Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[Westheim]

The week started with roster moves on Monday, which was an off day. The Raccoons waived and DFA’ed Ryan Allan and added Jimmy Wallace straight from the DL.

Furthermore, the Raccoons returned Armando Leal to the Stars, from where they had taken him in the rule 5 draft last December, and added Elias Tovias from his rehab assignment.

There were more news on the injury front. By the start of the week, Matt Nunley was still in agony and the Druid expected him to remain in such state for the rest of the week. With that, it no longer made sense to carry him as appendix on an otherwise healthy (makes unsure hand movement) roster. He was thus moved to the DL by Tuesday, retroactive to the previous Monday, and would only be allowed to come off the next Tuesday. The Coons called up INF German Sanchez, batting an uninspired .250 in AAA.

Raccoons (51-67) vs. Miners (69-49) – August 19-21, 2031

The Miners were leading a still competitive FL East, although their lead was up to 6 1/2, and had the chance to pounce on the helpless Critters. They led the Federal League in runs scored, and were doing it mostly by power. There was no speed on the roster. Their pitching was *average*. The starters were sixth in ERA, the pen ranked fourth, but because their defense was rather shaky, the team had allowed the fifth-most runs in the FL, and even more than the Critters, who managed to combine a top three defense with a bottom three rotation. This was the last interleague set of the season, and also the first meeting between clubs in three years, with the Miners having won two of three the last time around.

Projected matchups:
Jason Gurney (8-6, 3.16 ERA) vs. Nick Salinas (7-7, 3.69 ERA)
Mark Roberts (5-6, 4.18 ERA) vs. Jonas Mejia (12-7, 4.72 ERA)
Ed Hague (8-8, 4.05 ERA) vs. Josh Walsh (9-6, 3.55 ERA)

Three right-handers of advanced age in this series, which was also the main reason we didn’t bring back Craig Hollenbeck for a few at-bats. Salinas was familiar to the Coons, albeit only as an Indians reliever from 2023 through 2026. This was his second stint with the Miners, his first major league team.

Game 1
PIT: SS Peddle – RF Bonaccorsi – 3B Lastrade – 1B Santillano – CF C. Martinez – 2B McKenzie – C Wall – LF Trawick – P N. Salinas
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – C Tovias – 1B Howden – CF Magallanes – P Gurney

Yvon Bonaccorsi singled home Josh Peddle after a leadoff triple in the third inning for the first marker on the scoreboard. At that point Gurney had already loaded the bases with one out in the second inning, causing our dear scout to give me that “told you so” look with his eyebrows. However, with Cesar Martinez and Jim McKenzie hitting singles and Kurt Wall walking onto the open base, Gurney fanned Jake Trawick and got Salinas to ground out harmlessly. “Harmless” also aptly described the modus operandi for the Raccoons. They did get Magallanes on base with a soft single in the bottom 3rd, Gurney bunted him to second, and Ramos singled him home, but that was about it for the first five innings. Danny Santillano’s 25th homer of the season would break the tie in the sixth, which sparked *some* reaction from the home team. Jamieson and Hereford hit 2-out singles in the bottom 6th, but Jimmy Wallace, so far 2-2 on his return, grounded out to Peddle at short. Gurney still trailed, 2-1, when he was pinch-hit for by Wilson Rodriguez with Tovias (single) and Magallanes (walk) on base in the bottom 7th. Rodriguez struck out, after which the Miners went to southpaw Robbie Peel, who dallied away their lead by allowing back-to-back singles to Ramos and Stalker, but with the bases teeming, Matt Jamieson grounded out to Peddle to end the inning. Victor Anaya took over on the mound for Portland and swiftly had an embarrassing accident on a wet staircase, allowing a leadoff single to Omar Lastrade, who reached third base via a steal and wild pitch on consecutive offerings to Santillano. The third pitch in the sequence resulted in a single up the middle, and a new lead for Pittsburgh. Bottom 8th, back-to-back 1-out singles by Wallace and Tovias were met enthusiastically by Jarod Howden, the dumb pig, hitting into a 4-6-3 double play. Old foe Travis Giordano would end the game in the ninth, but not without allowing Ramos to second base with a 2-out double. Thankfully for Pittsburgh’s playoff ambitions, Berto was about the only Critter stirring anything but their drinks, and Tim Stalker struck out. 3-2 Miners. Ramos 3-5, 2B, RBI; Wallace 3-4; Tovias 2-4; Gurney 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K;

Game 2
PIT: SS Peddle – RF Bonaccorsi – 3B Lastrade – 1B Santillano – CF C. Martinez – C Sanford – 2B McKenzie – LF Trawick – P J. Mejia
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – C Tovias – 1B Howden – CF Magallanes – P Roberts

In a Launchpad Special, Mark Roberts coughed up five hits in the opening inning, all of which were hit intensely, and most of which went for extra bases. Peddle opened with a single and before long Omar Lastrade walloped one over the fence in left, 2-0. Santillano singled hard to center, and back-to-back doubles by Cesar Martinez and Pat Sanford plated two more runs for an early 4-0 hole. Roberts would somehow wiggle out of having allowed base hits to Mejia and Peddle to begin the second inning, and when they were in scoring position with two outs and Santillano at the plate there was some brief thought about walking him intentionally (again, in the second inning), but then Roberts was old enough to know that there were consequences for his actions. He got Santillano to hit a fly into Jamieson’s reach to end the inning. Roberts ended up going five shutouts innings after the first-frame disaster, which more close calls where crooked numbers were concerned; the Miners also stranded runners in scoring position in the sixth when Wallace raced back to grab Josh Peddle’s 2-out drive… Raccoons activity through six? They had three men on base… in total. That included Ramos twice, and he was caught stealing by Sanford just as often. Mejia kept pitching a shutout through seven, bypassing a 2-out double by Jimmy Wallace in the bottom 7th when Tovias lined out to McKenzie and into, but not outta the eighth. With Howden having somehow glitched on base with one out, 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy winner Sam Cass hit a gapper in left center for an RBI triple, and Mejia walked Ramos on straight balls, but not quite intentionally. The dugout held up a four-by-four (feet) cardboard sheet with the sign for Ramos, subtly: “NO”. Two double switches inadvertently made Wilson Rodriguez the tying run with runners on the corners and one out. He flew out harmlessly to Trawick, and Bonaccorsi had to hustle, but caught Jamieson’s fly to strand them on the corners. Dave Martinez somehow pitched two innings without imploding, even with a stupid Wilson Rodriguez error to boot, and the bottom 9th began with a Hereford homer to dead center off Travis Giordano, 4-2. Toby Ross batted for Martinez and singled softly to right, but Tovias was rung up. Same for Howden, while Magallanes really juiced it up, grounding out to McKenzie. 4-2 Miners. Ross (PH) 1-1; Howden 2-4; Cass 1-2, 3B, RBI; Martinez 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

Oh boy. That offense.

No, still no position player prospects on the horizon that could slot in neatly at some place.

Game 3
PIT: SS Peddle – CF C. Martinez – 1B Santillano – 3B Lastrade – RF Bonaccorsi – 2B McKenzie – C Wall – LF Trawick – P Walsh
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – 1B Howden – C Ross – CF Catella – P Hague

We wouldn’t have thought such thing possible, but Ed Hague had an even more violent first-inning implosion than Mark Roberts had suffered on Wednesday. Peddle raked a single to right before Cesar Martinez (to left) and Danny Santillano (to right) hit back-to-back bombs, immediately followed by a Lastrade double, after which Hague got a good old yelling-at on the mound by the assorted staff. Lastrade would score on two grounders, giving the Miners another 4-0 lead they were not expected to relinquish. But like Roberts, Hague then kept his hole shut for the next few innings, giving the Raccoons ample chance to rally back from that 4-0 deficit… on paper at least. On the field, Ramos drew a leadoff walk in the bottom 1st and for once was not caught stealing, but rather doubled up by Tim Stalker. The next Coons base runner would be Stalker with a 1-out single in the fourth, and he would be … caught stealing. (deep breath) Then, in the bottom of the fifth, Wallace hit a single to center, Howden worked a walk in a full count, and while Ross flew one over to Trawick for the second out, Sean Catella got a grounder past Peddle for a single. Wallace was sent and scored, and Howden, the dumb pig, was caught up between second and third and was run down to end the inning. Oh boy.

Hereford homered to make it 4-2 for the second day in a row, but this time came up oomph in the seventh inning already. The Coons started the eighth with Hague on the mound, having thrown only 86 pitches, most of them very hittable. He struck out the side, starting with the opposing pitcher, after getting only two fans in the first seven innings, then was hit for in the bottom 8th by the 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy, which led nowhere in particular, but Ramos singled with two outs …! And then Stalker grounded out to short again. For the third straight day, Travis Giordano would get the assignment, and walked Rich Hereford with one out in the bottom 9th. The tying run was up, and it was Jimmy Wallace, which actually made a game-tying comeback possib- … and he grounded to second base, Bobby Marshall to Peddle to Santillano, the slow-motion sweep complete. 4-2 Miners. Howden 1-2, BB;

Well, the good news is that this makes an 0-6 week possible. Maybe we can convince the league to revoke the franchise and expunge the team from the league record!

Raccoons (51-70) vs. Titans (76-45) – August 22-24, 2031

The Titans were also aiming for a 6-0 week as they came in second in both runs scored and runs allowed in the CL and a +142 run differential (Coons: -30). There was nothing to like about them Coons, but lots of things to like about the Titans, except that they were beating our little skulls in with staggeringly little effort this season, leading the season series, 9-2.

Projected matchups:
Tom Shumway (1-4, 3.71 ERA) vs. Dave Dyer (3-2, 3.48 ERA)
Rico Gutierrez (7-10, 5.14 ERA) vs. Eric Williams (13-7, 3.60 ERA)
Jason Gurney (8-6, 3.12 ERA) vs. Dustin Wingo (12-8, 2.75 ERA)

Right, left, left. They had enjoyed Thursday off and could also mix it up, bringing right-hander Greg Gannon (14-7, 2.66 ERA) into the series, although to be honest, then I’d have skipped Dyer, and they didn’t.

Game 1
BOS: CF Acor – LF W. Vega – 1B Uliasz – RF Braun – 2B R. West – C Lessman – 3B Czachor – SS Perkins – P Dyer
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Hereford – C Tovias – 1B Howden – 3B Sanchez – CF Magallanes – P Shumway

Another game, another 4-run meltdown in the opening inning! Unbelievable! How can they be so ****ing stupid every ****ing day?? – What is it, Maud? – What? – Oh, that’s *our* boys that put up four? – Oh golly, good job, boys! Daddy’s proud’a ya! (barely manages to hold himself upright embracing a Capt’n Coma bottle) … Ramos opened the bottom 1st with a double to right, reached third on a bloop single, and would score on a Hereford sac fly after Wallace had whiffed. Tovias singled over Justin Uliasz’ head, and then Jarod Howden nailed a 3-piece to left, which led me to think that one of these teams would plate a dozen, because no way a Howden homer could matter in the end…

But other than expected, the game developed like the last two in this place against a different team, and the other way round. The leading team didn’t tack on, and the trailing team nibbled in vain. The Titans had somebody or other on base in every inning against Shumway, but couldn’t break through, not even when Adrian Reichardt doubled as pinch-hitter in Dyer’s spot in the fifth. Uliasz opened the sixth with a double to left-center, but then was also doubled off second base when Stalker shagged an Adam Braun line drive that Uliasz had read badly. Shumway would complete seven innings of shutout ball on exactly 100 pitches, and the eighth also yielded no success for Boston. Fleischer walked Willie Vega with one out, and Uliasz smashed a bouncer into a double play to end that inning, too. The Critters, who were never even remotely near scoring another run, sent an otherwise so far unemployed Chris Wise into the ninth inning, despite the lack of urgency with a 4-0 lead. Wise also failed to create such urgency, retiring the 4-5-6 batters on relatively easy grounders. 4-0 Coons. Stalker 2-3; Shumway 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K, W (2-4);

Well. Technically, the Howden homer *didn’t* matter…!

The longer the season goes, the more I am convinced that Jarod Howden does not matter to begin with…

Game 2
BOS: CF Acor – LF W. Vega – 1B Uliasz – RF Braun – 2B R. West – C Lessman – 3B Czachor – SS Perkins – P E. Williams
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Rodriguez – 1B Howden – CF Magallanes – C Ross – P Gutierrez

After a few outings in which he didn’t look entirely like horse ****, Rico Gutierrez had his paws full with the Titans that rallied over him for a run in the first on doubles by Dustin Acor and Justin Uliasz, and the Dustin and Justin show continued in the following innings, with Dustin doubling in vain in the second, and Justin reaching on a Howden error to begin the third inning. The latter one ended up scoring following singles by Adam Braun and Rhett West, then finally a David Lessman sac fly hit to mighty deep center on an 0-2 pitch. Ryan Czachor grounded out, and they stranded two more in the fourth inning with Rodriguez catching up (barely) with an Uliasz fly to right. Meanwhile the Coons were doing a splendid job… as long as their main concern was to bring by the end in speedy fashion, and didn’t inhibit proceedings too much with unnecessary offensive ambitions.

Rico even got his bloated ERA back down to five in the sixth inning, which began with a walk issued to Justin Perkins before Williams, staggeringly, swung away and flew out to Rodriguez. Dustin Acor popped out, getting Rico’s ERA to a nearly amazing 4.99 on the season! However, when Willie Vega singled on his 107th pitch, that was also the end of the day for him, eight hits and three walks deep into a near-clobbering, and that could still come about if Anaya woudn’t be cautious with Uliasz, a .236 batter with 11 homers. Anaya promptly gave up an RBI double, 3-0, in a 1-2 count, ruining Rico’s 4.xx ERA, and Rodriguez defused a hard Braun drive to end the inning before it could score two more. The Coons continued to do NOTHING. The Titans did little, but tacked on a run in the ninth inning against Ricky Ohl, who allowed another double to Uliasz, a single to Braun, and then the Critters couldn’t end it with a double play on West’s grounder to Stalker, and the run scored as West was called safe at first. We got to face Jermaine Campbell anyway in the bottom 9th, and to anybody’s surprise actually scratched out a run on a Jamieson double and a well-placed pinch-hit single by Jimmy Wallace. That was all for the game though; the fifth contest this week in which neither team managed to score even a handful. 4-1 Titans. Jamieson 2-4, 2B; Wallace (PH) 1-1, RBI; Sanchez (PH) 1-1; Martinez 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 0 K;

Oh boy, I sure say “oh boy” a lot these days…

Sunday would indeed bring Gannon over Wingo, so no second southpaw to fail against. It also brought Nick Valdes (thankfully alone!), who had a few redecorating ideas and had proofs of concept for advertisement on the field for one company or another. When I asked why the heck we’d paint the grass purple and yellow for some fast food temple, he responded that this was not grass, but a digital representation of grass on a new playing surface where huge screens under a clear glass floor would display various messages and ads to fans and people watching the broadcast between innings, or, well, show grass during the annoying times of the game, you know, where there was actually a game going on.

Yeah, Nick, I see the dollar signs in your eyes alright, but won’t that hurt like a lot if players dive for a ball? – Oh, I see, they’d have to stop doing that.

Game 3
BOS: CF Acor – LF W. Vega – 1B Uliasz – RF Braun – 2B R. West – C Lessman – 3B Czachor – SS Perkins – P Gannon
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – C Tovias – 1B Howden – CF Catella – P Gurney

This time the Coons scored first, and in the first. Ramos was narrowly retired on a bang-bang play, but then a Stalker single and walks issued to Jamieson and Wallace filled the bags for Tovias, who poked a 1-2 pitch up the middle and past Rhett West into centerfield, plating two runs. Howden ended the inning with a lame groundout. The following inning Gannon lost Sean Catella to a leadoff walk. Gurney bunted the runner to second, and Ramos drove him in with a single up the rightfield line that stayed away from Adam Braun for long enough to allow Catella around, which was good news given that Stalker pounced on the opportunity of another inning-ending double play, keeping the score a civil 3-0 after two.

While the third inning saw Hereford thrown out at home plate after being sent from second on a bloop single by Tovias to left-center, the Titans also played fast and loose with their playoff chances. Willie Vega grounded out to begin the fourth, negligently poking at a 3-0 pitch. That cost them at least one run in the inning given how Braun doubled with two outs and Vega could at least have scored on Rhett West’s following grounder near the second base bag, which would then have occurred with one man down. The fifth inning then saw Gurney cook up a mess all his own. A 1-out walk to Czachor was already unfortunate, but then he also threw a wild pitch in falling from 0-2 to 3-2 against Justin Perkins, who proceeded to pop out to Stalker. Gannon singled (…!) to right, but apparenty Czachor had forgotten how many outs there were (two) because he didn’t go on contact, and hung around until the ball was ready to drop well in front of Jimmy Wallace. That kept him at third base for good once Dustin Acor flew out to Catella.

Like Rico, Gurney cleared a major hurdle in terms of ERA in the game, stringing up 5.1 innings of shutout ball to get his ERA into the 2 range, 2.99 precisely. It didn’t stay there, though, thanks to more shoddy pitching not appropriate for a hurler chasing a 2.xx ERA. Uliasz singled, Braun doubled, and there were Titans in scoring position with one down. Rhett West dropped a roller in front of home plate that Tovias played for the second out, and the runners were waiting on Lessman, who fell to two strikes again and then STILL had the audacity to come through with a 2-run single to right on 1-2, cutting the lead to 3-2. Czachor flew out. Rich Hereford then went on to hit a leadoff jack in the bottom 6th. It was the third homer for Hereford on the week (and still no team wanted a piece of him for a playoff push), and also the third homer that made it a 4-2 game, though this time the Coons were ahead for a change… Gurney would last eight innings without blowing the lead into the afternoon sky, and Mike Baker retired the Coons’ meat of the order with little fuss in the bottom 8th, bringing about Chris Wise for an actual save chance, which he gave a good run to blow. Leadoff walk to Lessman, then after a Czachor strikeout a single conceded to Perkins. Manny Ramirez appeared as pinch-hitter (Reichardt had already been used the last time through the #9 hole), grounded to second base, Ramos hustling and whooping the ball to Stalker, turn and throw to first – out! Ballgame! 4-2 Coons! Hereford 2-4, HR, RBI; Tovias 2-3, 2 RBI; Gurney 8.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (9-6);

In other news

August 18 – While the Titans smother the Rebels, 14-0, BOS SP Dustin Wingo (12-8, 2.75 ERA) records a 2-hit shutout, whiffing eight.
August 19 – SFB INF Dave Myers (.320, 3 HR, 40 RBI) figures to miss five to six weeks with elbow tendinitis.
August 21 – SAL SP Phil Harrington (13-3, 1.67 ERA) and four relievers fire a combined 1-hitter for a 4-1 win at the Warriors, who only manage to make one drop in on a fourth-inning single by OF/1B Kevin Parks (.286, 2 HR, 11 RBI).
August 22 – NYC LF/RF Jeremy Houghtaling (.327, 11 HR, 41 RBI) goes 4-for-4 with 4 RBI in a 12-4 mauling of the Indians, and misses the cycle by the triple.
August 23 – Scorpions and Pacifics play two, sort of, with the Scorpions walking off on L.A. in the 18th inning, 2-1 on four singles after both teams combined for only five hits in the prior 8 1/2 innings of overtime.
August 23 – VAN 3B Matt Anton (.227, 7 HR, 49 RBI) could be out until the middle of September with elbow tendinitis.

Complaints and stuff

Yup, six games this week, and no team managed to score even five in any single contest. In fact, the winning team scored exactly four runs in five of the games, except Tuesday’s affair. The losing side never managed more than two. The Raccoons have only been involved in six games in which the losing side scored more than two all month, and only once did the losing side score five, that was in our 6-5 win to end the series in Oklahoma.

Berto went 0-for-3 on the basepaths this week and was doubled up by Tim Stalker a whole lot more outside of that. He does however hold a stake in the batting title race. With his current .323 clip he sits second behind Atlanta’s Roy Pincus, who currently has a frozen, because DL’ed, .336 mark on the leaderboard.

One more week until rosters expand… IF we can find personnel buried under the detritus that are the Alley Cats. We will see the Elks here, and the Aces in the desert.

This week Dan Delgadillo was on waivers by the Indians, who had seen him toss to a 1-1 record and 5.59 ERA in garbage time relief this season. He had walked SEVEN batters per nine innings, as a right-hander to boot! Five years removed from a splendid 12-7, 2.76 ERA campaign with the ’26 Coons and the first of two rings, Yusneldan’s career looked over and done. And he was not even 29 years old yet… at least, per his alleged birthday of November 1, 2002, which nobody has ever really taken for true value… everybody’s best guess always was that he was three years older than that…

Chris Baldwin was sent for a rehab assignment in St. Pete this week. Not that we need him. I think 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy Sam Cass and German Sanchez and the assorted other four-pawed failures do cover Baldwin’s specialty, batting .200 with absolutely no impact, rather well.

I got the first hint of things to come this week when Nick Valdes casually dropped that the budget would be slashed for ’32 during a phone call. Looks like Juan Magallanes will be a career Critter. And where else but Portland should he play? Who else should employ him? Where would a Colombian kid that attended a Jewish high school in Brooklyn and who is a regional Dance Dance Revolution champ turn to other than this ramshackle franchise in Portland? Where would he stick but with the team that hung onto for almost a decade to a Brazilian shortstop with no samba, or with the team that consisted mostly of Australians in the late 1990s, not that that gave them any success…

Speaking of Australians, our head scout, who’s name I totally know, really, honestly, dug up a 16-year-old kid in New South Wales this week. He goes by Sebastian Waddingham, which is in the Bradley Heathershaw category of winners’ names, and our scout found him during a youth cricket game, where he refused to hit the ball on the ground with his weird paddle, but consistently aimed for the boundary shot. Yeah, he, too, will be a star, surely.

Cristiano, what is a boundary shot? – Cristiano, are you blushing? – Now he wheeled out, squeaking. *Him*, not the wheels! Everybody’s weird again today. (looks over to Valdes and Chad in full costume, having high tea on the table) Sometimes I wonder how normal franchises are run.

Fun Fact: 49 years ago today, Carlos León hit for his second of two cycles in the 1982 season in his Wolves’ 8-4 win over the Stars.

León became a Raccoon later, of course, but never worked out as we hoped for. León remains one of only three players with multiple cycles to their name, the others being the recently regurgitated Bruce Boyle, and Ricardo Garcia, who hit for two cycles for the Aces in the late 2000s, but also retired at 31 because of torn back muscles.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Bub13]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Raccoons (49-63) vs. Loggers (69-44) – August 11-13, 2031

Euphoria got a damper soon enough when Nick Valdes dropped in for a surprise visit on the way back from fishing sharks with dynamite in Hawaii just before the Coons could get outta town.

Please keep your owner away from ours. I would like the sealed indictments to not be merged into one gigantic case.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (53-71) vs. Canadiens (55-69) – August 25-27, 2031

Ugh, the damn Elks was the last thing I needed in town right now. They were… well, the summer heat made them stink even worse. They also stunk at the plate, ranking bottoms in batting average in the league, but they were scoring the sixth-most runs in the CL. Their pitching was … “average”? Their run differential was a healthy -48, however, so they really belonged under .500 … and we led the season series, 7-5. Now, if only we could maintain that for a while longer, and if I could find an occupation for Nick Valdes before he would leave for the Arctic Circle to hunt baby seals…

Projected matchups:
Mark Roberts (5-7, 4.27 ERA) vs. Jeremy Truett (4-5, 4.63 ERA)
Ed Hague (8-9, 4.07 ERA) vs. Victor Govea (8-10, 3.25 ERA)
Tom Shumway (2-4, 3.26 ERA) vs. Fernando Nora (7-7, 3.58 ERA)

Three right-handers from them. A couple of regulars were missing from the lineup, however, including T.J. Bennett (ailing without any official diagnosis) and Matt Anton (on the DL). The Raccoons’ third baseman was also still on the DL, but we’d probably activate Matt Nunley by Tuesday. He could even move by now without excruciating pain, and all the screaming had stopped over the weekend.

Game 1
VAN: 2B LeJeune – SS L. Hernandez – RF I. Vega – LF A. Torres – 1B D. Fisher – CF Wojnarowski – C F. Garcia – 3B N. Millan – P Truett
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – C Tovias – 1B Howden – CF Magallanes – P Roberts

David Fisher opened the second inning with a long drive to left that narrowly missed the stands and instead bounced back to Jamieson for a double. Roberts wiggled, got two outs, but the Coons called for the intentional walk on the pesky right-handed Nelson Millan anyway. Roberts rung up Truett to end the in- … where the ****, TOVIAS!! Where is the ball?? Truett reached on the uncaught third strike, loading them up for Jesse LeJeune, who had two strikes on him before he could blink twice. Roberts could really waste one here. So he threw it right down the middle. LeJeune didn’t miss it one bit – a 436-footer to dead center, and a slam to put the damn Elks up four-zip. (wrestles with Maud) No, Maud, let me-…! Let me have the blunderbuss!! I’m gonna shoot the ****ing - … (turns in circles with Maud until the blunderbuss discharges into the office, pumping Valdes’ buttocks full with rat shot)

The rest of the game, to be honest, was a bit of a blur. There was all the screaming, mostly by Valdes, but also a bit by me and Maud, and it was also over so damn quick because the Raccoons entertained the thought we’d have a non-aggression pact with the damn Elks and they were bound to honor it. Roberts pitched into the seventh inning, allowing one more run (which was scored by Truett, who hit a leadoff single in the fifth) driven in by Lazaro Hernandez, but otherwise were content with the lot already assigned to them. The Critters, frankly, stunk. They had two hits through five innings. Three through six, and didn’t reach third base through six at all. The eighth inning saw the bottom blown off the barrel, with Fleischer starting with a single allowed to Alex Torres, before Boles came on, walked Fisher on four pitches, and then got Brian Wojnarowski to ground to second base. Stalker fed to Ramos well, Ramos dropped the ball, and the bases were loaded with no outs. One run scored on a wild pitch to Fernando Garcia, another on a 2-out Truett single off Boles. The agony was considerable. 7-0 Canadiens. Magallanes 2-3; Rodriguez (PH) 1-1;

Once again - … *pling* … Mr. Valdes, I am very, very… - *pling* … VERY sorry. *pling* … Say, Mena, do you have to pick the rat shot from his ass right here? – I know you have to remove the rat shot, but does it have to be on my good old brown couch? – Don’t you have facilities? – What do you mean, “the trainer’s room is a plantation this time of year”??

