Portland Raccoons (ABL) - Page 82

Questdog · 12-01-2015, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westheim

Where can I buy that Extra Roster Spot DLC?

I like that joke!

But with 3 third baseman on the roster it is not surprising that coverage elsewhere will be compromised.

I guess I am not as excited about sniffing magic markers as you are......

Westheim · 12-01-2015, 02:49 PM

2008 AMATEUR DRAFT

Sunday night, the ABL’s primary slave market event took place, the 2008 Amateur Draft. Hundreds of young men can’t wait to be put under some baseball organization’s yoke.

The Raccoons had the 21st pick in every round, as well as the 14th pick in the supplemental round. We had a list of 13 players that looked most promising, and in fact there were three that according to Whitebread three really stood out, SP Noah Bricker, SS Tyler Gray, and OF Justin Bellows. I obviously don’t have a clue whatever he is talking about, usually, but from looking at some numbers I thought that Ryan Feldman had all the tools a good player needed to have. Yeah, what the heck do I know. I drafted Orlando Lantán in the first round once. Never heard of him? See.

SP Noah “Bloody” Bricker (12/11/13)
SP Michael Colvard (11/13/11)
SP Kevin Woodworth (11/16/11)
CL Chris Spindler (17/13/9)

SS Tyler Gray (14/12/4)
3B Tom Thomas (14/7/16)
3B Mark Abraham (10/7/11)

OF Ryan Feldman (10/15/12)
OF John Kelsey (10/10/17)
RF/CF Chris Macias (10/9/11)
OF/3B Dave Carter (11/9/12)
OF Jason Seeley (9/10/14)
OF Justin Bellows (7/10/17)

The Aces had the first overall pick and selected outfielder Justin Bellows while having all the choice in the world. The Scorpions took Noah Bricker at #2, and another pitcher, Kevin Woodworth, went #3 to the Wolves. Outfielders John Kelsey (Knights) and Ryan Feldman (Condors) completed the top 5. Tyler Gray fell as far as #10 (Buffaloes), but none of the sparkling four came even close to the Raccoons’ first pick, and in fact eight of the first ten picks were from the selections above. Only three of the 13 above remained to hang around at #21: Abraham, Macias, and Seeley.

Seeley was 21, and OPS’ing .975 for Washington, with a weak arm that would most likely keep him in leftfield. But the hitting profile was certainly nice, and he also had some good speed. Abraham, also 21, had a strong arm, but looked like a car accident whenever he had to field anything at third base. Stanford was even playing him some in centerfield, which was totally out of the question in professional ball. He had less power, but perhaps better OBP qualities. Macias, not quite 21, played for MIT and was collecting plants in his spare time, and oh, he could whack a ball quite well. He was good at catching butterflies with a net, too, and less great at catching fly balls coming at his innocent face.

So we drafted Seeley. Macias went 33rd overall to the Blue Sox, while Abraham stuck around. I was not exactly pumped to draft another player that looked very much like Ricardo Martinez (nothing against Martinez! Except his defense. His defense makes gargoyles weep…), but Whitebread was assuring me that he was the best bet. I pointed at another outfielder, Justin Dally, and he said no. Dally eventually went 56th overall to the Loggers as a second-rounder. A testament to the embarrassing crop of catchers: no celebratory backstop was picked until one spot before the Coons’ second round selection, when the Falcons chose Sandy Fernandini, 68th overall in the draft.

2008 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS

Round 1 (#21) – OF Jason Seeley, 21, from Lakeland South, WA – power prodigy with good eye, range, and quite some speed; the only thing lacking is a good throwing arm, so he profiles as a good defensive leftfielder, or an average centerfielder
Supp. Round (#38) – 3B Mark Abraham, 21, from River Forest, IL – good swing and good eye to not do it every time, generates doubles and home runs, also a good base stealer, too, unfortunately a total train wreck with the glove; may need transplantation to first base sooner rather than later
Round 2 (#69) – 1B Matt LaVoie, 20, from Tulsa, OK – prototypical first baseman with average defense, a big stick, and leaden boots; there is hope for the big stick to carry him to the majors with lots of long balls
Round 3 (#93) – INF/LF Chris Poole, 20, from Chicago, IL – versatile defender with a good glove, who is able to chip singles where the defense ain’t, then take the extra base with his feet rather than the bat; won’t ever hit a notable number of extra base hits, though
Round 4 (#117) – C Alexis Crespin, 21, from Levittown, Puerto Rico – not much of a batter no matter how you twist and turn him, but he is smart and calling a good game; his arm is average at best, though
Round 5 (#141) – SP Chad Royston, 20, from Claxton, GA – four pitches, including a mediocre, 89mph fastball; severe control problems, but there is still hope and a potential that can be tabbed with enough work, which is not something Royston has put in so far, so he will require a lesson by out A-level personnel
Round 6 (#165) – SS Glen Holland, 19, from Auburn, CA – excellent defensive shortstop with no power in his bat, but good legs and better eyes
Round 7 (#189) – SP Ryan Talbot, 19, from West Odessa, TX – right-hander who needs to get that changeup going if he wants to get anywhere close to the majors; his curveball is already very devastating, but he won’t scrape past with just that and his girly 88mph fastball
Round 8 (#213) – 2B/SS Rich Walsh, 19, from Lakeville, MN – explosive speed and sure hands are met with a comically bad approach to an at-bat and an absolute inability to lay off the breaking ball below the zone; also can’t execute a double play pivot properly
Round 9 (#237) – MR Jason McNamara, 19, from Stanford, CA – nicknamed “Walker” since his freshman year in high school, says it all
Round 10 (#261) – SS/2B Travis Leeper, 18, from North Charleston, SC – shows all signs of a good defensive ballplayer, with a bit of clumsiness that could be helped with more regular exercise, and has noticeable contact abilities, but has no power or speed to help his cause
Round 11 (#285) – SP Abel Parker, 20, from Sugar Land, TX – you name a pitch, he throws it, or at least attempts to; perhaps too much work to hew this righty into shape…
Round 12 (#309) – INF/LF/RF Paul Baggett, 19, from Kennewick, WA – quirky guy able to play almost every position in the field, but not blessed with speed or any ability whatsoever to whack a ball

Seeley and Abraham were assigned to Ham Lake right away. They would only get choked in the temporary clutter that is our A-level team in Aumsville. We currently have 13 infielders on that team and will have to axe that down further in the coming weeks. This includes a few rich (in numbers) recent draft classes as well as most of the players from the international complex that weren’t disinherited outright being … infielders. None of them are hitting much, and it is hard to find actual potential in a sea of mediocrity.

Among the players released right now were 27-year old AA-level pitchers Salvador Cardona (2003, fifth round) and Tim Bell (2003, ninth round), 20-yr old 1B Tony Hernandez (2006, eighth round), and 20-yr old RF/3B Dave Peyton (2006, seventh round).

Our system is a bit strange right now. Our AAA team is fighting for a division title, our AA team is about to get disbanded for uncompetitiveness, and the A level team plays roughly .500 ball. The most horror definitely is clogged up in AA Ham Lake. But even if we cull through there, we’d still not know whom to promote from Aumsville for best results. Or in other words: among 20 infielders between Ham Lake and Aumsville, only one is OPS’ing more than .690, and that kid, A 3B/SS Willie Cordero, only has 20 at-bats.

Westheim · 12-04-2015, 06:47 PM

Raccoons (37-23) @ Stars (42-20) – June 16-18, 2008

The Stars ranked first in so many categories in the Federal League, it wasn’t much fun for anybody else. For starters, they led the league in runs scored, and runs allowed, and starters’ ERA, and bullpen ERA, and, and, and… We last played them in 2004, losing two of three, and have lost all of the last four series with them, taking our last series win in 1996.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (5-3, 2.81 ERA) vs. Edgar Amador (7-2, 4.06 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (5-1, 4.52 ERA) vs. Angelo Velasco (0-1, 6.00 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (7-2, 2.39 ERA) vs. Jesus Bautista (7-5, 3.16 ERA)

Their rotation is all right-handed, but they are missing two of their better guys in Jose Flores and Elwood Spurrell. Hey, they’re leading the universe in everything, regardless.

Game 1
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Brown
DAL: CF C. Morán – RF D. Richardson – 3B Berman – LF J. Alexander – 2B H. Garcia – SS A. Rodriguez – 1B Boyle – C T. Phillips – P Amador

This was the first time we’d face the Fat Cat since his unglorious departure, and he still had that most annoying walk issue, opening the game with a free pass to Quebell. Castro and Martinez hit singles before the Duke drew another walk for the first run of the game. Pruitt almost hit into a double play, but was barely safe at first on a fielder’s choice, and the Raccoons just kept the line moving. Nomura, Brown, and Quebell would all hit 2-out RBI singles to put a 6-spot on the Fat Cat in the first inning before Castro struck out. Problem was, Brown was not much better. After going to three full counts in the first inning, he was shredded for three runs in the bottom 2nd, all scoring on 2-out singles by Amador (of course), Cesar Morán and … Daniel Richardson (arf!). In the fourth, Brownie walked a pair in full counts before Richardson thankfully grounded out to Nomura to end the affair. Amador had lasted four innings before being hit for by Zak Davidson, who drew one of the walks. After five innings of terrible struggles, Brownie struck out the side in the sixth, his final inning, ending on just under 110 pitches. Being held very short by Fernando Hernandez jr. since Amador’s departure from the game, the Raccoons still led 6-3 when Ed Bryan took over, facing three lefties in the bottom 7th. Yohan Bonneau, Morán, and Richardson all singled. One run was in when Bruno entered and walked Dennis Berman to load them up. John Alexander popped out foul and Hector Garcia lined out to Black for a sac fly 6-5. Bruno struck out Armando Rodriguez – if only Craig Bowen could have caught the ball. Everybody was safe, reloading the sacks, but Bruno still escaped with the lead alive when Bruce Boyle grounded out to Nomura. All the while, the Coons’ lineup was snoozing, and didn’t wake up again until the ninth. Trevino had a pinch-hit single with two outs, stole second base, then came home on the Duke’s RBI double for an insurance run. Not that Angel needed it… 7-5 Brownies. Martinez 2-4; Trevino (PH) 1-1; Bowen 2-3, BB; Nomura 4-4, 2B, RBI;

Ed Bryan is about one look I don’t like away from being banished to the land of no return. Tomas Castro got a golden sombrero after his first inning single. Despite some 2-hit games recently, he hasn’t been good in a while. Time to give Fletcher some love.

Game 2
POR: 1B Quebell – 2B Nomura – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – CF Fletcher – SS Barrón – C Bowen – P Yates
DAL: CF C. Morán – SS Boyle – 3B H. Garcia – LF J. Alexander – 1B Berman – C R. Garza – 2B A. Rodriguez – RF D. Richardson – P Velasco

The Coons scored two on hits chained together by the bottom of the order in the second inning, but the annoying Richardson hit an RBI double to take half of the lead back quite quickly. Yates continued to struggle, didn’t get a strikeout until the third inning, but in the same frame also was taken deep by Hector Garcia for two runs and a 3-2 Stars lead. That feat was countered by Craig Bowen in the fourth, his 10th homer of the year, and Yates held a 4-3 lead again, but it was shaky as all hell. The ball kept flying, Matt Pruitt hitting a 2-piece in the sixth (only his second dinger), and on a day of 2-run homers, the Duke refused to go unnoticed, and added his 13th shot of the year in the seventh, 8-3. The middle innings were quite a bit less stressful for Kel, who eventually struck out seven in as many innings. Bowen homered again in the eighth, then a solo shot, with a run being put back on the board by the Stars in the bottom of the same inning, in which Ed Bryan faced three men and retired merely one. Sergio Vega took over, surrendered one of Bryan’s runners, but finished the game before it could get ugly. 9-4 Critters. Black 2-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-4, RBI; Bowen 3-3, BB, 2 HR, 2B, 4 RBI; Yates 7.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, W (6-1); Vega 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

The Stars picked up left-hander Arthur Joplin (2-2, 2.15 ERA, 8 SV) from the Buffaloes after this game, parting with a 22-yr old AAA SP Dave Flores.

Bryan…

Game 3
POR: 1B Quebell – 2B Nomura – LF Pruitt – RF Black – CF Fletcher – SS Barrón – 3B Chavez – C Esquivel – P Umberger
DAL: CF C. Morán – 2B H. Ramirez – 3B H. Garcia – LF J. Alexander – 1B Berman – C R. Garza – SS A. Rodriguez – RF D. Richardson – P Bautista

After hitting into double plays in the first two innings, and not doing much at all in the next two, the Raccoons got a chance in the fifth. With the game still scoreless with the Stars stranding runners in scoring position twice against Umberger early on, our pitcher found himself at the plate with no outs and Chavez and Esquivel in scoring position. Jong-hoo grounded out well enough to enable Nelson Chavez to score, and Quebell doubled in Esquivel, then scored on Pruitt’s double. All three Raccoons doubles in the inning were hit past the reach of John Alexander in left for a 3-0 lead. No more scoring threats until the eighth, when Pruitt led off with a triple and scored on Barrón’s single. Umberger didn’t allow much of substance throughout the middle innings but seemed to be tiring by the eighth. He was still in the game for the ninth with a 4-0 shutout in place, facing Ramirez to start things. After a groundout to short, and Hector Garcia’s groundout to first, John Alexander was up, wore down Umberger in a full count before grounding to Nomura, but Nomura bungled the ball and Alexander reached on an error. Law Rockburn came on to retire Dennis Berman on a grounder to first. 4-0 Coons! Quebell 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Pruitt 2-4, 3B, 2B, RBI; Barrón 3-4, RBI; Esquivel 2-4, 2B; Umberger 8.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K, W (8-2);

Well, THAT was a sweep I didn’t see coming! Unfortunately it didn’t get us any closer to the Crusaders, who swept the Cyclones to stay two games ahead.

Raccoons (40-23) vs. Crusaders (43-22) – June 19-22, 2008

The Crusaders were on a fantastic tear, winning their last ten games in a row! With the third-most runs scored and the fewest runs allowed, which was achieved with the best rotation in the game, they were quite the force. But we had just swept the Stars, so were we scared? Nah. We are 2-1 against them this year, too.

Projected matchups:
Colin Baldwin (3-4, 3.74 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (10-2, 2.18 ERA)
Javier Cruz (3-3, 4.38 ERA) vs. Angel Javier (4-6, 3.36 ERA)
Nick Brown (6-3, 2.93 ERA) vs. David Estrada (6-4, 4.24 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (6-1, 4.46 ERA) vs. Greg Grams (7-2, 3.59 ERA)

That’s one lefty on Saturday, Estrada, and how is Greg Grams 7-2? That’s some swell team right there!

Game 1
NYC: CF R. Pena – SS Butler – LF M. Ortíz – 1B A. Munoz – 3B Reece – 2B Caraballo – RF Britton – C D. Anderson – P Connor
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – 2B Nomura – C Bowen – SS Barrón – P Baldwin

Anastasio Munoz and Duke Smack exchanged solo shots in the second inning, with the Duke appearing in the box again in the third inning after singles by Baldwin, Quebell, and Martinez had loaded the bases. Black singled to center for the go-ahead run, but Pruitt struck out and Nomura flew out to left to leave it at that. Not only did the corner outfielders provide some offense, they also helped in the field, robbing the Crusaders of some doubles behind a shaky Baldwin. Tomas Castro hit a solo homer in the fifth to open the score a bit to 3-1, and we gobbled up two more singles in the bottom 6th. With one out and first base open, the Crusaders walked Barrón intentionally to get the second out from Baldwin, but Quebell shot a single to right to score two more runs! Daryl Anderson knocked out Baldwin with a 2-out RBI double in the seventh. Salazar protected a 5-2 lead by getting PH Marc Williams to ground out to third base. Donald Sims struggled in the eighth only for Bruno to come in and get the third out, and remained in the game when the Coons piled on in the bottom 8th. Well, Fletcher singled home a run before Quebell hit into a double play to keep it at that one run. Ape Britton slugged a 2-run homer off Bruno with two outs in the ninth, but the Crusaders were denied a comeback and had their 10-game winning streak snapped. 6-4 Critters. Quebell 2-5, 2 RBI; Black 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-3, BB, 2B; Fletcher 1-1, RBI; Baldwin 6.2 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W (4-4) and 1-3;

… but the Raccoons have a 7-game winning streak! And we’re one more win away from entering into a virtual tie with them, and THEN we’d get Brownie back into the box!

Game 2
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B R. Garza – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Caraballo – SS Butler – 3B M. Williams – C D. Anderson – P Javier
POR: 1B Quebell – LF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – C Bowen – CF Fletcher – 2B Nomura – SS Barrón – P Cruz

Stanton Martin extended a 12-game hitting streak with a first inning single, sending Roberto Pena to third, and another walk to Caraballo loaded the bases before Cruz somehow got out of the game. The Coons would take the lead on Yoshi’s groundout in the bottom 2nd, and Quebell’s floater escaped Stanton Martin to fall in for a 2-out RBI single that plated Fletcher for a 2-0 lead. Black and Fletcher were on base for Nomura in the third, and another soft line could not be caught by Martin and fell in for an RBI single, 3-0. Defensive deficiencies continued to plague the Crusaders, with Daryl Anderson throwing away a sorry grounder by Cruz to start the fourth inning. Angel Javier then walked the bases full with no outs, and while Martinez popped out, the Duke sent a line to left that bounced in front of Martin Ortíz for another run. Javier however was in meltdown mode and walked in two more runs against Bowen and Fletcher to give Cruz a 6-run lead. Javier was gone after that, but the Coons continued to get those lucky hits in this game. Nomura doubled in a run in the sixth inning with a double that Ortíz tried to catch rather than allow it to fall in. With the pitcher up next and Bowen on first, that was an unnecessary run to allow to score. Cruz crossed over 110 pitches in the seventh inning and was removed after a 2-out single by PH Anastasio Munoz, but the Furballs still maintained a shutout. Vega and Rockburn handled the last two innings competently. 7-0 Coons! Black 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Nomura 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Cruz 6.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 7 K, W (4-3);

First place! First place! First - … at least a virtual tie of it. Half the pie. And I’d like to claim we’ll have a pitching advantage in the last two games.

Game 3
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B Caraballo – RF S. Martin – LF M. Ortíz – 1B A. Munoz – 3B Reece – SS Butler – C D. Anderson – P D. Estrada
POR: LF Castro – SS Barrón – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – CF Fletcher – C Bowen – 1B Sharp – 2B Nomura – P Brown

… and it all went wrong very badly and very early. Pena hit a leadoff single, there was another passed ball on Bowen, and then Martin walked, Munoz singled, Reece singled, and so on until the Crusaders had four runs on the board against Brown. Well, the Raccoons pulled three runs back in the same first inning, with almost everybody hitting hard off Estrada, but Brownie was just not any good and struggled horrendously to get batters removed with two strikes, but struck out Stanton Martin when it counted really hard, with runners on the corners and two outs in the fourth inning. Bob Butler however singled home a run with two outs in the fifth, while the Raccoons couldn’t score even with a Castro triple in the bottom of the inning. Bottom 6th, Fletcher singled, Bowen walked, but Sharp popped out for the second out. Yoshi grounded up the middle, where the ball eluded Butler for an RBI single. Quebell hit for Rockburn, walked, but Sonny Reece caught Castro’s liner to end the inning with the bases loaded to keep the Coons down a run. A Barrón error put Martin Ortíz on base in the seventh, and when Ape Britton hit for Munoz, Ed Bryan was called on to face him and Sonny Reece. Two singles later, the Crusaders were up by three, and Bryan’s presence was no longer required. Sergio Vega collected the last eight outs in the game, allowing one more run in the eighth inning, as the Raccoons’ share of first place evaporated into nothing. David Estrada pitched a complete game 8-hitter. 8-4 Crusaders. Fletcher 2-3, BB, 2 RBI; Esquivel (PH) 1-1;

Ed Bryan had put eight of his last nine men on base, and 20 of his last 46. It was enough. He was sent packing, with Luis Beltran getting a call. Beltran, 28, was way past “potential prospect” status, and had appeared in only seven major league games, but Ed Bryan’s face was in serious danger to get dented if he stayed around any longer.

Game 4
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B M. Williams – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 3B Reece – 1B Caraballo – SS Butler – C D. Anderson – P Grams
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – 3B Chavez – P Yates

Another pitcher nearing extinction on the roster was – Kelvin Yates. Pena singled, Williams singled, then he walked Ortíz, and Martin hit a slam for an early mood spoiler. Given the Raccoons’ marginal record against marginal pitchers, Greg Grams would probably go the distance as well. Accordingly, the Raccoons vanished in order in the bottom 1st, while Yates put the first two men on in the second, with Barrón turning a relieving double play. In the third, Yates gave a leadoff single to Ortíz, and Stanton Martin jacked another one, 6-0 Crusaders. After Yates walked Sonny Reece and Caraballo singled to right, Yates was yanked with an ERA over five that kept rising with Salazar waving in his runners. Top 3rd, Crusaders up by eight, this one was well over. Grams retired the first ten Raccoons before Castro hit a single, but the team failed to score on the mediocre Grams until the eighth inning when Quebell hit a double off the wall to score Chavez and Martinez. 8-3 Crusaders. Castro 2-4, 2B, RBI; Esquivel (PH) 1-1; Martinez (PH) 1-2, 2B; Salazar 3.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K; Beltran 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

In other news

June 17 – The Thunder deal 36-yr old SP Santiago Chavez (4-3, 3.79 ERA, 1 SV) and cash to the Condors for three minor leaguers.
June 18 – Denver’s Pedro Pujols (.359, 8 HR, 39 RBI) has hit in 25 straight games, landing one hit in the Gold Sox’ 13-7 win over the Indians. His lone hit is a 3-run homer off Juan Jimenez.
June 19 – Terrible news in Tijuana: 27-yr old CF Ramón Perez (.263, 12 HR, 41 RBI) remains permanently sidelined with a concussion and announces his retirement. Perez batted .264 with 66 HR in his short career, landing 596 hits and stealing 143 bases. He was the 2004 CL Rookie of the Year.

Complaints and stuff

Well, that didn’t work out as intended. I don’t know what to do with our assumed co-aces. One is stumbling sidewards rather than getting back to form, and the other is about to get banished to Siberia. While Stanton Martin plated half a dozen in two attempts off him, Beltran and Salazar struck him out…

Yeah, it’s all a bit complicated. I don’t know how to fix the rotation. On paper the personnel is splendid. On the field they keep blowing up. Very discouraging.

Questdog · 12-04-2015, 07:30 PM

You jinxed yourself in that one.....I could see those last two games coming a mile away.....

Westheim · 12-06-2015, 04:51 PM

As this week opened, Matt Cash returned from the disabled list, displacing Claudio Salazar to AAA.

Raccoons (42-25) @ Titans (40-30) – June 23-25, 2008

We were 4-2 against the Titans on the year. They were a strange team, possessing the third-lowest batting average, but scoring the third-most runs. Home runs were not their method of scoring either, with only Hideaki Suda having hit more than six. But they were constricting enemy pitching by drawing tons of walks, leaving them with the fourth-highest OBP despite that crummy 10th place batting average. They allowed the third-fewest runs.

Projected matchups:
Jong-hoo Umberger (8-2, 2.16 ERA) vs. Jason O’Halloran (6-2, 2.80 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (4-4, 3.60 ERA) vs. Jesus Elmore (6-4, 4.67 ERA)
Javier Cruz (4-3, 4.00 ERA) vs. Mauro Castro (2-2, 2.17 ERA)

Left-right-right from them. We miss the weakest link, Ray Conner, but then again, we don’t fair good against weakest links anyway. Recently we’ve done quite well against O’Halloran. One day we’ll miss Jason O’Halloran, a steady presence on the mound for the Titans since shortly after the war. The world war. The first one.

Game 1
POR: LF T. Castro – SS Barrón – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – 1B Pruitt – CF Fletcher – 2B Chavez – C Esquivel – P Umberger
BOS: SS D. Silva – LF Bayle – RF Ja. Gusmán – C Suda – CF Garrison – 1B R. Vargas – 2B Nelson – 3B J. Amador – P O’Halloran

Jong-hoo brought in the first run of the game with a sac fly in the top of the second inning when he batted with Chavez and Esquivel on second and third and one out. Castro singled home the catcher to get us to 2-0. Umberger came up with Chavez and Esquivel on, this time on first and second, again in the fourth inning, laid down a nice bunt that Suda fired to third, but Daniel Silva couldn’t catch it and it bounced into the seats up the leftfield line, giving the Raccoons a 3-0 lead, two men in scoring position, and no outs. After not getting to “Quasimodo” Suda’s throw, Silva also had Castro’s grounder up the middle elude him after that, having it hop into center for an RBI single, 4-0. The bags got emptied the ugly way when Barrón hit one right to Silva, who turned a 6-4-3 double play. While Umberger scored, nobody was on with two outs, but O’Halloran still managed to allow another run with back-to-back doubles to Martinez and the Duke. While the Titans felt that they didn’t require O’Halloran any longer for the day, Jong-hoo had hardly broken a sweat so far, removing Titans batters with lots of poor contact and lining up zeroes. Through seven, he had spilled only three singles, and had struck out only one batter, and that had been O’Halloran the first time through. Eugene Nelson would finally become his first position player victim in the eighth inning. Meanwhile the Critters had been held to almost squid by Jeremy Peterson, who had taken over from where O’Halloran had left and was still pitching into the ninth, gave up leadoff singles to Barrón and Martinez, but got a double play turned by Silva and would not be scored upon over 5 1/3 innings. Umberger entered the bottom 9th on merely 83 pitches, facing PH Jim Brulhart in the #9 spot. His out was the hardest in the inning, a line drive to center, but more or less right to Jerry Fletcher. Silva grounded out to Barrón before Jimmy Bayle struck out. 6-0 Coons. Castro 2-5, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-4; Martinez 3-5, 2B; Black 2-5, 2 2B, RBI; Esquivel 2-4, 2B; Umberger 9.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W (9-2);

I will never miss Daniel Silva, though, despite him not doing damage in this game. Jong-hoo didn’t walk anybody amongst the team that walked the most in the league. He pitched to one 3-0 count, in which Suda grounded out in the fourth, and logged his second career shutout.

