Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[Westheim]

Raccoons (0-0) @ Loggers (0-0) – April 7-8, 2015

We had beaten the living crap out of the Loggers in 2014, romping them for a team-record 16-2 slaughter. Whether they were any better in 2015 was anybody’s guess, but sending the lackluster Chester Graham onto the mound for the season opener was probably an indicator of a dire future for the team.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (0-0) vs. Chester Graham (0-0)
Jonathan Toner (0-0) vs. Jason McDonald (0-0)

This was only a 2-game set to open the season. Despite Graham being a left-handed pitcher, I was going to give Dylan Alexander the Opening Day assignment, since he was still our clear number one over Danny Margolis. We might get more left-handed opposition (two even!) on the weekend, however, so Margolis will not go completely without an opening week start.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS Canning – P Brown
MIL: LF Hodgers – SS O. Sandoval – RF Dally – 1B M. Rucker – CF Enriquez – 3B D. Jones – 2B J.J. Rodriguez – C Leach – P C. Graham

Mike Bednarski made a good case for his starting assignment in his first at-bat of the season, cranking a 3-run homer with Sandy and Richards on base to put the Loggers into an instant hole. Extra base hits by Canning and Carmona plated another run in the second inning, putting Nick Brown up 4-0 before he imploded spectacularly in the bottom of the second inning. He struck out Mike Rucker, but then put on Victor Enriquez with a single, walked Dan Jones, and then fell to 2-out hits by Foster Leach and Dave Graham, which plated three runs. Victor Hodgers was going to pop out behind home plate, but Dylan Alexander dropped the ball, and two pitches later Brown threw a wild pitch that moved Graham to second base with the tying run. Hodgers struck out on the next pitch, but Brown’s first impression was a crummy one.

Graham continued to not get any clean inning, however. Stan Murphy drew a leadoff walk in the third before Graham threw two wild pitches, but avoided the shame of pulling a Juan Diaz when he conceded the run instead on a grounder to J.J. Rodriguez by Ron Richards, upping the score to 5-3. Not that Brown was any better. The Loggers had runners on the corners in the fourth inning when they hit for Graham with two outs, but Eric Kingsley struck out, sparing Brownie again. Tony Harrell took over for the Loggers on the mound. The rookie that had received a cup of coffee in 2014 was greeted most roughly. Cookie and Sandy reached base to start the fifth inning and Ron Richards hit another long home run, the Coons’ second 3-piece of the day, putting Brown up 8-3. Surely that was going to be enough for Brownie to put up a W! He got through the fifth alright before D-Alex didn’t want to stand back and whacked a leadoff jack off left-hander Carlos Michel in the top of the sixth, making it 9-3. Brownie barely squeezed through the sixth inning, with the Loggers again putting two men on, but escaped with a K to Leach with both runners in scoring position. That was his seventh strikeout in the game, and also his last pitch, approaching 110 in a bit of a mess of an Opening Day start. The Raccoons added three more runs in the seventh inning before their own bullpen suffered a 4-run explosion in the ninth inning, the damage done equally do Tom Constantino and Marcos Bruno, who surrendered a 2-out, 3-run homer to Justin Dally. 12-7 Brownies! Carmona 3-5, 2B, RBI; Sambrano 2-5; Richards 2-4, HR, 4 RBI; Reya (PH) 1-2, 2B, RBI; Canning 2-5, 2B, RBI;

Seven strikeouts for Nick Brown means that he did not match Kisho Saito’s career total with this start, falling one short of Master Kisho’s 2,800. Nevertheless, the 7 K were the most for a CL pitcher on either Monday (which we had had off) or Tuesday.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS McKnight – P Toner
MIL: CF Hodges – LF Knowling – RF Dally – 1B M. Rucker – 2B Enriquez – 3B D. Jones – SS O. Sandoval – C Leach – P McDonald

Jason McDonald helped the Raccoons to a quick run with a wild throwing error in the first inning, which converted Sandy Sambrano’s poor grounder into a runner on second with one out, from which he promptly scored on Ron Richards’ single. The Loggers sent four left-handed bats at the top of the order against ERA king Toner, and indeed created some traffic on the base paths early, but Ronnie McKnight, who had pinch-hit and stayed in the game on Tuesday without getting a defensive chance, turned double plays in Toner’s support with the first two chances he actually did get, soiling the Loggers’ ambitions in both the first and second innings.

