toddler, and then maybe at least as tough as butter.

Game 1
POR: SS Flores – 2B Nomura – CF E. Fernandez – LF Brady – C A. Ramirez – 1B Sharp – RF Lugo – 3B Searcy – P Ford
SFB: CF Hudson – 2B J. Barrón – RF Keshishian – C B. Campbell – 1B A. Rojas – 3B J. Foster – SS Sheehan – LF L. Alonso – P Cordero

Ralph Ford was quite decent the first time through the order, sitting the Birds down in order and striking out six. The Raccoons were not much more successful, but had two on in the fourth when Searcy sent a drive to deep right that nevertheless Tirgen Keshishian hauled in to end the frame. Ford then led off the fifth with a single and scored on Fernandez’ single, the first run of the game. Ford kept retiring batters, whiffing three while preventing traffic the second time through the order. Juan Barrón with one out in the seventh sent a looper to right center that looked like it would fall in, but Lugo snagged it on the run. The eighth was led off by Brian Campbell, the first pitch was tight – too tight. Campbell got on first the hard way and was on second with two outs, with ex-Coon Pablo Fernandez pinch-hitting for Brad Sheehan. Fernandez was down 1-2, then put the ball in play, it hopped over the mound and into centerfield. Campbell scored. Tied game. It remained tied through nine innings, of which Ford took care, and as we entered extras, the Coons had eight hits to the Bayhawks’ single, measly, ****ty one. A Nomura double and an infield single by Fernandez put runners on the corners with nobody out in the tenth, but Brady struck out. Pruitt hit for Ramirez against righty Johnny Smith, grounded up the middle, but the Bayhawks got only the out on Fernandez, and Nomura scored. Sharp kept being useless, and we flipped it over to Angel Casas and the 3-4-5 batters in the bottom 10th. Keshishian and Campbell both put the first pitch into play for an out and a single, respectively, before Alejandro Rojas and Jorge Cruz struck out. 2-1 Coons. Flores 2-4, BB; Nomura 2-5, 2B; Fernandez 2-5, RBI; Lugo 2-3; Ford 9.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 10 K, W (14-11) and 1-4;

Oh so close. Oh so close…

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Pruitt – RF Brady – 1B Quebell – C A. Ramirez – 3B Sharp – CF Crespo – P Carpenter
SFB: LF Beairsto – 2B J. Barrón – RF Keshishian – C B. Campbell – 3B J. Foster – CF Hudson – SS J. Perez – 1B J. Cruz – P Bean

Nomura drew a walk off a badly scuffling Carl Bean and eventually scored on a 2-out single by Quebell. Carpenter, in his first game in the Bigs in three years, gave the run right back, hitting Juan Barrón in the process, and would have surrendered more if Matt Pruitt hadn’t nailed out Tirgen Keshishian at the plate. Carpenter fell 2-1 behind in the second, but the Coons pulled the run back in the third. The Bayhawks had three singles with two out in the bottom 4th, the last by Beairsto, who was merely batting .290 with 16 homers, before Carpenter struck out Barrón to end the inning. Carl Bean’s woes continued in the fifth. Vic Flores tripled to start the inning, then was singled home by Brady. Quebell failed before Bean hit consecutive batters! He paid for that with a 2-run single by J.C. Crespo. In Carpenter’s hand, that 5-2 lead was seriously in danger. Leadoff walk, a single, a wild pitch, ANOTHER WILD PITCH, and another single. 5-4, with Perez, the latter singles hitter, trying to get to second and being thrown out for a merciful end to the inning, and we had enough from the newest Raccoon afterwards. Nomura and Flores reached base to start the sixth and were doubled home by Brady to restore the 3-run lead.