Matt Nunley rejoined from the DL for the Tuesday game. German Sanchez was waived and DFA’ed. The Elks meanwhile announced that T.J. Bennett (.278, 1 HR, 28 RBI) was lost for the season with a broken kneecap.

And there was no seal hunt for Valdes, who had to stay here, lie on his stomach, and be served obediently by me. What great lot I had drawn again!

Game 2
VAN: 2B Morrow – LF LeJeune – CF Wojnarowski – 1B D. Fisher – RF I. Vega – C F. Garcia – 3B N. Millan – SS L. Hernandez – P Govea
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Hereford – 1B Howden – C Tovias – 3B Nunley – CF Magallanes – P Hague

Another day, another second-inning homer to go ahead for the damn stinking Elks. Fernando Garcia did the honors with a solo shot. Straight singles by the 6-7-8 batters plated another run in the fourth inning against a consistently beleaguered Ed Hague, while the Raccoons had Ramos on at one point, but he continued to be caught stealing in depressing fashion. Bottom 4th, a 2-base throwing error by Eric Morrow would put Jarod Howden on second base with one down. Well, what a chance! Probably the best we’d get all day! Tovias grounded out, moving the runner to third, and Nunley fell to 0-2, then poked a single through between Morrow and Fisher, really and actually getting the Coons on the board with… and unearned run, but it was all we could get. Magallanes grounded out harmlessly to end the inning, down 2-1. That was as much as we got out of Nunley for the time being. In the sixth inning he made a lunging grab on Garcia’s liner to third, which counted for an out, but he also suffered another core injury, probably blew out his back again… he was replaced swiftly by Hereford moving in from the outfield, and Rodriguez coming into the game.

Tovias singled home Jimmy Wallace with two outs in the bottom 6th to tie the game, and while Rodriguez made the final out of the inning, that was also all the action he got in the game. The Raccoons double-switched him out again in the top 7th after in a beginning drizzle Hague put Hernandez and PH Vince Cuomo on base with leadoff singles and a Morrow grounder moved them to scoring position. Garavito came in to pitch, with Jamieson now batting ninth. The Elks countered the lefty move by sending Nando Maiello to bat for LeJeune, but before everything could come crashing down right away, we went to a 90-minute rain delay during which I got to feed Nick Valdes with pudding and had the honor of handing him his drink of orange juice with a touch of French parsley adrift in it. Once play resumed an eternity later and with the park mostly deserted other for the people paid to be there and watch the tragic proceedings with 141 losses on the field already, Maiello lined out to Ramos, with Cuomo getting doubled off in stupid fashion to end the inning, leaving Hague with another no-decision.

Bottom 7th, Rodolfo Cervantes took over for Govea, departed on accounts of driving rain, and allowed a leadoff double to Magallanes that Ivan Vega got nowhere near of. Jamison walked, and Ramos singled up the middle to load the bags with nobody out. It’s a trap! Nah, Tim Stalker singled in front of Maiello, and the Critters took the lead! …and then they struck out, and struck out, and … popped out. That last one was Howden, the dumb pig. Top 8th, Garavito got two outs, and then the Coons sent Chris Wise out for a 4-out save in a double switch that put Sean Catella at third base, the third third baseman of the game for Portland… Wise struck out Ivan Vega to end the eighth, the Coons left Tovias and his leadoff single out to die in their half of the frame, and when Wise resumed he got Garcia and hardly anybody else. Millan walked. Hernandez singled. So did PH Alex Torres. Three on, no outs, lefty Danny Tessmann pinch-hitting for Morrow. Wise was advised by the pitching coach to tightly squeeze his furry tush, else a sawed-off bat might be inserted into it (that was my idea!), and Wise struck out Tessmann, pulling up Maiello. Nunley 2-2, 2B, RBI;

Well, Matt Nunley back to the DL! We recalled… well… German Sanchez was on waivers… oh, I see, Chris Baldwin had hit 3-for-9 during rehab in St. Pete. That was enough!

Game 3
VAN: 2B Morrow – SS L. Hernandez – LF A. Torres – 1B D. Fisher – CF Wojnarowski – C F. Garcia – RF LeJeune – 3B N. Millan – P F. Nora
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – 1B Howden – C Ross – CF Magallanes – P Shumway

Three on, nobody out right in the first against Tom Scumbag, who allowed two singles and a walk to begin the game. All the runs scored – Morrow was walked in when Scumbag threw nothing but balls to David Fisher, and two more came in on groundouts. In terms of unforeseen developments, however, the Critters unloaded on Nora in the bottom 1st much like the blunderbuss had unloaded into Valdes’ ass two days earlier. Ramos, Stalker, Jamieson all singled, Hereford hit an RBI double, and Wallace tied it with a groundout, but the party kept raging with the go-ahead single by Howden, a Toby Ross single, and then a 2-run double by Magallanes to right, 6-3. Shumway struck out, Ramos grounded out, and that was one eventful first inning. Only Nick Valdes had **** to complain about. Not enough parsley in the drink.

Nora was out by the second inning thanks to a 2-piece by Jimmy Wallace. He allowed another 2-out single to Howden before Chris Sinkhorn replaced him and served up a 2-shot to Toby Ross, his first in Portland, which put the Coons into double digits. That in turn should not be taken as hint that Tom Scumbag would get the win, because he wouldn’t. In an utterly ****ty performance, he allowed a run in the fourth that was scored by Sinkhorn, who singled with one out and was moved around, and then two more in the fifth, putting LeJeune and Millan on base before surrendering a pinch-hit, 2-out, 2-run double to Vince Cuomo. And the pitching wouldn’t get better. Victor Anaya stranded the inherited runner, then was battered for a single by Hernandez and a double by Torres to begin the sixth. At this point it was a slam range game, and the tying run appeared in the on-deck circle, which was outrageous and caused a bitching Valdes more agony then the 33 tiny holes in his bottoms. Josh Boles would concede both runs on a David Fisher double, 10-8, before the damn Elks somehow got themselves out. Matt Jamieson provided a tiny breather with a leadoff jack off Logan Bessey in the bottom of the inning, 11-8, and Ohl in the seventh and Garavito in the eighth managed to keep the panic to the bare minimum. Wise in the ninth, didn’t bloody quite… but the leadoff single that Garcia poked off him was quickly taken out of play when LeJeune grounded fast to second, and Tim Stalker started a 4-6-3 pain relief. Nelson Millan struck out. 11-8 Critters. Jamieson 3-4, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Hereford 2-5, 2 2B; Howden 2-4, RBI; Ross 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Magallanes 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI;

They can’t even lead by seven without giving the front office a hard time…

Raccoons (55-72) @ Aces (44-82) – August 29-31, 2031

I left Valdes with Maud as we left town, for which I would likely pay later, but better than stay home with that guy… I would rather join the Coons to face a REALLY rancid team. The Aces were racing towards 100 losses and would probably not stop there. They had a splendid chance for the #1 pick. Which was probably not really any consolation for a team last in runs scored, second-to-last in runs allowed, and with a -148 run differential. The Coons led the season series, 4-2.

Projected matchups:
Rico Gutierrez (7-11, 5.06 ERA) vs. Chris Guyett (6-16, 4.78 ERA)
Jason Gurney (9-6, 3.07 ERA) vs. Natanael Abrao (3-4, 5.02 ERA)
Mark Roberts (5-8, 4.40 ERA) vs. Andy Palomares (9-10, 4.14 ERA)

Three righties, with two veterans sandwiching a beleaguered rookie.

Game 1
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – 1B Howden – C Tovias – CF Magallanes – P R. Gutierrez
LVA: RF Crow – 1B Jon Gonzalez – C Balcome – SS Schlegelmilch – 3B Borchardt – CF Price – 2B Ryu – LF Montes – P Guyett

Ramos entered with a 12-game hitting streak which he promptly extended with a soft single to center, but was left on base in the opening inning. While the Aces hardly had a legit threat besides Jon Gonzalez (.316, 16 HR, 49 RBI), Rico Gutierrez was still rapped for two runs in the first on a single and two doubles, and Gonzalez had no hand in that. All the damage occurred with two outs before Corey Price mercifully grounded out to Hereford, stranding Joel Borchardt on second base. Hiroaki Ryu’s leadoff jack extended the Aces’ lead to 3-0 in the second, and Riley Balcome added a leadoff jack of his own in the third inning to get the score to 4-0, not content with having started the barrage in the first inning. The Aces would spit Gutierrez out in the inning; Ted Schlegelmilch singled, Borchardt got nailed, and while it took a bit, Andy Montes finally drove in the runners with a single to left with two outs, 6-0.

Long relief by Dave Martinez continued to be not actually relieving, and the Raccoons were down 8-0 by the sixth inning without having anything going against Guyett. This changed in the sixth inning, but there was a certain “too little, too late” to their 4-spot churned out on hits by Jamieson, Wallace, Howden, and finally a 3-run homer by Tovias. But then they kept creeping closer with leadoff walks by Cass and Ramos drawn in the seventh… but they didn’t get the big hit… or any hit. Two groundouts scored Sam Cass, and that was it for the inning, still keeping them three short, and Guyett, though shaken AND stirred, survived the eighth inning in 1-2-3 fashion. But in the ninth, still down by three, and facing right-hander J.J. Ringland, the Coons’ Cass and Ramos would reach base *again*, this time on 1-out singles! The tying run was up in … uh, Fleischer, for whom Wilson Rodriguez would pinch-hit. First pitch, blasted to center, but while it had depth it lacked height and hit off the top of the fence! Corey Price took forever to collect the ball, and Rodriguez reached third base with a 2-run triple! Jamieson hit the next pitch to left for a sac fly, and the Coons had officially erased an 8-0 deficit! The tie persisted through Josh Boles’ ninth and Ricky Ohl’s 10th inning, despite a walk issued to Montes and a Chad Armfield single off Ohl.

Top 11th, Sam Cass hit a leadoff single to left – yes, somehow he was still in the game. Ramos hit into a fielder’s choice, but then stole second. Baldwin popped out and Jamieson flew out to left to strand the go-ahead run in scoring position. The Aces would have the winning run in scoring position with nobody out in the bottom of the frame, thanks to Rich Hereford airmailing a throw on Jon Gonzalez all the way to Utah. Ricky Ohl buckled down and retired the next three in order, but we were definitely running out of arms at this point, having tossed eight innings out of the pen already, while Guyett had given Vegas eight all by himself. ISN’T THAT RIGHT, RICO?? … *But* … the Aces were out of bench players! They had Ryu on against Ohl in the 12th, brought up the pitcher’s slot with two outs, and Ohl disemboweled Shinsaburo Matsubara to end the inning – but that was his final act in the game, having tossed 44 pitches over three busy innings. We had to go to a somewhat overused Garavito for the 13th (only Wise was left in the pen after that, and he had also had two busy outings an off day removed), and the Aces had Andy Crow (walk) and Gonzalez (single) on base in a hurry. Mike Pizzo hit into a fielder’s choice. In-chul Yi unleashed a hellish liner – right at 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy (and unretired in the game!) Sam Cass. Joel Borchardt struck out and he game went to the 14th! Baldwin struck out against Matsubara. Jamieson easily flew out to Montes. Hereford squeezed out a walk. And here came Jimmy Wallace, who ran a full count before hitting a ball to right. Deep, aloft, and OUTTA HERE!!!! Bottom 14th, it would be Chris Wise against Price, Ryu, and Montes, then the pitcher’s spot. The Coons’ pen was locked when Wise left, since there was nobody left to occupy it. Groundout. Strikeout. Groundout. 10-8 Furballs!! Ramos 2-6, BB; Rodriguez (PH) 1-1, 3B, 2 RBI; Wallace 2-6, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Cass (PH) 3-3, BB; Ohl 3.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K;

What the heck is up with Sam Cass and more importantly, where did that RALLY come out of??

We would go into Saturday short on arms, though. Anaya, Fleischer, Boles… that was probably hit. Martinez, Ohl, Garavito, Wise were all more or less off limits. We needed a good one from Gurney! He would not face Abrao, who was skipped, but rather Palomares.

Game 2
POR: SS Ramos – LF Jamieson – RF Wallace – 3B Hereford – C Tovias – 1B Howden – 2B Cass – CF Catella – P Gurney
LVA: RF Crow – CF Price – C Balcome – SS Schlegelmilch – 3B Borchardt – 2B Yi – 1B Ryu – LF Montes – P Palomares

While Gurney allowed only a leadoff walk to Ted Schlegelmilch the first time through, who nevertheless caused him considerable agony while on the bases, the Coons had four hits in the first three inning, but would invariably find their way into a double play or some other stupid ****, like right in the first inning when Ramos hit an infield single to get the contest underway, and then Jamieson doubled him off. The #2 hole was cursed, and that was the explanation we’d go by from here on out. The Critters did take a lead in the fourth when Hereford hit a leadoff single and was on second when Jarod Howden hit a bomb to right. In turn, hits by Corey Price and Schlegelmilch put Aces on the corners with one down in the bottom of the inning. Borchardt pushed an RBI single through Hereford, cutting the lead in half, but Yi and Ryu made poor outs to keep two Aces stranded.

Gurney remained more or less fine through six, but then got irretrievably stuck in the seventh inning. He walked Borchardt, who was forced out by Yi, Ryu, and nailed Jon Gonzalez hitting for Montes. That put three on with one out and with right-handed batter Chad Armfield pinch-hitting, the Raccoons sent for a righty hurler in Anaya. Well, the good news was that if he blew it up real good, we’d have to pitch an inning less…… (grumbles)… Indeed, all the runs scored against Anaya. Armfield was down 1-2 before he hit a game-tying sac fly to left, and then Nick Hatley pinch-hit and doubled in a pair, then scored on a Price single to put the Aces up 5-2. Anaya would also pitch the eighth (and gave up a homer to Yi) with his train ticket to St. Pete already punched. The Coons never recovered from the devastating seventh inning. 6-2 Aces. Ramos 3-5, 2B; Hereford 3-4; Howden 2-4, HR, 2 RBI;

Sam Cass went 0-for-3 with a clumsy walk issued by Palomares in this game. Apparently he had not suddenly turned into an asset.

Neither had Anaya. He was replaced on the roster with a recall issued to Nick Bates, reluctantly.

Game 3
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – 3B Hereford – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – C Ross – CF Magallanes – P Roberts
LVA: RF Crow – 1B Jon Gonzalez – C Balcome – SS Schlegelmilch – 3B Borchardt – 2B Yi – CF Price – LF Montes – P I. Gutierrez

Facing Ismael Gutierrez (7-13, 4.65 ERA), another right-hander, the Coons took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on Stalker singling, stealing second, and scurrying around on Wallace’ single through Jon Gonzalez. The Aces countered with back-to-back 2-out singles by Balcome and Schlegelmilch in the bottom 1st, except that Balcome tried to reach third base and made the third out there, thrown out by Magallanes. Rich Hereford would hit a solo homer with two outs in the third that wrapped around the right foul pole and was measured a calm 333 feet to extend the lead to 2-0 for Roberts, who struck out four the first time through before giving up a moonshot to Jon Gonzalez with two outs and nobody on in the bottom 3rd. The following inning he shoveled the bags full by nailing Schlegelmilch leading off (!), a Borchardt single, and then finally a 1-out walk to Price. At least Montes was a lefty batt- TORCHED ball, but on the ground and right at Stalker, 4-6-3!! But the same part of the lineup would come up again, and Roberts still had nothing against them. Schlegelmilch opened the sixth with a double, and Joel Borchardt flipped the score with a homer to right, 3-2. Roberts also put Price and Montes on base with one out, and after taking Gutierrez’ bunt for the second out was yanked from the game after 104 pitches, few of them great. But greatness at 36 was relative. Greatness at 36 began with sleeping through the night without having to pee several times. At this, Roberts still excelled, I heard…

Ricky Ohl stranded the runners with Crow flying out to Jamieson, a wee bit deep for my taste, but eh… Gutierrez, who had one strikeout through six, struck out the side in the seventh, which was a sign of a team having given up. Top 8th, Ramos drew a 1-out walk, which put the hitless Berto’s hitting streak near extinction unless the Coons could bring him around again or get into extras. Stalker singled to center, moving the tying run to second base. Jimmy Wallace popped out foul on the right side, Gutierrez threw a wild one, and then they put Hereford onto the open base. Jamieson would bat with the bases loaded and two outs. And Gutierrez wouldn’t find the strike zone! He threw four pitches to Jamieson, all balls, and that pushed home Ramos with the tying run, 3-3! Gutierrez threw a ball to Howden, then nailed him, which prevented Howden from doing something dumb, and brought in Stalker with the go-ahead run. Wilson Rodriguez batted for Ross, but before he could do damage, Gutierrez threw a wild pitch, plating Hereford, then walked Rodriguez anyway. Meanwhile, three Aces relievers struggled to open the bullpen door… Signs of a .350 team! Magallanes flew out to Montes in the gap, keeping the score at 5-3 (but Berto WOULD come back in the ninth!). We pieced the eighth together between Fleischer and Boles, then brought Ramos back to the plate following a leadoff double by Tovias in the #9 hole. Except the nasty Aces walked Berto intentionally, ending his hitting streak unless the Coons would now blow the lead and still go to extra innings. That became more unlikely when Tim Stalker took Ringland’s first offering and belched it over the leftfield fence, which extended the lead to 8-3. Ringland managed to load the bags over the course of the next four batters, with Chris Baldwin batting for Boles in this spot in the #7 hole. He struck out, but Magallanes chipped an RBI single, which meant that if Tovias could get o- … nope, already grounded out to ****ing Ted Schlegelmilch. Nick Bates ended the game, but not without serving up a dinger to Andy Crow… 9-4 Furballs. Stalker 3-5, HR, 3 RBI; Wallace 2-5, RBI; Magallanes 2-5, RBI;

In other news

August 26 – WAS RF/LF Tsuneyoshi Tachibana (.280, 10 HR, 49 RBI) lands four hits and as many RBI in a 13-4 win over the Rebels.
August 28 – CHA SP Brian Bowsman (4-16, 5.24 ERA) flashes with a 3-hit shutout of the Bayhawks, who probably didn’t see it coming. The Falcons win 4-0.
August 29 – Dallas’ not-quite-a-teen-anymore INF Jon Ramos (.350, 2 HR, 34 RBI) has hit in 20 straight games after a single he chipped into his team’s 9-2 win over the Blue Sox.
August 30 – OCT OF Tom Dunlap (.327, 17 HR, 53 RBI) has chained a 20-game hitting streak with a 1-for-4 day against the Loggers. The Thunder win the game, 7-1.

Complaints and stuff

Despite all the heartbreak, the agony, and the stink, the season has now also given us a rally out of an 8-0 hole (thanks, Rico) to tie the score in regulation and setting up a game-winning homer by Jimmy Wallace in the 14th! That was one of the highlights of the year. Well, from the sixth inning on… That game and the comeback win on Sunday led the Critters to their first winning month of the season! … I think it’s too late for the playoffs, though…

Blink and you miss it – Matt Nunley played exactly 32 outs before going back on the DL with a strained rib cage muscle. He will be back in two weeks or so, unless old age finishes him off completely by then.

Fun Fact: 24 years ago today, the Raccoons’ Craig Bowen became the only ABL player to hit four homers in a game, taking it out on the Loggers in a 14-2 rout. Bowen hit two bombs each off William Lloyd and Leonardo Gonzalez.

This was during Bowen’s first stint with the Critters, interrupted by a year in Nashville. Bowen hit for a .771 OPS in his age 26 season, his second-highest OPS in his career, and hit 21 homers and drove in 74 while batting .253 for the season. Truth be told, he was always a bit of an all-or-nothing hitter. He amounted to only 750 base hits in a 13-year career, much of which was spent as a backup, but 113 of those went out of the park. He had 449 RBI, but finished his career a .230 batter with a 98 OPS+.

The lineup that day:
3B Vic Flores
CF Tomas Castro
1B Matt Pruitt
RF Luke “Duke Smack” Black
C Craig Bowen
LF J.C. Crespo
2B Jose Gutierrez (he who last played with the ’29 Thunder at age 44, then a rookie)
SS Kunimatsu Sato
P Kel Yates (who went to 18-2 with the win)

Bowen was traded to or from the Coons three times in his career. We picked him up from the Indians for Roberto Pacheco, a fourth outfielder sort of type that hung around for a decade without leaving an impression. He left for Nashville as free agent, signing a 7-year deal, but that marriage lived itself apart real fast and the Coons got him pack, along with Ray Kelley, a sort of decent reliever for a while, for Jose Correa, who had done NOTHING for the Coons in ’09 after a strong career with the Gold Sox. Bowen’s second stint ended in the trade with the Stars for Graham Wasserman, then the #19 prospect, in a package with solely defensive shortstop Michael Palmer, washed-up right-hander Colin Baldwin, and Andy Hackney, who would pitch with the Stars in a Juan Barzaga capacity through his age 33 season. Wasserman would pitch for Portland in two season, 2014 and 2025, with a 14.21 ERA in the former, and a .378 ERA in the latter year. He retired last year with a 121-126 record and 3.99 ERA.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (57-73) @ Knights (67-63) – September 1-3, 2031

Despite their record, the Knights would not go anywhere; the Condors were leading them by 13 1/2 as the season hit September, and the South was over. The only thing the Knights would win was the season series against the Coons, who they had clubbed to take five out of six so far. They had scored the most runs in the Continental League, but had also allowed almost as many. It was gross; in Knights games, on average, teams would combine to score 9.6 runs. Their rotation sucked. Their bullpen sucked. The only thing sucking worse, apparently, were these Coons.

Projected matchups:
Ed Hague (8-9, 4.02 ERA) vs. Armando Zaragoza (5-14, 6.57 ERA)
Tom Shumway (2-4, 3.88 ERA) vs. Justin Osterloh (13-7, 4.35 ERA)
Rico Gutierrez (7-11, 5.34 ERA) vs. Chris Inderrieden (4-6, 4.41 ERA)

We would avoid a left-hander in this series.

Now, obviously rosters expanded at this point. The Raccoons made a few cautious additions, mostly the usual stuff. You know, third catcher, two live arms. We would bring up more pitchers – juicy young starting pitchers! – later in the month, but we needed at least one or two of them to help the Alley Cats to finish their season. But we might yank Rico from the Wednesday start to bring up Bernie Chavez on Wednesday? Or would that start the service clock unnecessarily early?

For now, we added David Fernandez and Bryan Rabbitt to the pen, and also brought back Daniel Rocha, because we did not suddenly grow a good catcher at AAA. Ryan Allan was also brought up as extra warm body for the bench.

Game 1
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – 3B Hereford – LF Jamieson – C Tovias – 1B Howden – CF Magallanes – P Hague
ATL: LF Inoa – CF Collado – 1B Harenberg – C S. Garcia – 3B Maneke – 2B Greene – SS Thomson – RF Ryder – P A. Zaragoza

20-year-old rookie Luis Inoa would double in Zachary Ryder in the bottom 3rd for the first run of the game. The Coons had only managed one base hit through three innings, a leadoff double by Hereford in the second, but had not made anything out of that either, and so it looked like just any old game facing a pushover starter they couldn’t touch for pennies on the dollar. Whiffing four, Zaragoza would keep his 1-hitter through five innings, while Hague didn’t strike out anybody until Ryder fanned in the bottom 5th, then fell apart in a hurry. Zaragoza singled (…), Inoa doubled, and Ray Collado was walked. That brought up none other than ex-Critter Kevin Harenberg, swinging for .320 and 17 homers. No, he didn’t hit a slam, but he hit a dinkie into shallow center that was obvious enough a single that two runs scored on the play, giving Kevin 73 RBI for the season. The remaining runners embarked on a successful double steal on Tovias, giving Collado and Harenberg a grand total of two stolen bases for the season, and Hague expired allowing a groundout that scored Collado to Steve Garcia, a wild pitch, and then finally a walk to Chris Maneke. Fleischer got Drew Greene to pop out, which FINALLY ended the inning of misery.

The Raccoons – some of them – only woke up late. Wallace hit a leadoff double in the seventh and with the greatest pains was scored on a Jamieson sac fly. Howden socked a leadoff jack just inside of the right foul pole in the eighth, but that run was pulled back by the Knights off Dave Martinez, who had pitched the seventh already but walked a pair in the eighth, and Mauricio Garavito, who allowed the RBI single to PH Chris Mendoza. Portland entered the ninth trailing by three against Levi Snoeij, a bad excuse for a closer with almost equal walks and strikeouts and a 5.14 ERA. Stalker and Wallace both grounded out poorly before Hereford singled. Jamieson came up and hit a double over Collado, with Hereford coming around to score, 5-3. Tovias had been replaced in a double switch, which now made Wilson Rodriguez the pinch-hitter carrying the tying run. And he hit an RBI single to left! Tying run on base for … oh ****, Howden, the dumb pig. Howden grounded out to Harenberg at 2-1… 5-4 Knights. Hereford 2-4, 2B; Rodriguez (PH) 1-1, RBI;

Game 2
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – 3B Hereford – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – C Ross – CF Allan – P Shumway
ATL: LF Inoa – CF Collado – C S. Garcia – 1B Harenberg – 2B Greene – RF Ryder – 3B Hawkins – SS Thomson – P Osterloh

The early innings were slow again in the middle game, with the Coons dropping two soft singles, the Knights getting one, and nobody coming even close to scoring. The first fat chance materialized in the fourth, which Wallace opened with a single, and Hereford soon chipped in another soft bloop single. Jamieson popped out, but Osterloh lost Howden on balls to load the bases for Toby Ross, the .209 wonder that would end our catching woes forever. Well, for a start he got the go-ahead run in on a sac fly to Collado, and Allan popped out over the infield. (sigh!) It was a 1-0 lead, and you should not be too - … but I would still… - (sigh!)