The Coons upped the ante in the fourth inning when D-Alex hit a 2-run homer to left center, collecting Bednarski, who had singled. Toner however was the death of all offense in the game. While it was unfortunate that he – who can really swing a stick! – came to the plate three times with four runners total on and always two outs and didn’t come through a single time, we gladly ignored that since he in turn shut down the Loggers hard for most of the time. They didn’t have a base runner between the third and fifth innings and only got on base again in the sixth with a 2-out double by Victor Hodgers. Zach Knowling struck out readily to end that inning. But the Loggers did manage to push Toner into a corner in the seventh inning. Justin Dally led off with a single that was quite hard, before Rucker hit a blooper that fell in and Enriquez reached on an infield single. The sacks were full with nobody out. How much of an ace was Jonny Toner? Could he be his own cavalry? Nobody thought much of Dan Jones as a batter, so why not try to get him out?

The Loggers are a sad bunch, and as I can attest to from decade-long experience, sad bunches will always be unlucky, too. Dan Jones hit a 1-1 liner hard to left, but right to Ronnie McKnight, who swiped it, and then doubled off Dally, who had unwisely gone on contact. Oscar Sandoval popped out on the next pitch and the Loggers had just bowled themselves out of a really big chance. That was all for Toner, who was hit for by Luis Reya with two on and two out in the eighth, and grounded a ball up the third base line that escaped Jim Thompson at the hot corner for an RBI single. Troy Charters, responsible for all the runners on base here, continued to face another lefty in Cookie Carmona, who was rolling an 0-4 stone on the day, chomped a ball back to Charters, and Charters airmailed it over a despaired Mike Rucker and into the seats, scoring D-Alex from second base. Sandy made the third out, but the score was up to 5-0, with the Loggers on the verge of another comeback against Chris Mathis in the eighth. Ron Thrasher took over with runners in scoring position and two outs, and allowed a Dally drive to left where Ron Richards swung his paws just fast enough to make a catch that saved Mathis two early-season runs. A passed ball charged to Foster Leach would plate the last run of the game in the ninth inning. 6-0 Coons! Bednarski 3-5, 2 2B; Alexander 1-3, 2 BB, HR, 3 RBI; Reya (PH) 1-1, RBI; Toner 7.0 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K, W (1-0);

Well, if nothing else, the Raccoons stood atop the North after this short opening series.

Matt Nunley put up an oh-fer in Milwaukee, but we’re not worrying just yet.

Raccoons (2-0) vs. Thunder (2-1) – April 10-12, 2015

The Thunder had faced the Aces to start the season, which somewhat surprisingly had resulted in three low-scoring games, 13 runs total between the teams for the entire series. So that had pitched real well, but had yet to find those bats. We had taken the season series at equal 5-4 clips the last two years.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (0-0) vs. Ed Michaels (0-0)
Bill Conway (0-0) vs. Ralph Ford (0-0)
Daniel Dickerson (0-0) vs. Curtis Tobitt (0-1, 2.45 ERA)

Michaels and Ford are both left-handed pitchers (well we know Ford!), so the Raccoons get a rare week with more lefty than righty opposition.

Game 1
OCT: CF Reese – LF J. Gomez – RF S. Young – 2B Farias – SS Janes – C J. Martinez – 3B J. Soto – 1B A. Rodriguez – P Michaels
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 3B Nunley – C Margolis – SS Canning – P Santos

The Coons continued to put up at least one run in the first inning, this time with Cookie hitting a leadoff single, stealing second base (the first actual attempt by any Raccoon in 2015), and eventually scoring on Murphy’s sac fly. Matt Nunley ended his season-starting 0-for-8 futility with a 1-out single in the second inning, with Sean Young’s botched pickup moving him to second base. Unfortunately the Raccoons left him there, and would soon pile up the missed chances. Sandy was stranded at second base after stealing it in the third inning, and the bases were left loaded when Santos struck out on a borderline 3-2 pitch in the fourth. Santos had been looking for the strike zone for the first four or five batters in his season opener, but soon located it and started to put Thunder away. Like the Loggers, the Thunder made mistakes, like Emilio Farias popping up a 3-0 pitch to start the second inning.