I wonder if other teams kick themselves already for not signing him. He was up for grabs until February!

Game 2
POR: 1B Quebell – CF T. Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Baldwin
BOS: 2B D. Silva – LF Bayle – C Suda – CF Ja. Gusmán – 1B R. Vargas – SS J. Amador – RF Garrison – 3B M. Austin – P Elmore

After the Korean Cruise Control on Monday, we had “Wild Ride” Baldwin pitching on Tuesday. The Raccoons scored early, two in the first after doubles by Quebell and Castro, and another in the fourth on a Bowen homer, but Baldwin managed to give it all away as quickly as it came. In the bottom 4th he had a 3-1 lead, runners on the corners and two outs against lefty Mark Austin. At 1-2 he threw a wild pitch to score Roberto Vargas, then still allowed an RBI single to Austin to get the game tied. Baldwin would not get a decision in the game as he was hit for in the seventh inning. Chavez grabbed a bat with Barrón on second and one out, but neither he nor Quebell got the ball to fall in. Silva made a strong play to keep the Coons from scoring in the top 7th, but our own second-sacker retired Pedro Flores, who had hit a scorching liner to right, to end the bottom 7th with the go-ahead run ready to score. Despite Bruno being shaky in the bottom 8th, the Titans didn’t score. In the top 9th, Manuel Martinez retired Bowen before yielding a single to Barrón. He also felt a tweak and had to be replaced by Ramiro Román, who walked Yoshi Nomura, and a grounder by Sharp bounced past Austin into left to load them up. The Titans didn’t go to a lefty as we brought up the top of our order with “Double Play” Quebell next. He fouled out on the first pitch, but maybe it was for the better. Castro plunged a 3-1 pitch into left center for a 2-run single, and Angel Casas closed out the game with a sweet strikeout to Leon Ramirez. 5-3 Critters. Castro 2-5, 2B, 3 RBI; Sharp (PH) 1-1;

When Craig Bowen threw out Javier Gusmán trying to steal second base in the sixth inning, he improved his CS% to better than 50% on the season.

Game 3
POR: 1B Quebell – CF T. Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Cruz
BOS: SS D. Silva – 2B M. Austin – RF Ja. Gusmán – C Suda – CF Garrison – 1B R. Vargas – LF Brulhart – 3B J. Amador – P M. Castro

Cruz was neither efficient, nor comforting in his efforts to spoil a possible sweep. After both teams botched chances in the first two innings, the Titans plated an unearned run in the third inning. Silva had reached on a Pruitt error, but Cruz had given up enough hits to bring the runner around. The Coons could not hit a guy that was bouncing up and down in a swingman role between the Bigs and AAA since 2005, but Mauro Castro helped out in the fourth. Luke Black had reached base with a double after his drive to left had been at first caught by Brulhart on the track, but Brulhart lost the ball when he bounced against the wall. With two out, Castro threw a wild pitch to score Black from third and get the game tied again. Cruz made a throwing error on Castro’s bunt in the bottom 4th, but the Titans kindly chose not to exploit the opening with two on and one out. Cruz spent 110 pitches over six wicked innings, somehow not allowing an earned run despite four walks issued, and stayed in the 1-1 tie, then even got a sniff at a win. Pruitt led off the seventh with a single, and Bowen also ripped a one-baser to right, moving Pruitt to third with no outs, and also quickly doubling the Raccoons’ hit output in the game from two to four. Barrón’s grounder up the middle escaped the grasp of Silva [grins], and then Yoshi tripled into the corner in rightfield to blow the gates off this one, 4-1, but also scored on a sac fly, 5-1.

But doors can be repaired, even if blown off. After a clean seventh, the Coons’ bullpen stuttered badly in the eighth. Luis Beltran had gotten two outs in the seventh, but put Gusmán on. We went to Bruno, who walked a pair and allowed a single to Brulhart before being yanked with the bases stacked with all the runs to tie the game and only one out. Angel Casas entered, struck out Jesus Amador and got a groundout to short from Pedro Flores to starve three Titans. Angel spilled only a single to Austin in the ninth on the route to saving this sweep. 5-2 Furballs! Quebell 1-3, 2 BB; Pruitt 2-4; Casas 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, SV (21);

Daniel Silva in this series: 0-for-12, 3 K, reached on an error once. I LOVE THAT! Also, I love a good sweep. Bad news is, that we gained squid on the Crusaders, who romped the Loggers for three games.

Marcos Bruno hasn’t been good for two or three weeks now. This is of concern, obviously. It’s nothing against the struggles of Kel Yates, however, who’s up on Saturday in Oklahoma. If Kel can’t reverse his recent trend, it might be his last start for a while… [music swells dramatically]

Raccoons (45-25) @ Thunder (25-46) – June 27-29, 2008

And here comes the worst team in baseball (by half a game), the Thunder we had beaten two out of three games earlier in the year. They had a bottom-3 offense, and the pitching was at best marginally better. The rotation ran up a grisly 4.71 ERA, but the bullpen was at least average.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (6-4, 3.25 ERA) vs. Daniel Dickerson (5-7, 3.59 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (6-2, 5.24 ERA) vs. Luis Martinez (3-7, 5.30 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (9-2, 1.97 ERA) vs. Pedro Vargas (3-4, 4.16 ERA)

Lefty in the middle in this set. Dickerson was with the Elks for like forever, and was always a problem for the Coons.

Game 1
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Brown
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – CF J. Gonzalez – C J. Martinez – 1B Clarke – 3B J. Pena – 2B M. Garza – RF Reese – SS McGreary – P Dickerson

Fielding five men batting .216 or less, three so-so guys batting 6-7-8, and the – admittedly – monstrously good Victorino Sanchez, who was a lefty though, everybody expected the Thunder to get a swift haircut from Brownie.

Well, first there was rain right in the second inning. Despite the roughly half-hour delay, Brownie struck out the first four batters, and was perfect with five strikeouts the first time through. The Coons were largely as effective as the Thunder at the plate, but at least managed to scratch out a sac fly in the fourth inning for the first tally of the day. Vic Sanchez ruined the no-hit bid with a ringing double to start the bottom 4th, and Brownie walked Jesus Martinez, but David Clarke, a joke of a cleanup batter, grounded into a double play to end the frame. Then came the fifth, and lots of pain. Juan Pena got on base with a single, and Tom Reese doubled into the corner to tie the score. Worse, Dickerson’s 2-out single gave the Thunder the lead, 2-1. He’d almost do it again in the seventh with a man on second, sending an 0-2 grounder up the middle, but Yoshi Nomura got to it and made the play to end the inning. The Raccoons were still behind by a run and Brown was not amused when he was hit for to start the top 8th. Trevino singled in his place and went to third on Quebell’s single to right. C’MON CASTRO!! Show what you’re made of!

Castro was made of singles, apparently, tying the score. Martinez grounded out, moving the runners into scoring position for the Duke to hit with one out. The following scene was replayed on the highlight shows again and again later that night. The Duke smacked at a 1-0 pitch and lined it to the left side. Juan Pena leapt and caught it with the runners well off the bags and running. Both Quebell and Castro fell down trying to reverse while Pena HAD THE BALL DROP OUT OF HIS GLOVE!! Castro scurried onwards on all four paws, while Pena stalked after the bouncing ball and Quebell slid across home plate on his belly, as the Raccoons took the lead!!!

AWESOME!!!

Pruitt lined to right for an RBI single before Francois Picard came in for Dickerson and got a double play from Bowen. Up 4-2, we went to the glorious back end of our bullpen. Sims did the eighth well enough, before Barrón and Nomura hit singles off Picard to start the ninth inning. Trevino grounded out to first facing righty Sancho Rivera. Quebell popped out and Rivera drilled Castro to load them up with two out, but Martinez had been removed for defense and Nelson Chavez came to bat – except that we sent Esquivel, with another third baseman on the bench. Esquivel grounded out, though, and so we were back to Angel, and the ground opened underneath him. David Clarke’s double to start the inning was bad enough, but then Bowen was called out for interference on strike three to veteran Luis Arroyo. Marcos Garza grounded out, moving the tying runs into scoring position before Tomas Cardenas drew a walk to load them up. Pablo Ledesma grounded the first pitch up the middle. Nomura ranged over, got the edge of the glove onto the ball and whipped it to Barrón, who zinged to first – DOUBLE PLAY!! 4-2 Brownies!! Quebell 2-5; Nomura 2-4, 2B; Trevino (PH) 1-2; Brown 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 10 K, W (7-4);

(shakes) That’s about as much panic as I can stand in one game. Huaaah. But a 4-game winning streak is a 4-game winning streak (while not gaining squid in the division), and now it’s about Kel not to have it end right away.

Game 2
POR: 1B Quebell – SS Barrón – LF Castro – RF Black – CF Fletcher – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – 2B Chavez – P Yates
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B T. Cardenas – C Ledesma – RF Reese – 2B M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 3B J. Pena – SS McGreary – P L. Martinez

We had the bags full with no outs in the second after Sharp doubled and Luis Martinez walked the next two batters. After pop outs from Yates, Quebell, and Barrón, all three Coons on base trotted to the dugout in somber mood. Jerry Fletcher tweaked a hamstring on a play in the second inning and was replaced by Trevino, while the Thunder stranded two men of their own. A Luis Martinez single helped the Thunder to score a run in the bottom 3rd, but Kel would hit an RBI single of his own in the top 4th to tie the score again. Yates then gave the Thunder the bases loaded with no outs in the bottom 6th. Singles by Cardenas and Ledesma were made worse by Tom Reese drawing a walk. Garza hit a fly to deep center, where Trevino made the catch, but one run scored. Gonzalez struck out before Pena grounded out to Barrón, but we trailed 2-1 again. Hey, maybe the eighth inning would work its magic again! Castro getting hit by a pitch was a reminder of yesterday, putting the tying run on base to start the top 8th, but that tying run never moved past second base. Luis Beltran retired the Thunder 1-2-3 in the bottom 8th and we faced Rivera in the top 9th, who retired Bowen and Martinez before Pruitt drew a walk. It didn’t help, and it wasn’t enough, and Quebell grounded out to Garza. 2-1 Thunder.

Arf. The Crusaders keep winning, by the way.

Jerry Fletcher will be limping for a few days and is officially listed as DTD until the middle of next week. Yates was really not good, striking only three against three walks, but at least was not a total disaster. Cássio Boda won’t be called up to replace him quite yet.

Game 3
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – C Esquivel – P Umberger
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B T. Cardenas – C Ledesma – RF Reese – 2B M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 3B J. Pena – SS McGreary – P P. Vargas

Quebell jacked his seventh homer to start the rubber game, but six days after a suffocating shutout over the Titans, Umberger was raked in the first inning, allowing a double to Cardenas, a triple to Reese, and the-gods-know-what to Garza, except that Pruitt sold out on a catch to deny him and end the inning with a 1-1 tie. The Furballs wouldn’t get another hit until the sixth inning. The game was still tied when Castro singled to left with one out, but was left on base. While Umberger was scattering a few hits, they were all but one singles after the first inning and he held the tie through seven before being hit for at the start of the eighth inning. Sharp hit for him and singled to left, our fourth hit on the day. Quebell hurled a soft line over the jumping Garza that fell into shallow right and moved Sharp to second, but Castro struck out, Martinez grounded out to short, getting Quebell forced, and Black fouled out behind first base. Sharp remained at third base after the inning and turned a life-saving double play in the bottom 8th: Donald Sims had put two men on when Marcos Bruno replaced him and gave up a sharp grounder to third base against Jesus Martinez. Sharp snagged it and turned two to get out, then came to bat with two outs and runners on the corners against ex-Coon Colby Kirk in the ninth. His fly to left was caught by Victorino Sanchez. The game went to extras, where the Coons in the tenth inning had 2-out singles hit by Bowen and Black before Pruitt’s grounder to second was botched by Marcos Garza to load the sacks. And again, nothing. Barrón flew out to left.

The bottom 10th was started by Law Rockburn, facing almost 27-year old shortstop Gerald Turner in his first major league at-bat. He hit a double to right center. After Kirk popped out trying to bunt, Sanchez was walked intentionally. We wanted no part of his .377 lefty bat. The Thunder walked off anyway. Cardenas singled, and then Esquivel cleared the way by having a ball escape under his glove during Pablo Ledesma’s at-bat. Turner scored. 2-1 Thunder. Quebell 2-5, HR, RBI; Bowen (PH) 1-1; Sharp (PH) 1-2; Umberger 7.0 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K; Bruno 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Bloody ****.

In other news

June 24 – A new entry is logged in the book of no-hitters, as Oklahoma City’s Alex Lindsey – in his first start of the season! – no-hits the Bayhawks in a 6-0 game! Not only is it his first start of the year, but also his first major league win! The 26-year old had pitched to a 0-2, 6.12 ERA mark in 2006 and hadn’t appeared at all in 2007. This is the 29th no-hitter in ABL history, and the first since CIN Juan Garcia’s perfect game five weeks earlier. It is also the first ever no-hitter for the Thunder.
June 24 – The hitting streak of DEN RF/LF Pedro Pujols (.369, 8 HR, 42 RBI) has run to 30 games. He took care of business early, with a first inning triple in the Sox’ 4-1 win over the Scorpions.
June 27 – Denver’s Pedro Pujols extends his streak to 32 games with a 2-5 day against the Miners. He also hits a leadoff double in the top 11th and scores the winning run in the 6-5 victory.
June 27 – The Indians part with MR Manuel Reyes (1-2, 3.77 ERA), sending him to the Warriors in exchange for two pitching prospects, #79 Brock Bose and #86 George Youngblood. None of them project to be future starters, though.
June 28 – DEN RF/LF Pedro Pujols (.359, 8 HR, 43 RBI) goes 0-for-4 against the Miners in a 6-1 loss. His hitting streak ends at 32 games, the longest in the ABL since Bartolo Hernandez hit in 38 straight games in 2003, and tying for the 10th-longest in league history.
June 29 – BOS SP Jason O’Halloran (6-3, 3.02 ERA) is out for the season with a partially torn UCL.

Complaints and stuff

And this quickly, O’Halloran’s presence will be missed. Poor Titans. Now they’re missing O’Halloran AND Chapa.

Alex Lindsey hails from the Bob Joly School of Clowns, not having a proper third pitch, and throwing straight enough that my grandma could hit three dingers of him if given four at-bats. Looks like we had some strange alignment of planets, like on May 17, 2000 …

Cássio Boda is still planned in as replacement in the rotation if Kelvin Yates doesn’t turn the corner. We wouldn’t demote Yates, of course, and why would we with Vega and Cash on the roster. In any case, I’ve said before that we won’t be able to afford extensions to both Brown and Yates past ’09. Maybe we only want to extend one of them after all.

Top pick Jason Seeley batted .263 for his first ten games of professional ball, already outsmacking Jimmy Oatmeal (or so…) by a galactic margin. The other AA assignment, Mark Abraham fared badly, however.

The clutter in the low minors is not resolved yet. We released another A-level infielder this week, a former international signee, but it’s not getting better yet. Part of this is that I always keep a few extra guys around to cover for injuries. Well, there are no injuries. With Matt Cash lifted from the DL, only two minor leaguers remained there (but a third one was added midweek). This is extremely odd and can only mean that the plague is going to come over us in the latter half of the season.

Ryan Miller and J.C. Crespo are killing the ball in AAA. If there’d be a way to get at least Miller back onto the roster without - … no, WITHOUT dumping Sharpie. – No, listen. Sometimes, games are sad, and … and then you want something to make it easier for you to bear. And what better way is there than to sniff on a permanent marker?

Other than drawing cat whiskers on your face, of course.

MarkCuban · 12-06-2015, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westheim

Side note: I am planning for expansion for 1996 or 1997. Probably the latter, that would give us neatly round 20 seasons with the original setup. So far no schedule exists for what I want to do, and nobody has sprung to help in the mods board so far, either.

In a first step, I will expand the Continental League to 14 teams in two divisions of seven. (After a few years, the Federal League should follow suit). One team will be added to both leagues, and one FL team will switch to the CL. I don't have everything worked out perfectly so far as far as expansion teams and the switching team go, mainly because there is no perfect solution. When I set this league up, I whipped it up without much thinking about where teams would actually belong. The teams are neatly distributed across North America, but not where there are actually people living.

A logical way to get a fresh start:
If you ever change your mind about expansion, you should have "your" Racoons relocate a) east and/or abroad and b) to the FL, and take over as GM of "the" new portland CL expansion team two or three years down the road. I think the Cheapskate Portland Owner leaving for a superior market is a realistic plot line.

I'd personally have the Portland Racoons become the Tokyo Tanuki -- the mascot has regional feel and the team colors wouldn't have to change (given the similarities, you could even use the same logo!).

Then, you'd get a fresh start with an expansion team and an owner who can't possibly be as bad as the Mexican Money-Grubber is -- he has to be the worst ever I've seen in five years of OOTP.

Westheim · 12-07-2015, 02:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkCuban

A logical way to get a fresh start:
If you ever change your mind about expansion, you should have "your" Racoons relocate a) east and/or abroad and b) to the FL, and take over as GM of "the" new portland CL expansion team two or three years down the road. I think the Cheapskate Portland Owner leaving for a superior market is a realistic plot line.

I'd personally have the Portland Racoons become the Tokyo Tanuki -- the mascot has regional feel and the team colors wouldn't have to change (given the similarities, you could even use the same logo!).

Then, you'd get a fresh start with an expansion team and an owner who can't possibly be as bad as the Mexican Money-Grubber is -- he has to be the worst ever I've seen in five years of OOTP.

Why would I take over an expansion team? The Raccoons are my team. They are *my* team. How could I abandon them and start with something else without being overcome by and succumbing to the most phenomenal phantom pain?

Would you drive down the highway, then after a few rough turns suddenly pull over and tell your kids to get out, and chain them to the guard rails? 'It's not about you. But Daddy's gonna start a new family in Tokio. Bye.'

Seems cruel to me.

I am the Raccoons and the Raccoons are me. We are one, inseparable.

MarkCuban · 12-07-2015, 05:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westheim

Why would I take over an expansion team? The Raccoons are my team. They are *my* team. How could I abandon them and start with something else without being overcome by and succumbing to the most phenomenal phantom pain?

Would you drive down the highway, then after a few rough turns suddenly pull over and tell your kids to get out, and chain them to the guard rails? 'It's not about you. But Daddy's gonna start a new family in Tokio. Bye.'

Seems cruel to me.

I am the Raccoons and the Raccoons are me. We are one, inseparable.

It wouldn't be something else. And it wouldn't be you that did it.

Carlos, that penny-pinching prick, did it. He forced the hand, and left -- and maybe, it was his plan all along, to take the team elsewhere, maybe to his offseason home...

You, "Westheim", bring back the tradition, the team, to the people of Portland, and are hailed as a hero. From scratch, with a new (generous) local ownership team, you build something great, something monumental... and the best part is, they're still your team.... just with different actors.

A gripping narrative -- and one, in American sports, that replays over the decades. The conniving owner who uses underhanded tactics to uproot a local franchise... and a few years later, the league-mandated return... of Baseball to Portland.

And for once, you'd be the Hero...

Westheim · 12-07-2015, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkCuban

A gripping narrative

If you're this unhappy with this narrative, I suggest starting your own.

---

Raccoons (46-27) @ Knights (38-37) – June 30-July 2, 2008

Despite the second-worst bullpen and a below-average rotation, the Knights were still keeping up within their division and were not entirely out of things quite yet. Of course, a third-place offense could help quite big with many things in terms of pitching deficiencies. They had a +8 run differential, but obviously needed more pitching if they wanted to make a push for the playoffs. We had taken two of three from them earlier in the season.

Projected matchups:
Colin Baldwin (4-4, 3.70 ERA) vs. Jim Turner (2-2, 4.53 ERA)
Javier Cruz (5-3, 3.72 ERA) vs. Kent Doyle (5-4, 4.35 ERA)
Nick Brown (7-4, 3.20 ERA) vs. Chris Lamb (3-0, 3.72 ERA)

We will see two left-handers to start and end this series, but not our former Furball Ralph Ford, who leads the team in wins with eight, but also had a 4+ ERA.

Game 1
POR: SS Barrón – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – 1B Sharp – C Bowen – LF Pruitt – 2B Chavez – P Baldwin
ATL: SS Kester – CF Keller – LF J. Morales – RF J. Garcia – 3B C. Martinez – 1B Urban – C Lough – 2B Olvero – P J. Turner

The Critters rode four singles to score two runs in the first inning, but Colin Baldwin was getting whacked hard from the start and gave up a run in the first inning as well. It could have been more if not for a nifty grab by Pruitt on Carlos Martinez’ looper into the left center gap. The 2-1 lead stood through two innings before rain forced a delay of almost a full hour, and when play resumed Baldwin was stabbed in the back by Nelson Chavez, who mishandled Jim Turner’s grounder to start the bottom 3rd. Jose Morales singled in the run and the Knights had two men on base when Pruitt made another terrific play on Jorge Garcia to deny the Knights again. In the bottom 4th, Martinez was the hero, flinging a soft grounder to first just in time to nab Jaime Kester, ending the inning with two men in scoring position. By then, Baldwin held the lead, having driven it in himself with a 2-out RBI single in the top of the inning, and the Coons added two more in the fifth, with an RBI triple by the Duke the centerpiece of the efforts. Bottom 5th, Knights on second and third with two outs, Lou Urban hit a fly to left. Pruitt caught it without much drama. Baldwin lasted six innings in which the Knights left nine men on base. All was well in Critterland until the eighth inning rolled around. Law Rockburn put two men on, and Bruno couldn’t keep them on base. The Knights came back from 6-2 to 6-4 and had the tying runs on when Donald Sims was called on to face Jose Morales with two outs. And the Knights kept annoying their fans: Morales popped out to Black. At least Angel Casas ended their suffering quickly without raising any hopes in the ninth. Garcia popped out on the first pitch, and Angel then struck out Martinez and Urban. 6-4 Coons. Barrón 2-5; Castro 2-5, 2B, RBI; Black 2-4, 3B, RBI; Bowen 2-3, BB, 2 RBI;

The eighth inning is a bit of a sore right now…

We hadn’t used the guys in the shallow end of the bullpen a lot at all recently. Before the second game, we demoted Matt Cash to AAA to bring up Ryan Miller, who was batting .366 in 31 games in St. Pete. Maybe he could finally click in the Bigs? We will now be a pitcher short while Juan Barrón gets some much needed rest.

Game 2
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS R. Miller – 2B Nomura – P Cruz
ATL: C De La Parra – 3B Younger – LF J. Morales – RF G. Munoz – 1B J. Garcia – 2B C. Martinez – SS Olvero – CF Keller – P Doyle

Ryan Miller came up with an RBI single in his first AB back in the majors, plating the first run of the game in the top 2nd. Javier Cruz didn’t maintain that lead for very long, being charged with two runs in the bottom of the inning, the latter driven in by Kurt Doyle. Cruz would get back at him with an RBI single with two outs in the fourth, and with Nomura also on base, Quebell’s double into the gap in right center would plate two more runs for a 4-2 lead. Cruz batted again in the fifth, now with the bases loaded and two outs. Originally, only Bowen had been on base, but Kenneth Younger’s throwing error put him and Miller in scoring position and the Knights walked Yoshi all too eagerly. Despite falling 0-2 behind, Cruz hit a fly to right center, but not hard enough to get it past Gonzalo Munoz – the inning ended.

The first Knights hit after Doyle’s RBI single in the second inning was a Morales homer in the sixth, his 13th of the year. Duke Smack could only chuckle about 13 puny home runs. He hit his 15th in the top 7th, also a solo shot to establish another 2-run lead, 5-3. Cruz pitched another inning, ending the seventh with a strikeout to Antonio De La Parra. A passed ball by De La Parra gave the Raccoons an extra base in the top 8th that allowed Castro to score Yoshi with a sac fly. Ricardo Martinez’ soft line with two outs then narrowly fell into the outfield for a single, putting him along with Sharp on the corners, bringing up the Duke, who rammed a hard line into deep left field for a 2-run double! The inning fizzled out after that, while our remaining soft end of the bullpen put up scoreless ball, Beltran in the eighth, and Vega in the ninth, striking out Martinez, Olvero, and Keller. 8-3 Coons! Quebell 2-6, 2B, 2 RBI; Martinez 2-5; Black 2-4, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Sharp (PH) 1-2; Cruz 7.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, W (6-3) and 1-3, RBI;

This was Javier Cruz’ 200th career win! Of course 194 of those came with the Blue Sox, and he will probably be on the Hall of Fame ballot as a Blue Sock, too, unless he pitches another 20 years (unlikely at age 35…), but hey, we had our cap in the news!

Ryan Miller had a hit, reached on an error, and made an error. I’m looking for more.