There was also the problem of Tom Scumbag not being what he used to be, and then was for other teams. He wobbled and wiggled through four innings, but in the fifth the Knights got to him for a Greene single leading off, then a 1-out double by Tom Hawkins to tie the score at one. Keith Thomson popped out, Justin Osterloh, with two outs, put even an 0-2 in play, but grounded out to Howden. Shumway had no stuff left at all… He was also due another $6.6M after this season… And the Knights kept poking; Garcia and Harenberg hit 2-out singles in the sixth and went to the corners, and Greene hit a soft floater to center on which Ryan Allan had to run rather hard to make the catch in the shallow outfield and keep the Knights from taking the lead. Shumway boogied out of that one, but wouldn’t get out of the next one. Hawkins and Thomson walked, and Nate Seago, pinch-hitting for Osterloh with one out, narrowly lined over Stalker, loading the bases with one out. The Coons sent Ricky Ohl, which didn’t work. He fell to 3-1 on PH Chris Mendoza, who hit an RBI single to center, then allowed a sac fly to Maneke in the #2 hole, giving the Knights a 3-1 lead before Wallace spoiled a Garcia drive to end another sad inning. The eighth saw no hint of a rally. The ninth saw Snoeij again, facing the bottom half of the order. Howden made an out to left. Magallanes batted for Ross and singled, and Ryan Allan, who was awful but at least a lefty bat, singled between Thomson and Greene into center. Tovias hit for the pitcher Boles, but grounded out. However, this gave Ramos the tying runs in scoring position with two outs. He hit the first pitch to right… and Ryder caught it easily… 3-1 Knights. Ramos 2-5; Hereford 2-4; Howden 3-4; Magallanes (PH) 1-1;

Game 3
POR: SS Ramos – LF Jamieson – RF Wallace – 3B Hereford – 1B Howden – C Tovias – 2B Cass – CF Magallanes – P Gutierrez
ATL: LF Inoa – CF Collado – C S. Garcia – 1B Harenberg – 2B Greene – RF Ryder – 3B Maneke – SS Hawkins – P Inderrieden

After a quick first, Gutierrez got taken apart in the second inning. Harenberg opened with a single, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on Zachary Ryder’s double. Maneke singled to right, and Hawkins hit an RBI single on an infield roller that died well short of 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy Sam Cass. That was also the last inning that Gutierrez completed on a bunt by the pitcher and an Inoa pop. The third began with a Collado double off the top of the fence, and after a wild pitch moved the runner to third base, the Knights would rap out hits in quick succession. Gutierrez was yanked after 50 pitches, having allowed seven hits, a walk, two wild ones, and three runs in 2.1 innings, with three runners on base. Garavito replaced him and got a perfect double play grounder from Maneke, 4-6-3, to retire the side and keep this a 3-1 game; the Coons had scored a run on singles by Jamieson, Wallace, and Howden in the top of the inning.

If the offense now for once- … but they didn’t. The middle innings were an offensive wasteland for Portland while Nick Bates pitched two scoreless innings and Bryan Rabbitt got through the sixth alright despite a leadoff infield single by Ryder, then a 4-pitch walk to Hawkins. The cocky Knights exuberantly told Inderrieden, a .065 batter, to swing rather than bunt with two on and one out, and he grounded to Ramos for a double play, ending the sixth. Nobody reached for Portland in the seventh, and while Wallace got on in the eighth, that was with two outs and Hereford struck out. David Fernandez loaded the bases in the bottom 8th and conceded a run on Maneke’s double play grounder, which gave the Knights a 3-run lead again for the ninth inning. This time the Coons would face southpaw Roland Warner and his 2.49 ERA. Stalker hit for Howden leading off and singled to center. Baldwin flew out to Collado in the pitcher’s spot. Sam Cass walked, bringing up the tying run in Magallanes, who was not a homer candidate, and instead poked an 0-2 pop to center. Collado made the catch in the most centrist centerfield you can think of, and … and Tim Stalker tagged and aimed for third base. So did Collado with his arm. Collado won. 4-1 Knights. Wallace 2-3, BB; Stalker (PH) 1-1; Bates 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K; Rabbitt 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K;

I didn’t want Stalker to get on the bus to the airport, and instead just leave him here in goddamn Georgia. The players voted, and I was overruled, 16-12.

Raccoons (57-76) vs. Crusaders (67-65) – September 5-7, 2031

Like the Knights, the Crusaders weren’t playing for anything and were even further behind the leader in our division. It was the Titans, then the Loggers trying to stay within three or so, and then NOTHING. New York sat fifth in runs scored, sixth in runs allowed, but while those were both upper half ranks, they had a negative run differential, -8. Oh well, nothing that can be easier fixed over a weekend at the Willamette… But so far, the Critters actually had the edge in the season series, 6-5.

Projected matchups:
Jason Gurney (9-7, 3.19 ERA) vs. Eddie Cannon (18-6, 2.53 ERA)
Mark Roberts (5-8, 4.41 ERA) vs. Steve Younts (9-12, 3.95 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (0-0) vs. Chris Rountree (8-15, 4.69 ERA)

That’s right; major league debut for Bernie Chavez penciled in for Sunday. That would put him on regular rest after going on Tuesday with the Alley Cats, for whom he went 9-10 with a 3.09 ERA this season. Fourth-rounder by the Gold Sox in 2026, acquired in the Rin Nomura trade in ’29 that felt like longer ago, but I blame this season where every day feels like ten, and every game like a thousand years.

Fastball, curve, slider, and a changeup he tosses like once per game to the pitcher just so he can claim he’s a 4-pitch guy. Throws 94, has a flyball tendency. Probably not as bad as Roberts. Probably.

Meanwhile the Crusaders would cart up at least one southpaw in Rountree, although they could also send former Coons discardee Jamie O’Leary (0-0, 5.40 ERA) who was listed as in their rotation. O’Leary had gone 2-11 with a 4.32 ERA for the ’27 Coons and had been part of the Chris Wise deal.

And while Bernie was on the way up, Nick Valdes had never left while the Coons had been on the road. He dramatically carried an inflatable bum donut (lime green, too) with him at all times and would often blow in half a lung of air in between just to get some attention. Thankfully I had nothing else to do, because watching over about 30 inept and probably drunk and/or brain-damaged little Critters was not a job that required constant tweaking and fine-tuning.

Game 1
NYC: 2B M. Hurtado – 1B Fowlkes – SS Obando – CF Coca – LF Houghtaling – C Dear – RF Reardon – 3B T. Fuentes – P E. Cannon
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – C Tovias – 1B Howden – CF Magallanes – P Gurney

Jason Gurney was … “porous”? The Crusaders loaded the bases in the first before hitting into a double play with Jeremy Houghtaling, and would continue to crowd him as he allowed eight runners in the first four innings. They only got on the board in the fourth, though, then with a leadoff jack by Tony Coca, his 19th homer of the season. Matt Dear and Tony Fuentes reached base after that, but Jamieson defused the 2-out liner by Eddie Cannon, y’know, the opposing pitcher. Coca’s homer tied the game; the Coons had scored a run in the bottom 2nd, which was started with Hereford walking, then a Wallace single. Tovias sporked into a double play, but Howden landed a single… that didn’t leave the infield… but it counted all the same and allowed Hereford to come home. Jimmy Wallace would reclaim the lead to the roar of the crowd, smashing a HUGE 2-run homer in the bottom 4th off Cannon, who was bidding for his 19th win, but allowed a leadoff double to left-center to Matt Jamieson to begin the inning, then threw a wild pitch to shift the runner to third, before, well, BOOM. It was also not the last dinger in the inning; Howden hit a jack to right-center to extend the lead to 4-1.

The lead didn’t last, because Gurney kept being ****. Pat Fowlkes and Guillermo Obando hit singles in the fifth inning, and then Jeremy Houghtaling with two outs hit a huge bomb to right-center to tie the score again. And the ****ing pitching didn’t get any ****ing better. Gurney was hit for inconclusively in the bottom 5th, and when Rabbitt took over in the sixth he hardly retired anybody while Valdes was bending back and forth on his donut which made subtle, slight squeaking noises if sat on at the correct angle. Chris Reardon ripped a leadoff triple to left, was driven in by Tony Fuentes with a single, and Fowlkes and Obando hit singles with two outs off Rabbitt, who was yanked for Fleischer, who threw a pretty fat 0-1 to Coca, who just didn’t hit it correctly and instead smashed it on the ground, right at Hereford, and that ended the inning. Bottom 7th, down 6-4, the Raccoons loaded the bags with no outs against Keith Roofener, who walked Magallanes, allowed a single to Rodriguez, and hit Ramos, which caused mild murmuring in a not exactly packed stadium. Stalker came to the plate and hit a 2-2 to left, high, long – GRAAAAAAAAAAND SLAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMM!!!

Valdes noisily blew more air into his donut while remarking that he hadn’t thought the Coons would come back to stave off defeat. I thought privately that they still hadn’t actually… and before long Tony Coca batted with the bases loaded in the eighth inning. Boles walked Felipe Delgado in the #9 hole, and Ohl walked Mario Hurtado and allowed a single to Obando with two outs. Coca however fell to 1-2, then took strike three on the corner. No, for one day, nobody would tear my heart right out. Chris Wise sat them down in order in the ninth, and the Coons had their first W of the week. 8-6 Critters. Stalker 1-4, HR, 4 RBI; Wallace 3-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Howden 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Rodriguez (PH) 1-2;

I was going to explain something about our young pitchers, but it’s Saturday morning and Nick Valdes was making his yoga poses in tights, in my office, and on the squeaking donuts. All my concentration is gone. And so is my will to live.

Game 2
NYC: 2B M. Hurtado – 1B Fowlkes – SS Obando – CF Coca – LF Houghtaling – C Dear – RF Reardon – 3B T. Fuentes – P Younts
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Wallace – 1B Howden – C Ross – CF Magallanes – P Roberts

Roberts allowed no hits and whiffed three the first time through the order, while the Coons got Ramos on with a leadoff walk in the first, then had him caught stealing. Jamieson singled with two outs, Hereford walked, and Wallace singled to center. Jamieson was sent and scored, and the Critters led 1-0 before Howden made a weak third out. Pat Fowlkes hit a leadoff single in the top 4th, but was removed on a fielder’s choice, and while Guillermo Obando then stole his 30th base of the season he was left on base when Houghtaling flew out to centerfield. Rich Hereford managed to steal a base off Matt Dear in the bottom of the inning, so I didn’t know what Ramos’ problem was, but that didn’t lead to a run as the Coons couldn’t get the balls to fall in.

Well, at least Mark Roberts held up. Through seven, the Crusaders did not get another base hit off him, and drew only three walks. Coca got a leadoff walk in the seventh, but Houghtaling flew out easily, and Dear hit to Stalker for a double play. That put Roberts at 97 pitches and probably would get the pen involved unless we’d break out in the bottom of the inning. Fun thing – we didn’t, but Roberts was hit for by Rodriguez and thus was out of the game anyway. Ricky Ohl came on, walked two (…!) in the 8-9 holes (…!!), and somehow eluded destruction when Fowlkes’ 2-out fly to deep center was caught up with by Magallanes. Southpaw Chris Myers retired the Critters’ top of the order without fuss in the bottom 8th and Chris Wise would have no cushion against the meat of the Crusaders’ order in the ninth. Stalker spared an Obando liner for the first out. Coca was fooled on an 0-2 slider. Houghtaling ran a full count… and then looked at a cutter on the edge of the plate to end the game. 1-0 Blighters! Hereford 1-1, 2 BB; Wallace 1-2, BB, RBI; Roberts 7.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 7 K, W (6-8);

By the way, make no mistake, Hereford was not hit or anything… the Coons were just so bad at the plate that even the #4 hitter didn’t get a fourth plate appearance… and somehow we won! Isn’t that amazing and depressing at the same time, Mr. Valdes? – No, he’s blowing up his donut…

Thanks to winning, the Coons staved off mathematical elimination for another day! The Elks, one game further in the red, where e-’d by the Titans on this Saturday.

Game 3
NYC: 2B M. Hurtado – 1B Fowlkes – SS Obando – CF Coca – LF Houghtaling – C Dear – 3B T. Fuentes – RF Reardon – P Rountree
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Rodriguez – C Ross – CF Magallanes – 1B Baldwin – P Chavez

Bernie, 22, from Santa Cruz would oppose the 12-year veteran southpaw Chris Rountree, who was 42 under .500 for his career, for his major league debut. His first inning was a mess. Chavez ran three full counts in the inning, and while he won all of those with a Hurtado fly to left and strikeouts against Coca and Houghtaling, he gave up two sharp hits in between, a Fowlkes double and an Obando RBI single, to fall 1-0 behind. The Critters did nothing early on, but no more Crusaders reached until Hurtado reached with a 1-out walk in the third inning. Fowlkes chucked into a double play, though. Top 4th, Obando worked a leadoff walk in a full count, but then Coca hit into a double play. The score remained 1-0 New York through five, with the Coons out-hitting the Crusaders, 3-2, but not getting a paw into scoring position. The Crusaders lost Tony Fuentes on a defensive play in the bottom 5th, and J.D. Laughery had to replace him, but that was as much of a dent the Critters managed to make.

Bernie began the sixth on 64 pitches despite all the full counts – in fact he ran more full counts than Valdes squeezed squeaks out of his butt donut – the next of which was run by Hurtado with one out in the sixth and resulted in a grounder to Baldwin as the middle piece of a 1-2-3 inning. No support ever came forward for Chavez, though, and in the seventh, the house of cards collapsed. Obando opened with a single to left, and after Coca flew out, Houghtaling and Dear hit a pair of RBI doubles to extend the score to 3-0. Chavez was lifted for Fernandez facing Laughery. Fernandez got out of the inning, but the hill to climb was pretty high now and the Critters still didn’t manage to land a square poke on Rountree. The Crusaders loaded them up, but left them loaded, in the top 8th with two walks drawn off Bates and a Hereford error, while Rountree pitched into the ninth inning, which he opened with a K to Stalker. Jamieson grounded out to short. Hereford grounded out to second. 3-0 Crusaders.

In other news

September 2 – SFB LF/RF Joseph McClenon (.210, 2 HR, 18 RBI) gets only one hit entering the Bayhawks’ 11-2 win over the Indians as a pinch-hitter, but makes it count with a grand slam off IND SP Mark Morrison (7-9, 4.47 ERA) in the seventh, then draws a bases-loaded walk in the eighth for a 5-RBI game.
September 2 – The Scorpions walk off on the Buffaloes, 5-4 in 12 innings, when Topeka’s Adam Rosenwald (5-11, 4.26 ERA, 2 SV) unfurls a wild pitch to score Jamie Woodward (.295, 2 HR, 15 RBI) from third base.
September 2 – The Warriors’ Mike Ibarra (8-3, 4.30 ERA) and two relievers spin a combined 1-hitter for a 4-1 win over the Rebels. The lone Richmond hit comes in the second inning, a single by 1B Brent Rempfer (.256, 14 HR, 52 RBI).
September 3 – DAL INF Jon Ramos (.353, 2 HR, 35 RBI) keeps churning out hits, including a single in the Stars’ 4-0 win in Washington, to extend his hitting streak to 25 games.
September 3 – Topeka SP Ernesto Lujan (3-5, 3.60 ERA) is out for the season with a torn rotator cuff. Lujan made only 11 starts this year, missing the first half recovering from a stretched elbow ligament.
September 3 – A double by BOS 1B Justin Uliasz (.258, 13 HR, 48 RBI) aside, the Condors allow no further hits to the Titans in a combined 1-hitter pitched by Jorge Villalobos (11-9, 2.09 ERA), who gets the 2-0 win, and three relievers.
September 3 – PIT CF/INF Carlos de la Riva (.266, 21 HR, 67 RBI) churns out four hits and drives in six runs in the Miners’ 13-3 drubbing of the Gold Sox.
September 5 – Oklahoma outfielder Tom Dunlap (.331, 18 HR, 58 RBI) gets his hitting streak to 25 games with two hits in the Thunder’s 5-4 defeat against San Francisco.
September 5 – The hitting streak of DAL INF Jon Ramos (.350, 2 HR, 35 RBI) stops at 25 games in a 1-0 squeeze win over the Scorpions, who nevertheless hold the 20-year-old hitless.
September 7 – The 26-game hitting streak of Oklahoma’s Tom Dunlap (.328, 18 HR, 59 RBI) ends in an 0-for-4 performance against the Bayhawks, who are nevertheless beaten, 3-0, by the Thunder.
September 7 – Another notable hitting streak reaches 20 games as MIL INF/RF Wayne Morris (.312, 8 HR, 65 RBI) connects twice in a 4-2 loss to the Indians.

Complaints and stuff

Eliminated on Sunday – oh, finally the pressure has come off. (pours seven pills of various shapes and sizes into a new bottle of Major Morris’, an actual brand whiskey) Yes, I had something fine ready should Bernie Chavez win his first career start, but now I will prove that I can drink that one like water just like the ****ty sink rinse with the pirate on the label that I usually drink myself comatose with!

Well, this week saw one spirited rally with a game-winning stalk by Tim Slammer, and otherwise pretty much nothing. Bernie Chavez was *okay* in his debut, which is more than Sabre was in his last year. By the way, Raffaello will be here this month, and maybe as soon as next week, and we might also get a look at Ignacio del Rio, who is 21 (but will turn 22 in January) and had a 2.13 ERA in AA in 7 starts, then a 3.05 ERA in 22 starts in AAA. While Chavez is an acquired draft pick from California, both del Rio and Sabre were signed in consecutive July IFA periods in 2026 and 2025, respectively. They cost $180k total, with 90% of that going to Sabre.

However, del Rio is not on the 40-man roster right now, and the 40-man roster is full. We will look into that, I guess.

The fourth SP prospect that has been talked up variously in the last year or so, Darren Brown, our 2028 first-rounder, pitched to a 9-10 record and 3.18 ERA in Ham Lake. He will be 23 in May, and I think it is safe to assume that he will be winding up in St. Pete next April. But so far he has been held back by ill control – he struck out 185 in 192.1 innings in Ham Lake, but he also walked *102*, which is not a pretty number. He does still have time to grow into that 97mph stuff, though.

Monday will be off, and then we will probably do one run through the 6-man rotation while hitting the Midwest, unless we do bring up del Rio already. But he pitched on Sunday, so he can’t make another start before the weekend, when we’ll see the Loggers. We’ll be with the Arrowheads before that.

Fun Fact: The Raccoons have not been no-hit in over 20 years. The last to do so was Juichi Fujita on August 5, 2010.

He was a damn Elk of course. He is in the Hall of Fame as a damn Elk.

15 major league seasons, 12 of those in Vancouver and three in Sacramento, Fujita went 207-135 with a 3.65 ERA. He struck out 2,046 batters, and led the CL in wins three times, including ’10 when he went 22-9 with a 3.11 ERA. He won a Gold Glove, he had a bushel of All Star nominations. His peak was not as intense as Nick Brown’s, a contemporary who had a career that slightly extended beyond Fujita’s in both directions, but he was very good at being very healthy and resilient (which Brownie was not always). Fujita also shouldered an intense workload, probably contributing to his demise at 34, leading the CL in innings pitched four times, and pitching a *minimum* of 243.2 innings and 33 starts for nine consecutive seasons. He fell off a cliff right thereafter.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (59-77) @ Indians (71-66) – September 9-11, 2031

The Coons were 6-6 against Indy this year, one season after winning only six games over the entire season series with their division rivals. The Indians were nowhere near challenging for the postseason and at 17 games out could be eliminated even this week. That would however require the (un)kind support of the Critters… For Indy it was all about their strong pitching that ranked mostly in the upper categories in the CL, except for a disturbingly brittle bullpen, while their offense was rather crummy and scored only the ninth-most runs in the league.

Projected matchups:
Ed Hague (8-10, 4.13 ERA) vs. Andy Bressner (14-11, 3.07 ERA)
Tom Shumway (2-5, 3.91 ERA) vs. John McInerney (11-7, 3.00 ERA)
Rico Gutierrez (7-12, 5.44 ERA) vs. David Saccoccio (10-9, 3.63 ERA)

Right, left, right for this series. Both teams had started the week with an off day, which for the Critters was their penultimate day without a contest this season.

Game 1
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – 1B Howden – C Tovias – CF Allan – P Hague
IND: SS Pizano – 1B Regan – RF Plunkett – C J. Herrera – 2B Schneller – CF Baron – LF Zanches – 3B Conner – P Bressner

The first inning was already a pretty good point to start your baseball withdrawal program. While the Coons calmly stranded Stalker after a 1-out double, Ed Hague endeavored to throw right down the middle, which yielded unsurprising results. Greg Regan cracked a single to left, and Mike Plunkett hit a hard fly to center. Ryan Allan was fooled on that ball and ran in when he should have run out, and Plunkett wound up with an RBI double. Juan Herrera walked when Hague tried to not throw right down Broadway for a change, which included throwing a wild pitch to move Plunkett to third, and Dan Schneller ran a full count before hitting a liner to left, but right at Jamieson. Plunkett went from third base, stumbled, and was thrown out at home plate to end the inning. That was only the beginning; Rich Hereford tied the game with his 21st jack leading off the second inning, but the bottom 2nd saw more pasted liners off Hague, who didn’t fool anybody, nor did he get ahead of anybody. John Baron and Josh Conner went to the corners with singles, Bressner rapped a single through the right side for the go-ahead run, and Mario Pizano clocked a single through the right side that saw Conner sent from second base against Jimmy Wallace, who prevailed with a precise throw to home plate, leading to the second Arrowhead axed down at the plate in as many innings. Hague allowed another three hits in the third inning, starting with a Plunkett single. Herrera hit into a double play, but the joyride kept on honking for the Indians, with a Dan Schneller single to left and then finally a big one, John Baron homering to left for his 22nd dinger of the year while batting a strong .210 … Alex Zanches doubled to center, at which point Hague was yanked after 2.2 innings and 10 base hits allowed on 62 pitches. Not that it stopped the bleeding; Bryan Rabbitt allowed a fifth run in the bottom 4th on Pizano and Plunkett base hits, which at that point gave Indy a full dozen base knocks against the hapless Critters. While Bressner held the Raccoons on as short a leash as was legal in the state of Indiana, the Coons’ pen at least slowed down the bleeding, although we did get into an atrocious seventh, started by Fleischer walking leadoff man Baron. Fernandez replaced him, got a comebacker from Zanches that he threw away, and somehow the Indians only played that two on, no outs situation into only a single unearned run in the inning. Another run fell out of Boles in the eighth, owed to a leadoff double over Wallace’s glove by Greg Regan, then a Herrera RBI single. The Critters batted bravely to the end, although their resilience was futile. Bressner pitched a complete-game 5-hitter, only being almost undone at the very end when Schneller bumbled a 2-out grounder in the ninth. Jarod Howden however expertly grounded out to third baseman Elias Sosa in a 3-1 count to end the game. The dumb pig. 7-1 Indians. Stalker 2-4, 2B;

The Indians went on to move McInerney out of the middle game. We’d get Saccoccio right away.

Game 2
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – 1B Howden – C Tovias – CF Magallanes – P Shumway
IND: SS Pizano – C J. Herrera – RF Plunkett – CF Baron – 2B Schneller – 1B I. Pena – LF Aleman – 3B Conner – P Saccoccio

Saccoccio faced the minimum the first time through, allowing only a single to Tovias that was erased on Magallanes grounding to the bag where Schneller made an agile flip to Pizano to start the 4-6-3. They would better their output in the second inning, when Jarod Howden hit a single… and was not doubled up… although that was only because there were already two out. For the second time in this series, the Coons were completely hopeless. On the other side of the box score, Shumway was not nearly as proficient in keeping Indians off base, but once they were on base they displayed little luck. Both Baron and Alex Aleman were caught stealing by Tovias, and while Tovias also threw away a ball on a Pizano steal attempt, Herrera stranded him at third base in the bottom 3rd. The game was scoreless through six, but the Indians were still out-hitting the Furballs, 5-2.

Jamieson’s gapper for a 2-out double in the seventh was the most impressive offensive act that the Critters had managed in the game, but he too was strandd when Rich Hereford flailed over enough pitches in a vain attempt to hit something where it would count. Shumway then began the bottom 7th by allowing walks to both Baron and Schneller, then got lifted for what we’d hope would be relief. Ricky Ohl struck out PH Mike Cowan, who had been announced to counter Schumway in Ivan Pena’s place, then got a grounder from Regan, a lefty bat, at Stalker, who turned two to extend the scorelessness. But that ended in the eighth; Tovias hit a single with one out, Magallanes forced him out, but that put speed on first base for when Wilson Rodriguez pinch-hit for Ohl and laced a ball into the leftfield corner. Magallanes had been running all along and scored handily, the first marker on the scoreboard. Indy walked Ramos intentionally, then got Stalker to ground out. Garavito dealt a quick eighth, bringing on Chris Wise for a ninth inning that was not exactly quick, except that the sewer was bubbling within three pitches, which was enough for both Herrera and Plunkett to reach base with a pair of singles. Baron grounded the very next pitch to Stalker, leading to a 4-6-3 double play, so four pitches in there were two outs and the tying run was on third base, which was also when the inning flipped from quick and frightening to slow and even more frightening. Overly cautious, Wise walked Schneller in a full count, then fell 3-1 to PH Alex Zanches, who eventually grounded up the middle. Ramos got there, Ramos handled it, and the Coons squeaked out a winner. 1-0 Blighters. Tovias 2-3; Rodriguez (PH) 1-1, 2B, RBI; Shumway 6.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K;

John McInerney would make it into the Thursday game. Since the Critters were not playing for much of anything, especially with Rico Gutierrez on the mound, they’d sit their left-handed regulars.

Game 3
POR: CF Magallanes – SS Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Rodriguez – C Ross – 1B Baldwin – 2B Cass – P Gutierrez
IND: SS Pizano – C J. Herrera – RF Plunkett – CF Baron – 2B Schneller – LF M. Cowan – 1B Aleman – 3B Conner – P McInerney

Herrera single, Plunkett homer – within three batters Rico Gutierrez found himself in familiar territory, trailing 2-0. The Coons would get leadoff singles from Hereford and Rodriguez in the top 2nd before Ross grounded out, advancing the runners, Baldwin popped one over to Aleman, Cass was walked intentionally, and Rico made a soft out to Aleman, too, stranding a full set. Not that I was blaming him for not slugging in some runs. I was blaming him for pitching like liquid ass for $2.09M a year, though. I did blame the rest of the team for more or less folding offensively after the second inning. At least Rico lined up a few zeroes on the board getting through the next few innings despite a disturbing amount of line drives, but the score was held at 2-0 until it neatly exploded in the most definitive fashion in the fifth inning. Two outs on the board, Juan Herrera hit a 420-footer to center to make it 3-0. Well, **** happens. Plunkett plunked one 440 feet, also to center, 4-0. Well… Baron doubled to left… okay, maybe we should get someone up. Schneller’s RBI single closed Rico’s day at 4.2 innings and eight hits for five runs, with Cowan grounding out to short against Dave Martinez, the other half of the “used to be good but briefly” tandem.