Offense returned in the sixth with Ron Richards’ leadoff jack that put Santos ahead 2-0, and the Raccoons loaded the bases with one out in the seventh. Canning led off with a single, was bunted over by Santos, and Michaels then walked Carmona intentionally(!), and Sandy unintentionally. Stan Murphy had yet to find success in ’15, batting 1-for-9 early, but hit a deep drive that nevertheless ended up with Jose Gomez, at least leaving him with his second sac fly of the game. Richards struck out, keeping the score at 3-0. Santos made it through eight effortlessly after the early control woes, and got additional support when Bednarski hit a leadoff jack in the eighth, 4-0. With that, Santos batted for himself with Danny Margolis on second and two out in the inning, grounding out to Emilio Farias, and Angel Casas remained in the stall. Santos started the ninth inning on 82 pitches, facing PH Blair Harris, a switch-hitter, who flew out to center, just like Tom Reese did three pitches later. Jose Gomez ran a full count while Zack Entwistle was throwing in the pen, then popped the sixth pitch of the at-bat up behind home plate. Margolis flung the mask, made the catch, and Santos had a 2-hitter! 4-0 Raccoons! Nunley 3-4; Santos 9.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 8 K, W (1-0);

Hector Santos retired the final 19 batters in the game for his fourth career complete game and his first shutout! He needed 96 pitches, which is up close against his effective limit. He usually turns sour right around the 95-100 mark.

Game 2
OCT: CF Reese – LF J. Gomez – RF S. Young – 2B Farias – SS Janes – C J. Martinez – 3B J. Soto – 1B A. Rodriguez – P Ford
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – 3B Canning – 2B Bergquist – SS McKnight – P Conway

The Coons didn’t score in the first or second inning and were sent trailing by the Thunder for the first time this season in the third inning, in which nothing, but really nothing worked out for Bill Conway. He conceded a leadoff single to Armando Rodriguez, then misfielded Ford’s bunt, allowed another single to Tom Reese, and soon drowned in runners. The Thunder would hit three more singles to score three runs in the inning, and Bednarski made a strong play on Jesus Martinez to get a critical second out. The Coons got a comeback chance right away in the bottom of the inning when Bergquist hit a leadoff double. Conway would single, putting runners on the corners, and Cookie legged out an infield single that brought home Bergquist. Murphy walked with two outs, loading the sacks for Bednarski, who resorted to popping out to Emilio Farias. That left the Thunder ahead 3-1, and the Coons wasted more chances in the next two innings, leaving Bergquist on after a fourth-inning double, and Bednarski stranded another pair in the fifth, which also saw Carmona caught stealing for the first time. To make up for it, the Thunder’s Erik Janes hit a leadoff triple in the sixth, but was left stranded after a K to Jesus Martinez, a pop to shallow left that Sandy got to just in time, and Ford’s grounder to first base after an intentional walk to Rodriguez. The Coons had the tying run at the plate in the eighth and ninth innings against the Thunder pen, but D-Alex hit into a double play in the former, and Sandy fouled out to end the game in the latter. 3-1 Thunder. Carmona 2-5, 2B, RBI; Sambrano 2-5; Bergquist 2-3, 2 2B; Conway 7.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, L (0-1);

Game 3
OCT: CF Reese – LF J. Gomez – RF S. Young – 2B Farias – SS Janes – C J. Martinez – 3B J. Soto – 1B A. Rodriguez – P Tobitt
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS McKnight – P Dickerson

Sean Young had never showed much power in his career with the Buffaloes so far, but at 25 people will still up their game as Daniel Dickerson painfully experienced in the first inning of the Sunday game. Jose Gomez had already singled when Young romped a 2-shot off the broken veteran, instantly putting Dickerson in a 2-0 hole while facing the old dominator Curtis Tobitt. The Coons made up a run on a run-scoring double play that Richards hit into in the bottom 1st after both Cookie and Sandy had reached base, but Dickerson gave them up way quicker than they could hope to score them against Tobitt. The Thunder put up another two runs on five hits in the top 3rd, with one run thrown out at home by Carmona. Ronnie McKnight’s first career homer plated two in the bottom 4th (with Nunley on second and the Thunder refusing to walk him intentionally) and got the Raccoons back to 4-3, but that was nothing that could help Dickerson, who was laden with 12 hits in 4.1 innings before being pulled. Entwistle inherited Janes on second and Martinez on first and got out of the inning with a Jesus Soto liner right to Ron Richards and a K to Rodriguez.