Game 3
POR: 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – CF Trevino – P Brown
ATL: SS Kester – 1B Younger – LF J. Morales – RF J. Garcia – 3B C. Martinez – C De La Parra – CF Keller – 2B Olvero – P Lamb

Nick Brown’s first pitch of the game sent Jaime Kester to the ground wincing, so everbody knew where we would be going. Jose Morales homered two batters later, and the Knights were up 2-0. Martinez singled in Trevino in the third, and Barrón took Chris Lamb deep in the fourth to make up the early deficit, while Brown continued to wobble through the innings. Morales came up with Kester on first again in the fifth inning and ripped dramatically – only to foul out to Bowen behind home plate. Two outs in the sixth inning, De La Parra ripped a single into shallow left. Tommy Keller came up and sent a bouncer to Martinez’ right, which completely defended our clumsy, slugging, twice-rookie-of-the-month third baseman and became another single. Brown was a bit fed up with everything at this point and obliterated poor Antonio Olvero with pure lightning for his seventh strikeout of the day. More trouble was brewing in the seventh inning. Lamb struck out, but Kester got on with another single. Kenneth Younger singled as well, and Brown lost Morales in a full count. Bases loaded, one out, lefty Jorge Garcia was Brown’s last man in any case. A high bounder up the middle was snagged by Ryan Miller who ran across second base and rocketed the ball to first to turn the double play!

There would not be a win for Brown in this game, however. The Raccoons had only four hits on the day and couldn’t get on base in the eighth inning, either. Pruitt, Black, and Bowen struck out in order against Clyde Henderson in the ninth inning, before Beltran put a man on in the bottom 9th. With the middle of the order approaching, Marcos Bruno came in, allowed a single to Munoz, and then walked Morales and Garcia back-to-back to walk off the Knights. 3-2 Knights. Brown 7.0 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K;

I probably won’t live to see Brownie’s 100th career win. Nobody will.

Raccoons (48-28) @ Indians (36-42) – July 3-6, 2008

We were 5-2 against the Indians this season, with a 4-game set being played over the weekend. The Indians were only ninth in runs scored, and seventh in runs allowed, with a -24 run differential. They had a good bullpen, but a below-average rotation.

Projected matchups:
Kelvin Yates (6-3, 5.03 ERA) vs. Ramiro Gonzalez (6-7, 4.33 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (9-2, 1.92 ERA) vs. Ramón Jimenez (4-6, 6.75 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (5-4, 3.48 ERA) vs. Tom Weise (3-2, 1.82 ERA)
Javier Cruz (6-3, 3.73 ERA) vs. Román Escobedo (3-10, 4.63 ERA)

And again left-handers will be bookending this series. Weise is a 24-year old rookie who has so far made six starts and is walking almost as many as he is striking out. He was the Indians’ first-rounder in 2005, picked 11th overall. He pitched three shutouts in the minors last May.

Game 1
POR: CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 1B Sharp – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – C Esquivel – P Yates
IND: RF B. Miller – C Speed – LF Alston – CF Luxton – 1B S. Stevens – 3B Fugosi – 2B Brantley – SS Kilters – P R. Gonzalez

The Coons had the bases loaded with no outs in the second inning (which took Black taking a pitch too close for comfort as well as a throwing error), and only scored one run on Esquivel’s single. Yates struggled, which worked for a few innings given their crummy lineup, but eventually Ron Alston hammered a home run off him and the Indians took a 2-1 lead in the bottom 4th. Martinez hit a 1-out triple in the top of the following inning, scoring on Matt Pruitt’s single to shallow right to tie the game again, but not for long. Bill Miller hit a leadoff single in the bottom of the inning, and Esquivel’s throwing error on Richard Speed’s grounder put two men in scoring position. A head-long, shoestring catch by Pruitt on Alston’s hissing line drive to left limited the damage, but the Indians still took a 3-2 lead – while Pruitt had denied Alston, Miller still scored for a sac fly. The run was unearned. Yates started the bottom 8th on the mound, facing Alston again, and after another spaceship being launched to rightfield, Yates was retired without retiring anybody in the inning. The Coons couldn’t buy a hit for their lives and went down in depressing silence. 4-2 Indians. Pruitt 2-4, RBI; Sharp 2-4, 2B;

Black had a black day. Aside from getting hit by a pitch, he hit into two double plays, and had not a single productive appearance in the box score.

Game 2
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – RF Fletcher – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Umberger
IND: RF B. Miller – C Speed – LF Alston – CF Luxton – 1B S. Stevens – 3B Fugosi – 2B J. Lopez – SS Kilters – P Jimenez

Ron Alston kept doing it, yanking Umberger for a 2-run home run in the first inning of game two. The Raccoons did their thing against a pitcher with a 6+ ERA, rolled up and died. Castro appeared at second base twice, and Yoshi also did once through six innings, but nobody ever appeared on third base, or on second with less than two outs. When Barrón and Nomura were on first and second with two outs in the top 7th, it was by miles the Coons’ best chance of the game and Jong-hoo was hit for by the Duke, who fired a drive to leftfield, where it lacked length and was caught by Alston on the warning track. The Critters would not get another base runner against Jimenez, Leonardo Sosa, or Julio Navarro. 2-0 Indians. Castro 2-4, 2B; Sims 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

Would you belief that they don’t have any Capt’n Coma in Indianapolis liquor stores? I had to binge on something as boorish as beer to forget this game!

Game 3
POR: 1B Quebell – LF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – C Bowen – CF Fletcher – 2B Nomura – SS R. Miller – P Baldwin
IND: 2B C. Aguilar – C Speed – LF Alston – CF Luxton – 1B S. Stevens – RF Pacheco – 3B Kilters – SS J. Lopez – P Weise

The Raccoons had five hits in the first three innings and stranded all the runners, while Baldwin allowed zero hits the first time through the order, then exploded with two outs in the third inning when Aguilar doubled, Speed tripled, and Alston singled. Through six the score was 2-0 Indians, but the Raccoons had had eight hits to their four. It was nothing short of miserable, and the beer tasted like an uncleaned toilet lid.

In the top 7th, the rookie gave up his ninth hit of the day to lead off, an infield single where the collective defense failed to get out the crawling Quebell. Castro walked on four straight, and with the heart of the order coming up, only the worst things could ever happen. Martinez grounded hard to Cesar Aguilar for a double play, and Black’s liner to left was caught – as always – by Alston. Top 8th, 2-out singles by Nomura and Trevino brought up the #9 spot, where Barrón hit for Baldwin. The Indians couldn’t be bothered to check after their rookie. He had dodged every bullet with ease in this game. Barrón fouled out. 2-0 Indians. Castro 3-4, BB; Nomura 2-4; Baldwin 7.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, L (5-5) and 2-3;

22 scoreless innings and counting after 12 hits, two walks, and no runs. 11 left on base. Tomas Castro was caught stealing in the ninth inning – his first CS on the season after going 17/17.

Did I mention that the Crusaders occasionally win a game? And these Crummycoons play like the ****ing 2001 edition of the team.

Game 4
POR: LF Castro – 2B Barrón – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – CF Fletcher – 1B Sharp – C Bowen – SS R. Miller – P Cruz
IND: RF B. Miller – 3B Fugosi – LF Alston – CF Luxton – 1B S. Stevens – 2B C. Aguilar – C Washington – SS Kilters – P Escobedo

After three innings the Raccoons had already stranded five runners; five skeletons the Indians circled around carefully when Filippo Fugosi whacked a 2-run homer off Cruz in the bottom 3rd. Luxton reached and eventually scored on an Aguilar blooper that fell between Miller and Castro and became a great amusement for the home crowd. The Coons left two on in the fourth, and two more, Black and Fletcher walking with two outs, in the fifth. Cruz wasn’t shy to walk batters, either, walking Alston to start the bottom 5th. With two outs, Aguilar would fire a huge drive to left that Castro caught with the back against the wall to end the inning. When the Raccoons finally scored for the first time in 28 innings, the run was unearned after a throwing error by Rusty Washington. Wildness and general ineffectiveness had Cruz out of the game after six innings, with the bullpen taking over in form of Luis Beltran. Alston and Luxton both hit hard liners for 2-out singles off him, but Bruno got Stevens to ground out to Barrón to get out of the frame. Escobedo had already been removed in the top 7th. Could the Raccoons do something with Javier Navarro? Of course not. They faced closer Tommy Wooldridge for the umpteenth time in the series in the ninth inning. Castro hit a 1-out single to get on base and pull the tying run to the plate, which merely resulted in Barrón grounding back to the mound to get Castro forced out at second base. Quebell hit for Martinez and flew out gingerly to Alston. 3-1 Indians. Black 0-1, 3 BB; Miller 3-4;

In other news

July 1 – The Blue Sox acquire LF/RF Jose Gomez (.330, 7 HR, 43 RBI) from the Capitals in exchange for three prospects, only one of which is ranked, #130 A SS/2B Roland Lafon.
July 2 – The Indians will be without C Jose Paraz (.242, 12 HR, 40 RBI) for three weeks. The 31-year old catcher has a sore shoulder.
July 3 – MR Ricardo Huerta (0-3, 3.32 ERA, 1 SV) is dealt from the Condors to the Canadiens in exchange for two minor leaguers.

Complaints and stuff

Seeing Huerta on the Elks is raising the fur on my back. He appeared in 244 games for the Critters from 2002 through 2005, in a generally pleasing way.

On Tuesday, the Crusaders opened the month of July with an 8-4 loss to the Falcons. It was their first loss against any team other than the Raccoons since June 8, a string of 22 games, in which they went 20-2, four wins against the Elks, three each against the Scorpions and Cyclones, two in that 4-game split with us, three against the Loggers and Aces, and the one in the series opener against the Falcons. No wonder we can’t keep up. We’re not THAT bad, but they’re THAT good.

The Crusaders even made us a trade offer this week, Apasyu Britton for Nelson Chavez and Jimmy Oatmeal. If there’s a thing we don’t need, it’s another outfielder, a surplus of third basemen or not.

But does it matter what the Crusaders do? I’d say whenever your team goes 31 innings without scoring an earned run you can pretty much quit looking upwards and brace for the inevitable collapse. Let’s face it. This is not a winners’ team. It has never been. A collection of spare parts that never won anything before in their careers are teaching a flock of flawed kids how to lose in the most excruciating ways. Add in a few chronic losers that go back to the turn of the century and you have your perfect vortex of failure that is going to suck in devour any scrap of talent that might be available in that miserable gene pool.

The Raccoons’ 2008 season ended on Sunday, with a 3-1 loss, their run unearned, against Román Escobedo, the personification of replacement level pitching (29-47, 4.65 ERA, 1.62 WHIP in 116 G, 108 GS), a loss in their .167 coughing shortstop, in his approximately 17th attempt at making the cut of a (nominally) major league roster, had more hits than the rest of the suckers combined.

We’re all doomed, and we know it.

Questdog · 12-07-2015, 06:17 PM

How come people don't respond to years old posts in my thread? I am jealous.....

MarkCuban · 12-08-2015, 01:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westheim

If you're this unhappy with this narrative, I suggest starting your own.

I didn't mean to offend.

I've been reading/following for 2+ years now, the current conundrum you're facing is just.... excruciating. It's difficult to see an owner handicap the GM in this way -- I've never seen it get this bad and I've been playing since OOTP 10.

I love reading your recaps, but I'd hate to be stuck [playing] that situation, and until the owner passes things won't get any better. It would suck the life out of me.

The penny pinching prick is sabotaging the team, and that sucks.

Questdog · 12-08-2015, 02:05 AM

Personally, I find it more fun when you cannot do everything you want to do.

Westheim · 12-09-2015, 04:56 PM

Raccoons (48-32) vs. Canadiens (47-34) – July 7-10, 2008

We had to play against the Canadiens at a most inopportune moment. They were about to pick up speed again after a late-June meltdown, and the Raccoons hadn’t scored an earned run in 31 innings, and lost five straight games. In any case, even for a team not playing dead this would be a tall order, with the Elks scoring the third-most runs, and ranking as well in runs allowed in the Continental League. Their rotation was only middling, but they had a good bullpen. We have taken two of three games from them this year, but sometimes you can’t help but expect disaster.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (7-4, 3.16 ERA) vs. Juichi Fujita (8-5, 4.37 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (6-4, 4.94 ERA) vs. Scott Spears (7-7, 4.46 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (9-3, 1.98 ERA) vs. Rod Taylor (10-4, 3.64 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (5-5, 3.39 ERA) vs. David Peterson (7-5, 4.40 ERA)

Four middling right-handers to be faced in this series. They have another one of those (6-8, 4.36 ERA Simon Pegler) that we’ll miss. Most of their pen is right-handed as well, with only one southpaw, mediocre Ralph Davis. This SHOULD be an advantage Coons. Then again, they SHOULD have scored at some point in their last 31 innings against the lowly Indians, too.

Game 1
VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – 3B Suzuki – LF D. Morris – C G. Ortíz – SS Rice – 2B Palmer – 1B Rodgers – P Fujita
POR: 1B Quebell – SS Barrón – CF Castro – RF Black – C Bowen – LF Pruitt – 3B Chavez – 2B Nomura – P Brown

Juichi Fujita struck out the first five Raccoons he had the joy to face, while the Elks had already put a run on Brown after a walk to Ortíz and a Gary Rice double in the top 2nd. Gabriel Ortíz would hit an impressive homer off Brown in the fourth that counted for a pair to get his team up 3-0, while the Critters would strike out seven times before getting their first base runner on a 1-out single by Juan Barrón in the bottom 4th. Brownie would strike out half a dozen in as many innings, and it was wholly unpretty. The Elks got six hits and four walks off him and were on the verge of breaking through in the fifth inning when they had a man on third, Brown walked the bases full, then somehow got a grounder to short to end the misery.

The bigger picture in terms of misery finally stopped counting at 37. The Raccoons didn’t score an earned run for 37 innings until Craig Bowen cracked a 2-run homer in the bottom of the seventh. But whenever Fujita wasn’t serving breakfast to our catcher, he held the Raccoons on the shortest leash, whiffing nine against four hits in eight innings. Technically it was a 3-2 game and nothing was decided when Pedro Alvarado took the ball for the bottom 9th, much less with the assumedly meaty part of the order coming up, starting with Barrón, but there were at best faint rally noises going on as the Raccoons opened a short home stand with this Monday-nighter. Between Barrón, Castro, and Black, nobody reached. 3-2 Canadiens. Rockburn 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

Nick Brown will retire with 89 career wins, I think. Either because he is dumb enough to sign an extension, or because he quits the game in frustration.

I might be quitting soon, too. In the six straight losses the Raccoons have suffered, they have allowed only 17 runs. Offensive ineptitude of galactic proportions is the issue du jour. That, and Kelvin Yates having The Nerves in general, and right now in particular.

Game 2
VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 3B Suzuki – SS Rice – C G. Ortíz – 2B Dobson – 1B Harmon – P Spears
POR: 1B Quebell – LF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – RF Fletcher – CF Trevino – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Yates

After Russ Holland’s hard lineout to Castro in left, the Elks put their next four men on with three singles and a walk, but scored only one run before Ortíz popped out and Dobson grounded out to end the inning. The Coons went down in the minimum of batters in the first three innings, with only Castro drawing a walk and Martinez bowling out for two. It took them until their 13th batter to get a hit this time, with Craig Bowen’s 2-out single moving Castro to third base in the fourth inning, but Gary Rice made a leaping grab on Fletcher’s line drive to deny the Coons the tying run. The top 5th started with a double on a 1-2 pitch by … Spears. Somehow the Elks failed to cash in on that, probably because they were laughing so hard that both Enrique Garcia and Dan Morris struck out looking to end the inning.

On the board, the Coons trailed by one run only, but it felt like seven or nine. The lovely Oregon summer had a hard rain storm in its cards that forced a 1-hour delay in the sixth inning and cut both starters’ outings short. The Elks had probably hoped to win due to inclement weather, but play resumed eventually with a 1-out Castro single in the bottom 6th. He was in motion when Martinez batted and dumped a bloop into shallow left, giving us runners on the corners. With the greatest pains, the Coons scored the tying run on a Bowen sac fly before Fletcher rolled out to end the inning. Two innings later, Vega and Sims holding the fort on the pitching side, we faced Ricardo Huerta the first time in an Elks shirt. Matt Pruitt led off the inning batting for Sims, and lobbed a single to right that bounced off Jeff MacGruder’s arm for an extra base. Quebell was put on intentionally before Castro flew out to left and Martinez grounded out to Mitsuhide Suzuki. Bowen walked in a full count to fill the bases, and the Duke would bat for an 0-3 Fletcher, grounding out to third. Marcos Bruno was just not himself recently and wobbled badly through the top 9th. While nobody reached base and he struck out Jerry Dobson, both Trevino and Black had close calls with fly balls that almost got away for extra bases. The game remained tied and Huerta remained in for the Elks, with Trevino leading off the bottom 9th, which was fine: he was a speedy left-hander after all, and we were out of outfielders. He grounded out to Dobson. Then Esquivel hit for Barrón, singled to right, and was run for by Ryan Miller, who was thrown out stealing before Yoshi walked. Sharp batted for Bruno, but also found a way into Suzuki’s glove. Extras! And nobody was in the mood.

We had a bored closer that needed some work outside of his actual job description and of course not even that could go well. With the Canadiens out of bench players in the 12th inning, Casas’ third on the mound, their closer Pedro Alvarado singled to left, stole second base off Bowen, and then scored on sucker Henry Harmon’s 2-out single up the middle. And then they didn’t even lose. Our last bat off the bench, Nelson Chavez, homered off Cris Pena in the bottom of the inning to re-knot the score, now at a rousing two, and extend the torture into an entirely unwelcome 13th inning. The Raccoons were bound to run out of arms soon, however. We had perhaps one inning left in Rockburn, and perhaps another one in Beltran, and everybody else had been used already – remember we were carrying an extra bench player and only had six relievers. Rockburn put Morris on with a 2-out walk, then allowed a hard single to Suzuki. Rice drove the ball to left, but not far enough: Castro caught it shy of the track. Cris Pena was still in the game. Our lone hope was a meatball to the Duke, who was up second in the bottom 13th, and came up with nobody on and one out. After he unceremoniously popped out, Trevino unleashed a double into the right corner. Ryan Miller, the death of all ambitions, came up and heaved a soft line over Gary Rice’s head, and Dan Morris wouldn’t get it either. It fell in, and with Trevino running with two outs, the Raccoons SOMEHOW managed to walk off. Nobody could quite believe it. 3-2 Coons. Trevino 2-6, 2B; Esquivel (PH) 1-1; Miller 1-2, RBI; Pruitt (PH) 1-1; Chavez (PH) 1-1, HR, RBI; Yates 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K;

… but if we had lost this game, the effect would have been nothing short of the other half of Mt. St. Helens being blown off right into downtown. For starters, the Elks would have leapt over our dead bodies into second place. At least we still have THAT, six games back.

Quebell drew four walks in this game. He hadn’t walked even once in the last 11 games. He had struck out three times in as many chances on Monday. He’s also batting .050 in July.

The Elks made a move, however, adding elite reliever Jose Escobar from the Capitals for three prospects, including two top 100 middle infielders, #98 Phil Butt, and #7 David Betancourt, both still in A-ball. Hum, that might be quite a steep prize for a reliever… But: Escobar was a lefty, so they were armed against that now.

Game 3
VAN: 2B Dobson – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 3B Suzuki – SS Rice – CF F. Jones – C F. Diéguez – 1B Harmon – P R. Taylor
POR: LF Castro – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – CF Trevino – C Esquivel – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Umberger

The Raccoons grabbed an early lead on a Sergio Esquivel home run, his first of the season, in the second inning. The 1-0 advantage was in mortal danger immediately. After sitting down the first six Elks, Umberger had his middle infielders defeated on soft grounders from both Fernando Diéguez and Henry Harmon to start the third inning. Rod Taylor swung and hit right into a double play before Barrón caught Dobson’s liner to keep Diéguez from scoring. While Castro upped to 2-0 with a home run in the third, the Coons left runners on third base in that and the next inning, and Umberger continued to have some grave issues with the bottom of the order. Diéguez walked and Taylor hit a 2-out single in the top 5th before Dobson popped out. The Coons also left Quebell and Black in scoring position in the bottom of the inning. And as always, we were just waiting for fate to snap and break our hurler’s neck. The sixth was a parade of “another”s. The Elks stranded another pair after a Morris walk and Rice single, the Raccoons stranded another man on third base (fourth inning in a row and counting), but on the plus side, Esquivel had hit another homer!

Umberger was yanked in the seventh. He had not allowed a run yet, but had another pair of runners on base with left-handers Garcia and Morris coming up. Donald Sims was tabbed with this job and struck out Garcia to preserve the 3-0 lead, but Morris homered to lead off the eighth. Our short pen had us bat Marcos Bruno, who had already pitched the eighth, bat with two outs and Nomura on first in the bottom 8th. Angel was unavailable after pitching three innings the previous day, and … well, we were still short! And I didn’t trust Vega. Bruno was the eighth and final strikeout victim of Taylor, but held on to the lead and struck out MacGruder to end the inning with a tremendous slider. 3-1 Critters. Black 2-4, 2 2B; Esquivel 2-4, 2 HR, 2 RBI; Barrón 3-4; Umberger 6.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 5 K, W (10-3); Bruno 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (2);

So that’s eight runs in three games, seven on long balls. They are still playing like arse.

Game 4
VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 2B Dobson – C G. Ortíz – SS Rice – 3B Rodgers – 1B Harmon – P D. Peterson
POR: CF Castro – 2B Barrón – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – 1B Sharp – 3B Chavez – SS R. Miller – P Baldwin

Chances for a series win immediately dropped to squid with Baldwin getting shoved around a bit for two quick runs, and the Raccoons taking nine men to make nine outs for the third time in the series. While Pruitt sent a signal that the team was not quite quitting yet with a 2-out single in the fourth, that was all that came from them. David Peterson rammed a double to right to lead off the fifth inning and soon enough scored. It was only three runs, but the complete absence of any movement out of the brown dugout made it look like much, much more yet again. Then Bowen and Sharp hit singles to start the bottom 5th. Chavez grounded out, and Miller flew out just deep enough to allow Bowen to score on Dan Morris’ not quite well aged arm. Led by Baldwin, who allowed Peterson ANOTHER leadoff hit in the seventh, the Raccoons looked like a terminal case: not the faintest twitch of the tail signaling that there was still life in the rolled up bodies. Top 8th, Sergio Vega loaded the bases with Bad Smells and only one out, walking Rice and Rodgers after an Ortíz double. Beltran came in when the lefty MacGruder pinch-hit, struck him out, then allowed an RBI single to Peterson… The horrors really had names, 25 in total. 4-1 Canadiens. Sharp 2-3, 2B;

Raccoons (50-34) @ Loggers (32-54) – July 11-13, 2008

6-2 against the Loggers, the Raccoons had to compete with the third-worst offense and also third-worst pitching again in their final series before the All Star game.

Projected matchups:
Javier Cruz (6-4, 3.78 ERA) vs. Martin Garcia (6-6, 2.95 ERA)
Nick Brown (7-5, 3.23 ERA) vs. William Lloyd (5-7, 4.64 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (6-4, 4.74 ERA) vs. Junior Diaz (4-7, 6.04 ERA)

Two left-handers in the first two games, including Martin Garcia. Him and Brownie were the last left-handed CL North alpha dogs not on the DL.

Game 1
POR: LF Castro – CF Fletcher – C Bowen – RF Black – 3B R. Martinez – 1B Sharp – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – P Cruz
MIL: CF J. Garcia – 1B K. Scott – RF Hiwalani – C Baca – SS T. Johnson – 2B Tolwith – LF Delaney – 3B S. Johnson – P M. Garcia

Against Martin Garcia, offense wasn’t suddenly going to break out, but the Raccoons began to insult the beauty of the game, slowly but surely. They had nothing except a few sorry and lucky singles and a Barrón double that didn’t lead anywhere nice, either, through five innings. Cruz was 1-hitting the Loggers in the fifth until Ryan Miller misplaced Martin Garcia’s 2-out grounder for an error, and sure enough the Loggers were going to score after singles by Jaime Garcia and Keith Scott, going up 1-0. Tomas Castro got hit and stole second base in the top 6th then, and scored on Fletcher’s single. Tied at one, yeah, let’s play fifteen ****ing innings! Not quite yet, however. The Duke would momentarily break out of a pronounced snooze to whack a ball the distance in this inning and thus gave the brown-clad team a 3-1 lead.

Javier Cruz would strike out ten batters over seven innings and didn’t allow an earned run for the third time in five starts. He handed the game over to our established back end, only to see both Bruno in the eighth (with a walk to Hiwalani) and Casas in the ninth (a Delaney double) put the leadoff man on base. Both of them sat down the next three guys, however. 3-1 Critters. Fletcher 2-5, RBI; Black 3-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-3, 2B; Chavez 1-1; Cruz 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, W (7-4) and 1-3;

We’re scoring 2.27 runs per game in July, and that is with the 8-3 win over the Knights on the 1st. Without that…

Game 2
POR: CF Fletcher – 1B Quebell – C Bowen – RF Black – LF Pruitt – 3B Sharp – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – P Brown
MIL: CF J.R. Richardson – 3B Tolwith – RF Hiwalani – LF T. Austin – 2B B. Hernandez – SS T. Johnson – 1B K. Scott – C J. Reyes – P Lloyd

Brownie pitched in full counts to the first three batters, striking out Richardson and walking Aaron Tolwith and Bakile Hiwalani. The Loggers would leave them loaded, but … hrmpf. Meanwhile the Loggers were eager to extend their 4-game losing streak, if necessary with brute force. After the Duke’s leadoff double in the second it looked like the Coons would leave him on, so Keith Scott blew Sharp’s grounder and Reyes committed a passed ball to have Black score the first run of the game. Black would double again in the fourth, and with no egregious fielding mercifully helping the Coons, was left on third base. In between, Hiwalani, who had never homered off Brown so far, came mighty close in the third inning, but had to settle for a double off the wall and being left on third base as well. The Loggers tied it in the fifth. Brown issued a leadoff walk to Lloyd (…!), Tolwith doubled, and Hiwalani scored the pitcher with a groundout before Austin went down flailing.