Top 6th, McInerney ran 3-0 counts against both Stalker and Jamieson to begin the inning. Both poked, neither reached base under their own power. Well, Tim Stalker reached second on an egregious throwing error by Josh Conner, but Jamieson popped out, Hereford popped out, and Rodriguez rolled over to Schneller. And that was basically the game. In fact, there were only two more base runners afterwards. Stalker hit a double in the eighth for which he was ignored just the same, and Martinez walked Plunkett, which hands down beat getting pummeled for a third time, but didn’t make a difference either as the Coons lost this one, meekly and listlessly. 5-0 Indians. Martinez 3.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K;

Raccoons (60-79) @ Loggers (83-58) – September 12-14, 2031

The Loggers’ bid for the postseason had collapsed midweek, when they were swept (and shut out twice) in a 3-game set in Boston and now found themselves eight games out. With only 21 games left and the Titans hot and steaming, the North was likely decided. Meanwhile the Critters asked for little more than no direct harm to life and limb after having already dropped 11 of 15 games to the Loggers this year. Milwaukee sat seventh in runs scored (with a paltry homer total of 69, last in the CL), third in runs allowed, and had to sweep the Coons once more if they wanted to have any shot at all down the road.

Projected matchups:
Jason Gurney (9-7, 3.33 ERA) vs. Morgan Shepherd (8-8, 2.54 ERA)
Mark Roberts (6-8, 4.19 ERA) vs. Mike Hodge (12-8, 2.78 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (0-1, 4.26 ERA) vs. Josh Weeks (11-8, 3.19 ERA)

Weeks was the only southpaw we expected to meet, but they had an off day on Thursday, so only the baseball gods new what the Loggers had in store…

Game 1
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Wallace – 3B Hereford – 1B Howden – RF Rodriguez – C Ross – CF Magallanes – P Gurney
MIL: 3B Lockert – LF Cambra – SS W. Morris – RF J. Stephenson – CF Creech – 1B M. Monroe – C J. Young – 2B Holder – P Shepherd

Ramos and Stalker reached to begin the game… on consecutive errors. So, that was maybe one reason why the Loggers weren’t going to be playing in October. Miles Monroe and Matt Lockert, in that order, got hit with the E hammer. Hereford would drive in the runs with a single to right and one out, the only actual hitting the Critters did in the first inning. Gurney gave a run back in the second, nailing Gabe Creech and putting them on the corners with one out by allowing a single to Monroe. Jim Young hit a sac fly, 2-1, but the Coons would hit two sac flies after loading the bags with nobody out in the fourth inning. Rodriguez singled, Ross doubled, Magallanes walked, and Gurney got the first of the sac flies, flying out to Josh Stephenson. Ramos walked to reload the sacks, and then Stalker hit a fly to deep left that chased Firmino Cambra back to the track where he swiped at the ball and somehow found it in his glove *and* managed to slow down before he would have broken through the fence head-first. Toby Roos boogied home on that one, extending the score to 4-1 before Wallace grounded out. The Loggers pulled a run back on two hits and a wild pitch in the bottom of the inning as Gurney tried to give the lead back any way he could…

But the Coons were still up 4-2 into the seventh inning where Jimmy Wallace’s 1-out single knocked out Shepherd. Julio Palomo replaced him and allowed another single to right to Hereford, which put them on the corners for Howden, who struck out, the dumb pig. Wilson Rodriguez also fell to 0-2, but then shoved a ball through the left side for an RBI single, 5-2! Toby Ross however popped out on the first pitch, stranding a pair… Milwaukee still came near having the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the inning. Kaleb Holder hit a 2-out single, and then D.J. Mendez ticked an 0-2 pitch to center when he hit for Palomo. Holder turned for third base, but Magallanes was on the ball swiftly and Holder was tracked down between second and third and killed off on the old 8-5-4-6 play to end the inning. Gurney got two outs on two pitches in the eighth, then surrendered a Wayne Morris triple on the very next offering. Surely just a blip! Let him face Steph- ah ****! Single to left, the run scored, and the tying run came to the plate. The Raccoons sent for Wise, who retired Creech, the Loggers’ unlikely home run leader with 11 dingers, on a grounder to short.

Top 9th, the Critters were stirring against Alfredo Casique. Stalker struck out continuing a weeklong slump for the 1-2 pair, but Wallace singled to left, Hereford double to right, and Howden was walked intentionally for whatever reason since he surely would have no trouble to hit into a double play with runners in scoring position and first base open… Rodriguez hit an RBI single to right, 6-3, but Jamieson popped out when sent to the plate for Toby Ross. Magallanes knocked out Casique, however, hitting a ball into the shallow left-center gap for a 2-run single. The Raccoons declared at that point that they had enough runs and let Chris Wise bat for the second time this season. He grounded out to Lockert, then loaded the bases with one out in the bottom 9th. Young singled, Holder walked, Wilson Aquino singled, and the top of the order was due up. Lockert’s single up the middle plated two, and got Wise yanked from the game. With a left-hander up in Cambra, Josh Boles was called in from the pen, walked the batter, then got booted down the tunnel to the clubhouse. Ohl inherited three on, one out, and the winning run at the plate. Morris flew out to shallow right on the first pitch. Taylor Canody took the 0-1 to left. Matt Jamieson made the catch there. 8-5 Coons. Wallace 2-5; Hereford 3-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Rodriguez 3-5, 2 RBI;

Not sure whether I should be happy or angry right now… the Titans were surely happy, because their lead extended to nine games now after they beat the Crusaders, 4-3.

Matt Nunley came off the DL by Saturday. Maybe he would last longer than 32 outs this time!

Game 2
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – CF Catella – P Roberts
MIL: 3B Lockert – C J. Young – SS W. Morris – RF J. Stephenson – CF Creech – 1B M. Monroe – LF Valenzuela – 2B Holder – P Hodge

Ramos opened with a double and scored on a Jamieson single, putting Roberts up 1-0 before the first ball the Loggers’ Lockert put in play found Matt Nunley. The proven veteran swiped and threw to first… wildly. Lockert reached second on the leadoff error, but was stranded when the Loggers could not get another ball to fall in. While the Coons offense slumped thereafter once more, the Loggers didn’t get a runner in their own right until the fourth inning when Morris singled to left, giving him a 25-game hitting streak. Stephenson singled past Nunley, and Creech hit one to left, too, although that one wasn’t coming back; his 12th dinger gave the Loggers a 3-1 lead over Roberts.

But in the fifth, trouble found Hodge again. Catella, Ramos, and Stalker filtered on the bases on two hits and a walk, and Jimmy Wallace came to bat with the bags packed and one out. He beat Monroe with a bouncer spanked over the first base bag that was called fair (which the Loggers disputed in vain) and tied the game as a 2-run single. Jamieson hit into a double play to end the inning, though. Roberts avoided damage in the fifth in which Hodge spiked a line drive single on an 0-2 pitch and reached third base on a Jim Young single before Morris flew out, but not in the sixth, with Stephenson lacing a leadoff double and Creech lacing #13. That one put Milwaukee up, 5-3, and they added a run in the seventh on Bates walking Lockert, and Fernandez allowing a single to Young, a walk to Morris, and a Stephenson sac fly, and another one in the eighth when Fernandez again put everything on base that had legs. The Critters’ striped tails never flicked again as they lost this one by a slam. 7-3 Loggers. Nunley 2-4;

Game 3
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – 3B Hereford – RF Rodriguez – 1B Howden – CF Magallanes - C Rocha – P Chavez
MIL: 3B Lockert – C Canody – SS W. Morris – CF Creech – 1B M. Monroe – LF D.J. Mendez – RF Valenzuela – 2B Holder – P Weeks

The Critters hoped to help Bernie Chavez by pairing him with a familiar catcher in his second career start, but he still managed to hit Morris and throw a wild pitch right in the first inning. That was with a 1-0 lead; Stalker had walked and scored on Jamieson and Rodriguez singles in the opening frame. The lead went into the drain in the second, which Monroe opened with a 430-footer to left, but Chavez would restore it himself with a 2-out RBI single in the fourth inning, driving home Magallanes. That wasn’t even his first 2-out single in the game; he had already knocked one in the second inning, his first career hit, but both times Ramos ended the inning in his deepening slump. The rest of the team continued to do just as much, and Bernie was more or less on his own, which worked through five, but not through six. Canody opened with a double to right-center, and soon enough scored on a Morris single, which also extended the hitting streak to 26. Morris reached second on Jamieson’s throw home, third on Creech’s single, and scored the go-ahead run on Monroe’s sac fly to Rodriguez. Mendez knocked out Chavez with a 3-2 single, sending Creech to third base. Boles replaced the yanked starter and got out of the mess with a K to Danny Valenzuela and a fly to center off Holder’s bat.

Come the seventh, Chavez would be taken off the hook. Baldwin batted for Boles to begin the inning for the sake of his righty bat and to the surprise of anybody hit a double to right. Ramos finally came through with a hit, also to right, and all the way into the corner, a game-tying RBI triple! And nobody out! Stalker’s single past Morris restored the Critters to the lead, 4-3, and then Jamieson hit a gapper for an RBI triple! WHOAH, OFFENSE!! Hereford would drive in another run off Weeks, the final move of the inning which the Raccoons finished up by three, 6-3. Baldwin (single), Ramos (double), Stalker (RBI single), and Jamieson (sac fly) would take Palomo apart for two tack-on runs in the eighth inning. That still wasn’t enough to not create a save opportunity in the ninth between Fernandez, who allowed Valenzuela on base on a leadoff infield single, and Rabbitt, who got whacked all over the place and was yanked with two outs, Fernandez’ run across, and Andy Sears and Taylor Canody in scoring position. Ohl came on to face Morris, the .315 batter. In other circumstances, an intentional walk would be an option, but here it would bring up Creech as the tying run and he already had two dingers in the series. Morris flew out to left on the 1-1 pitch, and the Raccoons took the series from dissolving Loggers. 8-4 Raccoons. Ramos 2-5, 3B, 2B, RBI; Stalker 3-4, BB, 2 RBI; Jamieson 2-4, 3B, 2 RBI; Baldwin (PH) 2-2, 2B; Fleischer 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

In other news

September 8 – NAS INF Billy Bouldin (.298, 1 HR, 54 RBI) will miss three weeks with an oblique strain.
September 10 – It’s season over for Falcons slugger LF/RF Graciano Salto (.280, 16 HR, 69 RBI) who has broken his wrist.
September 11 – The Condors run circles around the Bayhawks, with four Condors each landing three RBI or three runs scored. TIJ INF Omar Camacho (.268, 11 HR, 51 RBI) does it both while also drawing three walks and landing two base hits.
September 12 – PIT C Pat Sanford (.222, 13 HR, 48 RBI) dishes our four hits and as many RBI in the Miners’ 12-3 rout of the Cyclones.

Complaints and stuff

There was not much fuss about it, but Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Indianapolis was our 8,888th regular season game. At that point we were 4,572 – 4,316 … or a .514 team.

Season winding down, but we will see rule 5 pick John Hennessy winding up at some point down the road; he is going to come off the DL and rejoin the team just like Joe Vanatti next week.

And we’re going to bring up Raffaello Sabre and Ignacio del Rio with the minor league seasons over. We’ll find starts for them *somewhere*. By the way, all our minor league teams finished with mediocre records. The Alley Cats were the bets of the bunch, ending 74-70 and 13 games out at the AAA level. Sabre, Chavez, and del Rio led them in ERA. Sabre, del Rio, and Chavez led them in wins. And Chavez, Sabre, and del Rio led them in strikeouts. Not much happiness on the batting front. Craig Hollenbeck led the team with a .289 clip and 55 RBI. Winning the team triple crown would have required a modest SIX homers, the total put up by Bobby Houston, our 2026 sixth-rounder in 102 games, but Hollenbeck, the 2025 second-rounder and first baseman, couldn’t even do that. He hit four homers in 140 games and zero in the three games he filled in for Howden earlier this season.

Fun Fact: Our 6-12 final against the Loggers is our worst season against them since 2003, when we also won only six games from them.

That actually happened regularly at that point; it was almost right in the middle of the Decade of Darkness for the Coons, which was actually the Loggers’ greatest decade. They finished in the first division of the North 11 straight times from 1994 through 2004, with two division titles (1994, 2000) and three seasons where they were beat by one game, and usually by the Titans. They won 99 in ’03. Those were the Loggers teams of Cristo Ramirez, Bakile Hiwalani, Jorge Cruz, Bartolo Hernandez, Jerry Fletcher (all but Hernandez over 30 in ’03) at the plate, and foremost Martin Garcia and Ramiro Gonzalez on the mound. Garcia was also 31 already and it is no wonder why they disappeared into the abyss soon after that 2003 season. In their case the abyss would entail not only 14 straight seasons finishing in the second division, but also 13 seasons of coming up fifth or sixth, with 12 losing records and also the unenviable ABL record of nine consecutive last-place finishes from 2006 through 2014. No other team has come even close to that. The Raccoons’ record of last-place honors is four in a row, achieved right away from 1978 through 1981.

[DD Martin]

On the bright side two things
1. Since July 27 the team is actually over 500 at 22-21, so maybe there is some promise
2. The season is almost over

On the down side that play has moved you out of a top 3 pick in next years draft to the 8-9 pick

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by DD Martin

On the bright side two things
1. Since July 27 the team is actually over 500 at 22-21, so maybe there is some promise
2. The season is almost over

On the down side that play has moved you out of a top 3 pick in next years draft to the 8-9 pick

1. False hopes.
2. Thank goodness.

Yeah, other teams are losing harder. But the return of Roberts and Shumway at least *somewhat* shored up a horrendous rotation. And now we're playing the kits, all of which should be better than Gutierrez and Martinez...

+++

Raccoons (62-80) @ Crusaders (71-71) – September 15-18, 2031

Last pokes of the season at the Crusaders, who were by now also eliminated from hypothetical postseason contention. Turns out sitting fifth in runs scored and runs allowed with a negative run differential was not only quirky, but also not a winning mix. Not even against the Critters; with a split of the 4-game series, the Raccoons could even win the season series, which they led 8-6 coming into New York.

Projected matchups:
Raffaello Sabre (1-1, 4.26 ERA) vs. Eddie Cannon (19-6, 2.63 ERA)
Ed Hague (8-11, 4.28 ERA) vs. Steve Younts (9-13, 3.89 ERA)
Tom Shumway (2-5, 3.60 ERA) vs. Chris Rountree (9-16, 4.50 ERA)
Ignacio del Rio (0-0) vs. Carlos Marron (6-2, 4.15 ERA)

Rountree was the only left-handed offering the Crusaders could make.

Sabre and del Rio were both added to the roster (as was 1B Craig Hollenbeck, giving us a whopping 35 players on the extended roster, of which 17 were pitchers), giving us a 7-man rotation that Rico Gutierrez was no longer a part of. We would probably find some garbage innings for him down the road, a left-handed pendant to the equally disgraced Dave Martinez. How we would dole out starts down the road was no exact science; but we’d sure work in the rookies as often as possible, while trying not to hurt the feelings of the veterans, no matter how much scumbaggery they committed on the mound. Isn’t that right, Tom?

Game 1
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – CF Vanatti – 3B Nunley – C Ross – P Sabre
NYC: 2B M. Hurtado – 1B Fowlkes – SS Obando – CF Coca – LF Houghtaling – C Dear – RF Reardon – 3B Cameron – P E. Cannon

Tim Stalker opened the scoring with his 11th dinger, a solo shot, in the top of the first. The next run in the game, Raffaello Sabre would drive in himself; while he wasn’t exactly confining the Crusaders to their dugout, allowing three hits and a walk the first time through, the defense supported him nicely in the early innings, f.e. Toby Ross threw out Mario Hurtado when he tried to steal second base after the leadoff walk in a full count in the bottom 1st. Sabre in turn found Howden and Ross on the bases in the fourth inning and nicked a single over the head of Hurtado to drive home Howden. Ross went to third base on the play, from where Ramos scored him with a single past Pat Fowlkes, extending the score to 3-0. Sabre looked in control by the fourth, even though Chris Reardon landed a leadoff single in leftfield in the bottom 5th, but that was not a situation that two groundouts to second base and a K to the pitcher couldn’t defuse. And while he did run quite a few full counts (I counted six, but I was also mixing new pills* and things were confusing at times), Sabre managed to get through seven innings on exactly 100 pitches, whiffing six, which we called a job well done and gave him his pat on the bum – easily the best game of his young career. The Critters failed to find tack-on runs in the eighth against Cannon, who had been bidding for his 20th win of the season, but was denied, or in the ninth against Casey Moore. Chris Wise faced the 2-3-4 batters in the bottom 9th, struck out Fowlkes to get going, and then surrendered not one, but two ****ty bloopers between Vanatti and the rushing middle infielders to get Guillermo Obando and Tony Coca on base and Jeremy Houghtaling, the second disgusting former Elk in a row, to the plate as the tying run. Houghtaling spanked the 0-2 pitch… but right at Ramos for an easy double play. 3-0 Coons. Stalker 2-4, HR, RBI; Jamieson 2-4; Sabre 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 K, W (2-1) and 1-3, RBI;

Game 2
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Hereford – 1B Howden – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – CF Magallanes – P Hague
NYC: RF Reardon – 1B Fowlkes – SS Obando – CF Coca – C Dear – 2B J. Brown – LF Jo. Richardson – 3B Cameron – P Younts

After a quick first, Ed Hague retired none of the first four Crusaders he faced in the second inning. Matt Dear drew a leadoff walk, which remains the bane of my existence, and Josh Brown snuck a single up the middle. John Richardson, much less subtly, doubled over Hereford in left to plate a run, and Hague scored the second run himself with a wild pitch before walking Joe Cameron, but even with runners on the corners and nobody out the Crusaders added on only one more on a Chris Reardon groundout before Fowlkes grounded out to short. The Coons answered right away, even though Younts sat down the first seven. Magallanes singled up the middle with one out in the third, was bunted to second, then scored on a Ramos double. Tim Stalker dropped in an RBI single, but Wallace grounded out to Brown, leaving New York 3-2 ahead. But that was before the Crusaders showed Hague, a former Crusader no less, the door. Obando singled, Dear walked, Brown was nicked at 0-2, and then Richardson hit a gapper between Hereford and Magallanes to empty the bags for the Crusaders’ second 3-spot in as many innings. Hague would hang around through the fourth inning, then was pinch-hit for, trailing 6-3, to begin the top 5th; the Coons had plated a run in the top 4th on hits by Hereford, Nunley, and Tovias.

Younts continued to show cracks, though. The sixth saw an infield single by Hereford, who then limped off with some sort of pain and was run for by Ryan Allan. Howden singled, Nunley walked, and the tying runs were on with one down. Tovias was rung up. Jamieson batted for Magallanes, but popped out, and nobody scored. The Raccoons struggled to get any more runners against Younts, who lasted seven, then were sat down 1-2-3 by Chris Myers in the eighth. Casey Moore nixed Jamieson, 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy Sam Cass, and Ramos in the ninth inning. 6-3 Crusaders. Hereford 1-2, BB; Vanatti (PH) 1-1; Martinez 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

The Druid invented an “intercostal strain” as the reason why Rich Hereford would not play baseball in the next two weeks or so, which was basically the rest of the season… and his Coons career.

In turn John Hennessy joined the team, which gave us four regular left-handed relievers. He had pitched in 18 games early in the season before having bone spurs removed from his elbow. Despite this, he was the only rule 5 pick to last until September. He had to be patient before getting a turn at pitching again, though, because Wednesday’s game was rained out and we’d play two on Thursday to make up for that.

Game 3
POR: SS Stalker – RF Rodriguez – LF Jamieson – 3B Baldwin – 1B Hollenbeck – CF Vanatti – 2B Cass – C Ross – P Shumway
NYC: 2B M. Hurtado – 1B Fowlkes – SS Obando – CF Coca – LF Houghtaling – C Dear – RF Reardon – 3B Cameron – P Rountree

Chris Reardon hit a slam in the second inning, which the keen mathematician will realize could only be possible if Tom Shumway put every man before him in the inning on base, which was what happened. Coca single, Houghtaling single, four balls and nothing else to Dear, and then – fireworks. It put the rump Critters in a 4-0 hole from which they were not likely to emerge, nor would Shumway’s pride. And not only Tom Scumbag’s pitching was no bueno, but so was his bunting. With the Coons having Cass (reached on error) and Ross (single) on the corners in the fifth inning and nobody out, Shumway bunted into a force at second base, and the only reason why this did not end up costing the Coons a run was that after Stalker’s RBI single, which got the Critters on the board, Wilson Rodriguez got nailed, which filled up the bags anyway. Jamieson grounded slowly to short, which prevented them from turning two and got a run home, and then it was Chris Baldwin to chuck a 1-2 pitch over the head of Hurtado for a soft game-tying single. He also doubled his RBI output this year, shooting all the way up to FOUR. Hollenbeck grounded out to end the inning, furthering a 2-for-15 slump to start his career.

Tom Scumbag went on to the bottom 5th, where he allowed a leadoff single to Hurtado, then walked the bags full. He got yanked for Ricky Ohl with three on and no outs and Tony Coca and his 19 homers at the plate. Ohl conceded a sac fly, which was not the worst possible outcome at this point, got Houghtaling to pop out, and then saw Rodriguez spare a Dear drive in the gap to end the inning. And then we waited for a Coons rally that never came; in fact they would not get another base hit in the game. Rountree went eight and rung up only three, but still avoided to give up an *earned* run since all the Critters’ runs in the fifth had been unearned due to the Pat Fowlkes error that got them started. Moore dealt the rest to them in the ninth, while the Raccoons gave up additional runs in the seventh (Fleischer) and eighth (Rabbitt). 7-4 Crusaders. Stalker 2-4, RBI;

Tovias replaced Ross in a double switch after the fifth inning, so both caught a few innings in this one. Daniel Rocha got the assignment for the second leg of the double header, but would also be placed in a convenient double switch position in the #7 hole. More importantly, here was the major league debut for Ignacio del Rio.

Game 4
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – 3B Nunley – C Rocha – CF Magallanes – P del Rio
NYC: 2B M. Hurtado – 1B Fowlkes – SS Obando – CF Coca – LF Houghtaling – RF Reardon – C F. Delgado – 3B Cameron – P Marron

Del Rio seamlessly lined up with all the other great pitching we had on the roster and began his assignment with a leadoff walk to Mario Hurtado. His first out was Fowlkes, rolling one over to Nunley, and he allowed his first run on a 2-out single by Tony Coca. Houghtaling became his first strikeout. So many firsts were dealt with in a single inning! The first double play followed an inning later, Ramos turning an inning-ending 6-4-3 on Joe Cameron. And by the third he was in the middle of the first serious meltdown of everybody involved. Ignacio indeed started trouble himself, walking both Fowlkes and Obando with two outs. Coca singled up the middle, plating Fowlkes to make it a 2-0 game. Obando went to third base, then scored on a Stalker error on Houghtaling’s bouncer. Reardon struck out, but the hole was now three deep and the Critters had yet to show up in earnest.

The fifth inning saw Magallanes fall onto first base somehow. Del Rio bunted with one out, badly, and got him forced out, which cost a run when Ramos singled to right, Reardon overran the ball, and the runners got an extra base, but now the lead runner was del Rio, starting from first base, and he had to hold at third. Stalker was next, and flew out to Coca. Nobody scored until Jamieson and Howden hit back-to-back 1-out doubles in the sixth, bringing up Nunley as the tying run. He grounded to third base, Cameron threw the ball past Fowlkes, and Howden scored on the error, 3-2, Nunley to second. The terrible .105 batter Rocha looped a single over Obando to put Coons on the corners, Marron lost Magallanes on balls, and that ended del Rio’s day as we brought on a pinch-hitter with three on and one out in a 1-run game. That would be Vanatti, who fell to 0-2, then poked a ball up the middle, through the pitcher’s legs, past the lunging Obando, and over the glove of the diving Hurtado into center for an RBI single…!? Ramos gave the team the lead with a groundout, Stalker walked to refill the bags, and Jimmy Wallace brought in two with a duck snort into no man’s land, 6-3. Ex-Coon Jamie O’Leary replaced Marron at that point, but gave up an RBI single to Jamieson. Hollenbeck was sent to bat for Howden against the southpaw, but struck out to end the inning. Marron was laden with seven runs, all but two unearned.

Tony Coca hit #20 off Nick Bates in the bottom 6th, getting the Crusaders back within three. Garavito would follow on and pitched two innings on just 16 pitches despite seeing mostly right-handed batters! That set up Wise unless the Critters would rally for a tack-on run starting with Jamieson against Myers in the ninth. Jamieson opened with a single to right. Hollenbeck flew out to center, dropping to .111, and then Wilson Rodriguez batted for Nunley and hit to Obando for two. So that meant Wise in the bottom 9th, where he brought up the tying run by allowing singles to Reardon and Cameron, who were on the corners with two outs… but Wise prevailed against Richardson, fanning him to split the series. 7-4 Critters. Ramos 2-5, RBI; Jamieson 4-5, 2B, RBI; Howden 2-3, 2B, RBI; Vanatti (PH) 1-2, RBI; Garavito 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Del Rio nabbed the win with a so-so outing. Three runs (two earned) in five innings is ho-hum, four walks are worse than even that, but it was not *terrible*. Also, Chris Wise saved his 20th game.

Also, this was the first real messy box score since we *really* expanded the roster past the initial 28 or 29. Only four starters finished, and that somehow included Rocha, who had that key hit to keep the sixth going.

Raccoons (64-82) vs. Bayhawks (71-75) – September 19-21, 2031

Fourth in South, sixth in runs scored, and seventh in runs allowed. Lots of middle-of-the-road for the Bayhawks. The season series against the Baybirds was even at three. We had last won it in 2026.

Projected matchups:
Jason Gurney (10-7, 3.34 ERA) vs. Matt Huf (13-11, 3.90 ERA)
Mark Roberts (6-9, 4.33 ERA) vs. Jesus Chavez (11-7, 3.98 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (0-1, 4.63 ERA) vs. Gilberto Rendon (13-9, 3.80 ERA)

Three right-handers, and while Roberts would miss Huf this time, who had once been in the package that landed Roberts and Jon Gonzalez from San Fran, he matched up with another ex-Coon in Chavez, who had really recovered his career after some blighted seasons in the late 20s. He was traded away from Portland in the 2025 Winter Meetings in a 5-player deal for Kyle Anderson.