The Thunder pitched to McKnight again in the sixth with D-Alex on second and two outs, but this time he grounded out to short. The score remained close into the late innings. Tobitt went seven without allowing more damage, but the Thunder broke through against Ron Thrasher in the eighth. Thrasher allowed hits to three left-handed batters, the last of which, Sean Young’s was a game-killing 3-run homer, putting the Thunder 7-3 ahead. A counter-homer by Richards off Steve Rob in the bottom 8th looked a lot like too little, too late, and when the Coons had Murphy on after that, Bednarski hit for Reya against left-hander Bryan Robbins, but straight into a double play. It wasn’t until Robert Parsons in the ninth inning that the Coons had a chance, but just when the tying run came to the plate after a walk drawn by Cookie Carmona … that tying run was Angel Casas, and there was only one more bat on the bench, Danny Margolis’. Parsons put the kid on his sandwich. 7-4 Thunder. Carmona 2-4, BB; Richards 2-4, HR, RBI; McKnight 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Sugano 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

Oh look, the Crusaders just zoomed past, heading straight for the October sunset…

In other news

April 7 – The Crusaders lead the Indians 7-1 in the sixth inning before all pitching breaks down and the Crusaders get slaughtered for 15 runs in the last three offensive innings for the Indians, who claim a 16-11 victory.
April 8 – PIT SP Fred Dugo (1-0, 0.00 ERA) 2-hits the Capitals in a 7-0 shutout.
April 8 – The season is just three days old and there’s already a horrendous rout as the Blue Sox cream the Cyclones, 15-0. The Cyclones had ten hits and still didn’t score.
April 10 – Sacramento’s 3B Jason LaCombe (.476, 1 HR, 4 RBI) joins a small club with a 6-hit effort in the Scorpions’ 5-4 win over the Rebels. Granted, the game going 18 innings did certainly help. Overall, LaCombe went 6-for-8 with a home run and five singles as well as 3 RBI. This is the 50th 6-hit game in ABL history, the fifth for the Scorpions, and the first occurrence since Kunimatsu Sato’s achievement in 2013.
April 11 – Two hitting streaks carried over from last season reach 20 games. BOS 1B Steve Butler (.286, 0 HR, 0 RBI) has a double in the Titans’ 1-0 loss to the Falcons to reach the mark, while SFB 3B Javier Rodriguez (.333, 0 HR, 3 RBI) uses a single in the Bayhawks’ 4-0 loss to the Canadiens to get there. Notably, Butler’s hitting streak was started when he was still with the Miners.
April 12 – The Pacifics announce a 6-yr, $16.36M extension signed by SP Ernest Green (1-0, 0.00 ERA). The 30-year old left-hander is 106-68 with a 3.63 ERA for his career. He has never reached 200 strikeouts in a season.

Complaints and stuff

Santos’ 8 K on Friday put his career and franchise totals over 600 (606 exactly), a mark only achieved by 15 Raccoons, 11 of which had been starters. Ahead of him are – remarkably – seven right- and seven left-handers.

Your homework will be to name all the 14 pitchers that are ahead of Santos in franchise strikeouts and correctly attribute their handedness. (giggles)

As Dickerson failed himself through a dismal Sunday start, Calderón gave me The Look, and afterwards suggested I should come up with a Plan B, since he had talked to Ivan the Druid, too, and it looked like Dickerson was completely used up and had absolutely nothing left to give.

That’s gonna be a very painful $3.2M to watch.

Odd bit from the Federal League, where “Brenda” Teasdale started the season 2-0 for the Gold Sox with nine walks against eight strikeouts in 14 innings.