With Angel unavailable, and the Coons ahead, we were eager to stay away from the worst offenders in the pen. Vega and Lucas managed to combine for a perfect sixth. After that it was Rockburn, and the intention was to couple him with Bruno for three innings. It was dicey, however. Rockburn had two on in the seventh before getting out, then put two on again with one out in the eighth and Bruno was rushed to the scene, striking out Alonso and Beairsto to preserve the 7-4 advantage in the eighth. Keshishian would single off Bruno in the ninth, but was then swiped away on Campbell’s double play grounder to Vic Flores. 7-4 Coons. Flores 3-5, 3B, 2B; Brady 3-4, BB, 2B, 3 RBI; Bruno 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (5);

Rhett Carpenter actually got the win. His career ERA barely blinked, though. Still over nine.

Game 3
POR: SS Flores – 2B Nomura – CF Fernandez – RF Brady – C A. Ramirez – 1B Sharp – LF Crespo – 3B Ingram – P Watanabe
SFB: LF Beairsto – 2B J. Barrón – RF Keshishian – C B. Campbell – 3B J. Foster – CF Hudson – SS J. Perez – 1B Rojas – P Sullivan

The Birds got on Watanabe in a hurry, a Keshishian double and a Campbell homer plating two runs in the bottom of the first. The first time through their order, the Furballs had a single by Fernandez, and seven strikeouts. Watanabe’s last loss took some time to develop, but this one came on him quickly. The Critters had nothing, and when Jesse Foster launched a 2-run homer to straightaway center in the sixth, it was go time for Watanabe in a 5-0 loss. Another run got hung on Matt Cash in the eighth, who faced two and walked both, with Kaz providing little relief after him. The Raccoons had two runners on base at the same time exactly once and were shut out by Sullivan, who spun a 4-hitter, striking out a whopping 13. 6-0 Bayhawks. Nomura 2-4;

Garf.

In other news

September 13 – The Stars had acquired OF John Alexander (.273, 21 HR, 75 RBI) mid-season from the Capitals with their playoff chances in mind, but his contribution will be zero. A badly sprained ankle will put him on the DL for the balance of the year.
September 16 – Dallas’ Hector Garcia (.332, 10 HR, 91 RBI) has his hitting streak soar to 30 games with a fourth inning triple in a 3-1 win over the Buffaloes.
September 17 – DAL 3B/2B Hector Garcia (.334, 11, 93 RBI) has two hits, including a 2-run homer off Jack Berry, as he goes to 31 games in a 6-4 loss to the Buffaloes.

Complaints and stuff

(sits casually in his office, on the brown sofa behind the glass coffee table, with coffee and cookies)

For next week, we will add two more call-ups with minor league seasons over. All our affiliates had losing seasons. We add Bobo Wood, and we will give Ryan Miller his debut. Miller, 22, was the more interesting piece in the Greenman trade with the Titans in 2005. He is a right-handed shortstop with a very good (though not spectacular, Guerin-like) glove, who can run, and who hits for a bit of all. He’s not an easy strikeout, he has some power for doubles and dingers, although he batted only for a .713 OPS in 107 games in AAA this year. He can play regularly the last two weeks, with Flores moved to third so we don’t have to look at Daniel Sharp any longer after his HORRENDOUS season, but I don’t think Miller is ready yet. Still looks a bit undercooked, but with tremendous potential.

To accommodate Miller, Cesar Pena (who is on the minor league DL) has been waived and designated for assignment.

We would have so many young players with Mays, Quebell, Nomura, Pruitt, Castro, Wood, and now Miller – and none of them is very helpful…

Angel Casas saved his 38th today for the year on Thursday. That is the most any Raccoons closer has saved in any one season since 1993!! That was Grant West’s last year as closer and he put away 45 en route to our second title. And since then it largely hasn’t been close. There’s a 36 by Dan Nordahl in there a few years ago, and a couple of 33’s from the 90s (1996 Tzu-jao Ban, 1998 Scott Wade). And a whole lot of switching around, first guy not getting it done, second guy not getting it done, first guy still not getting it done, 12-game losing streak, third guy getting it done, third guy getting injured, second guy traded already, hey, let’s try the rookie!

Top batters by AB in 1993: O-Mo, Reece, Salazar, Higgins, Vincon, Alejandro Lopez, Dan The Man, Old Vern, “Icon” Allen, Bobby Quinn … those were the times. Top pitchers: “Pooky”, Miguel Lopez, Turner, Saito (who had an off year), De La Rosa, West, Burnett, Vela, Miller, Lagarde. Yeah, those were the times.