Game 1
SFB: 2B J. Cruz – 1B Dupuis – RF Suhay – C J. Wood – LF Hawthorne – CF Zollinger – SS M. Martin – 3B Levinson – P Huf
POR: SS Ramos – CF Vanatti – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – 2B Cass – P Gurney

Leadoff man Jose Cruz was the only switch-hitter in a sea of righties that Gurney would have to contend with, but the early innings were inspiring, as he only allowed one base hit and otherwise kept the Bayhawks really short. So did Huf, at least until he walked Sam Cass in the bottom 3rd. Gurney bunted him over, and Ramos plated the runner with a single up the middle. That was basically all the action to qualifying distance; neither team found more than one base hit through five innings! In the sixth, however, the Baybirds got Gurney. Tristan Levinson opened with a double, was still hanging around with two outs, and then Jon Dupuis fired a homer to left that flipped the score. Ramos drew a leadoff walk in the bottom 6th, but Vanatti whiffed and Wallace forced him out on the road to nowhere. Gurney did not get out of the seventh, which saw a leadoff double by Jimmy Wood, then a 1-out walk issued to Walter Zollinger, an agile 24-year-old September callup with a .381 clip at this point. Ohl and Garavito finished the inning and starved the runners against pinch-hitters Joseph McClenon and Tomas Caraballo.

Huf was crossing 100 pitches in the bottom 7th, which he entered on one hit, four walks, and six strikeouts. Full counts resulted in a walk to Howden, a K to Nunley, then gave up a single to Tovias, only the second Critters base knock in the game. Ryan Allan batted for Cass, struck out, and Wilson Rodriguez batted for Garavito, and singled past Cruz, allowing Howden to score the tying run from second base. Ramos grounded up the middle, and out, to end the seventh. By the bottom 8th, the Coons were facing lefty Abramo Archibugi, who walked Vanatti and nicked Tim Stalker in the #3 hole. Jamieson struck out, and when Howden came up we went to Hollenbeck again, stubborn as we were. There HAD to be a run in that sucker’s bat! There wasn’t, but only because his single to center was contained so fast by Zollinger, who had a good arm apparently, that Vanatti was held and Nunley batted with the bases loaded. He grounded out to Dupuis, but that got the go-ahead run across! Tovias struck out, and Wise was back at it in the top of the ninth. Ben Suhay ALMOST homered on the very first pitch, but was caught on the warning track, and Wood and George Hawthorne went down with much less drama. 3-2 Coons. Hollenbeck (PH) 1-1; Rodriguez (PH) 1-1, RBI; Gurney 6.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K;

Game 2
SFB: 2B J. Cruz – 1B Dupuis – RF Suhay – C J. Wood – LF Hawthorne – CF Zollinger – SS Sears – 3B M. Martin – P J. Chavez
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – CF Vanatti – C Ross – 3B Catella – P Roberts

Roberts tended to get to two strikes, then surrender something with a loud noise, which somehow didn’t lead to drama in the first, although Suhay almost homered on an 0-2 offering, but the Baybirds got two in the second inning. Hawthorne walked, Micah Sears hit an RBI double, and Chavez (…) hit an RBI single for the early lead. Cruz hit another double, but Chavez had to hold at third base, then was stranded when Dupuis flew out. Roberts gave up two more the following inning, issuing leadoff walks to both Suhay and Wood, then RBI knocks to Zollinger and Micah Sears. Roberts would have to settle for six innings eventually, getting four each of runs, walks, and strikeouts, which was not exactly what he was being paid princely to do.

The Coons had three hits through five innings and no runs. Most egregiously, Sean Catella hit a 2-out double in the bottom 5th, then was thrown out at third base trying to stretch it a little bit further. The Bayhawks however shook another 2-spot out of Bryan Rabbitt in the seventh inning. Dupuis drew a leadoff walk, and George Hawthorne drew his 10th dinger of the year, a shot well outta left-center. The Coons FINALLY did something in the bottom of the inning, with Chavez allowing a leadoff single to Wallace, then hat a fastball – 95 – murdered by Matt Jamieson for Matt’s 12th home run of the year, but that merely got Portland back into slam range. Since this was a garbage game, the Coons sent Rico Gutierrez in for garbage relief in the eighth, and he sure didn’t disappoint. He got through the eighth; but not through the ninth. Suhay homered massively to left to begin the ninth, and then he put Wood on with a single, and Zollinger tripled him in. The Coons sent Hennessy instead, but the returnee walked Sears and gave up a sac fly to Mike Martin before ringing up Chavez, who finished the game with a 7-hitter. 9-2 Bayhawks. Jamieson 3-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Howden 2-4;

Game 3
SFB: CF Cassell – 1B Caraballo – C J. Wood – 2B J. Cruz – SS Pulido – 3B Levinson – LF V. Pacheco – RF Pridgeon – P G. Rendon
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – CF Vanatti – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – P B. Chavez

Bernie pitched a quick first, but the Costa Rican Rendon would not retire any of the first four batter. Ramos singled, stole second, and scored on Stalker’s double to center. Wallace got nicked by the pitch, and Jamieson singled load them up. Howden, the dumb pig, grounded to short, where the Bayhawks were tardy and got only Jamieson at second base while Stalker scored, 2-0. Vanatti also rolled up the middle, and again they didn’t get the double play, getting Wallace across, too. Nunley flew out to deep center to keep it a 3-0 game. Top 2nd, the Bayhawks got to the board when Jose Pulido singled, stole second, and was driven in by Vincent Pacheco with a sharp single to right. That was the only blip through five for the young rookie, who struck out four and spent only 61 pitches, but unfortunately Rendon rallied, too, and the Coons were held quite dry in the four innings following their 3-spot. Bernie struck out two in a laborious sixth against the top of the order. Tristan Levinson hit a single with two outs in the seventh, but Chavez tickled a fly to center out of Pacheco… which Vanatti went on to drop. And that put the tying runs in scoring position with two outs and Ben Suhay emerging as the pinch-hitter. Chavez was on 97 pitches, but he had displayed stuff all day long, having rung up six. Nobody easier to ring up than the .226 hitter Suhay (never mind the 21 dingers). The pitching coach read the scouting report to Chavez in person, and four pitches later Suhay was surrendered flailing over a 1-2 pitch to end the seventh; this was also the end of the road for Chavez, having thrown 101 pitches. Suhay remained in the game and robbed Jimmy Wallace in the gap to end the bottom 7th, and we had to do this without insurance. David Fernandez got the eighth, retiring San Fran in order and whiffing two. Wise did the same in the ninth. 3-1 Furballs! Chavez 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, W (1-1);

In other news

September 16 – The desperate Loggers trade with the Rebels to bring back Willie Trevino (.262, 3 HR, 24 RBI) for two meh prospects. Trevino, 32, played all of his first nine ABL seasons with the Loggers, but would not be postseason eligible even if the Loggers rallied past the Titans from here.
September 16 – SAC LF/RF Doug Stross (.313, 5 HR, 45 RBI) could miss the rest of the season with a quad strain.
September 17 – The 27-game hitting streak of MIL INF/RF Wayne Morris (.313, 8 HR, 66 RBI) ends with an 0-for-3 day in a 6-2 loss to the Indians.
September 17 – TIJ OF Juan Palbes (.233, 1 HR, 48 RBI) might be lost for the postseason with a case of shoulder tendinitis.
September 18 – The Pacifics lose C J.J. Henley (.232, 20 HR, 75 RBI) for the regular season and postseason. The 36-year-old veteran has suffered a strained rib cage muscle.
September 19 – TOP RF Justin Quinn (.267, 0 HR, 24 RBI) reaches the 2,000 hits club with a pinch-hit RBI single in the Buffaloes’ 8-7 win over the Pacifics. The 37-year-old has largely been held to pinch-hitting duties this year due to deteriorating defense, but he was an All Star twice, and once each led the FL in hits (2018) and doubles (2019). He is a career .293 hitter with 152 HR and 915 RBI.
September 21 – Expanded rosters come in handy as the Knights take 20 innings to shake off the Crusaders in a 4-3, 6:27 marathon. A full 50 players are used in the contest which ends on a walkoff single by LF/RF Nate Seago (.235, 3 HR, 17 RBI), who entered as pinch-hitter in the eighth inning and still found time to go 1-for-6.
September 21 – Charlotte’s utility man Danny Ruiz (.287, 5 HR, 22 RBI) goes three legs of the cycle on five hits and scores the winning run in a 3-2, 10-inning win over the Canadiens.

Complaints and stuff

Rich Hereford, off to the DL, might return for the final few games this year. If he doesn’t, the infield single on Tuesday was the last we saw of him, since his contract is up and I expect a grim budget slash by Valdes, which means that even if we wanted, we could not offer an extension to him. I just hope we get a draft pick or two outta him.

I have also thought about something like the Raccoon of the Year. Usually you can find a player that had a really strong season, even by his standards. This year, that’s hard. Ramos and Hereford put up strong numbers compared to the league, but not by their own standards. Wallace showed some neat stuff, and might turn out Rookie of the Year, but his numbers are also well into Clyde Brady territory, and Clyde Brady was the Avatar of Losing. Don’t believe me? Clyde Brady’s 162-game average was .259/.360/.386 with 13 HR and 60 RBI and a 109 OPS+. That seems familiar! Wallace has a higher average, but Brady was good at walking… They don’t give each other much!

Who else could even be a candidate? The pitching was a royal mess, top to bottom. Jason Gurney is a pleasant surprise, but if I say one more nice thing about him, I fear our scout, who I definitely know the name of, I think, will defenestrate me. Josh Wise – sucked less than Josh Boles? Let’s put that on T-shirts. – No, Maud, don’t. I was joking. – What do you mean you have to mark that in the calendar??

We will face the Condors to begin the next week. They had a crucial series with the Loggers this weekend, knocked them off two out of three, and that sealed the South in the Condors’ favor AND left the Titans’ magic number at one. The Loggers collapsed fully and completely in September. They are 8-16 since August 27, and that was it for the playoffs for them.

Fun Fact: In their last 67 combined appearances, Boles, Garavito, and Ohl have allowed two earned runs in 55.1 innings.

So will those be trade assets? Well, Boles and Garavito. Ohl will be a free agent, and we don’t think we’ll have any money. And nobody wanted Ricky Ohl in July, either.

*I am actually a wee bit ill. Not in the hospital this time though. Yay. But f.e. I didn’t notice Hereford missing from the Monday lineup, and I left Baldwin in the cleanup spot when arranging the first lineup of the double header… so this was probably not my best week *managing* on top of clicking to the next day in regular intervals.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (66-83) vs. Condors (93-56) – September 22-24, 2031

Even if the Condors were 37 games over .500, it was still garbage time for everybody involved. They had clinched their division and were just looking forward to not losing any more players to injury (they were already missing Juan Palbes among their regulars and had several more dinged up). We just wised the season over while making as little noise as possible. The Condors were fourth in runs scored, second in runs allowed, and had a +141 run differential to brag about. They led the season series, 4-2.

Projected matchups:
Raffaello Sabre (2-1, 2.75 ERA) vs. George Griffin (11-4, 2.25 ERA)
Ed Hague (8-12, 4.49 ERA) vs. Joe Perry (11-8, 3.15 ERA)
Tom Shumway (2-6, 3.99 ERA) vs. Jimmy Driver (1-1, 8.53 ERA)

Right, left, right. Driver was a 24-year-old rookie that had been taken #10 in the 2028 draft and would make his first career start after some lackluster relieving.

Game 1
TIJ: LF Sung – 2B C. Miller – 3B Sanks – 1B McGrath – CF C. Murphy – RF Camps – C Wool – SS Camacho – P Griffin
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – CF Vanatti – 3B Nunley – C Ross – P Sabre

Sabre threw 37 pitches in a dismal first inning in which he actually retired the first two before Shane Sanks, the disgusting skunk weasel, singled. Following that, Sabre ran a full count to Kevin McGrath and walked him, ran a full count to Chris Murphy and walked him, a full count to Juan Camps and walked him, and a full count to Josh Wool, and walked him. Omar Camacho grounded out at 1-1, earning a scolding from his manager for stranding three in a 2-0 game. The Condors plated two more and stranded another three in an equally abysmal second inning. Griffin (…) and Yeong-ha Sung opened with singles, Sabre nailed Sanks and Camps and walked Murphy in between… somehow he was not yet buried six feet deep. Also, somehow he would then pitch three quick innings for zeroes after the abhorrence of the first two innings, not that it helped his ugly line (five walks, two strikeouts for four runs), despite George Griffin also walking five against the Raccoons, who only managed to find two base hits, and none of them with somebody in scoring position. They scored a run in the fifth when Wallace grounded out to first with the bases loaded and one down, and then Matt Jamieson feebly struck out. Griffin, who was famously short in terms of stamina, also didn’t last past the fifth inning.

The next few innings were drab, but it was still 4-1 in the eighth when 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy Sam Cass pinch-hit for Nick Bates in the #4 hole, indicating it had already been a long day, and singled to center. Left-hander Juan Garcia walked Howden on four pitches, bringing up the tying run. And then Vanatti struck out, Nunley struck out, and Toby Ross grounded out to short on the first pitch by right-hander George Barnett. Thus was the state of the Raccoons offense as the season drew to a close. But after Garavito put away the 1-2-3 Condors in 1-2-3 fashion in the top 9th, the tying run was up again with nobody out in the bottom of the inning. Mike Simcoe allowed a double to Magallanes, a single to Ramos, and they were on the corners for Tim Stalker, who beat Murphy in center to hit a 2-run double on an 0-1 pitch, cutting the gap to 4-3. Wallace struck out, Rodriguez grounded out, but Howden dropped a ball behind Omar Camacho for the game-tying single with two outs. Vanatti grounded out to short, sending the game to extras, where Ricky Ohl struck out three around a Camps single to put away the Condors. Nunley then chucked a leadoff single through Sanks against Pat Selby and was bunted to second base by Ross, after which Chris Baldwin replaced him as pinch-runner, but Magallanes and Ramos both flew out to waste the opportunity. The Critters stranded Stalker and Howden on the corners in the 11th when Robby Ciampa got Elias Tovias to pop out as pinch-hitter in the #6 slot. They then lost it in the 12th despite Ciampa putting on another pair (Magallanes, Ramos)… that came after Baldwin had drawn a leadoff walk and had been caught stealing, and also after Rico Gutierrez had surrendered the go-ahead run in the top of the inning, walking Sanks to begin the frame and allowing a 2-out RBI double to Camps. That was the decider; Tim Stalker flew out to Sung to close the curtain. 5-4 Condors. Ramos 2-5, 2 BB; Stalker 3-6, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Cass (PH) 1-1; Howden 3-5, BB, RBI; Ross 2-5; Magallanes 1-2, BB, 2B; Ohl 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K;

Game 2
TIJ: LF Sung – 2B C. Miller – 3B Sanks – 1B McGrath – CF C. Murphy – RF Camps – C Wool – SS Camacho – P Perry
POR: SS Ramos – CF Magallanes – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – RF Rodriguez – 1B Hollenbeck – C Ross – 3B Baldwin – P Hague

The Critters scored a pair on four hits in the opening frame on Tuesday. Ramos and Magallanes went to the corners via singles, with Stalker popping out, and Jamieson grounding out slowly to Sanks, but both runners advanced and Berto scored. Singles by both Wilson Rodriguez and Craig Hollenbeck (!) plated Magallanes, too, before Ross popped out to Camacho. The Condors would get on the board in the third inning, with Ed Hague issuing a leadoff walk to Camacho and having at third base with two outs when Chris Miller lifted a fly to center that Magallanes fumbled for a run-scoring error. He caught the next one off Sanks’ bat while I was jamming shot down the blunderbuss’ barrel with foam in front of my mouth. The Coons tried a comeback in the bottom 3rd, with Magallanes wisely hitting a leadoff single. Stalker singled, Jamieson was nailed, and it was three on and nobody out for Wilson Rodriguez. The Coons made the least noise possible; with Rodriguez hitting into a run-scoring double play before Hollenbeck rolled a ball all of ten feet and was thrown out at first base by Josh Wool by about fifty.

Then there was the top of the fourth. McGrath walked to begin the inning in a full count, which was already sub-par. Hague quickly gave up a single to Murphy before Camps grounded to short, but they couldn’t turn two and the Condors were on the corners. Wool hit a comebacker that Hague threw away to score a run and have Condors at first and second, which became second and third after a double steal where Toby Ross failed to consider throwing out the lead-footed Wool and failed to actually throw out Camps. On the next pitch, Camacho singled both of them in, giving Tijuana the 4-3 lead. Sung hit a 2-out RBI single to conclude a 4-spot, 5-3. Hague would be dragged through six with the Condors refusing to punish him even further. The Coons made up a run in the fifth, which Ramos opened with a double into the rightfield corner, upon which Magallanes singled him home. But then they left Magallanes on, and when Vanatti reached base in the seventh by getting nailed by Joe Perry in the #9 hole, Ramos chucked into a double play. It was just that sort of game, made worse with two outs in the ninth when the same Vanatti threw away a Sanks single trying to stop Yeong-ha Sung going first-to-third. Sung went to home instead, and the mess got more complicated in the bottom 9th when Nunley pinch-walked with one out in Baldwin’s spot, and Vanatti then homered off Ray Andrews. It would have been a walkoff; it was only another ninth-inning tie. Walkoff honors would be reserved to Jamieson and Rodriguez, hitting back-to-back doubles up either line in the bottom of the 10th, also against Andrews. 7-6 Critters. Ramos 2-5, 2B; Magallanes 3-4, RBI; Wallace (PH) 1-1; Rodriguez 2-5, 2B, RBI; Vanatti (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI;

Josh Boles did the top 10th, which meant he got his seventh win of the season. That ranks him third on the team, and ahead of ALL the starting pitchers from the Opening Day roster, minus Ed Hague. The wins leader remains Jason Gurney…

Game 3
TIJ: LF Sung – RF Camps – 1B McGrath – 3B Sanks – CF C. Murphy – 2B C. Miller – C Wool – SS J. Zamora – P Driver
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – CF Vanatti – C Tovias – 3B Nunley – 1B Hollenbeck – P Shumway

Tom Scumbag was almost as good as Sabre had been on Monday, putting two on in the first inning before really going to town in the second. He walked Miller, allowed a single to Wool, and walked Jorge Zamora. Driver hit into a double play that scored the game’s first run, but alright, just get Sung to - … he singled to left, 2-0. Camps walked, and McGrath had enough of the dilly-dally and gave us an ACTUAL score with a 3-run homer to left, his 20th of the season, 86 RBI, and a 5-0 tally in this game. The Coons would let that sad display linger for a while longer, but when Shumway allowed singles to Driver (…) and Sung in the fourth, he was yanked. Fleischer came on with two on and one out, struck out Camps and McGrath, and that was that. Meanwhile, the first-time starter Driver allowed one hit the first time through before running into trouble in the bottom 4th. Wallace singled, Jamieson got nailed, and Tovias reached on balls, bringing up Nunley with the bags full and two down. He grounded to Miller, who farted on the ball and conceded a run on his clumsy error. That was all, though; Hollenbeck hit another pathetic roller in front of home plate that Driver handled for the third out. The rookie looked good for a while, but put Ramos and Stalker on the corners in the fifth before hanging one to Jimmy Wallace that disappeared over the centerfield fence and almost gave everybody a new ballgame, with the Critters now down 5-4.

Nunley reached on an uncaught third strike in the bottom 6th, but Hollenbeck hit into a 6-4-3 to bail out Driver, with his ledger looking increasingly devastating with a .143/.143/.286 slash. The Condors stuck to the rook until Ramos reached in the seventh and stole his way into scoring position. George Barnett would get involved and the inning ended on pops by both Wallace and Jamieson. The umpires then made everybody sit through an hour-long rain delay in the eighth inning, despite nothing on the field mattering in the big picture. Play resumed eventually, and the Coons would cart up the 9-1-2 batters in the bottom 9th against last night’s loser, Andrews, starting with Jarod Howden, in a 5-4 game. Howden walked on four pitches before Berto took a 2-1 pitch into the leftfield corner. That put the winning run 180 feet away with nobody out for Stalker, who struck out, and then Wallace, who grounded sharply to Sanks – OFF HIS GLOVE! And into leftfield! Howden in to score, Ramos coming around, Sung getting to the ball too late, and the Raccoons walk off!! 6-5 Furballs! Ramos 2-4, BB, 2B; Wallace 3-5, HR, 5 RBI;

…and with that shocker I was left home alone as the team went on its final road trip of the season, a quick 3-game hop north of the icy border against the last-place, stinking, dumb, damn Elks.

Raccoons (68-84) @ Canadiens (64-89) – September 26-28, 2031

One win would be enough to lock down the season series, which was always a noble goal. And then more wins would ruin our draft position even further, but I can’t make myself root for them to lose against the damn Elks. I just can’t. The dumb Elks were at the bottom of the league in batting average, but were hitting for extra bases and stuff, and sat seventh in runs scored, and eighth in runs allowed. Their run differential was only -62, which didn’t sound *too* bad, likewise the Coons’ own of -43.

Projected matchups:
Ignacio del Rio (1-0, 3.60 ERA) vs. Fernando Nora (10-9, 4.11 ERA)
Jason Gurney (10-7, 3.32 ERA) vs. Logan Bessey (4-9, 4.51 ERA)
Mark Roberts (6-10, 4.39 ERA) vs. Steve Corcoran (9-15, 3.75 ERA)

One right-hander, then two southpaws. Yeah, more at-bats for Craig Hollenbeck …

Game 1
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – CF Vanatti – 1B Howden – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – P del Rio
VAN: 2B LeJeune – LF A. Torres – CF Wojnarowski – RF I. Vega – 3B Anton – C F. Garcia – 1B Cuomo – SS L. Hernandez – P Nora

The Critters went up 1-0 in the opening inning with a Ramos Special, but Alex Torres tied the score right away in the bottom of the inning with a homer to left. And that was before del Rio was completely torn up in the bottom of the second. Vince Cuomo and Lazaro Hernandez opened with singles, were bunted over, and the bags were full when del Rio hit Jesse LeJeune right in the bum. Torres singled up the middle to score two, LeJeune was thrown out by Tovias trying to steal a base, but Brian Wojnarowski nevertheless singled home Torres from second base. Ivan Vega’s double put two in scoring position with two out, and Matt Anton was potentially del Rio’s final batter, but popped out behind home plate. That was still del Rio’s final out. Fernando Garcia, Cuomo, and Hernandez all poked singles off him to start the bottom 3rd and the bags were full with nobody out. That made TEN hits in two-plus innings and before long seven runs on his ledger. Fleischer came in, WALKED NORA, then gave up a 2-run double in the gap to LeJeune. Here came the manager again, yanked Fleischer with a kick in the bum, and then gave the ball to Dave Martinez, who was made clear in no uncertain terms that this ball was his until the damn Elks would have beaten him to death. He started by walking Torres on four pitches. Wojnarowski singled in two, Vega singled to restock the bags, and then after EIGHT straight dumb Elks had reached, Matt Anton made the first out, a fly to Wallace in shallow right. Garcia grounded to Nunley, 5-4-3. Oh boy! Just when it was about to get real ugly. But now we were only down 9-1 after three …!

While the Coons scored three in the fourth inning, one on a Wallace dinger and two more on a Howden single, but those two were aided by a wild pitch thrown by Nora, and I really wasn’t into explaining the details here, the dumb Elks would keep piling on, which was due to a remarkable insistence by Martinez to walk on four pitches the first batter he faced in every inning he got himself into. He was yanked by the bottom 6th, then down 11-4, with Hennessy grabbing a few outs… but not until after he also walked the first guy he faced, LeJeune, and on four pitches! I was screaming IN RAGE at home on my couch, beating the cushions in agony. Only Nick Bates in the seventh broke this infuriating pattern, and by then the game was long out of the window. Even Nora had a ****ty day, allowing 12 hits and ultimately six runs after Howden hit a 2-run homer in the eighth, but that hardly figured in the final line score with the Coons still getting blown out by a handful. 11-6 Canadiens. Ramos 2-5; Wallace 3-4, HR, RBI; Jamieson 2-4; Howden 2-4, HR, 4 RBI;

The good news is that the ugly game we always have in any Elks series is now out of the picture…? Right?

Game 2
POR: SS Ramos – CF Magallanes – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – RF Rodriguez – 1B Hollenbeck – C Ross – 3B Baldwin – P Gurney
VAN: 2B Morrow – 3B Anton – LF A. Torres – 1B D. Fisher – CF Wojnarowski – C F. Garcia – RF LeJeune – SS N. Millan – P Bessey

Tim Stalker’s 12th homer and 60th RBI put the Raccoons up 1-0 in the first, and before long the team cocked that one up, too. Wojnarowski opened the second with a single to right, and Garcia walked, spelling trouble. Wojnarowski scored the tying run on consecutive deep fly outs, but it could have been worse; Garcia was still at first, two outs, and the pitcher up - … and that’s a single to center. Garcia to third, Magallanes’ throw was ABSOLUTELY wild, and the runner scored, putting the damn Elks up 2-1. Eric Morrow grounded out, which shouldn’t be understood to mean that Gurney’s struggles were over. Bottom 3rd, Anton with the leadoff walk, Torres singles, and David Fisher… walks. Three on, no outs. I clutched a pillow to my chest and screamed in horror, but it helped nothing – ALL runs scored (and then some) on a Wojnarowski sac fly, a Garcia single, and then a passed ball… Gurney struck out LeJeune, then was made to walk Nelson Millan intentionally to bring up the pitcher with two outs and two on. From there, the ****ing Elks went single, RBI single, RBI single – and then Gurney was yanked. Ricky Ohl got Torres to ground out, stranding three in a 7-1 game. And that game was about over. The Raccoons did virtually nothing with the bats after the damn Elks scored seven in a hurry, and their best man probably turned out to be Bryan Rabbitt, pitching three innings of 1-run ball in the fifth, sixth, and seventh… The eighth sported Bates and Boles. Both of them walked the first dumb Elk they faced. Boles then also gave up a bushel of singles for a 2-spot in the inning. Bessey lasted eight and a third for the stupid Elks before Rodriguez hit a double off him, the sixth and final hit the Coons amounted to. J.D. Hamm secured the final outs. 10-1 Canadiens. Stalker 2-4, HR, RBI; Catella (PH);

I feel … I don’t know… harrowed?