All players that were on waivers on Opening Day arrived safely at St. Petersburg.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (3-2) vs. Condors (2-5) – April 13-15, 2015

The Raccoons’ 9-year run of handling the Condors to win the season series had ended in 2014, when the Condors had come up on top, 6-3, for the first time since 2004. While having played the most games so far in the new season, the Condors ranked 11th in runs allowed in the CL, but where only eighth in runs scored, too.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (1-0, 4.50 ERA) vs. Michael Colvard (0-1, 6.75 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Ethan Knight (0-1, 5.06 ERA)
Hector Santos (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Troy McCaskill (0-1, 21.60 ERA)

Another left-handed pitcher was awaiting the Raccoons in Ethan Knight. McCaskill allowed eight earned runs in his first outing of the season, his first career start. The 23-year old right-hander had been used as reliever over 43 games in 2014, putting up a 4.86 ERA and 1.70 WHIP.

Game 1
TIJ: SS Eroh – 1B Jaeger – RF Branch – LF Eichelkraut – CF Feldmann – 3B Fish – C Bedinghaus – 2B Valles – P Colvard
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS McKnight – P Brown

Jimmy Oatmeal was batting .091 coming in and struck out to end the inning and put Brownie past Kisho Saito in career strikeouts. Brownie had tied Kisho by striking out Ezra Branch before, but that already came after Kevin Jaeger had crashed a diminished fastball for a solo homer that set the Condors 1-0 ahead. The Condors further stomped him for a 3-run second inning, which snowballed once Michael Colvard, the pitcher, hit a grounder through the left side that missed Nunley’s and McKnight’s gloves by about four inches each, and plated Tom Fish from third base with two outs. Melvin Valles moved to second, and both scored on an incredibly long double that Ron Richards took forever to make a play on, hit by Ron Eroh, opening the score to 4-0. The Raccoons made up a run in the bottom 2nd when yet another team neglected to walk Ronnie McKnight intentionally with first base open and two outs, and McKnight singled to score D-Alex, but that was as much as a generally disinterested offense was willing to do for Nick Brown, who got ultimately shamed in the sixth inning when Jimmy Oatmeal, after two strikeouts, took him well deep to almost straight center. In a 5-1 game, the Condors hit three soft singles to knock out Brown with another run scoring already, with Entwistle retiring Ron Eroh to end the inning.

Also in the sixth inning, the Raccoons lost McKnight to injury on a throw. Canning replaced him, and Maud had to pour me a glass of cheap booze and throw in a handful of Aspirin. The further happenings in the game didn’t help to ease the pain. Entwistle put two on in the seventh, was yanked, and Chris Mathis allowed a 2-run double to Tom Fish with two outs. The Raccoons dared to score a run in the bottom 8th, Murphy singling home Richards, but in response the Condors shat another four runs on Tom Constantino, including a 2-run homer by Ezra Branch and a 2-out, 2-run bloop single by Bill Bedinghaus to complete a horrendous rout. 12-2 Condors. Richards 2-3, BB, 2 2B; McKnight 2-2, RBI;

Maud? Where’s the good paper and pen? – No, I want the good paper for the suicide note.

Game 2
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B Jaeger – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – C J. Vargas – SS Eroh – 2B Lafon – P E. Knight
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 3B Nunley – SS Canning – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – P Toner

The Condors took another 1-0 lead in the first on Jonny Toner, with the run unearned, but Toner had made the incriminating error himself, dropping Kevin Jaeger’s bouncer long enough for Jaeger to reach first base before allowing two hard singles. An earned run followed before long, as Toner drilled Craig Dasher to start the third inning and lost him on Will Newman’s double to left. The Raccoons didn’t get into scoring position until the fourth inning. Murphy hit a leadoff single, Bednarski walked, but Nunley hit into a double play. Runner on third, two outs, and Batting canning things looked bad enough, but Canning walked, and successive singles by Danny Margolis and Jason Bergquist not only plated Murphy, but also loaded the bags for Toner, who didn’t bite against Ethan Knight and drew a 4-pitch walk, forcing home the tying run. Ricardo Carmona came up, 0-for-7 in the series, and rolled to the first baseman Jaeger to end the inning…