Soon enough, the home crowd was reduced to hoping for better times again. Quebell somehow struck a home run in the top 6th, and with two outs Pruitt tripled. Sharp walked on four pitches before Reyes had his second blackout of the game, another passed ball scoring another run! Barrón eventually walked before Miller popped out in an especially hopeless way. The Raccoons stranded two more in the seventh when Bowen and Black struck out back-to-back. Brownie was left on second base there, then pitched to Reyes to start the bottom 7th and hit him with an 0-2 pitch. He went on to retire the pinch-hitter Chris Delaney and J.R. Richardson (handing the latter a golden sombrero in the least feasible time) before yielding to Rockburn with his pitch count at 106 and only right-handers coming up. Law had nothing better to do than allowing a single to Tolwith and a drive to deep left to Hiwalani that was looking like one, but wasn’t one. Pruitt made a racing catch on the track and also avoided breaking his neck against the wall in preserving the 3-1 lead. Rockburn would go on to register three groundouts in 1-1 counts in the eighth. And then it was Angel… Keith Scott and Jaime Garcia hit singles to start the bottom 9th and were bunted into scoring position by Spencer Johnson. Oh, those were merely the tying runs. 0-4, 4 K Richardson successfully achieved the platinum sombrero, though, so on one hand all could be well still, and on the other hand, this was a Brown start, so it wouldn’t. Alonso Baca hit for the pitcher in the #2 hole, and with Hiwalani looming behind, it was generally not a good idea to utilize the open base. Baca grounded the first pitch up the middle, Yoshi was stretching the legs, grabbed it, a wonderful pirouette, throw to first – OUT!! 3-1 Brownies! Quebell 3-4, BB, HR, 2B, RBI; Black 2-4, 2 2B; Brown 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 10 K, W (8-5) and 2-3; Rockburn 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

Brownie, still not good, but leading the CL in whiffs after this game, with 141, over SFB Tyler Sullivan’s 135.

Game 3
POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 3B R. Martinez – SS Barrón – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – P Yates
MIL: 2B K. Scott – SS B. Hernandez – RF Hiwalani – LF T. Austin – C Baca – 3B T. Johnson – CF J. Garcia – 1B Lewis – P J. Diaz

Diaz had 62 walks and 49 strikeouts in not even 90 innings, so of course he’d strike out two in the first inning. While Ricardo Martinez conquered him with a home run in the second inning, Yates gave the lead away in the bottom of the frame. The 1-1 tie persisted through four, or as long as Diaz maintained the illusion of a decent pitcher. In the fifth he walked Quebell before Pruitt singled to right. The Duke was looking for meatballs and got the perfect piece of pork delivered, flagellating it far over the leftfield fence for a 3-run homer, ending a 10-game streak in which the Coons had scored three runs or less. They got one more run, unearned after a Tom Johnson error, in the same inning, putting Yates ahead 5-1. The Loggers would get a run back in the sixth, in which they put their first two batters, veterans Hernandez and Hiwalani, on base, but only scored on a sac fly by Alonso Baca.

The Loggers stayed with Diaz, who was overmatched soundly even by the petty Coons. Pruitt got on with a leadoff single in the seventh and was soon joined by Martinez. Barrón singled to left center to score Pruitt, 6-2, and the Loggers still wouldn’t remove Diaz. Craig Bowen then hit a 2-2 pitch into shallow center that bounced funny off the turf and then off the top of the glove of a panicking Jaime Garcia, and into the 431’ depths of centerfield in Milwaukee. Martinez was in, Barrón was turning third, Garcia was scuttling after the ball and didn’t get it until it was right against the wall. Bowen was on his way to third when Garcia threw the ball back in, and waved around, Bowen going home, the throw from Hernandez – late! INSIDE THE PARK HOME RUN FOR CRAIG BOWEN!!!

Even the Loggers realized that this game would never end if Diaz was allowed to go on. The rest of the game was less stellar. Ex-Coon Scott Boone struck out the top three batters in the eighth, and two more in the ninth, nixing a Duke double. Yates got stuck in the eighth, but Sergio Vega sat down five more Loggers to get the Coons into the break with a sweep over the Loggers. 9-2 Furballs! Pruitt 3-5; Black 2-5, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Martinez 2-5, HR, RBI; Barrón 3-5, 2 RBI; Bowen 2-3, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Yates 7.1 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, W (7-4); Vega 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

In other news

July 7 – California dealings: the Pacifics acquire 26-yr old SP Iván Cordero (6-7, 4.62 ERA) from the Bayhawks, leaving their northern state mates with half-decent outfield prospect Ron Eroh.
July 8 – The Crusaders flip two prospects to the Wolves for SP Pancho Trevino (5-6, 3.70 ERA).
July 8 – SFW 1B Raúl Bovane (.347, 7 HR, 46 RBI) is out until August with a fractured foot.
July 9 – NAS C Carlos Ramos (.306, 4 HR, 19 RBI) chalks up his 2,000th career hit in a 3-2 loss of the Blue Sox to the Cyclones. The milestone hit is a sixth inning home run off Jack Berry. The 36-year old Ramos was discovered by the Buffaloes in Venezuela in the early 90s and debuted for them in 1995, instantly grabbing the starter’s spot. He also played for the Condors, Rebels, Loggers, Capitals, and Gold Sox in his career, in which he has batted .300 with 128 HR and 800 RBI. He has won a Gold Glove, a Platinum Stick, was the 1995 Rookie of the Year in the Federal League, and was an All Star eight times.
July 10 – NYC SP Greg Connor (14-3, 2.12 ERA) 3-hits the Titans in a 12-0 romp. The win is a sour one, though. NYC OF Roberto Pena (.367, 13 HR, 48 RBI) slams into the wall on a defensive play and suffers a fracture cheekbone. He will miss time until the end of August.
July 10 – In a game that could only be described as total destruction, the Stars ravage the Scorpions, 22-0, while their hurler Jose Flores (5-1, 2.30 ERA) spins a 1-hitter. Leborio Catalo spares his team the shame of getting no-hit in addition to being run over.
July 12 – The Condors pick up C Foster Leach (.309, 2 HR, 40 RBI) from the Scorpions in exchange for two dubious prospects.

Complaints and stuff

Mitsuhide Suzuki on Monday became Nick Brown’s 1,500th strikeout victim. He ended the week with 1,510. This is his age 30 season. 3,000 strikeouts don’t look completely out of the picture, especially when you look at the average of his last three full seasons, where he whiffed 240, 237, and 243, respectively. At an even 240, he’d reach 3,000 before the end of the 2015 season, aged 36. His K/9 is even UP this year. He posted a K/9 between 9.5 and 9.8 for five straight years, but this year his K/9 is a juicy 10.8 so far!

That 2015 projection is without more injuries, by the way…

I’ve been looking for improvements to solve this mess here. The easiest upgrade could be made in the middle infield. Problem is, the teams that are willing to accept Nelson Chavez don’t have the right players for our needs. The teams with the right players are either not in a position to take on salary or demand prospect Hector Santos outright. There is one case that is special, with the Loggers being willing to part with Bartolo Hernandez, the grizzled veteran, but here it’s the Coons that have to balk. We have $610k of budget space available in early July. Hernandez is due $1.4M for the rest of this season, and the Loggers want young meat.

The Indians would bite and trade Robbie Luxton for Ryan Miller. Luxton has a .279 OBP, however, and it’s just not worth it.

Bartolo Hernandez would be a good fit. Old, but still strong with the glove, and still batting .320-ish. He won’t see the playoffs again if he stays with the Loggers. Too bad our coffers are empty.

Despite the recent ineptitude, the Raccoons will send SIX players to the All Star game! Three pitchers and three batters are included in that, and because I’m mean like that, why don’t you muse about who the lucky half dozen might be until the next update will plop down here?

pjh5165 · 12-10-2015, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westheim

Three pitchers and three batters are included in that, and because I’m mean like that, why don’t you muse about who the lucky half dozen might be until the next update will plop down here?

Here's my guess:

1. Brownie
2. Angel
3. Umberger
4. Castro
5. The Duke
6. Quebell

Questdog · 12-10-2015, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pjh5165

Here's my guess:

1. Brownie
2. Angel
3. Umberger
4. Castro
5. The Duke
6. Quebell

Same guess for me, but no Brownie and no Castro.

Instead, Bruno and Bowen.

Westheim · 12-10-2015, 07:03 PM

When Luke Black came up with the Bayhawks in the late 90s, I always thought, he’d be great sooner rather than later. It never quite happened.

Black could have been the Coons’. They would have had the 13th pick in the 1995 Draft after an 81-81 campaign in the middle of their 8-year death grip on the North. Except that we splurged in the off-season and signed the former Canadien David Brewer to a 6-year deal and forfeited our pick to the Elks. (That pick ended up with the Blue Sox by June, who picked INF Bob Townsley, who now has 1,319 career hits with 99 homers and a Gold Glove) The Raccoons didn’t pick until the supplemental round, and Black was taken 23rd overall by the Bayhawks. He had been among our half dozen core players in the draft pool.

Instead the Raccoons picked outfielders Manuel Villa and Cory Stanford with their first two picks, and then pitcher Bill Coles, and if those names don’t ring familiar, that’s because they played a grand total of zero major league games combined. 1995 is right at the very top when it comes to the title of Disaster Draft, challenged by few, decisively beaten by none. There aren’t many draft classes to rival ’95.

Perhaps 1981, when our top pick was infielder Orlando Lantán, the first catastrophic bust we’d pick first overall (after Dan The Man, Rich Cunningham, the Demon, and Carlos Gonzalez). The entire ’81 draft class amounted to 12 major league wins and 132 RBI. 1984 was also bad, but at least our second pick, 1B Billy Mitchell, went on to hit 75 homers for other teams. In fact, many mid-80s drafts were quite horrendous in hindsight, and when we picked a gem, like Dennis Fried in the fourth round in ’87, we traded it for pennies before long.

Sometimes a draft won’t be bad because the boys don’t reach the majors. Sometimes a draft will be bad BECAUSE the boys DO reach the majors. Like ’92. Our first three position players picked where Luke Newton, Mike Crowe, and Mark Kowalchuk. Combined they’d steal over 3,300 major league at-bats from actually deserving players, and most of those on the Raccoons. To this day I check the clubhouse before the opener of every homestand to make sure that Luke Newton hasn’t somehow crept back in through some unlocked door.

The 2001 draft might eventually be one of those that people look at and wonder whether we were all stoned. The Raccoons picked Chris Beairsto, Cody Bryant, Cedric Chateau, Stu Sharp, and Tim Webster in the first five rounds. Two didn’t make the majors, and three did, but we now wish they hadn’t. “Dumpster Boy” Webster is still sticking on the AAA roster like an old piece of gum.

1995 was a nightmare. But it’s not the hands down worst draft we’ve ever had. The reason for that is some certain left-handed 11th-rounder. But this is not about Nick Brown, the “lefty with a slider”, which then was pretty much the total scouting report we had. I think back then our report actually stated that he was black. Someone almost called the cops when that 17-year old white kid showed up in Aumsville.

But this is not about Brown, it’s about the Duke of Smack.

Luke Black, drafted at 21, ranked as high as 10th on the ABL prospect chart. That was before the ’97 season. He had already reached AAA the year before, but hadn’t impressed much there. He would spend the majority of his time in AAA through 2000. He didn’t make his debut until he was 25, and batted .286/.365/.365 with no dingers in 22 games for the Bayhawks in 1999. Still, when we encountered him in the early 2000s, Vince always pointed out that there was greatness in this kid. Yet, he was batting a paltry .201/.283/.351 with eight homers in 2002, and the following year had 85% of his at-bats in AAA again, then as a 29-year old. He hit 35 long ones that year, 2003, 34 of those for Baton Rouge.

The early-2000s Bayhawks could have used a smacking Duke. They won their only ABL championship in 1999, and spent the next five years trying to look for the right mix to get back to the playoffs – they never found it, and they haven’t won the South since. A strong defensive rightfielder with an .870 OPS would have helped them tremendously. But Black was not that kind of player back then, and spent the 30th summer of his life in Baton Rouge, hitting 34 home runs off kids almost a decade younger than him. He was not happy. They weren’t, either.

Vince always said there was greatness in that kid, but my god, he knew how to hide it. When 2004 rolled around and Black was assigned back to the majors as a 30-year old, he didn’t even have 30 big league homers in the bank, and was a career .226 batter that wasn’t walking either.

The Bayhawks, by now hopeless, stuck up with him for two more seasons, in which he batted at identical .244 clips, and finally hit home runs. 14 in ’04, 19 in ’05. The latter wasn’t quite good enough to break the top 10 in the CL. He barely made the top 3 on his own team, on which everybody was keying on Jim Brulhart, who hit 28 homers and drove in 116. At 32 years old, the Bayhawks finally had enough and dealt him to the Miners after the 2005 season. He hit .231/.297/.402, a 92 OPS+, with 13 home runs for the Miners in 2006. That team finished six games out in the FL East, albeit a meager FL East, where the Cyclones emerged champions by winning 87 games. The Miners could have used more offense. The Miners could have used more home runs.

But they couldn’t get more home runs from Luke Black. Neither could the Bayhawks. Both teams play in pitcher’s parks. Leftfield is quite spacious at the Bay, 370 feet, and even deeper in Pittsburgh. In Portland, true left is 353 feet from home plate, and ever since Daniel Hall has been right-hander’s heaven (although rightfield isn’t nasty to left-handers either; ask Tetsu about it). There are only five fences in true left in the league that can be conquered as easy or easier, all of them in the Continental League, and three of them in the North, in Indy, New York, and Vancouver. Las Vegas and Oklahoma are the other two.

So when the Raccoons spent $4M on Luke “Black Hole” Black and his slightly sad track record in free agency before the 2007 season, some wondered aloud whether old Westfield had finally lost them. But Raccoons Ballpark was exactly what Black had needed all his life, and he exploded to hit 31 bombs, plated 107, slugged .457 with a .745 OPS – all career marks, and it wasn’t particularly close. He’s even better in ’08 with 17 homers at the All Star break, and 25 doubles. He had 25 doubles in all of ’07 and topped the mark only once, in ’05, when he hit 31.

Luke Black is 35 now. He has 122 career home runs, which isn’t much. It’s not even in the top 100 in ABL history, although he needs only nine more to scratch on that door. The latter half of his contract isn’t even guaranteed. He needs to appear 120 games to trigger another year and another million. But he has only sat out two games so far and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t reach the mark (barring injury). The Raccoons’ management loves him. After years of waiting for Clyde Brady to find a stroke he never had, Black finally brought back power to a traditional power position. Raccoons fans love him. He was not alone, but he forcefully reintroduced them to division races.

At 35, franchise player Daniel Hall couldn’t tie his shoes without popping his back and hit only seven home runs in a campaign in which he missed 96 games; and when he did play, he had painkillers for breakfast. At 35, the Duke of Smack is only getting better.

Westheim · 12-11-2015, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pjh5165

Here's my guess:

1. Brownie
2. Angel
3. Umberger
4. Castro
5. The Duke
6. Quebell

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

Same guess for me, but no Brownie and no Castro.

Instead, Bruno and Bowen.

Close but no cigars. And pjh was a little closer. I don't know how Craig Bowen got nominated, but he was. And Jose Paraz wasn't. I hear, the Mexican Nominations Mafia is behind that. And there's totally nobody involved that we know... totally nobody!

---

If the Raccoons played .667 ball from here on for another 90 games, they would hit 2,600 franchise wins before they’d hit 2,600 franchise losses.

Yeah…

Trade

On Monday the Raccoons resolved their third base situation in a trade with the Rebels. The Coons sent 31-yr old INF Nelson Chavez (.220, 1 HR, 5 RBI) back to the team he played for in 2006 and 2007, plus 22-yr old third-rate prospect AA 2B A.J. Altheide, and received 25-yr old right-hander John Richardson (1-0, 5.40 ERA).

This might appear to be a bad deal. It’s not. Probably.

First, why Chavez and not Sharp? Chavez was just not batting anything. He had one extra base hit as we entered the break. Yes, he is the best third baseman on the roster, but our issue has most recently not been defense. Even Martinez has shored himself up some. Daniel Sharp is not a big defensive gain over Martinez at the hot corner, neither over Gold Glove Quebell at first base, but at least he is hitting doubles and is a right-hander to form a semi-platoon with Quebell. But maybe another trade will happen this month, who knows?

Second, what’s with this Richardson kid? He was a supplemental round pick by the Crusaders in 2000, but was let go eventually. He was in A ball as late as 2003, but rose after that. Control is an issue for him, but the stuff is very good. His best pitch is a slider, but he also adds a fork, a curve, and a not-good-at-all changeup. He IS a flyball pitcher, so that could be an issue. He has been a swingman since 2006, and of his 41 major league games, seven have been starts, but none this year. His overall major league ERA is 6.60, but that’s with a high BABIP. Richardson would stay on the roster for at least a few games to see what he has, but not as a starter.

All Star Game in Tijuana

The Raccoons sent Nick Brown, who led the CL in strikeouts, Jong-hoo Umberger, who led the majors in ERA and WHIP, Angel Casas, who was second in the CL in saves, Luke Black, who was second in extra-base hits in the CL, Tomas Castro, who was t-3rd in stolen bases in the CL while batting over .300, and Craig Bowen, who didn’t lead in anything, but wielded a boomstick good enough for being t-8th in homers in baseball. Six representatives tied the franchise record set in 1995, when the team sent David Brewer, Kisho Saito, Neil Reece, Ben O’Morrissey, Jorge Salazar, and Jason Turner to the showcase.

TOP Tony Hamlyn and MIL Martin Garcia were the starters for this game. Tomas Castro was the CL’s only Coons starter, batting leadoff and playing center. He reached on an infield single in the bottom 1st, stole second base, and scored on NYC Stanton Martin’s double to left. Martin Garcia allowed three runs in the second inning, and the Stars took a 4-2 lead in the fourth with a home run by DAL Hector Garcia off Jong-hoo Umberger, yet the CL tied the score in the bottom of the inning when IND Ron Alston drove in a pair. DAL Johnny Collins would give the CL the lead in the bottom 5th with a wild pitch. In the eighth, the CL’s 6-5 lead was assigned to Angel Casas, who blew it with two singles and enough small ball by the FL to get the run across, and tied at six the game went to extra innings, where Nick Brown made his appearance, struck out DEN Dave Hutchinson to end the top 10th, then hit a single off Johnny Smith in the bottom of the inning, but the CL would be denied and had Gary Rice thrown out at third base on Brown’s single, then left the winning run on third in the 10th (Brown) and 11th, after which Brown departed. CHA Larry Cutts’ 0-2 pitch to DEN Pedro Pujols in the top 13th was wild, and plated a 2-out run from third base. The CL All Stars didn’t recover from that and lost 7-6.

All Coons were used. Tomas Castro went 1-2 before being hit for by the Duke, who went 1-5 for the rest of the game. Bowen went 0-3 with a walk after replacing Fernando Chavez. Umberger and Casas were both charged single runs in their innings, but Nick Brown wasn’t touched as he logged four outs, striking out two, and hit a single. Hector Garcia, who homered off Umberger, was the Player of the Game, completing three legs of the cycle and landing five hits in total.

Raccoons (53-34) @ Canadiens (50-38) – July 17-20, 2008

It’s them again… We are 4-3 against the Smellbears this season after splitting the first heat of the mid-season four-and-four in Portland last week. We only won four games against them all of last year… We are now seventh in runs scored, and first in runs allowed. They are fifth in runs scored and third in runs allowed.

Projected matchups:
Javier Cruz (7-4, 3.53 ERA) vs. Juichi Fujita (10-5, 3.94 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (10-3, 1.87 ERA) vs. Rod Taylor (10-5, 3.62 ERA)
Nick Brown (8-5, 3.13 ERA) vs. Scott Spears (7-8, 4.33 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (7-4, 4.58 ERA) vs. David Peterson (8-5, 4.15 ERA)

I set up our rotation to not use any of our All Stars in the opener. Jong-hoo didn’t get a turn before the All Star game again, where we ended with Yates, so we’ll use him in front of Brownie now. Colin Baldwin effectively loses a start over the break. Nobody remains on regular rest.

Game 1
POR: LF Castro – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – C Bowen – CF Trevino – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Cruz
VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 3B Suzuki – SS Rice – C G. Ortíz – 2B Dobson – 1B Rodgers – P Fujita

The Raccoons achieved a double play in the top 1st (Martinez), before Javier Cruz was skinned and prepared for dinner in the bottom 1st. Ross Holland singled, and Enrique Garcia went deep right away. Morris and Suzuki whacked hard hits, and while Quebell caught Gary Rice’s liner, Martinez then botched Gabriel Ortíz’ easy grounder to donate them Elks an extra run. The horrendous Cruz was belted for nine hits, five of those for extra bases, drilled a batter, and looked like a pile of poo for four-plus innings before Jerry Dobson’s RBI double with no outs in the bottom 5th relieved him of his duties. Luis Beltran prevented any other runs from scoring, but the team trailed 5-1 in a rather hopeless way. They did bring up the tying run in the sixth inning, however. Barrón singled in Bowen with two down and was on base with Trevino for Yoshi Nomura to bat, but Nomura had a poor grounder glance off his bat for an easy third out. John Richardson had a scoreless debut for the Raccoons, but Sergio Vega was blown up in the eighth, facing four batters, and not retiring any. One run was in, but with the bases loaded, Rockburn got a pop from Rice and and a double play from Ortíz to not allow any more. While we pieced the game together with four different guys, the Elks’ Fujita went the distance. It was not an overpowering performance, as he struck out only four, but it was well enough to keep the Raccoons short. 6-2 Canadiens. Quebell 2-4; Martinez 2-4; Bowen 2-4, 2B; Barrón 2-3, RBI; Beltran 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K; Richardson 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

We go into Vancouver, and everything breaks down. It’s good to have consistency in life.

Game 2
POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – C Bowen – LF Pruitt – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – P Umberger
VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 3B Suzuki – C G. Ortíz – 2B Dobson – SS Palmer – 1B Harmon – P R. Taylor

The Critters had the bases loaded with one out in the top 2nd, getting on by various means, including an error by Henry Harmon. Miller batted with one out, but fouled out to continue his completely useless ways before Rod Taylor had Jong-hoo for breakfast. Jong-hoo’s stuff was lacking a bit and he relied on defense, which was all well and sugar until Matt Pruitt capitally misplayed Rod Taylor’s bloop into left in the third inning. The ball had Pruitt for lunch and escaped into the corner with a giggle for a 1-out triple. Umberger struck out Ross Holland before Garcia flew out to center, so at least they didn’t get a run. Misery continued: after a leadoff single by Bowen in the fourth and Taylor striking out Pruitt, Barrón rolled a 3-0 pitch into an inning-ending double play. Jerry Dobson then drove in the go-ahead run in the bottom 4th, in which the Elks hit three singles off Umberger. Top 5th, runners on the corners, an inning-ending double play from Quebell. Some things never change.

Umberger made an error in the bottom 6th to give the Elks an extra out that Harmon parlayed into a 2-out, 2-run double with a looper that kept looping and turned Black’s golden Glove into dinner. Dan Morris homered off him in the seventh. The Raccoons weren’t good enough for anything. For the second day in a row, the Elks’ starter went the distance, with Rod Taylor easily completing a 6-hit shutout. 4-0 Canadiens. Quebell 2-4;

Without a doubt, they would put nineteen runs on Brownie in a third of an inning in game 3. Sitting in Portland, I was longing for company. I would consume game 3, a night affair, with Slappy, and a hopefully sufficient supply of Capt’n Coma.

Game 3
POR: 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – CF Castro – RF Black – 2B Nomura – 3B Sharp – SS Barrón – C Esquivel – P Brown
VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – 3B Suzuki – LF D. Morris – 2B Dobson – C G. Ortíz – SS Rice – 1B Harmon – P Spears

The Coons put up a 2-spot in the first inning with singles by Pruitt and Castro, a wild pitch, and then a gapper in right center off Yoshi Nomura’s bat. Nomura was thrown out at home on Sharp’s single, but the Coons would get that perk back when Castro fired home to erase Ross Holland in the bottom 1st. Holland had walked on four straight balls, stolen second base, and had tried to come home on Enrique Garcia’s single. It all happened in a hurry, and I embraced a bottle of Capt’n Coma real tight.

The game did little to make me relax. Garcia scored on a sac fly before long, but the Raccoons got the run back in the top 2nd. In the bottom 3rd, Brown walked the leadoff man … Spears. I had to raise my level of intoxication quickly here, but in the blur could make out that Holland hit into a double play and the Critters remained up 3-1 after three. The Elks were waning a bit in their efforts in the middle innings, but tension rose in the top 6th. Sharp had hit a double and had advanced on Barrón’s groundout. With two outs, the Elks forewent Esquivel to pull Brownie to the plate. Quickly down two strikes, Brownie hung in there while I hollered encouragement. Then he lined a 2-2 pitch to rightfield, and past Garcia! It was in there for a double, bouncing off the wall, Sharp was in, Esquivel was waved around, and scored as well! 5-1 Brownpants, and I think I pressed a pretty fat kiss on Slappy’s cheek. And that was before Quebell homered to double the inning’s output and ran the lead to 7-1.