There was a reassignment by the damn Elks: Victor Govea (8-11, 3.17 ERA) would make the Sunday start, so the Coons would face a right-hander instead.

Game 3
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – CF Vanatti – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – P Roberts
VAN: C F. Garcia – 3B Anton – RF I. Vega – 1B D. Fisher – CF Wojnarowski – 2B McWhirter – LF LeJeune – SS J. Paredes – P Govea

Mark Roberts issued leadoff walk in the first two innings, which just kept the rage in me nice and hot. The first inning fizzled out for the damn Elks, but the second really didn’t. Wojnarowski drew the walk. Bill McWhirter singled. LeJeune hit a roller on the infield and reached safely. Three on, no outs, launchpad offering baseballs. Roberts got a comebacker from Jose Paredes, pounced, and fired home to start a 1-2-3 double play, then rung up Govea to bail out of a real mess and keep the game scoreless after two. The Critters had Ramos on in the third, and had Ramos picked off in the third, and then Fernando Garcia opened the bottom of the inning with a jack on a 1-2 pitch. (bangs head against solid wood table repeatedly)

Top 5th, Vanatti and Nunley began with singles against the so far resilient Govea. Tovias lined out to McWhirter, and Roberts swung away and grounded to the September call-up who was in his second career game and fudged a potential double play ball to load the sacks for Berto with one down. Berto hit a clean single to right, tying the game with Vanatti coming across. Stalker popped out to McWhirter, but Wallace rammed a ball over Fisher’s head and up the line, all the way into the corner for a 2-out, bases-clearing double. He would be stranded, and all the runs he drove in were unearned, but the Coons now led 4-1! …and he livened up his ROTY case, too…! Also doing well by now – Roberts. The veteran shook of the early-inning jitters and by the middle innings retired the damn Elks steadily and without much trouble. They got a single in each inning from the fifth through the seventh, but either did so with two outs and quickly retired from the inning, or hit into a double play that ended the inning. Roberts lasted eight before bumping against 110 pitches, so would be replaced for the ninth. By whom was up to the offense that had yet to tack on a run after the fifth-inning 4-spot. That got no better; right-hander Raul de la Rosa retired the 5-6-7 batters, all lefty swingers, in order in the ninth. That sent out Chris Wise for an actual save chance, the first of the week. McWhirter and LeJeune went down, but Paredes singled to left with two outs. Nando Maiello hit for de la Rosa, grounded a 1-1 pitch to Nunley, and the old warhorse went the short way to get the final out in an otherwise dismal series. 4-1 Critters. Ramos 2-4, RBI; Wallace 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Roberts 8.0 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, W (7-10);

In other news

September 22 – The Titans’ SP Dustin Wingo (16-8, 2.57 ERA) throws a 3-hit shutout in a 4-0 win over the Aces, which is at the same time the division-clincher for Boston. This will be their 15th playoff appearance.
September 22 – The season ends early for DEN SP Michael Frank (11-13, 4.40 ERA), who is out with a shoulder strain.
September 23 – One day removed from their clincher, the Titans suffer a scare when CL Jermaine Campbell (3-4, 1.86 ERA, 46 SV) leaves the game with an injury, but he will only miss one week with back spasms, the team reports.
September 24 – DAL 1B/OF Aaron Botzet (.333, 23 HR, 114 RBI) is out for the season with a herniated disc.
September 27 – A broken rib renders BOS OF Willie Vega (.293, 16 HR, 76 RBI) out for the rest of the season, including the playoffs.
September 28 – Just into the game in a double switch, Knights rookie catcher Josh Soltis (.200, 0 HR, 1 RBI) concedes the winning run in a 3-2 Condors walkoff by committing a passed ball offense.

Complaints and stuff

If not for that finely pitched game by Roberts on Sunday and Wallace’s game-winner, I would have awaited them with the loaded blunderbuss and would have blasted the face off the first guy leaving the plane from Elktown. That was some series. Thank god it’s over for the year.

Actually not quite. There is a week left to play, and we’ll face the Titans and Indians at home. THEN the pains will be over.

How about those Stars? They finished last just last season, losing 97 back then. They might win more than 97 this year! Thy might even go last-to-first! This feat has only been achieved once, by the 1987 Indians, who went from 68-94, 34 games out, in 1986, to win the North with a 92-70 season and up one game over these Critters here in 1987.

The rookie pitchers remain a mixed bag… Bernie didn’t pitch this week because he was on the tail end of the 7-man carousel and his spot won’t come up until Monday. But he will then pitch twice in the final week, probably Monday and Saturday. Roberts might get the season finale. Ed Hague is the odd man out.

And well, the rookie hitters are probably even worse than the rookie pitchers. Except for Jimmy Wallace. Jimmy went 9-for-21 this week, driving in a healthy 10 runs with two homers and a double. He didn’t walk once, and in fact he has walked only three times in all of September, but that is something we can discuss later. Ten ribbies for Jimmy, yaay …!

Fun Fact: Jimmy Wallace’s walkoff single on Wednesday had the Coons finish the year with a 4-5 record against the Condors this season. That is the fourth straight season the Coons came up 4-5 against them.

And that is the first time that has happened: four consecutive identical season series tallies against a CL South team. Three in a row has happened plenty of times, but four in a row – not even once before.

Three in a row has also happened a few times against CL North opposition, but not against every team; the Coons have only posted three identical season series records in a row against the Crusaders, Titans, and the damn Elks. All of those (!) were winning records, either 10-8 or 11-7. Most recently it occurred against the Elks in 2012 through 2014, all three years seeing the Coons winning ten out of eighteen from the stupid Elks.

But beating them 10-8 in ’12 didn’t prevent Ray ****ing Gilbert from slugging the damn Elks past the Coons on the final weekend of the season…….

[Westheim]

Raccoons (69-86) vs. Titans (103-52) – September 29-October 2, 2031

With everything decided, the Raccoons still had another bag of four games to be played with the Titans, who had the division and the season series already in the bag. They had taken 10 of 14 games from the Critters so far this season. They ranked third in runs scored, first in runs allowed, with a +202 run differential. We would proudly feed all three of our sterling rookie pitchers to them. But the Titans had dark clouds hanging over them; they were already missing a few key pieces for their CLCS matchup with the Condors, including Willie Vega, Adam Potter, and Keith Spataro, all of whom were out for the season.

Projected matchups:
Bernie Chavez (1-1, 3.38 ERA) vs. Eric Williams (16-9, 3.12 ERA)
Raffaello Sabre (2-1, 3.65 ERA) vs. Greg Gannon (20-8, 2.54 ERA)
Tom Shumway (2-6, 4.37 ERA) vs. Mario Gonzalez (13-5, 2.74 ERA)
Ignacio del Rio (1-1, 11.57 ERA) vs. Dustin Wingo (17-8, 2.61 ERA)

We would see three left-handed opposing starters in this set, including everybody but Gannon.

Game 1
BOS: RF M. Avila – C Lessman – LF Acor – 2B R. West – CF Reichardt – 3B Czachor – 1B J. Green – SS Gil – P E. Williams
POR: CF Magallanes – SS Stalker – LF Jamieson – RF Wallace – 3B Rodriguez – 1B Hollenbeck – 2B Cass – C Ross – P B. Chavez

The scoring started early with a David Lessman dinger to right, and then also a Dustin Acor single to right. Acor stole second, his 30th bag of the year, then came around with two outs on a single by persistent final nail in the coffin Adrian Reichardt, putting the Titans up 2-0 on Bernie right away. The Raccoons came back from that, with Wilson Rodriguez dropping in a single in the bottom 2nd, and then 2005 Ugliest Baby Boy Sam Cass smacking his first major league home run to right-center, knotting up the score at two. The Coons repeated the trick in the fourth when Matt Jamieson singled and Wilson Rodriguez hit a jack to left to go up 4-2 in support of Bernie, the final Coons starter of the year that could look forward to *another* start later in the week. Bernie was *decent*, I guess. After the first-inning onslaught, he had a few hitless innings and struck out five through four innings, but also ran many full counts and his pitch count was skyrocketing, reaching 78 offerings through just four innings. Antonio Gil would open the fifth with a single, but PH Justin Uliasz, who had 22 homers but was listed day-to-day with a hand laceration, flew out to center, and Moises Avila smacked into a double play, getting Bernie through the inning on just eight pitches for a change. Chavez then turned around and hit a leadoff triple into the rightfield corner against Mike Fernandez in the bottom 5th. Magallanes walked, Stalker hit a sac fly to Reichardt in deep, deep center, 5-2, but that was it for the inning. Reichardt would however strike out to end the sixth, stranding Acor on second base in the sixth inning, which was also Bernie’s last as he got over 100 pitches in the process of nibbling his way through.

Alberto Ramos hit for Chavez with Cass and Ross on the corners and one out in the bottom 6th and knocked an RBI single to right, 6-2. Magallanes made the second out against Fernandez, who then conceded an RBI single to Stalker, then was replaced by lefty Wyatt Hamill, who walked Jamieson to fill the bags, Wallace, too, to push one home, and then gave up an RBI single to Rodriguez. That brought up Hollenbeck, a .114 bat with no clue whatsoever, but we were up by seven, so why not let him… fall to 0-2… but he knocked the 0-2 in play, up the middle and through, a 2-run single to center! That did away with Hamill, having retired nobody, Tim Sloan replacing him. The righty allowed an RBI single to Cass, a single to Ross, and that brought back Berto. He fouled out behind home plate, ending the inning with a 7-spot and a 12-2 lead. The Raccoons elected to send Ed Hague into the game to maybe even finish the game. He allowed a run in the seventh on two walks and Moises Avila’s RBI single, but the Coons pulled it back when Stalker tripled in the bottom 7th and scored on Jamieson’s groundout. That was the last run in the game. Hague pulled through and netted the save and his 100th strikeout when he rung up Roberto Avila to finish the ninth inning. 13-3 Raccoons! Stalker 2-4, 3B, 2 RBI; Jamieson 2-4, BB, RBI; Rodriguez 3-5, HR, 3 RBI; Hollenbeck 2-5, 2 RBI; Cass 2-3, 2 BB, HR, 3 RBI; Ross 3-5, 2B; Ramos (PH) 1-2, RBI; Chavez 6.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, W (2-1) and 1-2, 3B; Hague 3.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, SV (1);

This was the second career save for Ed Hague, who had been a starter ever since his second major-league season, but had been used exclusively in relief in his rookie season, making 37 appearances for the ’22 Crusaders, going 4-1 with a 3.17 ERA and one save.

This was also the Coons’ 70th win of the season, while there were eight teams with win totals in the 60s and 50s (Vegas, solely). In fact, the Aces were SO BAD, they had already locked up the #1 pick in 2032. The Coons right now had the #9 pick, but could still end up with anything between #11 and #3.

Game 2
BOS: RF M. Avila – C Lessman – 1B Uliasz – LF Acor – 2B R. West – CF Reichardt – 3B Czachor – SS Gil – P Gannon
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Cass – RF Wallace – LF Jamieson – 1B Howden – CF Vanatti – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – P Sabre

Portland made the board first in a second inning that started with Howden and Vanatti drawing walks. Nunley hit into a double play, but Elias Tovias knocked a single through between Rhett West and Antonio Gil to get the runner home from third base. Another run scored in the third on a wild pitch after Cass and Wallace hit singles to occupy the corners, but the Titans got to Sabre in the fourth. He walked both Acor and Reichardt, Ryan Czachor reached on a 1-out infield single to load them up, and while the key strikeout eluded Sabre, Gil’s grounder to first brought home the Titans’ first run to cut the gap to 2-1. Gannon struck out to end the frame. Avila led off the fifth with a single, but was doubled up on Lessman’s grounder to Cass, who in turn then mishandled the next grounder by Uliasz for an error, but recovered with a leaping grab on Acor’s liner to end the fifth. Portland scratched out an unearned run in the bottom 5th; Czachor fumbled Ramos’ 1-out grounder, and Berto went to third on Cass’ single. Wallace dropped a single into shallow right to get the runner home, and then Jamieson rolled into a 6-4-3. Not everything was pretty – f.e. I really disliked the four-pitch walk Sabre issued to Rhett West to begin the sixth. At 92 pitches, the pen got a-stirrin’. Sabre recovered though and finished the inning without allowing West even to second base. Reichardt flew out to center, Czachor popped out to short, and Gil went down on strikes, Sabre’s fifth K against four hits and four walks in a 6-inning, 1-run effort which currently saw him in line for the W. Greg Gannon would last eight against the Coons, but was still on the losing end when the ninth inning rolled around and the Critters sent Chris Wise to look after the 8-9-1 spots. Gil opened with a triple into the rightfield corner, then was scored on Josh Green’s pinch-hit single, which put the tying run aboard with no outs. Wise Struck out Michael Stanley and Lessman, then threw a good 0-1 to Uliasz that Tovias lost and chased down, another passed ball. But Uliasz was at 0-2… one more strike was all it took. And Wise got him! 3-2 Critters. Cass 2-4; Wallace 2-3, BB, RBI; Sabre 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, W (3-1);

The Druid just informed me that Rich Hereford suffered a setback with his intercostal thing, and he will probably not return to the Coons’ lineup this year… or ever.

Game 3
BOS: RF M. Avila – LF Acor – 1B Uliasz – 2B R. West – 3B Czachor – CF Reichardt – C R. Avila – SS M. Moran – P M. Gonzalez
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – RF Wallace – 3B Rodriguez – CF Vanatti – C Ross – 1B Howden – P Shumway

The bottom of the order would wear holes into Tom Shumway in the Wednesday affair. Roberto Avila hit a homer the first time around, putting the Titans up 1-0, and he made it 2-0 in the fourth with an RBI single plating Reichardt, who had been nicked with two outs and had taken his 17th base of the season by force. Mike Moran then tripled home Avila, 3-0, before Mario Gonzalez popped out. The Coons got on the board in the bottom of the inning. Matt Jamison hit a 1-out double, then scored on Rodriguez’ 2-out RBI single. There was not much else going on for the Critters, with Vanatti making an easy third out. Gonzalez just seemed to have their number. Shumway kept grinding away with the pointy black nose against the millstone and got in the seventh inning, where he logged two outs before Acor reached on an infield roller on his 112nd and final pitch of the game and season. Fleischer and Nunley entered in a double switch, after which the first thing that happened was another base swiped by Acor, who was now just 24 short of Ramos’ season total, btu was stranded when Uliasz struck out. The Coons’ pen would hold up in the last two innings, but the Raccoons still couldn’t mount reasonable offense into the ninth inning, where they’d face Jermaine Campbell, a right-hander with 80 strikeouts in 72.2 innings. Vanatti struck out. Magallanes batted for Ross and… struck out. Howden ran a full count and… walked on a dubious call. That brought up Nunley as the tying run, and he grounded out to Uliasz. 3-1 Titans. Rodriguez 2-3, RBI;

We also lost Matt Jamieson to injury on a defensive play. Ryan Allan replaced him in the game, but we also had no news on Jamieson right away, probably because the Druid was still hiding after I had a few choice words on the Hereford news.

…and because I was close to being able to dream in color again, our dear owner Nick Valdes made another stopover on his way home from visiting the construction site for supermall squat in the middle of the rainforest in Ecuador. Once completed it will have the largest parking lot south of Los Angeles!

Game 4
BOS: RF M. Avila – C Lessman – 1B Uliasz – LF Acor – 2B R. West – CF Reichardt – 3B Czachor – SS Gil – P Wingo
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Wallace – RF Rodriguez – 3B Nunley – CF Catella – 1B Hollenbeck – C Rocha – P del Rio

Singles by Stalker, Wallace, and Nunley put up a run in the first inning for the Critters. This was only the second RBI for Nunley in September/October… how many more had he left in his career? Well, at least one more – Nunley hit another 2-out RBI single his next time up, then plating Wallace from second with two outs in the third. That was a complicated inning, with Stalker reaching on an Uliasz error, Wallace singling, and the runners then pulling off a double steal on the surprised Lessman. Rodriguez brought in Stalker with a groundout, and Nunley brought in the second run of the inning and the third run of the game. del Rio nursed the 3-0 lead through four without major accidents, but then ran into a jam in the fifth inning. Adrian Reichardt reached on a leadoff single that didn’t leave the infield, and Czachor and Gil walked the bags full. Del Rio gave up a sac fly to Wingo, then surrendered a 3-2 drive to right that Moises Avila rammed off the top of the fence. Czachor scored easily, and Gil was sent around, but thrown out at home plate by Wilson Rodriguez. It didn’t help del Rio, who ran another full count against Lessman, then gave up a BOMB to right that was nowhere near the top of the fence. That one flipped the score, 4-3 Titans. He finished the inning, but that was all for him on almost 100 pitches, including the late implosion.

While Nick Bates gave up two more runs in the sixth inning, putting four straight Titans on base after logging two outs in the inning, Valdes asked me where the good pitchers were hiding. I sighed, and pointed towards the rookies and how they were doing quite nicely. Well, that fifth inning of del Rio aside. And his implosion in the previous game. And Bates was not considered a real prospect anyway. Another bullpen implosion occurred in the ninth, and boy, was it a doozie. Josh Boles had entered in a double switch that took out Ramos in the eighth inning to log the final out there, then was expected to get the ninth done, too. He … didn’t. Roberto Avila singled, Moises Avila doubled, Lessman walked. Three on, no outs, next one please. That was Rabbitt, who walked Uliasz with the bags full and allowed RBI singles to Acor and West. NEXT!! Ricky Ohl came on and got Reichardt to hit into a run-scoring double play, then rung up Czachor, keeping the Titans to a 4-spot. 10-3 Titans. Stalker 2-4; Wallace 3-4; Nunley 3-4, 2 RBI;

So that split the series right down the middle, which was all fine. Nobody was really counting wins anymore. Except that pea picker Valdes, and, well, the league for the draft order. At 71-88, the Coons had three left to play, currently held the #8 or #9 pick, tied with the Gold Sox, and could still end up as high as #5 and as low as #10.

We also had clinched fifth place in the North, with the Elks four games behind us at this point.

In the Federal League, it looked like a Miners-Pacifics matchup, with those two teams up three on the Buffos and two on the Stars, respectively.

Also, Jamieson was not going to come back this year, with the Druid reporting shoulder tendinitis.

Raccoons (71-88) vs. Indians (83-76) – October 3-5, 2031

Final series of the year, three against the Indians. We still had a shot at the season series, which they led 8-7. They were the second-worst in scoring runs in the Continental League, but were actually in third place in dingers, and were allowing the third-fewest runs with a +24 run differential (Coons: -52).

Projected matchups:
Jason Gurney (10-8, 3.67 ERA) vs. John McInerney (14-7, 2.88 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (2-1, 3.28 ERA) vs. Sal Bedoya (11-7, 2.65 ERA)
Mark Roberts (7-10, 4.23 ERA) vs. Andy Bressner (17-12, 2.76 ERA)

McInerney was another left-handed opponent. We were not 100% about Bressner on Sunday, since the Indians had been involved in a double header and Bressner would be on short rest. They might still find a spot starter.

Game 1
IND: SS Pizano – C J. Herrera – RF Plunkett – CF Baron – 2B Schneller – LF M. Cowan – 1B I. Pena – 3B Conner – P McInerney
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Wallace – RF Rodriguez – 3B Nunley – C Tovias – 1B Hollenbeck – CF Baldwin – P Gurney

Gurney needed to last five innings to qualify for the ERA award (not that he’d win it), but started the game with a single allowed to Mario Pizano and a walk issued to Juan Herrera. Mike Plunkett struck out, John Baron rolled over to third, and Dan Schneller whiffed to defuse the inning. The next innings were considerably less busy; Gurney allowed a single to Herrera in the third, and a double to Schneller in the fourth, but neither came around to score. The Critters did precious little the first time through, but then got a fat chance in the bottom 4th. Jimmy Wallace reached on a gross throwing error by Ivan Pena, after which Wilson Rodriguez was walked intentionally onto the open first base. Nunley singled to right, loading them up for Tovias, which sparked Valdes’ question why we were still playing him when he never got a big knock and was a free agent anyway. The response was plain and simple. We only had catchers that hit less than quid. Best to spread the misery around some. Obviously, Tovias struck out. Hollenbeck grounded to third, with Josh Conner having to take the out at first base, which allowed Wallace to score the first marker of the game. Baldwin was walked intentionally, and Gurney popped out to end the inning, then worked around a walk to Pizano (only 21 stolen bases this year) to reach 162 innings on the year. John Baron reached base with a 1-out single in the sixth and advanced on Schneller’s groundout. Mike Cowan dropped a single into left with two outs, Wallace was on it while Baron was sent around for home plate… and was thrown out by Wallace! Gurney would go on to complete seven, ending his season with a strikeout to McInerney, his sixth in the game and the 100th of the year.

In a game in which neither team had even five base hits, Ricky Ohl then blew the 1-0 lead with a Herrera homer served up in the eighth, denying Gurney, who led the team in wins anyway (…), his shot at an 11th victory. Bottom 8th, McInerney allowed a leadoff single to Ramos, then nailed Stalker. Wallace’s slow grounder to second base allowed only for an out at first base (and just barely), so the go-ahead run was at third base, with reinforcement at second base, for Wilson Rodriguez with one out. The Indians didn’t like the odds, walked him intentionally and instead pulled up Nunley, who was on consecutive multi-hit games for the first time since the President Nixon administration, but Nunley struck out. Desperate, the Coons sent Howden to bat for Tovias, but the dumb pig grounded out to the pitcher. However – that came only after McInerney had thrown a wild pitch at 1-2, and the Raccoons were already ahead then, 2-1. Chris Wise got into the ninth, thus, pitching to Rocha, the final catcher on the roster. The combo worked – Wise axed the Arrowheads on seven pitches. 2-1 Furballs. Ramos 2-4; Nunley 2-4; Gurney 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 6 K;

Still tied for the #8 and #9 picks with the Gold Sox, but the window has closed to between the #7 and #10 picks now.

In the FL, both races were now down to two games and a magic number of one.

Also, Valdes left for the season, having to attend the Chihuahua races in Chihuahua.

Game 2
IND: SS Pizano – 1B Regan – C J. Herrera – RF Plunkett – 2B Schneller – CF Baron – LF Zanches – 3B Conner – P Bedoya
POR: SS Ramos – CF Vanatti – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – 1B Howden – 3B Nunley – C Ross – LF Allan – P Chavez

Catching paperweight du jour Toby Ross put the first essence on the board with a 3-run homer in the bottom 2nd, following up sharp singles by Howden and Nunley to begin the inning, and that inning was far from yet ending. Allan chucked a double down the leftfield line, moved up to third on Ramos’ 1-out single, and when Ramos embarked for a stolen base attempt, Herrera threw the ball to centerfield, allowing Ramos to third with 57 steals and Allan to score the fourth run of the frame. After Vanatti popped out foul, Ramos threatened to be left stranded when Stalker grounded to second base, but Schneller wasn’t able to make the play in time and Tim got an RBI infield single, 5-0. Wallace struck out, but that still left Bernie aptly supplied to go 3-1 on his career if he could hold away the Indians for at least another three innings. Before long Howden made an error, the dumb pig, that put Greg Regan aboard, Herrera doubled to left, and Plunkett hit a 2-run single to left in the third inning. Bernie recovered with a pop coaxed out of Schneller, then rung up Baron to end the inning. But Plunkett came up again, had Pizano and Herrera on the corners, and plated both with a loooong double in the fifth inning, cutting the lead to 5-4. Again Chavez got through the inning, again ending it with a K to the flailing Baron.

With Chavez probably done after five so-so innings, the Coons got Wallace on base with a 1-out double in the bottom 5th. Howden walked unintentionally, and Nunley grounded up the middle, with the ball eluding the solid defender Schneller for an RBI single, 6-4. That knocked out Bedoya and brought on Dan Delgadillo, who had risen again from waivers, and was tasked with quelling the Critters without getting his 5.59 ERA inflamed. Ross flew out to center, and Allan popped out to end the inning. Bernie DID return for the sixth, struck out Alex Zanches and Josh Conner, then got Yusneldan to pop out, and that was it for his season, too. The game remained a dicey one, though. In the seventh, Nick Bates was charged an unearned run on a Nunley error, a wild pitch, and a run-scoring grounder by Herrera, which was the sort of pile-up we’d like to avoid generally…

Delgadillo pitched 3.2 scoreless innings in relief for Indy, with the Coons unable to touch him despite two hits and three walks allowed and the bases filling up in the eighth inning. Stalker would have Ross, Ramos, and Vanatti all aboard and two outs, ran a full count, and struck out. The lack of insurance didn’t matter – Chris Wise retired the side in order in the ninth inning. 6-5 Critters. Ramos 2-4, BB; Stalker 2-5, RBI; Nunley 2-4, RBI; Allan 2-3, BB, 2B;

That win left us in sole possession of the #9 pick, with that or another tie with the Gold Sox for #8 the only outcomes left for us. For that we’d have to lose the season finale and the Gold Sox had to beat the Pacifics, who they had lost to, 7-6, on Saturday to end the race in the FL West, which also denied the Stars the last-to-first move they had desired. The Miners also ended the FL East race on the same day. They beat the Caps, 7-4, in the clincher.

Game 3
IND: SS Pizano – 1B I. Pena – RF Plunkett – CF Baron – 2B Schneller – C Kuhlmann – LF Aleman – 3B Conner – P Bressner
POR: SS Ramos – CF Vanatti – 2B Stalker – RF Wallace – 1B Howden – 3B Nunley – C Ross – LF Allan – P Roberts

The season finale would see Mark Roberts in his 384th career game, 367th start, and 248th start for the Coons. He had no chance to avid his first 4+ ERA season a month shy of his 37th birthday unless he’d pitch a shutout into the 10th inning.

The thought didn’t make it out of the first inning. Roberts walked Plunkett with two outs, then allowed, with two strikes each, an RBI double to John Baron and an RBI single to Schneller. Morgan Kuhlmann flew out to center. Portland flipped the score fast; Ramos and Vanatti opened with singles, Stalker hit a sac fly, and Wallace flicked a ball over the fence in right to put them up 3-2. They tacked on a run in the second when Vanatti doubled home Ryan Allan. The Arrowheads continued to melt. Howden and Nunley knocked singles in the third, and a Conner error added Toby Ross to load them up with one out and Allan, batting all of .195, coming to the plate. What the heck Ryan Allan, a 29-year-old nothing, was doing on the roster even in its rebuilding status, remained anybody’s guess. Allan fired a 2-0 pitch at Conner, who tried to get two, but got only Ross at second base while Howden scored, 5-2. Roberts flew out to center.