Nope, Toner had to come up again to get the offense moving further along… He faced righty Frank Guggenheim in the bottom 6th with Canning on third base and two outs – Canning being Knight’s responsibility still. Guggenheim had already moved Canning to third with a wild pitch, and now surrendered the go-ahead single to Toner, a hard liner to shallow left center, uncatchable for anybody, and the Coons were up 3-2. Not for long, though. Toner ****ed up the seventh inning, despite removing the first two batters. Then, Bedinghaus doubled, Toner walked TWO, and threw an 0-2 wild pitch, before striking out Will Newman. Toner still wound up with another lead in the bottom 7th, in which Sandy Sambrano hit a leadoff double and eventually scampered home on Nunley’s 2-out single to right, all off Guggenheim, who also loaded the bases in the inning, but Bergquist’s deep drive to right was caught by Ezra Branch to end the inning. Sugano removed Branch to start the eighth, but Chris Mathis struggled and put two men on. Angel Casas, who had yet to pitch in a save situation this year, only getting a junk inning in Sunday’s loss to the Thunder, was called on to get four outs starting with normally negligible second baseman Roland Lafon. The normally negligible Lafon singled to center, scoring pinch-runner Leon Martinez with ease, and Casas cocked up another single to Bedinghaus, this one giving the Condors the lead. Fortunately, the Condors weren’t beyond dumb stuff and blowing leads. Jose Sanchez got the ninth inning for them, and Stan Murphy homered off him right away, tying the game at five. After Bednarski and Nunley went down, we emptied the bench by pinch-hitting Richards and D-Alex in succession, and both left-handers walked against the righty Sanchez. That was not much help with Bergquist batting, however, and now the bench was dry, save for Nick Brown, who still sat there stary-eyed and wondered what had happened on Monday. Bergquist grounded to third, Melvin Valles to first, … PAST first, into the dugout, and Ron Richards was awarded home on a 2-base walkoff throwing error. 6-5 Blighters. Murphy 2-4, BB, HR, RBI; Reya (PH) 1-1; Toner 7.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K and 1-2, BB, 2 RBI;

Cookie is now 0-for-10 in this series and down to .250 on the season. Well, we’re in a string of 13 games without an off day, and everybody will eventually get one. His might come sooner than expected.

Game 3
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B Jaeger – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – C J. Vargas – SS Eroh – 2B Lafon – P McCaskill
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS Canning – P Santos

Cookie ended his Condors futility with a leadoff single, was caught stealing, but the Coons had two on when Sandy and Richards walked, just in time for Luis Reya to wonk his first Raccoons homer, a long 3-run shot to rightfield. That was not all for McCaskill, who – despite two outs – allowed another two runs on four straight base hits, starting with a Nunley double, and ending with back-to-back RBI singles by Canning and Santos before Cookie lined hard to center, but right to Ryan Feldmann, leaving the score at 5-0 after one. While Santos did not allow a base runner the first time through the lineup, the Raccoons added two more runs in a mess of a third inning, with the runs being produced with the help of a gross fielding error by Feldmann, a passed ball, and finally a 2-out RBI single by Cookie, 7-0.

But Santos also got his bell rung in due time. Craig Dasher hit a leadoff single in the fourth, and Jaeger and Feldmann both hit RBI doubles to at least get the Condors noticed. The Coons had chances to knock over the Condors for good, but Reya hit into a double play in the bottom 4th and they left the bases loaded in the sixth when D-Alex flew out to left. Jose Vargas, guilty of two passed balls by then, homered off Santos with two outs in the seventh, getting the Condors back into slam range, but it was also their last output in the game. They got another runner in the ninth on a Reya error, but Ron Thrasher and Marcos Bruno ended the game without the run scoring. 7-3 Coons. Carmona 3-5, RBI; Richards 3-4, BB; Murphy 2-5; Nunley 2-3, 2 BB, 2B; Canning 3-4, RBI; Santos 7.2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 11 K, W (2-0) and 1-3, RBI;

In other news, the Druid finally came back with the report that he could not find any structural damage in Ronnie McKnight’s barking elbow – which was semantically different from there being NO structural damage – but nevertheless proclaimed confidence that McKnight would be fine after another one to two weeks of rest and a treatment of the elbow in question with molten bee wax every other day. The burns would encourage the healing process.