The Elks had two men on with one out in the bottom 6th, then called for a double steal with Morris batting, which was a bad call in the first place, but when Esquivel got enough behind his wimpy arm to throw out Enrique Garcia at third base, the damage was multiplied. Morris struck out to end the inning. Brown quickly retired a pair in the bottom 7th and I think I might have yelled something, before Gary Rice singled with two outs. Then Quebell made an error that put Harmon on base. MacGruder hit for reliever Bill Corkum, a left-handed batter. That’s going to be okay. I cheered when Brown walked him to stuff the sacks, with the booze finally having won the battle for my dying brain cells. My recollection becomes too foggy to tell after that.

I learned three things the following morning. First, Capt’n Coma and the human body don’t mix well. Second, apparently I promised Slappy to propose to his sister. It’s okay, though, it’s not the one with the funny eye lid, nor the one that is in prison in Kansas.

Third, apparently after the walk, Brownie convinced the pitching coach that he had another out in him, and got a grounder from Holland to short that Barrón turned into the third out. Sims put Garcia and Suzuki on base in the eighth, but Bruno cleaned up, and nothing bad happened in the ninth. 7-1 Brownies! Quebell 3-5, HR, 3 RBI; Sharp 2-4, 2B; Barrón 2-4; Esquivel 2-3, BB; Brown 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, W (9-5) and 1-2, 2B, 2 RBI;

Brownie didn’t have much, but just enough. Sometimes that’s good enough to turn around a series and at least achieve a split after leading with a good example.

Game 4
POR: 1B Quebell – RF Fletcher – LF Pruitt – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – 2B Nomura – C Bowen – SS R. Miller – P Yates
VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 3B Suzuki – SS Rice – C G. Ortíz – 2B Palmer – 1B Harmon – P D. Peterson

Yates topped Brown’s strikeouts the previous day in just three innings, whiffing six, but also allowed a run on four hits and had nothing in support. The strikeouts were masking a bit the grave issues he had. The Elks had no problems to whack hard drives off him, and soon enough those started to fall in. Three straight line drive singles with two out in the fifth would plate the second run of the game. The Raccoons had nothing to show for but two fly outs on the warning track, by Castro in the fourth and Bowen in the fifth. He was removed after nine strikeouts when Enrique Garcia hit a 1-out single off him in the bottom 7th. Beltran provided no relief, and neither did Rockburn. The Elks brought in their third run, and the Raccoons were looking at their goose egg on the board and shrugging. Maybe a surprise double by Ryan Miller to start the eighth could provide some excitement? Peterson threw a wild pitch, allowing Barrón to plate Miller with a sac fly. Quebell singled to right before Fletcher grounded to Suzuki for a double play. Top 9th, another leadoff double, Pruitt off Pedro Alvarado. With Castro, Martinez, and the pitcher’s spot next we had a nominal chance to make up a 3-1 deficit, since we still had the Duke on the bench. Castro and Martinez both grounded out, and while that allowed Pruitt to score, it didn’t advance the Raccoons one whisker’s width, and Alvarado struck out the Duke anyway. 3-2 Canadiens. Quebell 2-4; Pruitt 2-4, 2B; Miller 2-3, 2B;

**** the ****nadiens.

In other news

July 15 – The Capitals give up and deal CL Ryosei Kato (2-2, 1.52 ERA, 24 SV) to the Blue Sox for three prospects, all unranked.
July 17 – MIL LF/RF Bakile Hiwalani (.251, 9 HR, 43 RBI) gets a hit in the Loggers’ 3-2 win over the Indians, his 2,000th career base hit. The seventh overall pick in 1994, Hiwalani has spent his entire career with the Loggers, collecting a Gold Glove, a Platinum Stick, and 4 All Star delegations.
July 19 – Two days later, it’s SFW RF/LF Avery Johnson (.333, 2 HR, 34 RBI) to be due his 2,000th career hit. He has four hits in the Warriors’ 15-6 thrashing of the Gold Sox, with the second, a third inning single off Jerry Lane, the milestone hit.
July 19 – PIT SP Manuel Hernandez (9-6, 2.66 ERA) will miss two to three weeks with a sprained ankle, sustained when he kicked his locker.
July 19 – The Indians deal RF/LF Bill Miller (.281, 2 HR, 34 RBI) to the Wolves in exchange for 1B Mark Berry (.287, 11 HR, 47 RBI) and a minor leaguer.
July 20 – The Crusaders will be without RF/LF Stanton “Clockwork” Martin (.305, 14 HR, 89 RBI) for the next week. Shoulder soreness has felled the 29-year old.
July 20 – The Indians continue to deal, acquiring 1B Mun-wah Tsung (.292, 14 HR, 64 RBI) from the Falcons for 39-year old MR Javier Navarro (2-2, 3.48 ERA, 1 SV) and a prospect. What they need two first basemen for remains a mystery.
July 20 – DEN 1B/3B Yuji Hashimoto (.330, 12 HR, 55 RBI) is out for more than a month with a rotator cuff strain.

Complaints and stuff

Arf.

The Comprehensive and Complete (I hope) Portland Raccoons All Stars Compendium

1977 (3) – Jose Flores, Pedro Sánz, Ben Simon
1978 (1) – Ben Simon (2)
1979 (1) – Ben Simon (3)
1980 (2) – Stephano Bocci, Ben Simon (4)
1981 (1) – Ralph Nixon
1982 (1) – Daniel Hall
1983 (4) – Mark Dawson, Kinji Kan, Enrique Sanchez, Grant West
1984 (3) – Daniel Hall (2), Kisho Saito*, Grant West (2)
1985 (3) – Tetsu Osanai*, Vicente Ruiz, Grant West (3)
1986 (4) – Dimian Barrios, Carlos Gonzalez, Tetsu Osanai (2), Grant West (4)
1987 (2) – Tetsu Osanai (3), Armando Sanchez
1988 (3) – Mark Dawson (2), Tetsu Osanai (4), Armando Sanchez (2)
1989 (4) – Sam Dadswell, Tetsu Osanai (5), Kisho Saito (2), Scott Wade
1990 (none)
1991 (3) – Neil Reece, Kisho Saito (3), Jason Turner
1992 (4) – Daniel Hall (3), Ben O’Morrissey, Kisho Saito (4), Scott Wade (2)
1993 (3) – Miguel Lopez, Ben O’Morrissey (2), Neil Reece (2)
1994 (none)
1995 (6) – David Brewer, Ben O’Morrissey (3), Neil Reece (3), Kisho Saito (5), Jorge Salazar, Jason Turner (2)
1996 (4) – Tzu-jao Ban, David Brewer (2), Antonio Donis, Royce Green
1997 (1) – David Brewer (3)
1998 (1) – Manuel Movonda
1999 (1) – Conceicao Guerin
2000 (none)
2001 (3) – Conceicao Guerin (2), Albert Martin, Jesus Palacios
2002 (3) – Ralph Ford, Albert Martin (2), Jesus Palacios (2)
2003 (1) – Albert Martin (3)
2004 (1) – Nick Brown
2005 (1) – Nick Brown (2)
2006 (none)
2007 (4) – Angel Casas, Tomas Castro, Victor Flores, Kelvin Yates
2008 (6) – Luke Black, Craig Bowen, Nick Brown (3), Angel Casas (2), Tomas Castro (2), Adrian Quebell

*acquired mid-season before the All Star Game

pgjocki · 12-12-2015, 01:50 AM

I miss Saito, did he take a job as a coach or has he disappeared?

Westheim · 12-12-2015, 05:14 AM

You know we had Daniel Hall Bobblehead & Appreciation Day, and Neil Reece Bobblehead & Appreciation Day. Of course we also tried to put a Kisho Saito Bobblehead & Appreciation Day together. Well, we have the bobbleheads, 15,000, stored away in a warehouse. We also have the appreciation. Unfortunately we don't have Saito.

After voiding his 2000 contract and retiring, he boarded a plane to Japan, and hasn't been seen since. Maud has been making phone calls intermittently for years, and she's been close to contacting him. Well, not actually. But she has spoken to a man from Koriyama, whose brother knows a merchant in horticulture materials and tools two towns over, who sells akadama and sometimes grooming tools to a man in the 40s two or three times a year, and that man is always wearing an unbranded brown baseball cap and looks strikingly like this (see below):

She can't find out where he lives, however, but he does not seem to own a phone.

If I could just remember the name and phone number of Kisho's sword sharpener that came over to Portland regularly whenever the team kept blowing his wins...!

Westheim · 12-13-2015, 01:03 PM

Raccoons (54-37) vs. Titans (51-43) – July 22-24, 2008

Despite batting only .251 as a team, the Titans parlayed their ability to draw walks and to hit for some power into the fourth-most runs scored in the CL. They were also giving up the fourth-least runs, despite a buckling rotation. There wasn’t that much left of the Titans’ pitching staff, decimated by injuries, including both veteran southpaws, Chapa and O’Halloran. They were probably sellers at the deadline. On the year, we had beaten them seven out of nine games.

Projected matchups:
Colin Baldwin (5-6, 3.43 ERA) vs. Dani Alvarado (3-2, 4.04 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (10-4, 1.91 ERA) vs. Jesus Elmore (7-5, 4.56 ERA)
Nick Brown (9-5, 3.02 ERA) vs. Mauro Castro (3-6, 4.68 ERA)

We would see all-right-handed starters from the Titans, and we skipped Javier Cruz here. It’s not that Cruz was bad, but he wasn’t exactly blowing anybody away, and the Titans’ lineup was leaning heavily to the left side. So with skipping the righty Cruz and pulling Brownie into this series, I hoped to gain some edge.

Game 1
BOS: SS J. Amador – 2B D. Silva – C Suda – CF Ja. Gusmán – 1B R. Vargas – LF Garrison – RF P. Flores – 3B M. Austin – P D. Alvarado
POR: 1B Quebell – CF T. Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Baldwin

Reconsidering, we should have skipped Baldwin. He sucked tremendously from the start, and the Titans romped him for three runs in the first. Daniel Silva, held as dry as Monmouth, OR in the last series these teams played, singled in his first at-bat, and Baldwin, constantly pitching in 3-ball counts eventually walked Gusmán before Roberto Vargas fired a 3-run rocket way out of left. Dani Alvarado hadn’t been seen in the Bigs since losing 11 of his 16 starts for the Loggers in ’06, allowed a double to Quebell and hit Castro in the bottom 1st before walking Black and Pruitt back-to-back. Bowen hit into a double play, holding the team’s rally to one run.

Alvarado left after three innings with an apparent injury, with the Coons no closer to a comeback than after the first. Reliever Lawrence Bentley served them a chance on a silver platter in the bottom 4th, though. Pruitt doubled to start the inning, and Bowen walked (which he should have done earlier!). When Barrón sent a bouncer to the mound, Bentley was unable to make a good play, and all Critters were safe with no outs. Unfortunately they ran out of juice right there. Nomura’s groundout scored a run, but Baldwin struck out and Quebell flew out to left. Baldwin’s day ended after six messy innings, still trailing 3-2. It wasn’t that he got better at some point. The only things that kept him from a good spanking in this game where the insistence of the Titans’ to swing in 3-ball counts, and potential doubles by Jim Brulhart and Pedro Flores spoiled by strong moves by Pruitt and Black, respectively. The Coons had two on in the bottom 6th before “Double Play” Quebell did his thing again and Silva started a 4-6-3. A Martinez error almost blossomed into a Titans run in the top 7th. John Richardson had struck out Amador and Silva before Suda reached on a throw into the seats. Beltran replaced Richardson to face the lefty Gusmán, but the Titans sent Jimmy Bayle instead. Sometimes, sending a right-handed bat just for the sake of a right-handed bat won’t cut it, though, and Beltran struck out Bayle. Bowen’s spot came up with runners on the corners and two outs in the bottom 7th and he had forked up enough chances on the day. Against the lefty Jason Long, Daniel Sharp was sent to bat, singled to center to score Black and tie the game, but Pruitt was thrown out by Rudy Garrison trying to go first-to-third. Anyway, the game was tied.

Beltran allowed a single to Garrison in the eighth. With one out, Bruno came on and together with Esquivel managed a strike-em-out-throw-em-out against Pedro Flores, with Garrison in motion to second base. In the bottom of the inning, Barrón led off with a double, and new hurler Ramiro Román walked Nomura. Fearing nothing more than a double play in the tied game, Bruno was left in to bunt and successfully advanced the runners. Then Quebell walked, and oh no, they’re gonna hit into a double play. Castro was struggling really badly right now, but still wasn’t hit for with Trevino. He hit a ball to the right side, past a lunging Silva, and the Raccoons took the lead! Esquivel walked in a run, and a third run scored on Black’s groundout to third. Angel Casas had nothing better to do than to raise the fur on my back in the ninth, however. He allowed a single to Mark Austin and walked Jesus Ramirez to bring the tying run to the plate with no outs! The Titans would make three soft outs from there, but that one hadn’t been too pretty. 6-3 Coons. Quebell 2-4, BB, 2B; Esquivel 0-0, BB, RBI; Pruitt 3-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Sharp (PH) 1-1, RBI; Barrón 2-4, 2B; Fletcher (PH) 1-1;

Game 2
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – 3B M. Austin – RF Ja. Gusmán – C Suda – CF Garrison – LF Brulhart – 1B J. Amador – SS D. Silva – P Elmore
POR: 1B Quebell – CF T. Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Umberger

The Raccoons struck first against their former farmhand. With Pruitt and Bowen on first and second in the bottom 2nd, Nomura singled to right. Given we had two outs on the board, Pruitt was sent around third, considering how pathetic a batter Jong-hoo Umberger was. Pruitt scored safely before Umberger actually walked and Quebell singled to put a second run on the board. Castro then grounded out to Silva. The Critters added single runs the next two innings, first Pruitt singling home Black, who had doubled, and then the Duke singled in Martinez, who had doubled, in the fourth. They lost another run in the latter inning: Castro had actually been on base first, but was thrown out stealing by Suda. Meanwhile Jong-hoo sat down the first 13 Titans he faced before a Nomura error put Rudy Garrison on base in the fifth. An actual hit followed immediately, with Jim Brulhart doubling Garrison in. In the bottom of the same inning, Jong-hoo batted with the bases loaded for the second time. He had previously struck out to end the bottom 3rd, but this time in the bottom 5th the Raccoons had yet to make an out. Umberger made it with a K. When Quebell fouled out I felt my face go asleep, but Tomas Castro lobbed a blooper that fell in for a 2-run single and ended Elmore’s day. Martinez added a run off Lawrence Rivers before Black struck out to keep the score at 7-1.

The Titans began to hit the ball harder off Umberger after that and Daniel Silva drove in a run in the seventh that was actually earned. Umberger completed the seventh before being hit for in the bottom of the inning. Despite the 7-2 lead, the Coons weren’t out of the woods, however. Gusmán homered off Beltran in the eighth, 7-3. In the ninth, Rockburn didn’t get the job done, and the human rat’s arse Silva hit a 2-piece off him with two outs. With the right-hander Roberto Vargas coming on has pinch-hitter, we tried to get the final out from Richardson. It worked, but only because the umpire called ball four as strike three against Vargas. 7-5 Coons. Castro 3-5, 2 RBI; Martinez 2-5, 2 2B, RBI; Black 2-5, 2B, RBI; Pruitt 2-5, RBI; Bowen 1-2, 3 BB; Nomura 1-2, 2 BB, RBI; Umberger 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, W (11-4);

With Casas having suffered through the long ninth the day before, the plan here was to use Richardson, and if he put Vargas on, bring in Sims to face the three lefties atop the Titan’s lineup. Everybody’s more or less available at full strength for game 3, except maybe Law Rockburn, who is suffering from a scratched ego.

Game 3
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – LF Bayle – C Suda – CF Ja. Gusmán – SS J. Amador – RF Garrison – 1B Heffer – 3B M. Austin – P M. Castro
POR: 1B Quebell – CF T. Castro – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 2B Nomura – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – SS Barrón – P Brown

After Ramirez and Bayle popped out, Brown failed to retire any of the next four batters in the top 1st. Suda and Gusmán singled, Amador walked, and Garrison singled in a pair before Dave Heffer whiffed. Two more walks in the second led to a third run once Suda doubled. Maybe, sometimes you just shouldn’t fudge with the rotation… While Brown walked four in the first three innings, the Raccoons had no base runners against Castro. Quebell would hit a soft single to get them going in the bottom 4th, but they were held to a Black sac fly and stranding the tying runs in scoring position once Sharp struck out. Brown went six, not walking anybody and not allowing more runs in the latter three, but the sour taste in the mouth remained. Yet there remained a chance for him to pick up a win. While Castro’s drive to deep center was caught by Gusmán to start the bottom 6th, Pruitt then singled, as did Black, and Nomura walked to load them up. Trevino hit for Sharp to bring a lefty bat into play, but was held to a sac fly to Rudy Garrison in right. Esquivel struck out and Brown remained on the hook, 3-2. The Coons left the tying run on base in each of the next two innings, while a Bayle triple and Suda single plated an insurance run for the Titans in the ninth against Sergio Vega. Manuel Martinez pitched the bottom 9th and gave up a leadoff double to Trevino, bringing up the tying run, but a groundout by Esquivel, Barrón striking out, and Bowen grounding out to third didn’t even move Trevino off second base. 4-2 Titans. Pruitt 2-3; Trevino (PH) 1-1, 2B, RBI;

Pffffff.

Raccoons (56-38) vs. Falcons (57-37) – July 25-27, 2008

First in runs scored, but fifth in runs allowed, the Falcons rode their potent lineup while trying to get along with numerous injuries to starting pitchers they had counted on. Even then, their rotation was still a bit above average. They had taken the first series we had played this year, 2-1.

Projected matchups:
Kelvin Yates (7-5, 4.57 ERA) vs. Larry Cutts (7-6, 2.99 ERA)
Javier Cruz (7-5, 3.73 ERA) vs. Pedro Vargas (4-4, 4.75 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (5-6, 3.51 ERA) vs. Dylan Jones (8-4, 3.38 ERA)

There was a flock of question marks behind the Falcons’ starters for Saturday and Sunday. That rotation could get jumbled depending on Alfredo Collazo (5-9, 4.62 ERA), who tweaked his ankle in his last start and might go or might not be able to go this weekend, and even Vargas had a sore ankle! Together with the long-term injuries to Jesus Hernandez and Steve Rogers, the Falcons had four injured starting pitchers.

Game 1
CHA: 3B J. Rodriguez – CF Theobald – C F. Chavez – 1B J. Lopez – RF Reya – 2B H. Green – LF Walls – SS A. Ramirez – P Cutts
POR: 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – CF Fletcher – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – P Yates

Well, nobody saw this coming. After Kel wobbled through the top 1st and narrowly left runners on the corners without allowing a run, the Raccoons smashed through the Falcons’ ace, Larry Cutts, for four runs in the bottom 1st, all runs scoring with two outs on a Bowen RBI double, a 2-run single by Fletcher, and then an RBI single by Barrón. Another run would score on back-to-back doubles by Bowen and Fletcher in the third inning, and Cutts avoided complete destruction narrowly, finding a way to strike out Yates with two on to end that inning, and got a saving double play in the fourth, but that couldn’t mask the 9-hit, 4-run shellacking he had received in four innings. After that we got to see the broken shadow of Carl Bean, entering with an ERA of almost seven and balking in a run in the fifth to get over it.

Meanwhile the Falcons were looking for their first run. Yates had been at Jose Lopez’ mercy in the fourth, but the slugger (21 HR) flew out to Fletcher to keep two men on and end the inning. While Yates lined up zeroes, his level of greatness was as much. The defense bailed him out again and again, and when it didn’t, like when Ryan Miller dropped a pop by Jose Lopez in the sixth to put two men on with no outs, stupid luck got added to the mix. Luis Reya hit a liner to right with the runners in motion, Quebell leapt to catch it and doubled up Lopez. At first glance, Yates’ final line of seven innings of 1-run ball, Pedro Estrada hitting a pinch-hit home run in the seventh, looked good, but the on-field product very much hadn’t been. The Coons were denied home runs off a wrecked Bean, who tossed batting practice, with Martinez and Black having drives caught right at the fence. Walks by Quebell and Pruitt sandwiched a Martinez double, all against righty Leon Walker, in the bottom 8th to bring up the Duke with one out, and ironically the softest ball off the Duke’s bat all day was the one that damage again, a wee looping cougher that barely got over Antonio Ramirez’ glove into shallow left for an RBI single. Bowen scored another run with a groundout. 8-1 Critters. Martinez 3-4, BB, 2 2B; Pruitt 2-4, BB; Black 2-4, BB, RBI; Bowen 2-5, 2 2B, 2 RBI; Fletcher 4-5, 2B, 3 RBI; Yates 7.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, W (8-5) and 1-2;

Game 2
CHA: 3B J. Rodriguez – LF P. Estrada – C F. Chavez – 1B J. Lopez – 2B H. Green – CF Theobald – RF Walls – SS A. Ramirez – P P. Vargas
POR: 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – CF Fletcher – 2B Nomura – SS Barrón – P Cruz

Cruz sat down the first six before Tom Walls reached on an infield single between short and third. Barrón got to it, but couldn’t make a play. The next three Falcons went down in order, however. The Coons took until the fourth inning to mount a threat, but that threat was Nomura moving to third on Barrón’s 2-out single, and Cruz all too readily struck out. Martinez was on second base in the next inning when the Duke hit a hard line to left, but that was caught by Estrada, who got a good jump. Through six, nobody scored, and Cruz pitched a 2-hitter. With two out in the top 7th, Martinez made another one of his throws to first that went everywhere but first. Hubert Green was put on second base with that error, and lefty Jose Mendoza hit for Theobald. We stuck with Cruz, who banged a double off the wall in left to give the Falcons the lead. For Cruz, a strong game got soiled by our porous third base situation, and Martinez almost made another grave error in the eighth with Bruno pitching. That floater could be snagged by Quebell, who also kept a particularly long hair on his big toe on first base to record the out. Bottom 9th, still down by a single unearned run, Jeff Paul faced the 6-7-8 batters. Fletcher hit a grounder deep behind second base that Hubert Green couldn’t dig out in time. Fletcher was safe with a single. Nomura grounded to first, where Lopez went for the lead runner, and Fletcher was out at second base. Trevino hit for Barrón, struck out, and Sharp hit for Richardson, and struck out. 1-0 Falcons. Quebell 1-2, 2 BB, 2B; Cruz 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, L (7-6);

So the anti-Martinez coalition among our pitchers got another member today.

Interlude: waiver claim

On Sunday, the Raccoons were awarded the contract of Las Vegas’ INF Melvin Pollack. The 30-year old right-hander was batting .273/.348/.466 with 7 HR and 27 RBI when waived by the Aces. These 200 PA had been his first exposure to major league oxygen since 2005, and in fact he had only 288 major league at-bats in his career. The Falcons’ second-rounder in 1996, Pollack’s career had been everything but accomplished.

He replaced Ryan Miller (.191) on the roster. I am finally tired of Miller. He gets put in the same box that Bob Mays and the likes were stuffed in before. Tim Webster was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster for Pollack.

Raccoons (56-38) vs. Falcons (57-37) – July 25-27, 2008

Game 3
CHA: SS J. Rodriguez – RF Theobald – C F. Chavez – 3B J. Lopez – LF J. Flores – 1B Reya – CF Walls – 2B A. Ramirez – P D. Jones
POR: 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – LF Castro – RF Black – CF Fletcher – 2B Pollack – C Esquivel – SS Barrón – P Baldwin

Dylan Jones died the death of a thousand singles in the bottom of the second inning. Fletcher started it, Esquivel and Barrón hit singles, already taking a 1-0 lead, and then even Baldwin singled to center. Quebell scored a run with a groundout, batting with the bases loaded, but that was better than a double play, and then Martinez cracked a double to break the score right open as the little blighters took a 4-0 lead. Baldwin was perfect through four innings before Jose Lopez unleashed thunder with his 22nd homer of the year. The Falcons lost Javy Rodriguez to injury on a defensive play in the fifth, with Jones also accumulating runners on the bases. Black batted with two on, got nothing but junk and walked to load the bases with one out. Unfortunately Fletcher struck out and Pollack lined out to Paul Theobald. By the sixth inning, the Falcons already had their second base runner when Baldwin tried to throw a pitch right through Rodriguez’ replacement Estrada. But somehow, that 4-1 lead looked far from secure. They had already dropped too many chances to score to not be punished…

Another one developed in the bottom 6th. Jones allowed a leadoff single to Esquivel before Barrón doubled into the corner in left. We didn’t hit for Baldwin, from whom we hoped for at least one more inning. He hit a fly to left that was caught be Jesus Flores, but sufficiently deep to score Esquivel from third base. Castro eventually hit a single to right to score Barrón with two out. Baldwin got through eight with only 88 pitches thrown and only one more single allowed to Luis Reya. Baldwin was sent batting in a 1-2-3 eighth, and continued to pitch in the ninth, where he started facing Sadaharu Ishikawa pinch-hitting in the #9 spot. Ishikawa grounded out to Sharp at third base, Estrada shoved a ball into the ground in front of home plate and was thrown out by Esquivel casually, and then Theobald fouled off the first pitch not far off home plate, and Esquivel sucked that up as well. 6-1 Blighters! Castro 2-3, BB, RBI; Esquivel 3-4; Barrón 2-4, 2B, RBI; Baldwin 9.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, W (6-6) and 1-3, RBI;

In other news

July 22 – TOP SP Tony Hamlyn (7-9, 3.14 ERA) 3-hits the Miners in a sparkling performance, claiming victory in a 4-0 shutout.
July 23 – CIN SP Nathan O’Herlihy (9-6, 4.38 ERA), second in strikeouts in the Federal League, could miss a month with a sprained ankle.
July 26 – The Indians trade 1B Filippo Fugosi (.221, 6 HR, 34 RBI) to the Gold Sox in exchange for MR Anthony Duhamel (6-4, 3.40 ERA, 1 SV) and a minor leaguer. Both major league players involved are over 35 years old.
July 27 – The Bayhawks acquire LF/RF Jimmy Bayle (.243, 4 HR, 28 RBI) from the Titans, parting with MR Rémy Lucas (0-3, 2.75 ERA) and prospect Ron Eroh, who had been in the Bayhawks’ organization for only 20 days after arriving in a trade with the Pacifics on July 7.