It was also well into October, and nature longed to reclaim what was hers. It started to rain in the third inning and we had a 24-minute delay in the fourth with Roberts trying to hang on to dear life. After the rain subsided, Roberts struck out three in a row before Elias Sosa reached on an infield single in place of the removed Bressner. Pizano turned a full count into a walk, and the tying run was up. Pena popped out, bringing up Plunkett, who had already plunked the Coons for plenty in this series, but was put to bed in a full count, taking strike three on the corner. That was only the 122nd strikeout for Roberts in a lost season, but it was a neat one! Bottom 5th, Eddie Krumm pitched for the Indians, and after his release from the Coons Krumm had put up 14 games and a 3.00 ERA for Indy. Of course he had! But in the inning, Nunley doubled, Ross walked, and Allan hit one over Plunkett for an RBI double, 6-2. Roberts batted for himself and grounded out to short, leaving the runners, and in the sixth Ramos got on and stole his way to third base – giving him a crisp 60 bags for the year – but was stranded by Krumm.

Roberts stomped through seven innings, including six zeroes after the initial bummer of the first inning. The Coons loaded the bags against J.R. Hreha in the bottom 7th, but didn’t score when Stalker grounded out, and the Indians made up a run against Dave Martinez in the eighth with a Pizano triple and Pena’s RBI single. But with Chris Wise no longer available for this game, the Coons stuck to Martinez in the ninth. He would face the 5-6-7 hitters, all righties, but there was lefty relief on standby. We had to see whether there was ANYTHING to Dave Martinez besides Odilon’s Wrath at this point, and while he had been *better* in relief than as a starter, he had not been great exactly… and it didn’t get better. Schneller hit a leadoff single. Kuhlmann got nailed. And then Martinez got hammered. With Andres Medina pinch-hitting, the Coons went to David Fernandez. Medina grounded to short, but Berto got only the out at second base, putting them on the corners for a righty pinch-hitter, Edgar Paiz, batting about as much as Allan. Depressingly, he hit an infield single, so a run scored and the tying runs were aboard for PH Mike Cowan. Fleischer came in next, got a grounder to third, but again Nunley only got the out at second. At least the tying run remained at first base with Pizano batting. That was Fleischer’s last man; Boles would come in to face Pena. He didn’t. Pizano flew out to Wallace on the first pitch, ending the series with a sweep. 6-4 Raccoons. Ramos 3-4, BB; Vanatti 3-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Nunley 2-5, 2B; Roberts 7.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 8 K, W (8-10);

In other news

September 29 – Just ahead of the playoffs, the Condors lose 1B Kevin McGrath (.261, 20 HR, 87 RBI) to a herniated disc. He will be out for the postseason.
September 29 – The Crusaders beat the Indians, 4-3 in 18 innings, on a walkoff homer by NYC OF Chris Reardon (.290, 20 HR, 111 RBI) off IND MR Chris Vazquez (1-1, 3.31 ERA, 1 SV).
September 30 – Topeka’s SS/2B Alex Majano (.298, 0 HR, 54 RBI) lands two hits in a 6-3 win over the Cyclones to extend his hitting streak to 20 games.
October 1 – TIJ 1B Ken Kramer (.298, 3 HR, 24 RBI) gets warmed up as McGrath replacement with three hits and handful of RBI in a 15-3 smashing of the Aces.
October 1 – The Cyclones walk off on the Buffaloes, 6-5, when CIN 2B/SS Jason Rauser (.286, 2 HR, 40 RBI) is hit by TOP CL Adrian McQuinn (2-5, 2.29 ERA, 37 SV) with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.
October 2 – The Gold Sox beat the Stars, 6-5 in 16 innings. The Sox, who use 26 players, walk off on a single by rookie C Matt Wilton (.320, 0 HR, 2 RBI).
October 4 – TOP SP Jose Lerma (17-13, 3.53 ERA) throws a 3-hit shutout in a 3-0 win over the Blue Sox, but despite his heroics the Buffaloes are eliminated on the same day, with the Miners winning the East.
October 5 – TOP SS/2B Alex Majano (.303, 0 HR, 60 RBI) will enter the 2032 season with a 25-game hitting streak kept alive with a fifth-inning single on the final day of the season in a 3-1 win over the Blue Sox.
October 5 – ATL SP Chris Inderrieden (8-9, 4.58 ERA) and ATL CL Levi Snoeij (5-8, 4.70 ERA, 34 SV) pitch a combined 1-hitter in a 1-0 win over the Falcons no Closing Day. Only CHA 3B Greg Ortiz (.288, 18 HR, 81 RBI) manages to dink in a single.

Complaints and stuff#

In sweeping the Indians on the final weekend, the Coons settled for the #9 pick and wound up just as bad, but not worse, than the 2030 Critters in terms of record at 74-88. The last time the Raccoons had identical records for consecutive seasons, they made the playoffs both times with a pair of 95-67 seasons in 2017-18. Of course, both those years ended with us getting whisked from the CLCS, Bayhawks and Aces respectively, and both times in six games.

Coming in as third-string solution on Sunday, Fleischer saved his first and only game of the season. He has saved exactly one game for the fourth straight year.

Danny Santillano missed the triple crown in the Federal League by five RBI. But he hit *40* homers! Nobody had hit 40 in a season in 12 years! The last guy to do it was Gil Rockwell, mauling 43 baseballs in 2019. Rockwell also holds the all-time single-season mark of 49, put up in 2015, two more top 5 seasons, and six of the top 10 seasons. The best Coons marks remain the 38 homers put up by Dumbo Mendoza in 2020 and prior to that the sadly fallen-apart-too-soon Royce Green in 1994. They tie for 19th-most all time.

Alberto Ramos took his fourth stolen base belt in the CL, and also – and I didn’t say anything because I’m a great jinxer – played in ALL games this season! No injuries! No broken bones, no strains, no pains, not even something really silly like being poked in the eye with a fork by the guy gobbling from the food bowl to either side. Berto forever! He now has 329 stolen bases to his career, good enough for 19th on the career table, just 99 behind Cookie Carmona (6th place), and just 325 behind still-active career leader Pablo Sanchez.

Quo vadis Matt Nunley? Our third baseman since the dawn of time barely made it over the .600 OPS hump in the end thanks to a 4-game streak of multi-hit games in the last four games of the year. He will be 41 in January. I am not sure he knows himself yet whether he wants to be in professional baseball for a 23rd season, and in the major leagues for a 20th season. He has a career .277/.339/.384 clip with 2,457 hits, 172 homers, and 1,053 driven in. Probably not a Hall of Famer. Not even close actually. He has 60.5 WAR, but WAR is for suckers. He was worth 1.1 WAR this season, half of which came from defense, which isn’t shabby for a 40-year-old that didn’t even play 1,000 innings. The nagging injuries in the second half served to keep him to 908.1 defensive innings this year, which puts him at 19,959.2 for his career (all at third base!), which is oh so close…

Both Jamieson and Hereford finished the year in injured state. We should really look into players with fewer inflammable, strainable, breakable parts. Say, Mena, how is the that mad scientist on the other end of town getting on with his animatronic robo players? – Oh, they murdered him? – I see, I see. Are they on the loose now? – I see, I see.

Fun Fact: Only two players have spent more innings at third base than Matt Nunley in all of the ABL. Both are in the Hall of Fame. They are Sonny Reece (22,119 innings) and Antonio Esquivel (21,414.2 innings).

Nah, Matt’s still not gonna make the Hall of Fame…

+++

Well, well, that was it! Come back next season (please…!) for more sad songs from the gutter! Will we see some exciting young pitchers on the Opening Day roster in ’32? Will we see more old farts farting oldly? Will the Raccoons suddenly relocate to Des Moines and be renamed the Haymakers? Probably not. We don’t really have anybody making hay on the roster…

Until we go there, though, you should not hold back any questions, suggestions, or demands on who to purge first from this 88-losses team.

[Archelirion]

Can we put Rico Gutierrez on a plane somewhere? Anywhere?

If Nunley's up for one more season then at least get him to that big 20,000. To have him so close would be such a shame.

AND AT LEAST YOU BEAT THE DAMN ELKS

[DD Martin]

I’m telling you that now 34-29 mark since July 27th has got some substance to it. What that substance is would be anyone’s guess....Druid?

I think we need a farm report, is there anything resembling a near ready big league player that can earn a spot in the spring?

I agree bring back Nunley (I’m sure he’d be cheap) get him over 20000 innings before he breaks down for the season. Maybe have one of Valdes construction works build a stand for him at 3rd so he doesn’t fall over, and whatever you do don’t play him in any spring games.

I agree with the sentiment on Rico, maybe Valdez can arrange an accident on Guti’s way to the mall dedication in the rain forest. I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first “accident” that the Valdez family has seen.

[Westheim]

2031 PLAYOFFS

Here comes the postseason. If you miss the Raccoons, don’t worry, they did not qualify, more or less narrowly missing out (cough)… by 33 games.

In their stead, the 107-55 Titans entered the postseason as the top seed in the league, having won the CL North by 16 games. They had allowed the fewest runs in the league, had the best rotation by ERA (2.89!) and the second-best bullpen, and were also rated best in the field. Compared to that, their third-place offense seemed almost lackluster, although it was well rounded. In addition to the highest on-base percentage, the Titans had also put up top four numbers in both the power and speed departments. What could even derail this steaming express train? Well, injuries. In SP Adam Potter (15-5, 2.75 ERA) and .290 hitters Keith Spataro and Willie Vega, the Titans were entering the postseason missing three critical pieces. They could still field a rotation with runt of the litter Eric Williams holding a 3.27 ERA and a pedestrian 17 wins, but a few holes had opened at the bottom of a previously densely packed lineup that was anchored by Justin Uliasz, who had hit 22 home runs to lead the team despite appearing in only 95 games, and elder statesman Adrian Reichardt. The 34-year-old much-decorated veteran had hit .281 and was a serious threat to wrap up another Gold Glove. Dustin Acor’s .301 clip and David Lessman’s 16 homers were also highlights.

They opposed the 100-62 Condors, who had also won their division, the CL South, by 16 games. They had come second in many pitching categories compared to the Titans, except that they had the best bullpen where the Titans had come only second. Their offense had produced the fourth-most runs, although power was not their forte. They had come ninth in home runs, but were stealing bases at a brisk pace with the second-highest total in the CL. They also had three top-notch starting pitchers headed by Jeff Little (16-6, 2.90 ERA) and George Griffin (11-4, 2.29 ERA), but were lacking in #4 guy Ethan Jordan. And they also had suffered critical injuries in September, most notably 1B Kevin McGrath (.261, 20 HR, 87 RBI). They were also missing Juan Palbes, but he could return soon from shoulder tendinitis. Without McGrath, only one significant power bat remained, that of 2028 and 2029 CL Player of the Year Shane Sanks, who dingered 20 times as well, but batted only .242 along the way, a far cry from a few years ago. Among qualifying players, only infielder Chris Miller managed to hit more than .270, batting .333 with 2 HR and 78 RBI.

Both these teams mostly had left-handed starters and strongly right-handed lineups. This could make for some high offense games, despite all the top-level pitching!

This was the fourth time these teams met up in the CLCS. The Titans had won the pairing in 1997 and 1998, taking the World Series in the latter year from the Blue Sox, but the Condors had won the pennant and the title in the most recent encounter in 2029.

In the Federal League, the 98-64 Pacifics were the top seed, having won the division by three games from the surging Stars. They also had first-class pitching and had the same numbers as the Titans: tops in runs allowed, starters’ ERA, and defense, and second in bullpen ERA. Their offense however was on the pale side. They had scored under 4.3 runs per game, eighth in the Federal League, lacking high batting averages almost throughout the lineup except for OF Justin Fowler (.293, 29 HR, 106 RBI) and 3B Andy Schmit (.296, 12 HR, 65 RBI). They had hit the third-most homers in the FL, but had come up seventh in average, and stealing bases was also not their domain with the noted exception of Oscar Mendoza (.255, 12 HR, 58 RBI), who stole 63, more than two thirds the team total, and the most in the ABL, narrowly beating Portland’s Alberto Ramos (60). Ace Dave Christiansen (19-9, 2.90 ERA) was ready for his third ring after having led the FL in wins four years in a row. The Pacifics also weren’t injury-free; They had lost SP Jorge Beltran (7-4, 3.11 ERA) early and C J.J. Henley (.232, 20 HR, 75 RBI) late. But they sported a solid rotation and a lineup that was balanced and packed in the upper half.

At 92-70, the Miners, who had beaten the Buffaloes by two games, were the bottom seed in the playoffs, despite having led the Federal League in runs scored and despite being the only playoff team without significant injury woes. Their pitching was however on the soft side. They ranked fifth in runs allowed, starters’ ERA and pen ERA, and only eighth in defense. Their offense was also a bit one-dimensional, with the highest power numbers on the league (170 HR!), but no speed and little in terms of walking. A big part was probable Player of the Year and almost-triple crown-winner Danny Santillano (.366, 40 HR, 109 RBI)., but they had two more 20+ HR hitters in Yvon Bonaccorsi and Carlos de la Riva, and a .305 bat to lead off with in Josh Peddle. But the pitching was a huge concern – Jonas Mejia had won 18 games, but had a 3.71 ERA, and Nick Salinas had the best ERA, 3.28, while having gone 11-10. Their pen was even more underwhelming. They struggled to produce a reliever with even a mid-2 ERA. Closer Travis Giordano had saved 52 games with a 3.25 ERA, but had also blown a few while having been worked to death in 84 games and 91 innings.

Both these teams had balanced lineups, but the Pacifics had three left-handed starters, while the Miners had only right-handed starters.

The Miners and Pacifics squared off in the FLCS for the fifth time. The Miners had won the first meeting in 1982 (but lost the World Series to the Canadiens), while the Pacifics had won the other three in 2012, 2016, and 2030, and every time went on to win the World Series, once against the Thunder and twice against the Condors.

+++

This postseason saw some of the more prolific playoff teams assembled. The Titans were in their record-setting 15th postseason, while the Pacifics were playing October ball for the 14th time. The Condors would make their 13th appearance, and the Miners their ninth.

The Miners were however one of three teams that had yet to win a championship. The Condors had one, the Pacifics had five, and the Titans led the league with eight.

It was hard to make out a favorite in the CLCS, although maybe a slight nod should be given to the Titans with 107 wins. In the FLCS, the Pacifics looked like they could shred through the Miners’ staff without a second stint in L.A.;

+++

2031 LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

PIT @ LAP … 4-5 (12) … (Pacifics lead 1-0) … PIT Danny Santillano 3-5; LAP Zach Tutt 3-6, BB, RBI; LAP Kevin Fagan 2-3, 2 RBI;

PIT @ LAP … 0-5 … (Pacifics lead 2-0) … LAP Gavin Lee 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K, W (1-0); LAP Joe Moore 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;
TIJ @ BOS … 2-10 … (Titans lead 1-0) … TIJ Chris Miller 3-4, HR, 2B, RBI; BOS David Lessman 3-4, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; BOS Justin Perkins 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI;

TIJ @ BOS … 1-0 … (series tied 1-1) … TIJ George Griffin 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K, W (1-0); BOS Dustin Wingo 8.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K;

The Condors amount to only three hits and Shane Sanks’ sac fly, then have to piece the eighth inning together with FIVE relievers that allow two base runners.

LAP @ PIT … 2-3 … (Pacifics lead 2-1) … PIT Danny Santillano 3-4, HR, 2B, RBI;

LAP @ PIT … 3-15 … (series tied 2-2) … LAP Justin Fowler 3-4, HR, 2 RBI; PIT Josh Peddle 3-4, 2 BB, 2B, 2 RBI; PIT Yvon Bonaccorsi 2-5, HR, 2 RBI; PIT Omar Lastrade 2-5, HR, 2 RBI; PIT Carlos de la Riva 4-5, HR, 3 RBI; PIT Jim McKenzie 2-5, 2B, 2 RBI; PIT Jake Travick 3-5, 2 2B, 2 RBI;
BOS @ TIJ … 4-0 … (Titans lead 2-1) … BOS Ryan Czachor 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; TIJ Chris Murphy 2-3, BB;

In the Monday Night Massacre in Pittsburgh, every starting Miners position player has at least two base hits, scores at least one run, and six also have multiple RBI. L.A.’s Dave Christiansen (0-1, 7.36 ERA) gives up six runs in three innings and the bullpen keeps on giving.

LAP @ PIT … 4-9 … (Miners lead 3-2) … LAP Zach Tutt 3-5, 2B; PIT Josh Peddle 1-5, HR, 4 RBI (not a grand slam);
BOS @ TIJ … 4-3 … (Titans lead 3-1) … BOS Justin Uliasz 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; BOS Adam Braun 3-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; TIJ Juan Palbes 2-4, RBI;

BOS @ TIJ … 0-5 … (Titans lead 3-2) … TIJ Chris Murphy 2-5, 2B, RBI; TIJ Danny Zarate 2-2, 2 BB, 2 RBI; TIJ Omar Camacho 2-2, BB, RBI;

Jeff Little (1-1, 3.86 ERA), who only lasts five and two thirds, and three relievers hold the Titans to three hits to send the series back to Boston.

PIT @ LAP … 2-8 … (series tied 3-3) … PIT Josh Peddle 4-5, 2B, RBI; LAP Dylan Allomes 2-3, BB, 2 RBI;

PIT @ LAP … 2-17 … (Pacifics win 4-3) … LAP Justin Fowler 3-3, 3 BB; LAP Terry Kopp 4-6, 2B, 2 RBI; LAP Andy Schmit 2-3, 2 BB, 2 HR, 7 RBI; LAP Dylan Allomes 2-2, BB, RBI;
TIJ @ BOS … 0-1 (12) … (Titans win 4-2) … TIJ Chris Murphy 3-6; TIJ George Griffin 7.1 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 3 K; BOS Rhett West 3-5; BOS Dustin Wingo 7.0 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K;

That was a pretty firm “NO” from the Pacifics’ offense. There was however a price they paid, with Oscar Mendoza leaving the game with an injury…

Justin Uliasz (.308, 1 HR, 4 RBI) ends the CLCS with a 12th-inning double off George Barnett (0-1, 16.20 ERA) that scores Adrian Reichardt.

+++

2031 WORLD SERIES

The heavyweights from opposite ends of the country meet up in the World Series again, but it is only the second such pairing for the World Series, the previous coming in 2027, when the Pacifics prevailed.

The Titans had made it out of the CLCS without any further damage and could field what had gotten them through the Condors. They looked like the odds-on favorites, with a run differential beating the Pacifics’ by almost 100 runs. More offense, better pitching, tighter defense!

On the other side, the Pacifics had been dealt a blow when Oscar Mendoza knocked up his shoulder in Game 7. He was removed from the roster for being unable to play, which robbed the Pacifics of any speed and would probably allow Titans pitchers to concentrate solely on the batter in the box rather than any runners on the basepaths…

The Titans will probably win their ninth ring, maybe in as few as five games!

+++

LAP @ BOS … 5-1 … (Pacifics lead 1-0) … LAP Terry Kopp 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; BOS Dustin Acor 2-5, 2B, RBI;

LAP @ BOS … 1-5 … (series tied 1-1) … BOS Rhett West 2-4, RBI;

BOS @ LAP … 5-4 (12) … (Titans lead 2-1) … BOS Adrian Reichardt 4-6, HR, RBI; BOS Dustin Wingo 8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K; BOS Tim Zimmerman 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W (1-0);

The winning run scores on a 1-out bases-loaded walk Chun-yeong Chah (1-1, 2.25 ERA) issues to David Lessman (.188, 1 HR, 4 RBI).

BOS @ LAP … 6-5 … (Titans lead 3-1) … BOS Dustin Acor 2-4, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; BOS Justin Uliasz 2-5, RBI; LAP Lorenzo Rivera 2-5, 3B, 2 RBI; LAP Zach Tutt 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; LAP Kevin Fagan 3-3, BB, 2B, RBI;

Greg Gannon (3-1, 3.94 ERA) takes this crucial Game 4 win despite allowing 13 hits in 7.2 innings of work.

BOS @ LAP … 4-5 … (Titans lead 3-2) … BOS Adam Braun 2-4, 2B; BOS Justin Perkins 3-4, HR, RBI; LAP Ben Cook 2-3, BB, 2B, RBI;

LAP @ BOS … 1-4 … (Titans win 4-2) … BOS Adrian Reichardt 2-3, BB, 2B, RBI; BOS Justin Uliasz 2-4, 2B, RBI; BOS Mario Gonzalez 6.2 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, W (3-0);

Six and two thirds rock-solid innings from Gonzalez (3-0, 0.96 ERA) and cameos by three relievers, all perfect, end the season in the Titans’ favor.

2031 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS
Boston Titans
(9th title)

[Westheim]

There it was! Nick Valdes’ axe. This time he didn’t even bring me roses. He just took his axe to the budget and called the Raccoons his worst investment since the failure of the puppy juice factory! That one almost hurt my feelings, but not so much as the slashed budget did.

Last season the Raccoons ranked ninth and had $36.5M to blow through. Well, that was over. The Raccoons were tossed all the way into a tie for 15th place with a budget of only $31M! Well… Valdes said that I made the team champs with less than that in 2026. So there was a challenge for me.

Yeah, but the 2026 team didn’t pay a solid 26% of its budget to three over-the-hill starting pitchers it would love to see from behind…

The top 5 in budget were the Pacifics ($55M), Titans ($49M), Condors ($44M), Miners ($41.5M), and Buffaloes ($40M). The bottom 5 contained the Aces ($27.8M), Blue Sox ($27.4M), Loggers ($26.2M), Rebels ($22.8M), and Falcons ($20.8M).

The missing CL North teams are the Crusaders in 9th place with $36M, the Canadiens in 12th place with $33.5M, and the Indians, who we tie along with the Stars for 15th and $31M.

The median budget for 2032 was $33.25M, which was actually down $2M from last year. The average budget was $34.14M, up almost $400k from last season.

There was also one other news item that made immediate waves in the neighborhood. I had left it up to Matt Nunley to decide whether he wanted to come back for another season. He didn’t. He was full of aches and pains, and there was nothing to win anymore with this team, he explained (and he had won pretty much everything at least once, except a Player of the Year award), and besides, he had this excellent offer to become the spokesperson for this company that made barbecue grills. The old spokesperson had died during the baseball playoffs. – Of what did he die, Matt? – No, I don’t find congestive heart disease surprising…

That removed the (also unsurprising) longest-ago Raccoon still on the roster from the mix. The new record holder was … well, we had three Raccoons on the roster that had been promoted from the Alley Cats to the Critters during the 2022 season. They were Tim Stalker, Rico Gutierrez, and Elias Tovias. The latter had an expiring contract we’d (spoiler) not renew, and the other two had huge contracts they didn’t merit and that nobody would be dumb enough to take on. Yes, unfortunately I have to take the wind out of any fan hopes right away. Getting rid of Rico Gutierrez is impossible. Two more years we’ll have to somehow employ him, maybe as one of those guys that checks tickets…

Other personnel news included Matt Jamieson and Joe Vanatti executing their player options for 2032. Those were worth over $2.4M combined, and that was money we could really put to use somewhere else…

As far as those three highly-paid starting pitchers are concerned, they (Shumway, Roberts, Gutierrez) make about $8M combined this year, and while Roberts will be a free agent, there’s still $5.4M left for next year (2033). That includes a $3.3M player option for Shumway, so you can probably guess how that will go. Shumway’s deal is up after ’33, and Gutierrez has two team options that state $2.09M but are actually worth precisely $550k each – the buyout. So we’ll rather pay Rico $1.1M in ’34 to NOT pitch for us. Now THAT sounds like a sound deal!

It is probably the best deal you will hear this winter, except should the chance present itself to dump one of the expensive contracts. Ramos made $2.5M annually at this point, but wasn’t up for discussion. Tim Stalker made $2.8M this season and next, and had a $2.6M player option for ’34. Who gave out THAT stupid deal?? Add Jamieson and you have six seven-figure contracts, and at least four of them are bad, depending on your mileage on a soon-to-be-37-year-old outfielder with a .777 OPS and eroding defense. Good spot to be in!

And we won’t get into a better spot, either. The Raccoons already started the offseason overbudget, and by more than one million! Valdes would allow us to sign a few coaches but nothing else. Any sort of wiggle room at all had to come by trading a big commitment, and we only had those lined out above. After that it was whatever the clown arbitrator would concede to Josh Boles (the estimate was $1.15M), and the final-year commitments to Vanatti for $940k, Hague for $800k, and then lots of weeds and **** like $500k a year for Toby Ross who packed 21 points on his Miners average and hit all of .227 for Portland. That contract is by the way the second-longest commitment. Who picked that guy off waivers?? And he is the ONLY major league ready catcher in the system not named Daniel Rocha, who is a career .171 batter. Oh by the way, with Rich Hereford definitely going out, we have no third baseman, like, at all, except for Chris Baldwin (career .239/.297/.314 batter) and Wilson Rodriguez, who was a third baseman as much as Ricardo Martinez had been – the flash in the pan that drove Nick Brown nuts in the late 2000s. – What do you mean? There has to be a third baseman in the minors? No. Well. Depends on your opinion of German Sanchez, who has 38 major league appearances, and will turn 30 in July, and batted for a .611 OPS with the Alley Cats this year.

Yeah, we were at a point where we had to trade Roberts et al not for prospects, but for dear life. And by the way there’s the arbitration table. We are also at the point where we have to ask ourselves sincerely whether we can afford the luxury of a super utility for $300k… Note: Sean Rigg has no estimate because he was already waived and designated for assignment during the season. This is the opening setup for the table without any changes by me.

[DD Martin]

Wow that is a load of something. Did the team make or lose money last season? It’s going to take some real creative accounting and deal making to offload some of those guys.

Sounds like you will take a can of Schlitz for Roberts and even that might be over paying. Will be fun (for us) to see how you manage this. Good luck

[Westheim]

We posted a profit of … $52,749 in '31. Which is not all that much… the year before the profit was $1.3M ...