Give this team a “Pooky” and even a Bobby Quinn, and we win 82 games.

This team. On this team, you can’t trust anybody with keeping your bacon safe. Of course, with the impending exodus of a number of our long time roster occupants (Brady, Ford, Moreno; also Lugo), next year will be about retooling and setting new targets and – (violently kicks over coffee table, complete with coffee and cookies)

Nobody’s ever going to clean up this mess…

[Westheim]

Raccoons (72-77) @ Condors (60-89) – September 18-20, 2006

If the Raccoons wanted to make one final dash for a winning record (better than .750 ball required…), they would better start by soiling the Condors, something they had done so far this year, taking five out of the six contests between the clubs. They had lost seven in a row, and ranked in the bottom four in both runs scored and runs allowed, and we would gladly miss their ace and strikeout king Kelvin Yates (13-14, 3.28 ERA) in the series.

Projected matchups:
Tim Webster (5-5, 4.04 ERA) vs. Jorge Silva (8-19, 4.08 ERA)
Nick Brown (10-4, 2.65 ERA) vs. Román Escobedo (7-13, 5.06 ERA)
Ralph Ford (14-11, 3.49 ERA) vs. Ron Carter (3-5, 5.25 ERA)

Southpaw in the middle for them, and we don’t even get a look at their worst guy in this series…

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – LF Pruitt – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – CF Crespo – P Webster
TIJ: SS B. Nichols – RF Ward – 2B J. Diaz – CF R. Perez – C P. Estrada – LF J. Alvarez – 3B R. Harris – 1B T. Mullins – P J. Silva

While Vic Flores continued his recent power surge with a first inning solo shot, Tim Webster managed to soil the effort in record time. The first five Condors all hit the ball really hard, resulting in a single, three doubles, and three runs in the bottom 1st. Webster, the colossal ****head, would be hit for in the third inning when his spot came up with the bags full and two outs. Clyde Brady struck out. The next time the pitcher’s spot was up, Daniel Sharp had hit a 2-out RBI double in the sixth to get the Coons back to one run out. Fernandez hit for Salazar with two men on – and grounded out to second. None of this was all that relevant. When Sergio Vega appeared in the bottom 6th, he gave up a leadoff jack to Jesus Alvarez, then walked the next two batters. While Law Rockburn cleaned up that mess, another one was created by Rémy Lucas in the seventh, and it just wasn’t going to stop. 7-3 Condors. Esquivel (PH) 1-1; Pruitt 2-5, RBI; Quebell 2-4, 2B; Sharp 3-4, 2 2B, RBI; Salazar 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K; Rockburn 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Game 2
POR: 3B V. Flores – 2B Nomura – CF Fernandez – LF Brady – C A. Ramirez – 1B Quebell – SS R. Miller – RF Lugo – P Brown
TIJ: 3B R. Harris – SS Ybarra – 2B J. Diaz – CF R. Perez – C P. Estrada – LF J. Alvarez – RF J. Thomas – 1B B. Boyle – P Escobedo

Early on this seemed to be a game where nothing would go Brownie’s way – ever. Through five innings, the Condors made sound contact exactly twice, both times resulting in RBI doubles to deep left. He struck out six, while the team’s offensive success was more on the limited side. That changed in the sixth inning, which Nomura led off with a double off the wall in right, and then Fernandez tripled to center. Clyde Brady tied the score at two with an RBI single to left, but sooner or later there was Quebell, and there was a double play. And just when everything seemed right again, Brown inexplicably and unexpectedly blew up completely in the sixth inning. He drilled Juan Diaz, walked Ramón Perez, gave up two singles and a wild pitch – and three runs scored. This one came out of nowhere. Quebell would also kill the Coons’ last chance to score, representing the tying run with two out in the eighth before Domingo Moreno got stomped for two runs on a Bruce Boyle homer in the bottom of the inning. 7-2 Condors. Nomura 3-4, 2 2B; Brady 2-3, BB, RBI;

Law Rockburn pitched in this game as well and walked a batter. His previous three walks allowed came on July 26, June 17, and May 29.