Complaints and stuff

Colin Baldwin’s first career complete game came in his 22nd start, and the 14th as a Raccoon.

And we held the most potent offense in the game to three runs on the weekend! Not that that translated into a sweep, we turned a 4-2 week, and didn’t gain ground against the Crusaders again… 4-2 weeks are fine and well, but not when the Crusaders are playing 4-2 at their worst. Next week we’ll have the Bayhawks and Aces in, who are a combined .409, and then a 4-2 week just won’t be good enough. We are actually 3-6 against them combined this year! Time to start a winning streak!!

I started to stretch out my fangs- … err, fingers, seeing which of our to-be-free-agents would be interested in extensions. Well, Craig Bowen was, having in his head an 8-yr, $18M deal that didn’t quite fit into my plans by about ten millions or so. Donald Sims was willing to talk as well, and his ideas were borderline reasonable.

Then there’s the curious case of Nick Brown. We established earlier that budget constraints wouldn’t allow for both Brown and Yates to remain aboard after 2009 and we didn’t know whom to lock up last year. Things have changed in that Yates sucks balls this season if you go past his K/9 mark, while Brown … it hasn’t all been great, but his ERA is around 3 and he is leading the league in strikeouts, so there’s that. I talked to Brownie, but he didn’t want to sign an extension until next year. I assume he thinks he will have higher leverage then.

Problem with all this is that Kel actually has a $1.8M player option for 2010. Last year we had assumed he’d never trigger it because he could get at least a million more on the market, but if he keeps going like THIS for another one and a half years, that player option might be his best bet, and that would blow the doors off our 2010 budget for sure.

Options are a fickle thing. We have three players on the roster that have options for NEXT season. None of them are my favorite kind of option, team options. First there’s Marcos Bruno and his $830k player option. I have no clue whether he will execute that or negotiate for a bigger contract. If he wants to aim even higher, the Raccoons might well be out of the race for him. Then there are vesting options for our right-handed outfielders. Jerry Fletcher will be 38 next year and has an $810k vesting option, requiring him to have 550 plate appearances this year. He has 306 right now and since he is not an everyday starter, he won’t get enough PA to trigger the option. Luke Black in turn will have the first of two $1M options contingent of appearing in 120 games. He appeared in 89 so far, so unless he breaks a leg in the next five weeks, he’ll be back, because how would you sit a guy with 3.5 WAR just after the All Star break. He will have a career year – at 35. He never had more than 3.9 WAR before, and that was last season. He DOES like our park.

Donald Sims quickly signed the 3-yr, $1.5M contract I offered and we announced the news on Friday before the Falcons came in to get suffocated. This is a flat contract and all guaranteed. We hope Sims is the new Moreno.

This year’s payroll is $15.9M before the trade deadline. Assuming Black and Bruno having their options triggered, but Fletcher gone, and with Barrón, Bowen, and Sharp departing to free agency, and including Sims’ extension, our payroll for next year is already $14.9M, and that is without a primary catcher and without a shortstop that doesn’t embarrass himself and never should have been traded for (and I don’t mean Barrón).

We have another problem here. We’re not producing enough runs. The pitching is good to great, so great actually that we have a surplus of pitchers in AAA that might get along well in the majors and don’t have a place on the roster. Cássio Boda is 14-3 with a 3.09 ERA, sidetracked Kenichi Watanabe is 6-1 with a 3.26 ERA, and there’s Salazar, Kichida, Parker, and prospects like Pat Composto and Derrek Fredlund, both relievers (although Composto was drafted as a starter). And don’t forget Ed Bryan, one walk in 17.1 innings with an 0.52 ERA. Heck, they can have Miller and Crespo if they want. There are a few more days until the trade deadline, and we might want to throw that leverage in surplus pitching, Miller, and Crespo into a top-of-the-line bat. How about another right-handed outfield bat?

Or screw that right-handed bat! How about going all in with the Indians’ Ron Alston? The Indians are totally out of it and the rest of their roster won’t allow them to compete in the next one or two years, either. They are willing to sell. Alston’s batting .333 with 19 HR and 58 RBI so far, and will make $1.94M per year through 2010. That will probably cost us 20-year old right-hander Hector Santos (5-8, 4.03 ERA, 64 BB, 105 K in 127.1 IP in AA), though…

12-01-2015, 02:49 PM	#1622
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 13,720	2008 AMATEUR DRAFT Sunday night, the ABL’s primary slave market event took place, the 2008 Amateur Draft. Hundreds of young men can’t wait to be put under some baseball organization’s yoke. The Raccoons had the 21st pick in every round, as well as the 14th pick in the supplemental round. We had a list of 13 players that looked most promising, and in fact there were three that according to Whitebread three really stood out, SP Noah Bricker, SS Tyler Gray, and OF Justin Bellows. I obviously don’t have a clue whatever he is talking about, usually, but from looking at some numbers I thought that Ryan Feldman had all the tools a good player needed to have. Yeah, what the heck do I know. I drafted Orlando Lantán in the first round once. Never heard of him? See. SP Noah “Bloody” Bricker (12/11/13) SP Michael Colvard (11/13/11) SP Kevin Woodworth (11/16/11) CL Chris Spindler (17/13/9) SS Tyler Gray (14/12/4) 3B Tom Thomas (14/7/16) 3B Mark Abraham (10/7/11) OF Ryan Feldman (10/15/12) OF John Kelsey (10/10/17) RF/CF Chris Macias (10/9/11) OF/3B Dave Carter (11/9/12) OF Jason Seeley (9/10/14) OF Justin Bellows (7/10/17) The Aces had the first overall pick and selected outfielder Justin Bellows while having all the choice in the world. The Scorpions took Noah Bricker at #2, and another pitcher, Kevin Woodworth, went #3 to the Wolves. Outfielders John Kelsey (Knights) and Ryan Feldman (Condors) completed the top 5. Tyler Gray fell as far as #10 (Buffaloes), but none of the sparkling four came even close to the Raccoons’ first pick, and in fact eight of the first ten picks were from the selections above. Only three of the 13 above remained to hang around at #21: Abraham, Macias, and Seeley. Seeley was 21, and OPS’ing .975 for Washington, with a weak arm that would most likely keep him in leftfield. But the hitting profile was certainly nice, and he also had some good speed. Abraham, also 21, had a strong arm, but looked like a car accident whenever he had to field anything at third base. Stanford was even playing him some in centerfield, which was totally out of the question in professional ball. He had less power, but perhaps better OBP qualities. Macias, not quite 21, played for MIT and was collecting plants in his spare time, and oh, he could whack a ball quite well. He was good at catching butterflies with a net, too, and less great at catching fly balls coming at his innocent face. So we drafted Seeley. Macias went 33rd overall to the Blue Sox, while Abraham stuck around. I was not exactly pumped to draft another player that looked very much like Ricardo Martinez (nothing against Martinez! Except his defense. His defense makes gargoyles weep…), but Whitebread was assuring me that he was the best bet. I pointed at another outfielder, Justin Dally, and he said no. Dally eventually went 56th overall to the Loggers as a second-rounder. A testament to the embarrassing crop of catchers: no celebratory backstop was picked until one spot before the Coons’ second round selection, when the Falcons chose Sandy Fernandini, 68th overall in the draft. 2008 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS Round 1 (#21) – OF Jason Seeley, 21, from Lakeland South, WA – power prodigy with good eye, range, and quite some speed; the only thing lacking is a good throwing arm, so he profiles as a good defensive leftfielder, or an average centerfielder Supp. Round (#38) – 3B Mark Abraham, 21, from River Forest, IL – good swing and good eye to not do it every time, generates doubles and home runs, also a good base stealer, too, unfortunately a total train wreck with the glove; may need transplantation to first base sooner rather than later Round 2 (#69) – 1B Matt LaVoie, 20, from Tulsa, OK – prototypical first baseman with average defense, a big stick, and leaden boots; there is hope for the big stick to carry him to the majors with lots of long balls Round 3 (#93) – INF/LF Chris Poole, 20, from Chicago, IL – versatile defender with a good glove, who is able to chip singles where the defense ain’t, then take the extra base with his feet rather than the bat; won’t ever hit a notable number of extra base hits, though Round 4 (#117) – C Alexis Crespin, 21, from Levittown, Puerto Rico – not much of a batter no matter how you twist and turn him, but he is smart and calling a good game; his arm is average at best, though Round 5 (#141) – SP Chad Royston, 20, from Claxton, GA – four pitches, including a mediocre, 89mph fastball; severe control problems, but there is still hope and a potential that can be tabbed with enough work, which is not something Royston has put in so far, so he will require a lesson by out A-level personnel Round 6 (#165) – SS Glen Holland, 19, from Auburn, CA – excellent defensive shortstop with no power in his bat, but good legs and better eyes Round 7 (#189) – SP Ryan Talbot, 19, from West Odessa, TX – right-hander who needs to get that changeup going if he wants to get anywhere close to the majors; his curveball is already very devastating, but he won’t scrape past with just that and his girly 88mph fastball Round 8 (#213) – 2B/SS Rich Walsh, 19, from Lakeville, MN – explosive speed and sure hands are met with a comically bad approach to an at-bat and an absolute inability to lay off the breaking ball below the zone; also can’t execute a double play pivot properly Round 9 (#237) – MR Jason McNamara, 19, from Stanford, CA – nicknamed “Walker” since his freshman year in high school, says it all Round 10 (#261) – SS/2B Travis Leeper, 18, from North Charleston, SC – shows all signs of a good defensive ballplayer, with a bit of clumsiness that could be helped with more regular exercise, and has noticeable contact abilities, but has no power or speed to help his cause Round 11 (#285) – SP Abel Parker, 20, from Sugar Land, TX – you name a pitch, he throws it, or at least attempts to; perhaps too much work to hew this righty into shape… Round 12 (#309) – INF/LF/RF Paul Baggett, 19, from Kennewick, WA – quirky guy able to play almost every position in the field, but not blessed with speed or any ability whatsoever to whack a ball Seeley and Abraham were assigned to Ham Lake right away. They would only get choked in the temporary clutter that is our A-level team in Aumsville. We currently have 13 infielders on that team and will have to axe that down further in the coming weeks. This includes a few rich (in numbers) recent draft classes as well as most of the players from the international complex that weren’t disinherited outright being … infielders. None of them are hitting much, and it is hard to find actual potential in a sea of mediocrity. Among the players released right now were 27-year old AA-level pitchers Salvador Cardona (2003, fifth round) and Tim Bell (2003, ninth round), 20-yr old 1B Tony Hernandez (2006, eighth round), and 20-yr old RF/3B Dave Peyton (2006, seventh round). Our system is a bit strange right now. Our AAA team is fighting for a division title, our AA team is about to get disbanded for uncompetitiveness, and the A level team plays roughly .500 ball. The most horror definitely is clogged up in AA Ham Lake. But even if we cull through there, we’d still not know whom to promote from Aumsville for best results. Or in other words: among 20 infielders between Ham Lake and Aumsville, only one is OPS’ing more than .690, and that kid, A 3B/SS Willie Cordero, only has 20 at-bats. __________________ Portland Raccoons, 92 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.

12-04-2015, 06:47 PM	#1623
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 13,720	Raccoons (37-23) @ Stars (42-20) – June 16-18, 2008 The Stars ranked first in so many categories in the Federal League, it wasn’t much fun for anybody else. For starters, they led the league in runs scored, and runs allowed, and starters’ ERA, and bullpen ERA, and, and, and… We last played them in 2004, losing two of three, and have lost all of the last four series with them, taking our last series win in 1996. Projected matchups: Nick Brown (5-3, 2.81 ERA) vs. Edgar Amador (7-2, 4.06 ERA) Kelvin Yates (5-1, 4.52 ERA) vs. Angelo Velasco (0-1, 6.00 ERA) Jong-hoo Umberger (7-2, 2.39 ERA) vs. Jesus Bautista (7-5, 3.16 ERA) Their rotation is all right-handed, but they are missing two of their better guys in Jose Flores and Elwood Spurrell. Hey, they’re leading the universe in everything, regardless. Game 1 POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Brown DAL: CF C. Morán – RF D. Richardson – 3B Berman – LF J. Alexander – 2B H. Garcia – SS A. Rodriguez – 1B Boyle – C T. Phillips – P Amador This was the first time we’d face the Fat Cat since his unglorious departure, and he still had that most annoying walk issue, opening the game with a free pass to Quebell. Castro and Martinez hit singles before the Duke drew another walk for the first run of the game. Pruitt almost hit into a double play, but was barely safe at first on a fielder’s choice, and the Raccoons just kept the line moving. Nomura, Brown, and Quebell would all hit 2-out RBI singles to put a 6-spot on the Fat Cat in the first inning before Castro struck out. Problem was, Brown was not much better. After going to three full counts in the first inning, he was shredded for three runs in the bottom 2nd, all scoring on 2-out singles by Amador (of course), Cesar Morán and … Daniel Richardson (arf!). In the fourth, Brownie walked a pair in full counts before Richardson thankfully grounded out to Nomura to end the affair. Amador had lasted four innings before being hit for by Zak Davidson, who drew one of the walks. After five innings of terrible struggles, Brownie struck out the side in the sixth, his final inning, ending on just under 110 pitches. Being held very short by Fernando Hernandez jr. since Amador’s departure from the game, the Raccoons still led 6-3 when Ed Bryan took over, facing three lefties in the bottom 7th. Yohan Bonneau, Morán, and Richardson all singled. One run was in when Bruno entered and walked Dennis Berman to load them up. John Alexander popped out foul and Hector Garcia lined out to Black for a sac fly 6-5. Bruno struck out Armando Rodriguez – if only Craig Bowen could have caught the ball. Everybody was safe, reloading the sacks, but Bruno still escaped with the lead alive when Bruce Boyle grounded out to Nomura. All the while, the Coons’ lineup was snoozing, and didn’t wake up again until the ninth. Trevino had a pinch-hit single with two outs, stole second base, then came home on the Duke’s RBI double for an insurance run. Not that Angel needed it… 7-5 Brownies. Martinez 2-4; Trevino (PH) 1-1; Bowen 2-3, BB; Nomura 4-4, 2B, RBI; Ed Bryan is about one look I don’t like away from being banished to the land of no return. Tomas Castro got a golden sombrero after his first inning single. Despite some 2-hit games recently, he hasn’t been good in a while. Time to give Fletcher some love. Game 2 POR: 1B Quebell – 2B Nomura – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – CF Fletcher – SS Barrón – C Bowen – P Yates DAL: CF C. Morán – SS Boyle – 3B H. Garcia – LF J. Alexander – 1B Berman – C R. Garza – 2B A. Rodriguez – RF D. Richardson – P Velasco The Coons scored two on hits chained together by the bottom of the order in the second inning, but the annoying Richardson hit an RBI double to take half of the lead back quite quickly. Yates continued to struggle, didn’t get a strikeout until the third inning, but in the same frame also was taken deep by Hector Garcia for two runs and a 3-2 Stars lead. That feat was countered by Craig Bowen in the fourth, his 10th homer of the year, and Yates held a 4-3 lead again, but it was shaky as all hell. The ball kept flying, Matt Pruitt hitting a 2-piece in the sixth (only his second dinger), and on a day of 2-run homers, the Duke refused to go unnoticed, and added his 13th shot of the year in the seventh, 8-3. The middle innings were quite a bit less stressful for Kel, who eventually struck out seven in as many innings. Bowen homered again in the eighth, then a solo shot, with a run being put back on the board by the Stars in the bottom of the same inning, in which Ed Bryan faced three men and retired merely one. Sergio Vega took over, surrendered one of Bryan’s runners, but finished the game before it could get ugly. 9-4 Critters. Black 2-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-4, RBI; Bowen 3-3, BB, 2 HR, 2B, 4 RBI; Yates 7.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, W (6-1); Vega 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K; The Stars picked up left-hander Arthur Joplin (2-2, 2.15 ERA, 8 SV) from the Buffaloes after this game, parting with a 22-yr old AAA SP Dave Flores. Bryan… Game 3 POR: 1B Quebell – 2B Nomura – LF Pruitt – RF Black – CF Fletcher – SS Barrón – 3B Chavez – C Esquivel – P Umberger DAL: CF C. Morán – 2B H. Ramirez – 3B H. Garcia – LF J. Alexander – 1B Berman – C R. Garza – SS A. Rodriguez – RF D. Richardson – P Bautista After hitting into double plays in the first two innings, and not doing much at all in the next two, the Raccoons got a chance in the fifth. With the game still scoreless with the Stars stranding runners in scoring position twice against Umberger early on, our pitcher found himself at the plate with no outs and Chavez and Esquivel in scoring position. Jong-hoo grounded out well enough to enable Nelson Chavez to score, and Quebell doubled in Esquivel, then scored on Pruitt’s double. All three Raccoons doubles in the inning were hit past the reach of John Alexander in left for a 3-0 lead. No more scoring threats until the eighth, when Pruitt led off with a triple and scored on Barrón’s single. Umberger didn’t allow much of substance throughout the middle innings but seemed to be tiring by the eighth. He was still in the game for the ninth with a 4-0 shutout in place, facing Ramirez to start things. After a groundout to short, and Hector Garcia’s groundout to first, John Alexander was up, wore down Umberger in a full count before grounding to Nomura, but Nomura bungled the ball and Alexander reached on an error. Law Rockburn came on to retire Dennis Berman on a grounder to first. 4-0 Coons! Quebell 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Pruitt 2-4, 3B, 2B, RBI; Barrón 3-4, RBI; Esquivel 2-4, 2B; Umberger 8.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K, W (8-2); Well, THAT was a sweep I didn’t see coming! Unfortunately it didn’t get us any closer to the Crusaders, who swept the Cyclones to stay two games ahead. Raccoons (40-23) vs. Crusaders (43-22) – June 19-22, 2008 The Crusaders were on a fantastic tear, winning their last ten games in a row! With the third-most runs scored and the fewest runs allowed, which was achieved with the best rotation in the game, they were quite the force. But we had just swept the Stars, so were we scared? Nah. We are 2-1 against them this year, too. Projected matchups: Colin Baldwin (3-4, 3.74 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (10-2, 2.18 ERA) Javier Cruz (3-3, 4.38 ERA) vs. Angel Javier (4-6, 3.36 ERA) Nick Brown (6-3, 2.93 ERA) vs. David Estrada (6-4, 4.24 ERA) Kelvin Yates (6-1, 4.46 ERA) vs. Greg Grams (7-2, 3.59 ERA) That’s one lefty on Saturday, Estrada, and how is Greg Grams 7-2? That’s some swell team right there! Game 1 NYC: CF R. Pena – SS Butler – LF M. Ortíz – 1B A. Munoz – 3B Reece – 2B Caraballo – RF Britton – C D. Anderson – P Connor POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – 2B Nomura – C Bowen – SS Barrón – P Baldwin Anastasio Munoz and Duke Smack exchanged solo shots in the second inning, with the Duke appearing in the box again in the third inning after singles by Baldwin, Quebell, and Martinez had loaded the bases. Black singled to center for the go-ahead run, but Pruitt struck out and Nomura flew out to left to leave it at that. Not only did the corner outfielders provide some offense, they also helped in the field, robbing the Crusaders of some doubles behind a shaky Baldwin. Tomas Castro hit a solo homer in the fifth to open the score a bit to 3-1, and we gobbled up two more singles in the bottom 6th. With one out and first base open, the Crusaders walked Barrón intentionally to get the second out from Baldwin, but Quebell shot a single to right to score two more runs! Daryl Anderson knocked out Baldwin with a 2-out RBI double in the seventh. Salazar protected a 5-2 lead by getting PH Marc Williams to ground out to third base. Donald Sims struggled in the eighth only for Bruno to come in and get the third out, and remained in the game when the Coons piled on in the bottom 8th. Well, Fletcher singled home a run before Quebell hit into a double play to keep it at that one run. Ape Britton slugged a 2-run homer off Bruno with two outs in the ninth, but the Crusaders were denied a comeback and had their 10-game winning streak snapped. 6-4 Critters. Quebell 2-5, 2 RBI; Black 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-3, BB, 2B; Fletcher 1-1, RBI; Baldwin 6.2 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W (4-4) and 1-3; … but the Raccoons have a 7-game winning streak! And we’re one more win away from entering into a virtual tie with them, and THEN we’d get Brownie back into the box! Game 2 NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B R. Garza – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Caraballo – SS Butler – 3B M. Williams – C D. Anderson – P Javier POR: 1B Quebell – LF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – C Bowen – CF Fletcher – 2B Nomura – SS Barrón – P Cruz Stanton Martin extended a 12-game hitting streak with a first inning single, sending Roberto Pena to third, and another walk to Caraballo loaded the bases before Cruz somehow got out of the game. The Coons would take the lead on Yoshi’s groundout in the bottom 2nd, and Quebell’s floater escaped Stanton Martin to fall in for a 2-out RBI single that plated Fletcher for a 2-0 lead. Black and Fletcher were on base for Nomura in the third, and another soft line could not be caught by Martin and fell in for an RBI single, 3-0. Defensive deficiencies continued to plague the Crusaders, with Daryl Anderson throwing away a sorry grounder by Cruz to start the fourth inning. Angel Javier then walked the bases full with no outs, and while Martinez popped out, the Duke sent a line to left that bounced in front of Martin Ortíz for another run. Javier however was in meltdown mode and walked in two more runs against Bowen and Fletcher to give Cruz a 6-run lead. Javier was gone after that, but the Coons continued to get those lucky hits in this game. Nomura doubled in a run in the sixth inning with a double that Ortíz tried to catch rather than allow it to fall in. With the pitcher up next and Bowen on first, that was an unnecessary run to allow to score. Cruz crossed over 110 pitches in the seventh inning and was removed after a 2-out single by PH Anastasio Munoz, but the Furballs still maintained a shutout. Vega and Rockburn handled the last two innings competently. 7-0 Coons! Black 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Nomura 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Cruz 6.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 7 K, W (4-3); First place! First place! First - … at least a virtual tie of it. Half the pie. And I’d like to claim we’ll have a pitching advantage in the last two games. Game 3 NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B Caraballo – RF S. Martin – LF M. Ortíz – 1B A. Munoz – 3B Reece – SS Butler – C D. Anderson – P D. Estrada POR: LF Castro – SS Barrón – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – CF Fletcher – C Bowen – 1B Sharp – 2B Nomura – P Brown … and it all went wrong very badly and very early. Pena hit a leadoff single, there was another passed ball on Bowen, and then Martin walked, Munoz singled, Reece singled, and so on until the Crusaders had four runs on the board against Brown. Well, the Raccoons pulled three runs back in the same first inning, with almost everybody hitting hard off Estrada, but Brownie was just not any good and struggled horrendously to get batters removed with two strikes, but struck out Stanton Martin when it counted really hard, with runners on the corners and two outs in the fourth inning. Bob Butler however singled home a run with two outs in the fifth, while the Raccoons couldn’t score even with a Castro triple in the bottom of the inning. Bottom 6th, Fletcher singled, Bowen walked, but Sharp popped out for the second out. Yoshi grounded up the middle, where the ball eluded Butler for an RBI single. Quebell hit for Rockburn, walked, but Sonny Reece caught Castro’s liner to end the inning with the bases loaded to keep the Coons down a run. A Barrón error put Martin Ortíz on base in the seventh, and when Ape Britton hit for Munoz, Ed Bryan was called on to face him and Sonny Reece. Two singles later, the Crusaders were up by three, and Bryan’s presence was no longer required. Sergio Vega collected the last eight outs in the game, allowing one more run in the eighth inning, as the Raccoons’ share of first place evaporated into nothing. David Estrada pitched a complete game 8-hitter. 8-4 Crusaders. Fletcher 2-3, BB, 2 RBI; Esquivel (PH) 1-1; Ed Bryan had put eight of his last nine men on base, and 20 of his last 46. It was enough. He was sent packing, with Luis Beltran getting a call. Beltran, 28, was way past “potential prospect” status, and had appeared in only seven major league games, but Ed Bryan’s face was in serious danger to get dented if he stayed around any longer. Game 4 NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B M. Williams – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 3B Reece – 1B Caraballo – SS Butler – C D. Anderson – P Grams POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – 3B Chavez – P Yates Another pitcher nearing extinction on the roster was – Kelvin Yates. Pena singled, Williams singled, then he walked Ortíz, and Martin hit a slam for an early mood spoiler. Given the Raccoons’ marginal record against marginal pitchers, Greg Grams would probably go the distance as well. Accordingly, the Raccoons vanished in order in the bottom 1st, while Yates put the first two men on in the second, with Barrón turning a relieving double play. In the third, Yates gave a leadoff single to Ortíz, and Stanton Martin jacked another one, 6-0 Crusaders. After Yates walked Sonny Reece and Caraballo singled to right, Yates was yanked with an ERA over five that kept rising with Salazar waving in his runners. Top 3rd, Crusaders up by eight, this one was well over. Grams retired the first ten Raccoons before Castro hit a single, but the team failed to score on the mediocre Grams until the eighth inning when Quebell hit a double off the wall to score Chavez and Martinez. 8-3 Crusaders. Castro 2-4, 2B, RBI; Esquivel (PH) 1-1; Martinez (PH) 1-2, 2B; Salazar 3.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K; Beltran 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K; In other news June 17 – The Thunder deal 36-yr old SP Santiago Chavez (4-3, 3.79 ERA, 1 SV) and cash to the Condors for three minor leaguers. June 18 – Denver’s Pedro Pujols (.359, 8 HR, 39 RBI) has hit in 25 straight games, landing one hit in the Gold Sox’ 13-7 win over the Indians. His lone hit is a 3-run homer off Juan Jimenez. June 19 – Terrible news in Tijuana: 27-yr old CF Ramón Perez (.263, 12 HR, 41 RBI) remains permanently sidelined with a concussion and announces his retirement. Perez batted .264 with 66 HR in his short career, landing 596 hits and stealing 143 bases. He was the 2004 CL Rookie of the Year. Complaints and stuff Well, that didn’t work out as intended. I don’t know what to do with our assumed co-aces. One is stumbling sidewards rather than getting back to form, and the other is about to get banished to Siberia. While Stanton Martin plated half a dozen in two attempts off him, Beltran and Salazar struck him out… Yeah, it’s all a bit complicated. I don’t know how to fix the rotation. On paper the personnel is splendid. On the field they keep blowing up. Very discouraging. Attached Images __________________ Portland Raccoons, 92 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.