+++

The days following the death of my beloved budget were grim and glum. No matter what Maud asked me, whether I wanted coffee, whether I wanted to talk to someone on the phone, or just whether I was alright while I sat upright at my desk, the overturned wicker waste basket covering my head all the way down to the shoulders, I just hissed at her.

I was in fact so unstandable, even Slappy vacated the couch and superficially cleaned half of the hallway before continuing his persistent rest in the weight room.

After about three days, I sighed, took off the waste basket, and went to work. This thing wasn’t toing to rebuild itself. And let’s start with the pitching.

We have already gone into the three big-money starting pitchers hanging around the place for no good reason. There are of course more starting pitchers than that. There are the other horrendous options like Dave Martinez who made the minimum and had options, and Rico Gutierrez who made ten times the minimum and was impossible to get rid of. Then there were the three young kits, all 23 or younger, that had made a variety of impressions. Bernie Chavez had been the best of the litter, pitching to a 3.52 ERA (and 2.83 FIP) in his five starts in September. Raffaello Sabre, the only one that had been around before this September, but had usually been tragically bad until very recently, had a 3.23 ERA, but a 4.16 FIP in his five starts. Both were valid options for Opening Day… if only we could create an opening. Ignacio del Rio, the youngest of the three, had been lit up quite badly in three starts in September and would be sent back to AAA for seasoning, so he was out of the equation.

And that’s far from all. We had Ed Hague under contract for another year with no good reason for it, and then there was the emergence of Jason Gurney, who had started the year in St. Pets and had somehow wound up with the most wins, best ERA (by a qualifying starter), and second-most strikeouts (behind Roberts) on staff. Our scout (Pedro? Pablo? Pjotr? What the **** do I know!) still hated every hair of his fur. He was also already 26, but he sure was a valid filler for a team that didn’t expect to compete in 2032.

So, even counted conservatively, that made nine starting pitchers to sift through. The situation was not dissimilar in the bullpen, where we had found the odd young relief pitcher that didn’t look like total arse. Wise, Garavito, and Fleischer would probably be the core for next year, and this already indicated that I saw Josh Boles mostly as a modestly sized pile of trade chits. Then there were the younger guys like David Fernandez and John Hennessy, who in limited time had made a very solid impression, even though both had control problems. Ah, lefties, huh? We were actually a bit more squeezed for righties. With Ohl gone, behind Fleischer we had Bates (walk, walk, homer…), Rabbitt (same), and further down in AAA we still had a bigger grab bad of run-of-the-mill right-handers. Nick Derks, Matt Stonecipher (who was somehow still on the 40-man roster), Victor Anaya (same), and Juan Barzaga were all still there. Derks was not eligible for minor league free agency, and Barzaga would one day be carried out of the Alley Cats pen in a metal casket…

Well, those are MANY pitchers. I am not claiming that they make a sound pitching staff… The best I allow myself to dream of would be to get rid of one between Roberts and Shumway (no illusions for Gutierrez), plus Hague, and if nothing else at least get a serviceable third baseman.

The position players outlook is even more grim. Few solid players, and with few exceptions those that we had were either ancient or terrible. Some positions were worn so thin that we struggled to find anybody, and we’d now go through them one by one.

The drama started behind the dish. The Coons had Toby Ross, an August waiver claim that had hit for a .626 OPS and had thus improved over his Miners resume, and Daniel Rocha, who was a career waste of oxygen, except for a very sharp throwing arm. Tovias was out the door, and so was probably Shane Ivey, eligible for minor league free agency at 33. Well, somebody’s gotta hit eighth, huh?

On the infield, we still had two obvious starters up the middle. Berto was of course one of the best players in the league, and Tim Stalker was still elite on defense, but his bat was … he had put up a .698 OPS and 98 OPS+ this season, and that was actually an improvement over last year. There was three more years on THAT contract. So the middle infield was not the chief concern right now, never mind that you couldn’t move 3-yr, $8.2M of Tim Stalker if you tried. Stalker was also 33 by now, so that defense was going to erode at some point…

The corners were desolate. Hereford was going to become a free agent (though offered arbitration to secure a draft pick), and Matt Nunley had retired. The nearest options were Chris Baldwin (who might get non-tendered for our sheer poverty) and Wilson Rodriguez, a beef defensive rightfielder, but lacking experience and flashy reflexes to play the hot corner. He has played third base on occasion in AAA. It’s not pretty. Over at first base, Jarod Howden had hit 17 dingers in 530 at-bats and had still managed to wind up with a 95 OPS+. He struck out A TON, he was pulling stupid ****, and he was a dumb pig, but then again, if we’re too cheap for his arbitration deal, the replacement would be Craig Hollenbeck, which would be a firm NO. Hollenbeck was beyond terrible in his two call-ups (.136/.136/.136) and can not seriously be considered. One of those second-round busts. We’ve got a pile of them.

The outfield was a bit more crowded, at least superficially. The Coons had Matt Jamieson, Joe Vanatti, and maybe ROTY Jimmy Wallace around the grassy expanse. But maybe we could trade a year’s worth of Jamieson and/or Vanatti for salary relief and a bag o’ baseballs (or a third baseman!), and what do we have then? Oh boy. Ryan Allan is almost 30 and hit for a .496 OPS. Sean Catella isn’t 30, and beat out the .500 mark, but only by a whisker. Juan Magallanes walks a lot and has a goodish career OBP at .341, but literally can’t do anything else. Wilson Rodriguez would fit nicely in rightfield, except that we have Jimmy Wallace there. One of them could be moved to left if we traded Jamieson. Like, for a third baseman.

There was nothing but desolation in terms of AAA batting. The sole exceptions were outfielders Bobby Houston (2026 sixth-rounder) and Ed Hooge (#16 in 2030). Hooge had played at all three levels this year and had hit for an .804 OPS in 30 games with the Alley Cats. That was getting him noticed, but that didn’t make us belief we had relief on the way yet. He had only turned 22 in October, and had some serious ripening still to do. Houston, who had spent most of the year in AAA and was 23 had not been anywhere near as impressive. Apart from those, the best thing we had was defensive depth up the middle with Alex Geraldo.

Oh boy.

[Westheim]

Nibbling on other teams for trades began at the tail end of October. I quickly found out that some players had some sort of value, and others didn’t. F.e. Tom Shumway and his $3.3M a year? No value. Surprisingly, Josh Boles’ season had been bad enough that there were no takers right away, either. Joe Vanatti? Mmmm-aybe. But we couldn’t agree on an exact trade when we negotiated with the Falcons. I wanted 3B Greg Ortiz. He was average defensively, and a patient .280-or-so hitter that drew more walks than he struck out and also hit 18 bombs in ’31, and in just 126 games, after hitting 17 in 159 games the year before.

But the Falcons weren’t doing a 1-for-1. They would do Vanatti and Sabre for Ortiz, but that was sure to trigger my safeword instantly…

No, we had to turn somewhere else.

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November 2 – The Raccoons trade 36-year-old SP Mark Roberts (151-108, 3.18 ERA) to the Stars for 27-year-old 1B Travis Zitzner (.290, 21 HR, 106 RBI).
November 5 – The Indians trade for VAN MR J.D. Hamm (13-22, 4.09 ERA, 46 SV), parting with two prospects to get the 26-year-old right-hander.
November 7 – The Loggers trade 29-year-old 1B/LF/RF Firmino Cambra (.291, 46 HR, 402 RBI) to the Crusaders for MR Chris Myers (2-1, 3.15 ERA, 1 SV) and a pitching prospect.
November 7 – SAL OF/1B/2B Noel Ferrero (.254, 13 HR, 134 RBI) is traded to Nashville for two prospects.

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BAM!! That one move – besides ruining Mark Roberts’ career for good – solved a number of issues, mostly those relating to money! We got rid of one huge contract, created busy buzzing at first base, and had some coin on the side to, I don’t know, sign a catcher? The Stars were willing to do this straight up. They lacked pitching, as usual, and while you have to take Zitzner’s stats with a hefty spoon of salt, given that he played in the Dallas shoebox, I declared the Raccoons winners already. There was no way we’d lose this deal.

Zitzner hit .328 with 12 homers in 76 games for the Stars this year, missing half the season with a torn calf muscle. He was Batter of the Month in May, which wasn’t entirely ****ty for a rule 5 pick, having been taken from the Gold Sox one December ago. He might not be better than Howden, but the two could platoon if we think we want to go that bat**** crazy.

Roberts had the worst season of his career in 2031, but that should not discredit the career accomplishments of a former Pitcher of the Year and Triple Crown winner (2025), especially for a hard worker originally drafted in the 12th round. He led the league four times in strikeouts and strikeouts per nine innings (but only twice in the same season). With the Coons he had gone 105-66 with a 3.22 ERA across eight seasons. He ranked eighth in franchise wins, and fifth in franchise strikeouts with 1,452 – trailing Brownie, Master Kisho, Jonny Toner, and Hector Santos. He trailed only Toner, Brownie, and Santos in franchise ERA for pitchers with 1,000+ innings pitched.

Yes, I was a bit emotional. I wept when I wished him farewell. It was hard signing on the dotted line.

Roberts, however, notably waived his 10/5 rights within a minute of being asked… so there’s that. Everybody wants outta here.

There was a second team bidding for Roberts, but the Buffaloes were only willing to offer a middle infielder in Chris Rager, and he was neither an offensive nor a defensive treat.

Speaking of non-treats, Jarod Howden agreed to a $300k contract for ’32. Jonathan Fleischer signed for $333k as we tried to skim individual dollars off the salary pie here and there. Baldwin we eventually got for $288k.

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2031 ABL AWARDS

Players of the Year: PIT 1B Danny Santillano (.366, 40 HR, 109 RBI) and BOS OF Willie Vega (.293, 16 HR, 76 RBI)
Pitchers of the Year: SAL SP Phil Harrington (16-4, 1.64 ERA) and BOS SP Greg Gannon (20-10, 2.52 ERA)
Rookies of the Year: DAL OF Kyle Beard (.335, 8 HR, 57 RBI) and ATL 3B Chris Maneke (.276, 8 HR, 53 RBI)
Relievers of the Year: LAP CL Chun-yeong Chah (8-2, 1.44 ERA, 28 SV) and TIJ CL Ray Andrews (8-4, 1.93 ERA, 24 SV)
Platinum Sticks (FL): P LAP Dave Christiansen – C SFW Mike Thompson – 1B PIT Danny Santillano – 2B WAS Enrique Trevino – 3B NAS Jim Allen – SS WAS Bob Zeltser – LF CIN Kelvin Winborn – CF LAP Justin Fowler – RF LAP Oscar Mendoza
Platinum Sticks (CL): P ATL Justin Osterloh – C OCT Mike Burgess – 1B OCT Danny Cruz – 2B IND Dan Schneller – 3B TIJ Shane Sanks – SS POR Alberto Ramos – LF OCT Tom Dunlap – CF NYC Tony Coca – RF NYC Chris Reardon
Gold Gloves (FL): P PIT Mario Bojorques – C SAC Frank Arguello – 1B SFW Kumanosuke Henderson – 2B NAS Billy Bouldin – 3B TOP Adam Corder – SS TOP Alex Majano – LF TOP Ken Hess – CF SAC Mark Vermillion – RF CIN Ken Gibbs
Gold Gloves (CL): P VAN Steve Corcoran – C VAN Fernando Garcia – 1B ATL Kevin Harenberg – 2B POR Tim Stalker – 3B IND Elias Sosa – SS TIJ Omar Camacho – LF BOS Willie Vega – CF BOS Adrian Reichardt – RF MIL Josh Stephenson

The electorate will never cease to amaze me. Jimmy Wallace won three Rookie of the Month awards, yet he loses the big prize to the Knights’ equivalent of a dry sponge. Amazing. Maud, we have to write a letter to the league office! Fill the printer with the red ink!

No, wait. We can’t afford red ink. – Just give me … - Yeah, give me the telephone. I will yell them my opinion. – What do you mean “it’s a long-distance call”…?

[Questdog]

I go away for a day or two and you are posting like mad! I had a lot of catching up to do! I HATE when people make so many posts in a short time.... Anyways, I am caught up and excited for next season, except I have not noticed any Japanese players being added to the roster.....Now, I know not every Japanese player the Coons have signed has turned out to be a great addition ( I remember someone named Itchy or Scratchy that I was excited about, who got hurt all the time), but the Raccoons have never been worth a darn without a one of them to lead the way. Maybe it is the Saki they bring for the other players. It is better than Cap'n Coma!

[Westheim]

Throughout the first week of November I failed to get rid of any other player, including Josh Boles. Since I didn’t want to take him to arbitration I had to sign him to an extension after all. He ended up with $1.1M for 2032, his final year of team control. But all that means is that we can probably toss his contract on the refuse pile over there… (points at the grotesquely stacked bodies of Shumway, Stalker, Gutierrez, and one or two more in the corners, surrounded by a horde of flies and beetles)

Nobody wanted a piece of Shumway, that one I found out with assurances in choice words by several GMs. He was just as untradeable as Gutierrez. Stalker was roughly the same category, and it was not easy finding a taker for final-year veterans like Ed Hague and Joe Vanatti, either. Same for Matt Jamieson’s $1.5M.

Then everything died down as the free agency deadline approached and nobody was keen on making a move anyway (the Coons included). We first had to arrive on the other side without Rich Hereford suddenly wrapping a $3M arbitration award around our neck. He didn’t – Rich elected free agency, and thus the Raccoons were finally officially without a third baseman. Also gone were Tovias, Ohl (proper free agents), and Magallanes who was non-tendered. Skimming further around the edges of the 40-man roster, combined with the earlier Roberts/Zitzner trade, created $2.3M of budget space for the Critters.

No, I don’t know how Steve from Accounting did it, either… but that should buy a third baseman the hard way if nothing else materialized out of thin air.

At this point I was still more than willing to trade a starting pitcher for a third baseman or catcher, or maybe Vanatti, too. It tends to be easier to find a centerfielder than a good catcher… also at this junction in the second half of November the tentative rotation for Opening Day read Shumway, Hague, Gurney, Sabre, and Chavez. Please note how I will not waste a single sentence on how to proceed with the dead carrion (Rico Gutierrez) at this point. Dave Martinez has options. Rico Gutierrez has us by the little furry ba- …neck.

So there were the three big contracts that were unmovable, but there was wiggling room in the second rank …

+++

November 14 – The Stars trade OF Adam Shapiro (.282, 13 HR, 125 RBI) to the Capitals for 2B Rafael Padilla (.220, 2 HR, 13 RBI).
November 25 – The Raccoons and Buffaloes conclude a 6-player deal that sends 32-year-old C Giovanni James (.264, 45 HR, 272 RBI) and 25-yr old INF Justin Marsingill (.000, 0 HR, 0 RBI) to the Raccoons, while the Buffaloes receive 35-yr old SP Ed Hague (113-110, 4.14 ERA, 2 SV), 27-yr old MR Josh Boles (19-13, 2.47 ERA, 132 SV), 24-yr old 1B Craig Hollenbeck (.136, 0 HR, 5 RBI), and 22-yr old AA MR Jose Salinas.

+++

Well, that’s quite the deal. First, we saved another $760k, got a pretty fine bridge to the future (Elliott Thompson) in James, who was with the Titans for three years when the Titans didn’t win rings for once, we got *a* third baseman, pretty good defense, that hit at least a little bit in AAA in Marsingill, and we divested ourselves of two pitchers in walk years, the dastardly awful Hollenbeck, and another throw-in, a nondescript right-hander that had put up an 8+ ERA in Ham Lake this year. Somebody had dug him out in Venezuela in ’26 and he never caught my attention since.

I like that deal a lot! Marsingill is probably not going to tear out any trees, and James is likely a 1-year rental, but it’s not like the other players were the franchise’s future. One could say that we gave away Josh Boles rather cheaply, but then again he had a season-long meltdown in ’31, and that was after missing half of 2030 on the DL. He never came back the same, and we have other left-handers crowding the roster.

That opens a spot in the rotation for Rico Gutierrez, too? The horror.

Most importantly we now have some actual dough for a free agent signing. We could use a solid right-handed reliever because right now we’d have to fill our pen with somebody out of the Dave Martinez, Bryan Rabbitt, Nick Bates, various scums in AAA group. We can of course still use an actual third baseman. We now have possibilities!

[Westheim]

December 1 – Rule 5 Draft: 7 Players are selected across one round. The Raccoons draft 26-year-old super utility Preston Pinkerton from the Miners.
December 1 – The Gold Sox sign 29-year-old ex-TOP CL Adrian McQuinn (24-27, 2.76 ERA, 148 SV) to a 3-yr, $5.7M contract.
December 3 – The Stars pick up MR Matt Bosse (5-7, 6.14 ERA, 1 SV) in a trade from the Crusaders, sending 24-yr old Dutch Antillean OF Ronnie Veraart (.158, 1 HR, 3 RBI) to New York.

+++

I will freely admit that Pinkerton is a shot in the utter dark. His selection would make more sense if we hadn’t held on to Chris Baldwin, but even then Baldwin plays more positions better, and Pinkerton has no experience at short and leftfield, f.e.; it’s not a given that he makes it all the way to April.

But yes, I did like the name. He’s got a winner’s name! … Maud says we have to play the flashback video to Bradley Heathershaw’s but brief Coons career now, but I don’t feel like weeping at this point…

Former Critters in new dens: the Rebels signed both Dave Dyer (2-yr, $540k) and Elias Tovias (1-yr, $426k);

+++

There is also a Hall of Fame ballot out. It contains 21 players and includes a few former Coons arriving newly on the list. This includes CL Brett Lillis, who had two stints with the team, once as a stretch drive addition in 2019 for bits and pieces including Alex Duarte, and then again as a free agent on a 4-year deal starting in 2021. Only 129 of his 303 career saves were with the Critters, however. He was added as setup fortification in ’19 and saved only a pair then, and lost his job to Jonathan Snyder by 2024 in his second stint. Lillis and Snyder tied for the team lead that year with 14 saves apiece.

Then there’s Dumbo Mendoza, who arrived in trade from Dallas in June 2017 (in which we parted with bits and pieces and nothing more overwhelming than former first-rounder and future so-so reliver John Waker), then spent the next five years doing nothing else but driving me up the wall with his unclutchiness. Except for a 2020 campaign in which he homered 38 times (tied for the franchise highwater mark) and clubbed in 133, most of his stint in Portland was underwhelming considering that he regularly drummed opposing pitchers to OPS marks right around 1.000 in Dallas. Yeah, yeah, the Shoebox. It’s not like we have an extreme pitchers’ park! After just over five years, no rings, and countless nights spent breathing into a paper bag, the Coons sent Dumbo Mendoza to the Cyclones in ’22 for two pitchers that both were paraded through the arena in 2023. Jonathan Shook posted a 7.99 ERA and was more notably included in the bag o’ bait that landed Mark Roberts and Jon Gonzalez a winter later, while Chris McKendrick dazzled with a 9-7 record and 3.29 ERA before blowing out his elbow in September and retiring the following July at the age of 25.

Next up is Gil Rockwell, who did a final round through Raccoons Ballpark in his age 37 season, hitting .238 with 19 homers in what was his worst full career season and also his last. Yes, he’s the guy that holds almost all the top single-season home run marks, leading the category SEVEN years in a row with a high of 49 in 2015. All of that came with the Knights. His Hall of Fame case is wonky though because he didn’t break out until his age 27 season and only amounted to 11 years and a few days of major league service, and since he was not a guy hitting for average (leading the league in strikeouts once, in his only FL season with the 2026 Scorpions), he only reached 1,784 career hits. Those 412 homers and 1,249 RBI do look juicy, though.

And last, but definitely not least, another 2-time Raccoon – Yoshi Nomura! A veteran of 23 major league seasons, Yoshi started humbly as the #7 pick in the 2002 draft before reaching the majors for the first time in ’04, hitting .246 in 35 games for the Raccoons. He went full time the following season at age 21, part of the infamous Double Yoshi middle infield, and slowly started to get noticed, although it wasn’t until 2011, his age 27 season, that he made his first of seven All Star Games. While he posted three straight .829+ OPS seasons in 2011-13, the last years of his original stint, Yoshi didn’t break out until he arrived in Washington as a free agent in 2014. There he also won his only Gold Glove. He was traded to the Cyclones in 2017 (for Shunyo Yano, who was also traded for Jonny Toner a few years earlier, which sets him up for the possible distinction of being traded for different future Raccoons Hall of Famers *twice*, and those were the only two trades of his career), then signed a new 4-year deal with the Raccoons before the 2020 seasons. The Raccoons then came off three straight CLCS defeats and were sure they’d get over the hump, but instead ran into an extra-inning, second tie-breaker loss to the Loggers in ’20 (who pitched Nick Lester? WHO??) and then retreated into their customary early-decade slump. Yoshi served half of his contract, then was traded to the Gold Sox in a trade for Frank Kelly (among others), who is his own sad story. Yoshi would tingle through three more cities in his final years, retiring after hitting .266 with three homers for the ’26 Buffos as a 42-year-old. He piled up 10,006 at-bats in which he hit .305/.384/.398 with 3,050 base hits, 83 homers, and 1,051 RBI. He walked 1,226 times, more than he struck out. I don’t think his six stolen bases and 40% success rate will further his Hall case.

[Westheim]

For the Critters, the annual Winter Meetings started with a bang, trading away Joe Vanatti mainly for a very interesting relief prospect. The deal had been in the making over the previous week but was finalized on the first day of the get-together in Boston.

+++

December 11 – The Raccoons trade 33-yr old OF/1B Joe Vanatti (.273, 64 HR, 451 RBI) and 25-yr old AAA SP/MR Dante Saavedra to the Thunder for 34-yr old LF/RF Donovan May (.218, 9 HR, 61 RBI) and 21-yr old AAA CL Antonio Prieto.
December 11 – The Buffaloes sign ex-CIN CL Jonathan Snyder (43-35, 2.79 ERA, 233 SV) to a 3-yr, $3M contract.
December 11 – Further, the Buffoes add 1B Ruben Santiago (.278, 103 HR, 474 RBI) in a trade with the Blue Sox. The 33-year-old right-handed hitter comes with cash and at the expense of two prospects.
December 12 – Former Crusaders SP Robby Gonzalez (61-95, 4.37 ERA) signs a 2-yr, $2.94M contract with the Aces.
December 12 – Ex-Miners INF/CF Carlos de la Riva (.285, 140 HR, 683 RBI) signs up with the Cyclones for 4-yr, $8.24M.
December 13 – The Wolves trade first-year player 3B/2B Nick Rozenboom (.236, 16 HR, 76 RBI) to the Warriors for two prospects.
December 14 – Sioux Falls also adds former Raccoon 3B/2B/RF/LF Rich Hereford (.280, 197 HR, 817 RBI) on a 3-yr, $5.88M contract. The Raccoons receive a supplemental round pick as compensation.

+++

Prieto’s the price in the Vanatti trade. Vanatti was largely a disappointment, constantly hurt, and won’t be the future. Nor is Saavedra, a $86k July international free agent signed nine summers ago. Prieto might be the future. He is unranked as of now, but might well be ranked come spring. 93mph fastball with a vicious slider from the righty. Keeps ball on ground, and hitters uncomfortable. Control is not there yet and he was undressed in AAA in September, so he will start the season in Ham Lake. He doesn’t turn 22 until July, so he’s really young, but we really like him!

Donovan May is dead weight on any roster. The Juan Barzaga of hitters in the CL South. He is as old as he is, and was penciled into the starting lineup in the majors only 79 times. *In his career*. Can’t hit, can’t field, can’t run, but makes only $332k and that was required for the Thunder to balance their budget at this point. For $332k I will gladly release him, sign him again, and release him a second time!

We were still looking for an actual third base starter though, since I was rather hesitant to give the job to Justin Marsingill outright, only to find out that he’d bat .170 for the season in around mid-April… for a while at the meetings I talked to Boston’s GM about Justin Perkins, but he was a teetotaler and I couldn’t use my usual strategy of drinking other people under the table to get them to sign on the line. Stupid non-alcoholics! No fun to be around them!

The Titans however sought a young pitcher of the Sabre / del Rio mould in a deal for Perkins, so that was a no-no.

Not all that much happened at the Winter Meetings overall. While Rich Hereford got signed and we got our compensation pick, the really big names were all still out there. In fact, not a single type A free agent signed before the end of the Winter Meetings on December 15! The meetings ended eventually, but I called Maud and told her I’d not be coming home yet. – No, the bobblehead selections have to wait, Maud. I have to annoy somebody so I can get my will. – No, Maud, we’ll talk about it when I come back to… - Maud, we have to discuss this later whe-… - Yes, OKAY, Maud! We will have a Travis Zitzner bobblehead. If he reminds you of your favorite nephew, that’s FINE.

Then I hooked up with Eddie Mora, Titans GM, invited him for lobster, and then swiftly handcuffed both of us together at the table. Alright, listen, Eddie! I want that Perkins deal revisited, and I will not untie us before we have an agreement!!

+++

December 18 – The Raccoons trade 36-year-old LF Matt Jamieson (.266, 111 HR, 677 RBI) to the Titans for 30-yr old 3B/SS Justin Perkins (.275, 7 HR, 50 RBI), 33-yr old OF Adam Braun (.275, 111 HR, 600 RBI), and swathes of cash.

+++

YES. But I probably have some explaining to do. Well. Perkins has never been a starter at age 30, but have you ever seen the streaking Titans’ infield? They have Rhett West, Adam Corder (now a free agent), and a thousand other pretty things. Perkins might have been their starting third baseman *now* (since sans Corder), but we needed him more! Also, Braun. Adam Braun has won everything there is to win in the ABL, including a ****ing six rings, except for Rookie of the Year honors. He is also under contract for three more years at $3.28M each, and the Titans also wanted to get rid of him. That’s why they were letting Perkins go only if we gave them a young starter, or at least lessened the burden on them. We will really only have to pay his 2033 salary; this year he only costs us about $500k more than Jamieson’s contract and the cash we got from the Titans. And 2034 is a team option worth only $330k, so it is worth exactly as much. Under the final line we get two years of Adam Braun for about $4.1M. Which is a lot, but I think we can shake this out, somehow.

What is it, Eddie? – Oh, yeah, the handcuffs. (burrows free hand in pockets) Uhm. I was sure… no, not here, either… maybe in this one? … uhm… Say, your weekend retreat is on Nantucket? I always wanted to see Nantucket!