Ryan Miller intentionally didn’t play on Monday to make his debut against the left-hander. Not that it helped anybody. He had a very soft single, and three poor outs.

Before melting down / falling asleep / stopping to give a damn, Nick Brown reached 1,109 strikeouts, so he should reach 1,111 in his next start. Unless he is then still molten / asleep / not giving a damn.

This game also marked our official, mathematical elimination from the playoffs. Morally we had been eliminated on Opening Day.

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – CF Fernandez – LF Crespo – 1B Quebell – RF Mays – 3B Sharp – SS R. Miller – C Wood – P Ford
TIJ: SS B. Nichols – RF Ward – 2B J. Diaz – CF R. Perez – C P. Estrada – LF J. Alvarez – 3B R. Harris – 1B B. Román – P Carter

The Condors took a lead in the first inning, 1-0, just like in every game of the series. The Raccoons would rally briefly with a run and leaving two stranded in both the third and fourth innings, before Ford gave the lead up as soon as possible with a leadoff homer in the bottom 4th, Juan Diaz’ 18th on the season (no Raccoon had more than a dozen by the way). The Raccoons would take another lead on Bobo Mays’ sac fly in the top 7th before Ford created a terrible mess that Marcos Bruno couldn’t clean up in the bottom of the inning and the Condors retied the score right away, but the Raccoons plated one of their own again in the top 8th when they got to Kilian Carrier with two outs. Brady singled and Nomura doubled him in. Ed Bryan held on to the lead in the eighth – the wonders! – before Angel Casas was tasked with protection in the ninth. Johnny Crum homered off him. Juan Diaz homered off him. 6-4 Condors. Nomura 2-5, 2B, RBI; Crespo 2-5; Mays 2-3, BB, RBI; Brady (PH) 1-1;

Raccoons (72-80) @ Titans (79-73) – September 22-24, 2006

Titans: 9th on offense, 2nd on defense. Another meaningless series on our way to oblivion. Never mind, don’t be disturbed, we’re just passin’ through here.

Projected matchups:
Rhett Carpenter (1-0, 7.20 ERA) vs. Bryce Hildred (9-15, 4.07 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (8-16, 4.01 ERA) vs. Paul Kirkland (12-12, 4.39 ERA)
Tim Webster (5-6, 4.17 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (17-7, 2.73 ERA)

We could also face Jason O’Halloran (14-10, 3.50 ERA) on Sunday. Both him and Chapa pitched on Tuesday after their Monday game was rained out. But does it really matter whom we fall victim to?

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – 3B Flores – 1B Pruitt – LF Brady – RF Mays – SS R. Miller – CF Fernandez – C A. Ramirez – P Carpenter
BOS: 2B D. Silva – 3B M. Austin – LF Brulhart – RF G. Munoz – SS Hutchinson – CF Garrison – C Rosa – 1B H. Ramirez – P Hildred

The Raccoons took a 1-0 lead in the second inning after Bobo Mays tripled and then scored on a wild one from Hildred. That was nothing compared to the bottom of the inning, which started with Rhett Carpenter being **** and offering presents before being conquered and enslaved to the tune of five runs. Four of those were even unearned after a Vic Flores error in the middle of the inning, but there was not all that much blame to lay on Flores. Carpenter also threw a wild pitch in addition to serving up double after double. The Inepticoons had a brief chance in the fourth with two on and Brady driving a ball to deep left. It missed the wall, but failed to miss Jim Brulhart’s glove. Bottom 5th, Kaz Kichida fooled around long enough to load the bases, then also threw a wild pitch. Rudy Garrison hit a home run off Rémy Lucas in the seventh. In eight innings, the Raccoons got five hits off ex-Raccoon Bryce Hildred. 7-1 Titans. Cash 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Flores – RF Mays – LF Brady – 1B Quebell – C Bowen – CF Fernandez – 3B Ingram – P Watanabe
BOS: 2B D. Silva – 3B M. Austin – LF Brulhart – RF G. Munoz – SS Hutchinson – CF Garrison – C Rosa – 1B Heffer – P Kirkland