12-06-2015, 04:51 PM	#1625
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 13,720	As this week opened, Matt Cash returned from the disabled list, displacing Claudio Salazar to AAA. Raccoons (42-25) @ Titans (40-30) – June 23-25, 2008 We were 4-2 against the Titans on the year. They were a strange team, possessing the third-lowest batting average, but scoring the third-most runs. Home runs were not their method of scoring either, with only Hideaki Suda having hit more than six. But they were constricting enemy pitching by drawing tons of walks, leaving them with the fourth-highest OBP despite that crummy 10th place batting average. They allowed the third-fewest runs. Projected matchups: Jong-hoo Umberger (8-2, 2.16 ERA) vs. Jason O’Halloran (6-2, 2.80 ERA) Colin Baldwin (4-4, 3.60 ERA) vs. Jesus Elmore (6-4, 4.67 ERA) Javier Cruz (4-3, 4.00 ERA) vs. Mauro Castro (2-2, 2.17 ERA) Left-right-right from them. We miss the weakest link, Ray Conner, but then again, we don’t fair good against weakest links anyway. Recently we’ve done quite well against O’Halloran. One day we’ll miss Jason O’Halloran, a steady presence on the mound for the Titans since shortly after the war. The world war. The first one. Game 1 POR: LF T. Castro – SS Barrón – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – 1B Pruitt – CF Fletcher – 2B Chavez – C Esquivel – P Umberger BOS: SS D. Silva – LF Bayle – RF Ja. Gusmán – C Suda – CF Garrison – 1B R. Vargas – 2B Nelson – 3B J. Amador – P O’Halloran Jong-hoo brought in the first run of the game with a sac fly in the top of the second inning when he batted with Chavez and Esquivel on second and third and one out. Castro singled home the catcher to get us to 2-0. Umberger came up with Chavez and Esquivel on, this time on first and second, again in the fourth inning, laid down a nice bunt that Suda fired to third, but Daniel Silva couldn’t catch it and it bounced into the seats up the leftfield line, giving the Raccoons a 3-0 lead, two men in scoring position, and no outs. After not getting to “Quasimodo” Suda’s throw, Silva also had Castro’s grounder up the middle elude him after that, having it hop into center for an RBI single, 4-0. The bags got emptied the ugly way when Barrón hit one right to Silva, who turned a 6-4-3 double play. While Umberger scored, nobody was on with two outs, but O’Halloran still managed to allow another run with back-to-back doubles to Martinez and the Duke. While the Titans felt that they didn’t require O’Halloran any longer for the day, Jong-hoo had hardly broken a sweat so far, removing Titans batters with lots of poor contact and lining up zeroes. Through seven, he had spilled only three singles, and had struck out only one batter, and that had been O’Halloran the first time through. Eugene Nelson would finally become his first position player victim in the eighth inning. Meanwhile the Critters had been held to almost squid by Jeremy Peterson, who had taken over from where O’Halloran had left and was still pitching into the ninth, gave up leadoff singles to Barrón and Martinez, but got a double play turned by Silva and would not be scored upon over 5 1/3 innings. Umberger entered the bottom 9th on merely 83 pitches, facing PH Jim Brulhart in the #9 spot. His out was the hardest in the inning, a line drive to center, but more or less right to Jerry Fletcher. Silva grounded out to Barrón before Jimmy Bayle struck out. 6-0 Coons. Castro 2-5, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-4; Martinez 3-5, 2B; Black 2-5, 2 2B, RBI; Esquivel 2-4, 2B; Umberger 9.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W (9-2); I will never miss Daniel Silva, though, despite him not doing damage in this game. Jong-hoo didn’t walk anybody amongst the team that walked the most in the league. He pitched to one 3-0 count, in which Suda grounded out in the fourth, and logged his second career shutout. I wonder if other teams kick themselves already for not signing him. He was up for grabs until February! Game 2 POR: 1B Quebell – CF T. Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Baldwin BOS: 2B D. Silva – LF Bayle – C Suda – CF Ja. Gusmán – 1B R. Vargas – SS J. Amador – RF Garrison – 3B M. Austin – P Elmore After the Korean Cruise Control on Monday, we had “Wild Ride” Baldwin pitching on Tuesday. The Raccoons scored early, two in the first after doubles by Quebell and Castro, and another in the fourth on a Bowen homer, but Baldwin managed to give it all away as quickly as it came. In the bottom 4th he had a 3-1 lead, runners on the corners and two outs against lefty Mark Austin. At 1-2 he threw a wild pitch to score Roberto Vargas, then still allowed an RBI single to Austin to get the game tied. Baldwin would not get a decision in the game as he was hit for in the seventh inning. Chavez grabbed a bat with Barrón on second and one out, but neither he nor Quebell got the ball to fall in. Silva made a strong play to keep the Coons from scoring in the top 7th, but our own second-sacker retired Pedro Flores, who had hit a scorching liner to right, to end the bottom 7th with the go-ahead run ready to score. Despite Bruno being shaky in the bottom 8th, the Titans didn’t score. In the top 9th, Manuel Martinez retired Bowen before yielding a single to Barrón. He also felt a tweak and had to be replaced by Ramiro Román, who walked Yoshi Nomura, and a grounder by Sharp bounced past Austin into left to load them up. The Titans didn’t go to a lefty as we brought up the top of our order with “Double Play” Quebell next. He fouled out on the first pitch, but maybe it was for the better. Castro plunged a 3-1 pitch into left center for a 2-run single, and Angel Casas closed out the game with a sweet strikeout to Leon Ramirez. 5-3 Critters. Castro 2-5, 2B, 3 RBI; Sharp (PH) 1-1; When Craig Bowen threw out Javier Gusmán trying to steal second base in the sixth inning, he improved his CS% to better than 50% on the season. Game 3 POR: 1B Quebell – CF T. Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Cruz BOS: SS D. Silva – 2B M. Austin – RF Ja. Gusmán – C Suda – CF Garrison – 1B R. Vargas – LF Brulhart – 3B J. Amador – P M. Castro Cruz was neither efficient, nor comforting in his efforts to spoil a possible sweep. After both teams botched chances in the first two innings, the Titans plated an unearned run in the third inning. Silva had reached on a Pruitt error, but Cruz had given up enough hits to bring the runner around. The Coons could not hit a guy that was bouncing up and down in a swingman role between the Bigs and AAA since 2005, but Mauro Castro helped out in the fourth. Luke Black had reached base with a double after his drive to left had been at first caught by Brulhart on the track, but Brulhart lost the ball when he bounced against the wall. With two out, Castro threw a wild pitch to score Black from third and get the game tied again. Cruz made a throwing error on Castro’s bunt in the bottom 4th, but the Titans kindly chose not to exploit the opening with two on and one out. Cruz spent 110 pitches over six wicked innings, somehow not allowing an earned run despite four walks issued, and stayed in the 1-1 tie, then even got a sniff at a win. Pruitt led off the seventh with a single, and Bowen also ripped a one-baser to right, moving Pruitt to third with no outs, and also quickly doubling the Raccoons’ hit output in the game from two to four. Barrón’s grounder up the middle escaped the grasp of Silva [grins], and then Yoshi tripled into the corner in rightfield to blow the gates off this one, 4-1, but also scored on a sac fly, 5-1. But doors can be repaired, even if blown off. After a clean seventh, the Coons’ bullpen stuttered badly in the eighth. Luis Beltran had gotten two outs in the seventh, but put Gusmán on. We went to Bruno, who walked a pair and allowed a single to Brulhart before being yanked with the bases stacked with all the runs to tie the game and only one out. Angel Casas entered, struck out Jesus Amador and got a groundout to short from Pedro Flores to starve three Titans. Angel spilled only a single to Austin in the ninth on the route to saving this sweep. 5-2 Furballs! Quebell 1-3, 2 BB; Pruitt 2-4; Casas 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, SV (21); Daniel Silva in this series: 0-for-12, 3 K, reached on an error once. I LOVE THAT! Also, I love a good sweep. Bad news is, that we gained squid on the Crusaders, who romped the Loggers for three games. Marcos Bruno hasn’t been good for two or three weeks now. This is of concern, obviously. It’s nothing against the struggles of Kel Yates, however, who’s up on Saturday in Oklahoma. If Kel can’t reverse his recent trend, it might be his last start for a while… [music swells dramatically] Raccoons (45-25) @ Thunder (25-46) – June 27-29, 2008 And here comes the worst team in baseball (by half a game), the Thunder we had beaten two out of three games earlier in the year. They had a bottom-3 offense, and the pitching was at best marginally better. The rotation ran up a grisly 4.71 ERA, but the bullpen was at least average. Projected matchups: Nick Brown (6-4, 3.25 ERA) vs. Daniel Dickerson (5-7, 3.59 ERA) Kelvin Yates (6-2, 5.24 ERA) vs. Luis Martinez (3-7, 5.30 ERA) Jong-hoo Umberger (9-2, 1.97 ERA) vs. Pedro Vargas (3-4, 4.16 ERA) Lefty in the middle in this set. Dickerson was with the Elks for like forever, and was always a problem for the Coons. Game 1 POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Brown OCT: LF V. Sanchez – CF J. Gonzalez – C J. Martinez – 1B Clarke – 3B J. Pena – 2B M. Garza – RF Reese – SS McGreary – P Dickerson Fielding five men batting .216 or less, three so-so guys batting 6-7-8, and the – admittedly – monstrously good Victorino Sanchez, who was a lefty though, everybody expected the Thunder to get a swift haircut from Brownie. Well, first there was rain right in the second inning. Despite the roughly half-hour delay, Brownie struck out the first four batters, and was perfect with five strikeouts the first time through. The Coons were largely as effective as the Thunder at the plate, but at least managed to scratch out a sac fly in the fourth inning for the first tally of the day. Vic Sanchez ruined the no-hit bid with a ringing double to start the bottom 4th, and Brownie walked Jesus Martinez, but David Clarke, a joke of a cleanup batter, grounded into a double play to end the frame. Then came the fifth, and lots of pain. Juan Pena got on base with a single, and Tom Reese doubled into the corner to tie the score. Worse, Dickerson’s 2-out single gave the Thunder the lead, 2-1. He’d almost do it again in the seventh with a man on second, sending an 0-2 grounder up the middle, but Yoshi Nomura got to it and made the play to end the inning. The Raccoons were still behind by a run and Brown was not amused when he was hit for to start the top 8th. Trevino singled in his place and went to third on Quebell’s single to right. C’MON CASTRO!! Show what you’re made of! Castro was made of singles, apparently, tying the score. Martinez grounded out, moving the runners into scoring position for the Duke to hit with one out. The following scene was replayed on the highlight shows again and again later that night. The Duke smacked at a 1-0 pitch and lined it to the left side. Juan Pena leapt and caught it with the runners well off the bags and running. Both Quebell and Castro fell down trying to reverse while Pena HAD THE BALL DROP OUT OF HIS GLOVE!! Castro scurried onwards on all four paws, while Pena stalked after the bouncing ball and Quebell slid across home plate on his belly, as the Raccoons took the lead!!! AWESOME!!! Pruitt lined to right for an RBI single before Francois Picard came in for Dickerson and got a double play from Bowen. Up 4-2, we went to the glorious back end of our bullpen. Sims did the eighth well enough, before Barrón and Nomura hit singles off Picard to start the ninth inning. Trevino grounded out to first facing righty Sancho Rivera. Quebell popped out and Rivera drilled Castro to load them up with two out, but Martinez had been removed for defense and Nelson Chavez came to bat – except that we sent Esquivel, with another third baseman on the bench. Esquivel grounded out, though, and so we were back to Angel, and the ground opened underneath him. David Clarke’s double to start the inning was bad enough, but then Bowen was called out for interference on strike three to veteran Luis Arroyo. Marcos Garza grounded out, moving the tying runs into scoring position before Tomas Cardenas drew a walk to load them up. Pablo Ledesma grounded the first pitch up the middle. Nomura ranged over, got the edge of the glove onto the ball and whipped it to Barrón, who zinged to first – DOUBLE PLAY!! 4-2 Brownies!! Quebell 2-5; Nomura 2-4, 2B; Trevino (PH) 1-2; Brown 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 10 K, W (7-4); (shakes) That’s about as much panic as I can stand in one game. Huaaah. But a 4-game winning streak is a 4-game winning streak (while not gaining squid in the division), and now it’s about Kel not to have it end right away. Game 2 POR: 1B Quebell – SS Barrón – LF Castro – RF Black – CF Fletcher – 3B Sharp – C Bowen – 2B Chavez – P Yates OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B T. Cardenas – C Ledesma – RF Reese – 2B M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 3B J. Pena – SS McGreary – P L. Martinez We had the bags full with no outs in the second after Sharp doubled and Luis Martinez walked the next two batters. After pop outs from Yates, Quebell, and Barrón, all three Coons on base trotted to the dugout in somber mood. Jerry Fletcher tweaked a hamstring on a play in the second inning and was replaced by Trevino, while the Thunder stranded two men of their own. A Luis Martinez single helped the Thunder to score a run in the bottom 3rd, but Kel would hit an RBI single of his own in the top 4th to tie the score again. Yates then gave the Thunder the bases loaded with no outs in the bottom 6th. Singles by Cardenas and Ledesma were made worse by Tom Reese drawing a walk. Garza hit a fly to deep center, where Trevino made the catch, but one run scored. Gonzalez struck out before Pena grounded out to Barrón, but we trailed 2-1 again. Hey, maybe the eighth inning would work its magic again! Castro getting hit by a pitch was a reminder of yesterday, putting the tying run on base to start the top 8th, but that tying run never moved past second base. Luis Beltran retired the Thunder 1-2-3 in the bottom 8th and we faced Rivera in the top 9th, who retired Bowen and Martinez before Pruitt drew a walk. It didn’t help, and it wasn’t enough, and Quebell grounded out to Garza. 2-1 Thunder. Arf. The Crusaders keep winning, by the way. Jerry Fletcher will be limping for a few days and is officially listed as DTD until the middle of next week. Yates was really not good, striking only three against three walks, but at least was not a total disaster. Cássio Boda won’t be called up to replace him quite yet. Game 3 POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – C Esquivel – P Umberger OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B T. Cardenas – C Ledesma – RF Reese – 2B M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 3B J. Pena – SS McGreary – P P. Vargas Quebell jacked his seventh homer to start the rubber game, but six days after a suffocating shutout over the Titans, Umberger was raked in the first inning, allowing a double to Cardenas, a triple to Reese, and the-gods-know-what to Garza, except that Pruitt sold out on a catch to deny him and end the inning with a 1-1 tie. The Furballs wouldn’t get another hit until the sixth inning. The game was still tied when Castro singled to left with one out, but was left on base. While Umberger was scattering a few hits, they were all but one singles after the first inning and he held the tie through seven before being hit for at the start of the eighth inning. Sharp hit for him and singled to left, our fourth hit on the day. Quebell hurled a soft line over the jumping Garza that fell into shallow right and moved Sharp to second, but Castro struck out, Martinez grounded out to short, getting Quebell forced, and Black fouled out behind first base. Sharp remained at third base after the inning and turned a life-saving double play in the bottom 8th: Donald Sims had put two men on when Marcos Bruno replaced him and gave up a sharp grounder to third base against Jesus Martinez. Sharp snagged it and turned two to get out, then came to bat with two outs and runners on the corners against ex-Coon Colby Kirk in the ninth. His fly to left was caught by Victorino Sanchez. The game went to extras, where the Coons in the tenth inning had 2-out singles hit by Bowen and Black before Pruitt’s grounder to second was botched by Marcos Garza to load the sacks. And again, nothing. Barrón flew out to left. The bottom 10th was started by Law Rockburn, facing almost 27-year old shortstop Gerald Turner in his first major league at-bat. He hit a double to right center. After Kirk popped out trying to bunt, Sanchez was walked intentionally. We wanted no part of his .377 lefty bat. The Thunder walked off anyway. Cardenas singled, and then Esquivel cleared the way by having a ball escape under his glove during Pablo Ledesma’s at-bat. Turner scored. 2-1 Thunder. Quebell 2-5, HR, RBI; Bowen (PH) 1-1; Sharp (PH) 1-2; Umberger 7.0 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K; Bruno 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K; Bloody **. In other news June 24 – A new entry is logged in the book of no-hitters, as Oklahoma City’s Alex Lindsey – in his first start of the season! – no-hits the Bayhawks in a 6-0 game! Not only is it his first start of the year, but also his first major league win! The 26-year old had pitched to a 0-2, 6.12 ERA mark in 2006 and hadn’t appeared at all in 2007. This is the 29th no-hitter in ABL history, and the first since CIN Juan Garcia’s perfect game five weeks earlier. It is also the first ever no-hitter for the Thunder. June 24 – The hitting streak of DEN RF/LF Pedro Pujols (.369, 8 HR, 42 RBI) has run to 30 games. He took care of business early, with a first inning triple in the Sox’ 4-1 win over the Scorpions. June 27 – Denver’s Pedro Pujols extends his streak to 32 games with a 2-5 day against the Miners. He also hits a leadoff double in the top 11th and scores the winning run in the 6-5 victory. June 27 – The Indians part with MR Manuel Reyes (1-2, 3.77 ERA), sending him to the Warriors in exchange for two pitching prospects, #79 Brock Bose and #86 George Youngblood. None of them project to be future starters, though. June 28 – DEN RF/LF Pedro Pujols (.359, 8 HR, 43 RBI) goes 0-for-4 against the Miners in a 6-1 loss. His hitting streak ends at 32 games, the longest in the ABL since Bartolo Hernandez hit in 38 straight games in 2003, and tying for the 10th-longest in league history. June 29 – BOS SP Jason O’Halloran (6-3, 3.02 ERA) is out for the season with a partially torn UCL. Complaints and stuff** And this quickly, O’Halloran’s presence will be missed. Poor Titans. Now they’re missing O’Halloran AND Chapa. Alex Lindsey hails from the Bob Joly School of Clowns, not having a proper third pitch, and throwing straight enough that my grandma could hit three dingers of him if given four at-bats. Looks like we had some strange alignment of planets, like on May 17, 2000 … Cássio Boda is still planned in as replacement in the rotation if Kelvin Yates doesn’t turn the corner. We wouldn’t demote Yates, of course, and why would we with Vega and Cash on the roster. In any case, I’ve said before that we won’t be able to afford extensions to both Brown and Yates past ’09. Maybe we only want to extend one of them after all. Top pick Jason Seeley batted .263 for his first ten games of professional ball, already outsmacking Jimmy Oatmeal (or so…) by a galactic margin. The other AA assignment, Mark Abraham fared badly, however. The clutter in the low minors is not resolved yet. We released another A-level infielder this week, a former international signee, but it’s not getting better yet. Part of this is that I always keep a few extra guys around to cover for injuries. Well, there are no injuries. With Matt Cash lifted from the DL, only two minor leaguers remained there (but a third one was added midweek). This is extremely odd and can only mean that the plague is going to come over us in the latter half of the season. Ryan Miller and J.C. Crespo are killing the ball in AAA. If there’d be a way to get at least Miller back onto the roster without - … no, WITHOUT dumping Sharpie. – No, listen. Sometimes, games are sad, and … and then you want something to make it easier for you to bear. And what better way is there than to sniff on a permanent marker? Other than drawing cat whiskers on your face, of course. Attached Images __________________ Portland Raccoons, 92 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.

12-09-2015, 04:56 PM	#1633
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 13,720	Raccoons (48-32) vs. Canadiens (47-34) – July 7-10, 2008 We had to play against the Canadiens at a most inopportune moment. They were about to pick up speed again after a late-June meltdown, and the Raccoons hadn’t scored an earned run in 31 innings, and lost five straight games. In any case, even for a team not playing dead this would be a tall order, with the Elks scoring the third-most runs, and ranking as well in runs allowed in the Continental League. Their rotation was only middling, but they had a good bullpen. We have taken two of three games from them this year, but sometimes you can’t help but expect disaster. Projected matchups: Nick Brown (7-4, 3.16 ERA) vs. Juichi Fujita (8-5, 4.37 ERA) Kelvin Yates (6-4, 4.94 ERA) vs. Scott Spears (7-7, 4.46 ERA) Jong-hoo Umberger (9-3, 1.98 ERA) vs. Rod Taylor (10-4, 3.64 ERA) Colin Baldwin (5-5, 3.39 ERA) vs. David Peterson (7-5, 4.40 ERA) Four middling right-handers to be faced in this series. They have another one of those (6-8, 4.36 ERA Simon Pegler) that we’ll miss. Most of their pen is right-handed as well, with only one southpaw, mediocre Ralph Davis. This SHOULD be an advantage Coons. Then again, they SHOULD have scored at some point in their last 31 innings against the lowly Indians, too. Game 1 VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – 3B Suzuki – LF D. Morris – C G. Ortíz – SS Rice – 2B Palmer – 1B Rodgers – P Fujita POR: 1B Quebell – SS Barrón – CF Castro – RF Black – C Bowen – LF Pruitt – 3B Chavez – 2B Nomura – P Brown Juichi Fujita struck out the first five Raccoons he had the joy to face, while the Elks had already put a run on Brown after a walk to Ortíz and a Gary Rice double in the top 2nd. Gabriel Ortíz would hit an impressive homer off Brown in the fourth that counted for a pair to get his team up 3-0, while the Critters would strike out seven times before getting their first base runner on a 1-out single by Juan Barrón in the bottom 4th. Brownie would strike out half a dozen in as many innings, and it was wholly unpretty. The Elks got six hits and four walks off him and were on the verge of breaking through in the fifth inning when they had a man on third, Brown walked the bases full, then somehow got a grounder to short to end the misery. The bigger picture in terms of misery finally stopped counting at 37. The Raccoons didn’t score an earned run for 37 innings until Craig Bowen cracked a 2-run homer in the bottom of the seventh. But whenever Fujita wasn’t serving breakfast to our catcher, he held the Raccoons on the shortest leash, whiffing nine against four hits in eight innings. Technically it was a 3-2 game and nothing was decided when Pedro Alvarado took the ball for the bottom 9th, much less with the assumedly meaty part of the order coming up, starting with Barrón, but there were at best faint rally noises going on as the Raccoons opened a short home stand with this Monday-nighter. Between Barrón, Castro, and Black, nobody reached. 3-2 Canadiens. Rockburn 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K; Nick Brown will retire with 89 career wins, I think. Either because he is dumb enough to sign an extension, or because he quits the game in frustration. I might be quitting soon, too. In the six straight losses the Raccoons have suffered, they have allowed only 17 runs. Offensive ineptitude of galactic proportions is the issue du jour. That, and Kelvin Yates having The Nerves in general, and right now in particular. Game 2 VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 3B Suzuki – SS Rice – C G. Ortíz – 2B Dobson – 1B Harmon – P Spears POR: 1B Quebell – LF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – RF Fletcher – CF Trevino – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Yates After Russ Holland’s hard lineout to Castro in left, the Elks put their next four men on with three singles and a walk, but scored only one run before Ortíz popped out and Dobson grounded out to end the inning. The Coons went down in the minimum of batters in the first three innings, with only Castro drawing a walk and Martinez bowling out for two. It took them until their 13th batter to get a hit this time, with Craig Bowen’s 2-out single moving Castro to third base in the fourth inning, but Gary Rice made a leaping grab on Fletcher’s line drive to deny the Coons the tying run. The top 5th started with a double on a 1-2 pitch by … Spears. Somehow the Elks failed to cash in on that, probably because they were laughing so hard that both Enrique Garcia and Dan Morris struck out looking to end the inning. On the board, the Coons trailed by one run only, but it felt like seven or nine. The lovely Oregon summer had a hard rain storm in its cards that forced a 1-hour delay in the sixth inning and cut both starters’ outings short. The Elks had probably hoped to win due to inclement weather, but play resumed eventually with a 1-out Castro single in the bottom 6th. He was in motion when Martinez batted and dumped a bloop into shallow left, giving us runners on the corners. With the greatest pains, the Coons scored the tying run on a Bowen sac fly before Fletcher rolled out to end the inning. Two innings later, Vega and Sims holding the fort on the pitching side, we faced Ricardo Huerta the first time in an Elks shirt. Matt Pruitt led off the inning batting for Sims, and lobbed a single to right that bounced off Jeff MacGruder’s arm for an extra base. Quebell was put on intentionally before Castro flew out to left and Martinez grounded out to Mitsuhide Suzuki. Bowen walked in a full count to fill the bases, and the Duke would bat for an 0-3 Fletcher, grounding out to third. Marcos Bruno was just not himself recently and wobbled badly through the top 9th. While nobody reached base and he struck out Jerry Dobson, both Trevino and Black had close calls with fly balls that almost got away for extra bases. The game remained tied and Huerta remained in for the Elks, with Trevino leading off the bottom 9th, which was fine: he was a speedy left-hander after all, and we were out of outfielders. He grounded out to Dobson. Then Esquivel hit for Barrón, singled to right, and was run for by Ryan Miller, who was thrown out stealing before Yoshi walked. Sharp batted for Bruno, but also found a way into Suzuki’s glove. Extras! And nobody was in the mood. We had a bored closer that needed some work outside of his actual job description and of course not even that could go well. With the Canadiens out of bench players in the 12th inning, Casas’ third on the mound, their closer Pedro Alvarado singled to left, stole second base off Bowen, and then scored on sucker Henry Harmon’s 2-out single up the middle. And then they didn’t even lose. Our last bat off the bench, Nelson Chavez, homered off Cris Pena in the bottom of the inning to re-knot the score, now at a rousing two, and extend the torture into an entirely unwelcome 13th inning. The Raccoons were bound to run out of arms soon, however. We had perhaps one inning left in Rockburn, and perhaps another one in Beltran, and everybody else had been used already – remember we were carrying an extra bench player and only had six relievers. Rockburn put Morris on with a 2-out walk, then allowed a hard single to Suzuki. Rice drove the ball to left, but not far enough: Castro caught it shy of the track. Cris Pena was still in the game. Our lone hope was a meatball to the Duke, who was up second in the bottom 13th, and came up with nobody on and one out. After he unceremoniously popped out, Trevino unleashed a double into the right corner. Ryan Miller, the death of all ambitions, came up and heaved a soft line over Gary Rice’s head, and Dan Morris wouldn’t get it either. It fell in, and with Trevino running with two outs, the Raccoons SOMEHOW managed to walk off. Nobody could quite believe it. 3-2 Coons. Trevino 2-6, 2B; Esquivel (PH) 1-1; Miller 1-2, RBI; Pruitt (PH) 1-1; Chavez (PH) 1-1, HR, RBI; Yates 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K; … but if we had lost this game, the effect would have been nothing short of the other half of Mt. St. Helens being blown off right into downtown. For starters, the Elks would have leapt over our dead bodies into second place. At least we still have THAT, six games back. Quebell drew four walks in this game. He hadn’t walked even once in the last 11 games. He had struck out three times in as many chances on Monday. He’s also batting .050 in July. The Elks made a move, however, adding elite reliever Jose Escobar from the Capitals for three prospects, including two top 100 middle infielders, #98 Phil Butt, and #7 David Betancourt, both still in A-ball. Hum, that might be quite a steep prize for a reliever… But: Escobar was a lefty, so they were armed against that now. Game 3 VAN: 2B Dobson – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 3B Suzuki – SS Rice – CF F. Jones – C F. Diéguez – 1B Harmon – P R. Taylor POR: LF Castro – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – CF Trevino – C Esquivel – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Umberger The Raccoons grabbed an early lead on a Sergio Esquivel home run, his first of the season, in the second inning. The 1-0 advantage was in mortal danger immediately. After sitting down the first six Elks, Umberger had his middle infielders defeated on soft grounders from both Fernando Diéguez and Henry Harmon to start the third inning. Rod Taylor swung and hit right into a double play before Barrón caught Dobson’s liner to keep Diéguez from scoring. While Castro upped to 2-0 with a home run in the third, the Coons left runners on third base in that and the next inning, and Umberger continued to have some grave issues with the bottom of the order. Diéguez walked and Taylor hit a 2-out single in the top 5th before Dobson popped out. The Coons also left Quebell and Black in scoring position in the bottom of the inning. And as always, we were just waiting for fate to snap and break our hurler’s neck. The sixth was a parade of “another”s. The Elks stranded another pair after a Morris walk and Rice single, the Raccoons stranded another man on third base (fourth inning in a row and counting), but on the plus side, Esquivel had hit another homer! Umberger was yanked in the seventh. He had not allowed a run yet, but had another pair of runners on base with left-handers Garcia and Morris coming up. Donald Sims was tabbed with this job and struck out Garcia to preserve the 3-0 lead, but Morris homered to lead off the eighth. Our short pen had us bat Marcos Bruno, who had already pitched the eighth, bat with two outs and Nomura on first in the bottom 8th. Angel was unavailable after pitching three innings the previous day, and … well, we were still short! And I didn’t trust Vega. Bruno was the eighth and final strikeout victim of Taylor, but held on to the lead and struck out MacGruder to end the inning with a tremendous slider. 3-1 Critters. Black 2-4, 2 2B; Esquivel 2-4, 2 HR, 2 RBI; Barrón 3-4; Umberger 6.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 5 K, W (10-3); Bruno 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (2); So that’s eight runs in three games, seven on long balls. They are still playing like arse. Game 4 VAN: CF Holland – RF E. Garcia – LF D. Morris – 2B Dobson – C G. Ortíz – SS Rice – 3B Rodgers – 1B Harmon – P D. Peterson POR: CF Castro – 2B Barrón – LF Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – 1B Sharp – 3B Chavez – SS R. Miller – P Baldwin Chances for a series win immediately dropped to squid with Baldwin getting shoved around a bit for two quick runs, and the Raccoons taking nine men to make nine outs for the third time in the series. While Pruitt sent a signal that the team was not quite quitting yet with a 2-out single in the fourth, that was all that came from them. David Peterson rammed a double to right to lead off the fifth inning and soon enough scored. It was only three runs, but the complete absence of any movement out of the brown dugout made it look like much, much more yet again. Then Bowen and Sharp hit singles to start the bottom 5th. Chavez grounded out, and Miller flew out just deep enough to allow Bowen to score on Dan Morris’ not quite well aged arm. Led by Baldwin, who allowed Peterson ANOTHER leadoff hit in the seventh, the Raccoons looked like a terminal case: not the faintest twitch of the tail signaling that there was still life in the rolled up bodies. Top 8th, Sergio Vega loaded the bases with Bad Smells and only one out, walking Rice and Rodgers after an Ortíz double. Beltran came in when the lefty MacGruder pinch-hit, struck him out, then allowed an RBI single to Peterson… The horrors really had names, 25 in total. 4-1 Canadiens. Sharp 2-3, 2B; Raccoons (50-34) @ Loggers (32-54) – July 11-13, 2008 6-2 against the Loggers, the Raccoons had to compete with the third-worst offense and also third-worst pitching again in their final series before the All Star game. Projected matchups: Javier Cruz (6-4, 3.78 ERA) vs. Martin Garcia (6-6, 2.95 ERA) Nick Brown (7-5, 3.23 ERA) vs. William Lloyd (5-7, 4.64 ERA) Kelvin Yates (6-4, 4.74 ERA) vs. Junior Diaz (4-7, 6.04 ERA) Two left-handers in the first two games, including Martin Garcia. Him and Brownie were the last left-handed CL North alpha dogs not on the DL. Game 1 POR: LF Castro – CF Fletcher – C Bowen – RF Black – 3B R. Martinez – 1B Sharp – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – P Cruz MIL: CF J. Garcia – 1B K. Scott – RF Hiwalani – C Baca – SS T. Johnson – 2B Tolwith – LF Delaney – 3B S. Johnson – P M. Garcia Against Martin Garcia, offense wasn’t suddenly going to break out, but the Raccoons began to insult the beauty of the game, slowly but surely. They had nothing except a few sorry and lucky singles and a Barrón double that didn’t lead anywhere nice, either, through five innings. Cruz was 1-hitting the Loggers in the fifth until Ryan Miller misplaced Martin Garcia’s 2-out grounder for an error, and sure enough the Loggers were going to score after singles by Jaime Garcia and Keith Scott, going up 1-0. Tomas Castro got hit and stole second base in the top 6th then, and scored on Fletcher’s single. Tied at one, yeah, let’s play fifteen **ing innings! Not quite yet, however. The Duke would momentarily break out of a pronounced snooze to whack a ball the distance in this inning and thus gave the brown-clad team a 3-1 lead. Javier Cruz would strike out ten batters over seven innings and didn’t allow an earned run for the third time in five starts. He handed the game over to our established back end, only to see both Bruno in the eighth (with a walk to Hiwalani) and Casas in the ninth (a Delaney double) put the leadoff man on base. Both of them sat down the next three guys, however. 3-1 Critters. Fletcher 2-5, RBI; Black 3-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Barrón 2-3, 2B; Chavez 1-1; Cruz 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, W (7-4) and 1-3; We’re scoring 2.27 runs per game in July, and that is with the 8-3 win over the Knights on the 1st. Without that… Game 2 POR: CF Fletcher – 1B Quebell – C Bowen – RF Black – LF Pruitt – 3B Sharp – 2B Barrón – SS R. Miller – P Brown MIL: CF J.R. Richardson – 3B Tolwith – RF Hiwalani – LF T. Austin – 2B B. Hernandez – SS T. Johnson – 1B K. Scott – C J. Reyes – P Lloyd Brownie pitched in full counts to the first three batters, striking out Richardson and walking Aaron Tolwith and Bakile Hiwalani. The Loggers would leave them loaded, but … hrmpf. Meanwhile the Loggers were eager to extend their 4-game losing streak, if necessary with brute force. After the Duke’s leadoff double in the second it looked like the Coons would leave him on, so Keith Scott blew Sharp’s grounder and Reyes committed a passed ball to have Black score the first run of the game. Black would double again in the fourth, and with no egregious fielding mercifully helping the Coons, was left on third base. In between, Hiwalani, who had never homered off Brown so far, came mighty close in the third inning, but had to settle for a double off the wall and being left on third base as well. The Loggers tied it in the fifth. Brown issued a leadoff walk to Lloyd (…!), Tolwith doubled, and Hiwalani scored the pitcher with a groundout before Austin went down flailing. Soon enough, the home crowd was reduced to hoping for better times again. Quebell somehow struck a home run in the top 6th, and with two outs Pruitt tripled. Sharp walked on four pitches before Reyes had his second blackout of the game, another passed ball scoring another run! Barrón eventually walked before Miller popped out in an especially hopeless way. The Raccoons stranded two more in the seventh when Bowen and Black struck out back-to-back. Brownie was left on second base there, then pitched to Reyes to start the bottom 7th and hit him with an 0-2 pitch. He went on to retire the pinch-hitter Chris Delaney and J.R. Richardson (handing the latter a golden sombrero in the least feasible time) before yielding to Rockburn with his pitch count at 106 and only right-handers coming up. Law had nothing better to do than allowing a single to Tolwith and a drive to deep left to Hiwalani that was looking like one, but wasn’t one. Pruitt made a racing catch on the track and also avoided breaking his neck against the wall in preserving the 3-1 lead. Rockburn would go on to register three groundouts in 1-1 counts in the eighth. And then it was Angel… Keith Scott and Jaime Garcia hit singles to start the bottom 9th and were bunted into scoring position by Spencer Johnson. Oh, those were merely the tying runs. 0-4, 4 K Richardson successfully achieved the platinum sombrero, though, so on one hand all could be well still, and on the other hand, this was a Brown start, so it wouldn’t. Alonso Baca hit for the pitcher in the #2 hole, and with Hiwalani looming behind, it was generally not a good idea to utilize the open base. Baca grounded the first pitch up the middle, Yoshi was stretching the legs, grabbed it, a wonderful pirouette, throw to first – OUT!! 3-1 Brownies! Quebell 3-4, BB, HR, 2B, RBI; Black 2-4, 2 2B; Brown 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 10 K, W (8-5) and 2-3; Rockburn 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K; Brownie, still not good, but leading the CL in whiffs after this game, with 141, over SFB Tyler Sullivan’s 135. Game 3 POR: CF Castro – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 3B R. Martinez – SS Barrón – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – P Yates MIL: 2B K. Scott – SS B. Hernandez – RF Hiwalani – LF T. Austin – C Baca – 3B T. Johnson – CF J. Garcia – 1B Lewis – P J. Diaz Diaz had 62 walks and 49 strikeouts in not even 90 innings, so of course he’d strike out two in the first inning. While Ricardo Martinez conquered him with a home run in the second inning, Yates gave the lead away in the bottom of the frame. The 1-1 tie persisted through four, or as long as Diaz maintained the illusion of a decent pitcher. In the fifth he walked Quebell before Pruitt singled to right. The Duke was looking for meatballs and got the perfect piece of pork delivered, flagellating it far over the leftfield fence for a 3-run homer, ending a 10-game streak in which the Coons had scored three runs or less. They got one more run, unearned after a Tom Johnson error, in the same inning, putting Yates ahead 5-1. The Loggers would get a run back in the sixth, in which they put their first two batters, veterans Hernandez and Hiwalani, on base, but only scored on a sac fly by Alonso Baca. The Loggers stayed with Diaz, who was overmatched soundly even by the petty Coons. Pruitt got on with a leadoff single in the seventh and was soon joined by Martinez. Barrón singled to left center to score Pruitt, 6-2, and the Loggers still wouldn’t remove Diaz. Craig Bowen then hit a 2-2 pitch into shallow center that bounced funny off the turf and then off the top of the glove of a panicking Jaime Garcia, and into the 431’ depths of centerfield in Milwaukee. Martinez was in, Barrón was turning third, Garcia was scuttling after the ball and didn’t get it until it was right against the wall. Bowen was on his way to third when Garcia threw the ball back in, and waved around, Bowen going home, the throw from Hernandez – late! INSIDE THE PARK HOME RUN FOR CRAIG BOWEN!!! Even the Loggers realized that this game would never end if Diaz was allowed to go on. The rest of the game was less stellar. Ex-Coon Scott Boone struck out the top three batters in the eighth, and two more in the ninth, nixing a Duke double. Yates got stuck in the eighth, but Sergio Vega sat down five more Loggers to get the Coons into the break with a sweep over the Loggers. 9-2 Furballs! Pruitt 3-5; Black 2-5, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Martinez 2-5, HR, RBI; Barrón 3-5, 2 RBI; Bowen 2-3, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Yates 7.1 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, W (7-4); Vega 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K; In other news July 7 – California dealings: the Pacifics acquire 26-yr old SP Iván Cordero (6-7, 4.62 ERA) from the Bayhawks, leaving their northern state mates with half-decent outfield prospect Ron Eroh. July 8 – The Crusaders flip two prospects to the Wolves for SP Pancho Trevino (5-6, 3.70 ERA). July 8 – SFW 1B Raúl Bovane (.347, 7 HR, 46 RBI) is out until August with a fractured foot. July 9 – NAS C Carlos Ramos (.306, 4 HR, 19 RBI) chalks up his 2,000th career hit in a 3-2 loss of the Blue Sox to the Cyclones. The milestone hit is a sixth inning home run off Jack Berry. The 36-year old Ramos was discovered by the Buffaloes in Venezuela in the early 90s and debuted for them in 1995, instantly grabbing the starter’s spot. He also played for the Condors, Rebels, Loggers, Capitals, and Gold Sox in his career, in which he has batted .300 with 128 HR and 800 RBI. He has won a Gold Glove, a Platinum Stick, was the 1995 Rookie of the Year in the Federal League, and was an All Star eight times. July 10 – NYC SP Greg Connor (14-3, 2.12 ERA) 3-hits the Titans in a 12-0 romp. The win is a sour one, though. NYC OF Roberto Pena (.367, 13 HR, 48 RBI) slams into the wall on a defensive play and suffers a fracture cheekbone. He will miss time until the end of August. July 10 – In a game that could only be described as total destruction, the Stars ravage the Scorpions, 22-0, while their hurler Jose Flores (5-1, 2.30 ERA) spins a 1-hitter. Leborio Catalo spares his team the shame of getting no-hit in addition to being run over. July 12 – The Condors pick up C Foster Leach (.309, 2 HR, 40 RBI) from the Scorpions in exchange for two dubious prospects. Complaints and stuff** Mitsuhide Suzuki on Monday became Nick Brown’s 1,500th strikeout victim. He ended the week with 1,510. This is his age 30 season. 3,000 strikeouts don’t look completely out of the picture, especially when you look at the average of his last three full seasons, where he whiffed 240, 237, and 243, respectively. At an even 240, he’d reach 3,000 before the end of the 2015 season, aged 36. His K/9 is even UP this year. He posted a K/9 between 9.5 and 9.8 for five straight years, but this year his K/9 is a juicy 10.8 so far! That 2015 projection is without more injuries, by the way… I’ve been looking for improvements to solve this mess here. The easiest upgrade could be made in the middle infield. Problem is, the teams that are willing to accept Nelson Chavez don’t have the right players for our needs. The teams with the right players are either not in a position to take on salary or demand prospect Hector Santos outright. There is one case that is special, with the Loggers being willing to part with Bartolo Hernandez, the grizzled veteran, but here it’s the Coons that have to balk. We have $610k of budget space available in early July. Hernandez is due $1.4M for the rest of this season, and the Loggers want young meat. The Indians would bite and trade Robbie Luxton for Ryan Miller. Luxton has a .279 OBP, however, and it’s just not worth it. Bartolo Hernandez would be a good fit. Old, but still strong with the glove, and still batting .320-ish. He won’t see the playoffs again if he stays with the Loggers. Too bad our coffers are empty. Despite the recent ineptitude, the Raccoons will send SIX players to the All Star game! Three pitchers and three batters are included in that, and because I’m mean like that, why don’t you muse about who the lucky half dozen might be until the next update will plop down here? Attached Images __________________ Portland Raccoons, 92 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.

12-10-2015, 07:03 PM	#1636
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 13,720	When Luke Black came up with the Bayhawks in the late 90s, I always thought, he’d be great sooner rather than later. It never quite happened. Black could have been the Coons’. They would have had the 13th pick in the 1995 Draft after an 81-81 campaign in the middle of their 8-year death grip on the North. Except that we splurged in the off-season and signed the former Canadien David Brewer to a 6-year deal and forfeited our pick to the Elks. (That pick ended up with the Blue Sox by June, who picked INF Bob Townsley, who now has 1,319 career hits with 99 homers and a Gold Glove) The Raccoons didn’t pick until the supplemental round, and Black was taken 23rd overall by the Bayhawks. He had been among our half dozen core players in the draft pool. Instead the Raccoons picked outfielders Manuel Villa and Cory Stanford with their first two picks, and then pitcher Bill Coles, and if those names don’t ring familiar, that’s because they played a grand total of zero major league games combined. 1995 is right at the very top when it comes to the title of Disaster Draft, challenged by few, decisively beaten by none. There aren’t many draft classes to rival ’95. Perhaps 1981, when our top pick was infielder Orlando Lantán, the first catastrophic bust we’d pick first overall (after Dan The Man, Rich Cunningham, the Demon, and Carlos Gonzalez). The entire ’81 draft class amounted to 12 major league wins and 132 RBI. 1984 was also bad, but at least our second pick, 1B Billy Mitchell, went on to hit 75 homers for other teams. In fact, many mid-80s drafts were quite horrendous in hindsight, and when we picked a gem, like Dennis Fried in the fourth round in ’87, we traded it for pennies before long. Sometimes a draft won’t be bad because the boys don’t reach the majors. Sometimes a draft will be bad BECAUSE the boys DO reach the majors. Like ’92. Our first three position players picked where Luke Newton, Mike Crowe, and Mark Kowalchuk. Combined they’d steal over 3,300 major league at-bats from actually deserving players, and most of those on the Raccoons. To this day I check the clubhouse before the opener of every homestand to make sure that Luke Newton hasn’t somehow crept back in through some unlocked door. The 2001 draft might eventually be one of those that people look at and wonder whether we were all stoned. The Raccoons picked Chris Beairsto, Cody Bryant, Cedric Chateau, Stu Sharp, and Tim Webster in the first five rounds. Two didn’t make the majors, and three did, but we now wish they hadn’t. “Dumpster Boy” Webster is still sticking on the AAA roster like an old piece of gum. 1995 was a nightmare. But it’s not the hands down worst draft we’ve ever had. The reason for that is some certain left-handed 11th-rounder. But this is not about Nick Brown, the “lefty with a slider”, which then was pretty much the total scouting report we had. I think back then our report actually stated that he was black. Someone almost called the cops when that 17-year old white kid showed up in Aumsville. But this is not about Brown, it’s about the Duke of Smack. Luke Black, drafted at 21, ranked as high as 10th on the ABL prospect chart. That was before the ’97 season. He had already reached AAA the year before, but hadn’t impressed much there. He would spend the majority of his time in AAA through 2000. He didn’t make his debut until he was 25, and batted .286/.365/.365 with no dingers in 22 games for the Bayhawks in 1999. Still, when we encountered him in the early 2000s, Vince always pointed out that there was greatness in this kid. Yet, he was batting a paltry .201/.283/.351 with eight homers in 2002, and the following year had 85% of his at-bats in AAA again, then as a 29-year old. He hit 35 long ones that year, 2003, 34 of those for Baton Rouge. The early-2000s Bayhawks could have used a smacking Duke. They won their only ABL championship in 1999, and spent the next five years trying to look for the right mix to get back to the playoffs – they never found it, and they haven’t won the South since. A strong defensive rightfielder with an .870 OPS would have helped them tremendously. But Black was not that kind of player back then, and spent the 30th summer of his life in Baton Rouge, hitting 34 home runs off kids almost a decade younger than him. He was not happy. They weren’t, either. Vince always said there was greatness in that kid, but my god, he knew how to hide it. When 2004 rolled around and Black was assigned back to the majors as a 30-year old, he didn’t even have 30 big league homers in the bank, and was a career .226 batter that wasn’t walking either. The Bayhawks, by now hopeless, stuck up with him for two more seasons, in which he batted at identical .244 clips, and finally hit home runs. 14 in ’04, 19 in ’05. The latter wasn’t quite good enough to break the top 10 in the CL. He barely made the top 3 on his own team, on which everybody was keying on Jim Brulhart, who hit 28 homers and drove in 116. At 32 years old, the Bayhawks finally had enough and dealt him to the Miners after the 2005 season. He hit .231/.297/.402, a 92 OPS+, with 13 home runs for the Miners in 2006. That team finished six games out in the FL East, albeit a meager FL East, where the Cyclones emerged champions by winning 87 games. The Miners could have used more offense. The Miners could have used more home runs. But they couldn’t get more home runs from Luke Black. Neither could the Bayhawks. Both teams play in pitcher’s parks. Leftfield is quite spacious at the Bay, 370 feet, and even deeper in Pittsburgh. In Portland, true left is 353 feet from home plate, and ever since Daniel Hall has been right-hander’s heaven (although rightfield isn’t nasty to left-handers either; ask Tetsu about it). There are only five fences in true left in the league that can be conquered as easy or easier, all of them in the Continental League, and three of them in the North, in Indy, New York, and Vancouver. Las Vegas and Oklahoma are the other two. So when the Raccoons spent $4M on Luke “Black Hole” Black and his slightly sad track record in free agency before the 2007 season, some wondered aloud whether old Westfield had finally lost them. But Raccoons Ballpark was exactly what Black had needed all his life, and he exploded to hit 31 bombs, plated 107, slugged .457 with a .745 OPS – all career marks, and it wasn’t particularly close. He’s even better in ’08 with 17 homers at the All Star break, and 25 doubles. He had 25 doubles in all of ’07 and topped the mark only once, in ’05, when he hit 31. Luke Black is 35 now. He has 122 career home runs, which isn’t much. It’s not even in the top 100 in ABL history, although he needs only nine more to scratch on that door. The latter half of his contract isn’t even guaranteed. He needs to appear 120 games to trigger another year and another million. But he has only sat out two games so far and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t reach the mark (barring injury). The Raccoons’ management loves him. After years of waiting for Clyde Brady to find a stroke he never had, Black finally brought back power to a traditional power position. Raccoons fans love him. He was not alone, but he forcefully reintroduced them to division races. At 35, franchise player Daniel Hall couldn’t tie his shoes without popping his back and hit only seven home runs in a campaign in which he missed 96 games; and when he did play, he had painkillers for breakfast. At 35, the Duke of Smack is only getting better. __________________ Portland Raccoons, 92 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.

12-04-2015, 07:30 PM	#1624
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	You jinxed yourself in that one.....I could see those last two games coming a mile away.....

12-07-2015, 06:17 PM	#1630
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	How come people don't respond to years old posts in my thread? I am jealous.....

12-08-2015, 02:05 AM	#1632
Questdog Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: In a dark, damp cave where I'm training slugs to run the bases...... Posts: 16,142	Personally, I find it more fun when you cannot do everything you want to do.

12-12-2015, 01:50 AM	#1638
pgjocki All Star Starter Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: Maryland - just outside DC Posts: 1,590	I miss Saito, did he take a job as a coach or has he disappeared? __________________ - - - World Series championships: 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1982, 2006, 2011

12-12-2015, 05:14 AM	#1639
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 13,720	You know we had Daniel Hall Bobblehead & Appreciation Day, and Neil Reece Bobblehead & Appreciation Day. Of course we also tried to put a Kisho Saito Bobblehead & Appreciation Day together. Well, we have the bobbleheads, 15,000, stored away in a warehouse. We also have the appreciation. Unfortunately we don't have Saito. After voiding his 2000 contract and retiring, he boarded a plane to Japan, and hasn't been seen since. Maud has been making phone calls intermittently for years, and she's been close to contacting him. Well, not actually. But she has spoken to a man from Koriyama, whose brother knows a merchant in horticulture materials and tools two towns over, who sells akadama and sometimes grooming tools to a man in the 40s two or three times a year, and that man is always wearing an unbranded brown baseball cap and looks strikingly like this (see below): She can't find out where he lives, however, but he does not seem to own a phone. If I could just remember the name and phone number of Kisho's sword sharpener that came over to Portland regularly whenever the team kept blowing his wins...! Attached Images __________________ Portland Raccoons, 92 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.