The crappy Coons broke out for three runs in the first inning, avoiding trailing after the first for the first time this week. From the point where Kirkland struck out Ingram to end the inning with two men still on base until he drilled Vic Flores in the fifth, nobody got on for the team, but Watanabe had at least not conceded much at all against the Titans and the score was still 3-0. Well, it LOOKED like he had everything under control, but the Titans’ lineup was composed of coonskinners, and it’s always the guy you like least anyway. Like the bum Rosa and the snobbish pitcher Kirkland. Both hit RBI doubles off Watanabe in the seventh to bring the score back to 3-2 and knocked him from the game. Ed Bryan retired PH Luis Arroyo to end the inning, but at this point the Raccoons had not made it on base under their own power since the first inning…

Death knows many ways to kill you. There are quick deaths, there are slow deaths, painful deaths, and the best deaths of all, the outrageously stupid death. Like train surfing, Raccoons defensive innings always had a tendency to end in the goriest manner. The Raccoons used four pitchers in the bottom 8th. Ed Bryan retired Mark Austin. Law Rockburn retired Jim Brulhart. Domingo Moreno walked Gonzalo Munoz. There! That cocky 17-year old just had his foot slip off the subway! Marcos Bruno came in to get things sorted out, but first Dave Hutchinson singled. Uh-oh, that legs dangling off pretty badly, and is that a tunnel there in the distance? Rudy Garrison grounded to short where Vic Flores bobbled it once, bobbled it twice, and everybody was safe. Your little screams won’t help you now, you young fool, and that IS a tunnel. Up came Freddy Rosa. Only bad things could happen now. Rosa was down two strikes when he thumped a ball into the ground ten feet in front of home plate. Bruno came in, Bowen came out.

SPLATTER!!

Bruno got there first, but home plate was unguarded, and now he had to turn for first base, and didn’t get anything on the throw to Quebell, and … yes, yes, Freddy Rosa was safe, Dave Heffer singled up the middle, and that train surfing idiot got smeared all over the countryside. 5-3 Titans. Watanabe 6.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K;

Game 3
POR: 3B Flores – 2B Nomura – CF Fernandez – RF Brady – 1B Sharp – LF Pruitt – SS R. Miller – C A. Ramirez – P Webster
BOS: 3B M. Austin – 2B Heffer – SS Hutchinson – LF Brulhart – RF G. Munoz – C Rosa – CF Walls – 1B Metting – P O’Halloran

Nothing bad happened to Tim Webster the first time through the opposing order, which was a nice change, until Mark Austin hit a 2-out homer in the bottom of the third to put the Titans up 1-0. The balls started to fly more and more off Webster’s bat, but miraculously none of them left the yard and the defense made a number of strong plays to keep the blighter in the game. Meanwhile Jason O’Halloran pitched a wonderful game, completely silencing the Raccoons through seven innings. But he never got that add-on run. Instead, he got Crespo, who hit for Webster in the eighth, on base. Flores then singled, sending Crespo to third, from where he scored on Nomura’s sac fly, albeit just barely, to tie the score. What an outburst of offense! Nomura would also bring in the second run for the Coons on the day, a 2-out bloop single off Manuel Martinez in the tenth that scored Antonio Ramirez, who had previously been safe at second on Claudio Salazar’s ****ty bunt that was fielded even ****tier by Freddy Rosa. Quebell singled home Salazar when he hit in place of Fernandez, which gave Angel Casas a 3-1 lead in the bottom 10th and Clyde Brady manning centerfield, where his range was promptly tested by Luis Lopez. Brady made the catch, Casas struck out Toby Frazier, and while the pest Daniel Silva and his lifetime 1.100/1.350/6.275 slash line against Portland found a way on base, Hutchinson grounded out to end the game. 3-1 Inepticoons. Quebell (PH) 1-1, RBI; Sharp 2-4, 2B;

With one out in the seventh, Clyde Brady was on third base for Pruitt. Both Matt Pruitt and Ryan Miller grounded out overly poorly and Brady was left on base.

If that’s all the future we’ve got, we should all start rooting for the Elks to spare our sanity.

In other news

September 18 – The 31-game hitting streak of Dallas’ Hector Garcia (.332, 11 HR, 93 RBI) dies a horrible death at the hands of the Cyclones, who also win the game 9-8 and with that also spoil the Stars’ ambition to clinch the FL West for another day.
September 19 – Despite a 4-2 loss to the Cyclones, the Stars clinch the FL West on the Gold Sox’ 8-2 loss to the Blue Sox.
September 21 – MIL SP Martin Garcia (12-7, 2.60 ERA) claims his 250th career win in a 6-4 win over the Bayhawks in which he goes eight innings and allows three runs, striking out four. Since he was the first overall pick in the 1990 draft, Garcia has merely racked up 3,165 strikeouts, 10 All Star nominations, and five Pitcher of the Year awards (1996, 1998-2001), and led the league in wins three times, in strikeouts five times, in ERA four times, in WHIP three times. He pitched for 29 or more quality starts in a season four times. To call him an all time great would be an understatement. Only 34 years old, he has a fantastic chance to reach 300 career wins. He is already sixth in career wins, and Woody Roberts’ career mark of 279 W seems only a blink away. (There is Oklahoma’s Aaron Anderson to overcome, though; he has 269 wins, but is two years older).
September 24 – WAS LF Raúl Vázquez (.306, 12 HR, 66 RBI) has manufactured a 20-game hitting streak after landing one base hit in the Capitals’ 6-5 win over the Cyclones.

Complaints and stuff

Who was the Coons’ first pick in 1990? Daniel Miller. Not a poor choice, but not quite Martin Garcia.

Most consecutive losing seasons in ABL history (* active):
17 – Milwaukee Loggers (1977-1993)
13 – Atlanta Knights (1991-2003)
11 – Boston Titans (1978-1988)
10 – Portland Raccoons (1997-2006) *
10 – Sacramento Scorpions (1983-1992)
9 – Las Vegas Aces (1998-2006) *
8 – Los Angeles Pacifics (1999-2006) *
8 – Vancouver Canadiens (1994-2001)
7 – New York Crusaders (1990-1996)
7 – Topeka Buffaloes (1991-1997)
7 – Washington Capitals (1980-1986)
6 – Indianapolis Indians (1997-2002)
6 – New York Crusaders (1999-2004)
6 – Portland Raccoons (1977-1982)
6 – Salem Wolves (1993-1998)
6 – San Francisco Bayhawks (1983-1988)
6 – Sioux Falls Warriors (1987-1992)

Christian Greenman hit his 18th homer of the season the day the Stars clinched. 17 of those came for the Stars in just about 2.5 times as many AB as on the Raccoons. He slugged .652 for the Stars. That was merely a 140% increase from his Raccoons SLG.

****ing ***hole.

Remind me to shed more light on that Greenman trade and the following moves that it caused. It’s the story of the year in Dallas, but just another footnote on a back-end chapter of the sad daily soap of Portland. I would write it up now, but I’m reduced to tears already.

[Questdog]

....and while the pest Daniel Silva and his lifetime 1.100/1.350/6.275 slash line against Portland....

Is that REALLY his line?.......

I also guess I should blow my nose more often, since me smelling a winning season earlier appears to have been a case of mistaken odor.....

[craftdr]

How there is a coach in your organization that still has a job speaks volumes to your patience. Usually in my careers when I get to the point of late night bouts with the Cap'n, those idiots are usually the first to go... one by one. I mean it's got to be their fault right? If not, I sure feel better after they go so there's that (I also use it to get back at my cheapskate owner... if he won't give me money for players I'll spend it on coaches) But we get pretty vindictive in our little Alaska Baseball League and that may not fly down here in the show.

Anyway, back to the igloo.