McKnight was thus placed on the DL (and left to his fate with the Druid). Palmer Taylor was called up in the meantime.

Raccoons (5-3) vs. Indians (3-6) – April 16-19, 2015

The Indians had scored 16 runs in their second game of the season (against the Crusaders!), but only 21 runs in their other eight games. This put them eighth in runs scored, but they were 11th in runs allowed – the same ranks the Condors had occupied before the previous series. We had gone 11-7 against Indy in 2014, and have not lost the season series since 2011.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (0-1, 2.57 ERA) vs. Kyle Lamb (0-1, 1.35 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-1, 8.31 ERA) vs. Tristan Broun (1-1, 4.20 ERA)
Nick Brown (1-1, 6.94 ERA) vs. Tom Weise (0-1, 14.63 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (1-0, 1.29 ERA) vs. Alejandro Mendez (0-1, 4.85 ERA)

We get two more left-handers to start this series in Lamb and Broun. Unless anything changes, we will have seen lefties and righties equally two weeks in, something out of the ordinary compared to the last few years.

The Crusaders had lost on Wednesday, putting the Raccoons in first place by half a game to start this series.

Game 1
IND: CF J. Wilson – C Padilla – RF Gilmor – 2B Kym – LF M. Cruz – SS Mathews – 1B Shank – 3B Dawson – P Lamb
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – SS Canning – C Margolis – P Conway

The Indians had two hits, Murphy made an error, but they still didn’t score in the first, thanks to Ron Richards throwing out John Wilson at home plate on Nick Gilmor’s single to left. Bednarski doubled home Sambrano in the bottom of the inning, but Joey Mathews took Bill Conway way deep to start the second inning for an early 1-1 tie. Richards would come up with the bases loaded in the bottom 3rd after singles by Conway and Carmona and a walk drawn by Bednarski. Lamb had only one out, ran the count full, and then lost Richards on a ball in the dirt, a go-ahead, bases-loaded walk. The next two batters also ran 3-ball counts. Murphy popped out in a full count, but Nunley forced home another run with another walk before Canning popped out over the first base line. 3-1 Coons, though Conway really wasn’t taking good care of it. He issued a leadoff walk to Manny Cruz in the fourth and allowed two more singles, scoring Cruz and leaving the tying run on third base when John Wilson lined out to Richards in left to end the inning. The Critters continued to find runs in odd places, scoring a run in the fourth on Sandy’s sac fly, and another in the fifth after a leadoff double by Richards, who was singled home by Walt Canning with two down, 5-2. Conway, however, found ways to stink, issuing two walks and throwing a wild pitch in the sixth to concede another run.

Conway was hit for in the bottom of the sixth, which a) didn’t help, and b) made things even worse. The Raccoons’ pen collapsed instantly. Sugano got two outs in the seventh before allowing a single to Nick Gilmor, and when Entwistle replaced him, Jong-beom Kym and Apasyu Britton rapped hard singles to score one run, and Joey Mathews doubled to flip the score, 6-5 for the Indians, who added on in the eighth against Constantino, who drilled Marc Thompson and allowed him to score on Dave Padilla’s 2-out single. The Coons never gave another squeal. They had Bednarski on with one out in the ninth, but Richards’ and Murphy’s flies to left were not even close to generate excitement. 7-5 Indians. Carmona 2-4, BB, 2B; Bednarski 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI;

The Raccoons now had five relievers with ERA’s of five or higher, plus Angel Casas, with 100% blown saves and no inherited runners stranded, with Sugano the only exception. The overall pen ERA of 8.02 is not only horrendous, it’s also – obviously – the worst in the league. Not that three of five starters are that good…

Game 2
IND: CF J. Wilson – 3B Mathews – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – LF M. Cruz – C Denny – RF M. Thompson – SS Dawson – P Broun
POR: CF Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – SS Canning – 2B Bergquist – P Dickerson

The Raccoons hit into double plays in the first (Bednarski) and second (Canning) before taking a break. Dickerson, who had allowed 11 hits in 4 1/3 innings in his first season start, allowed only one hit in the first four to the Indians, but Manny Cruz hit a bloop single to start the fifth and then scored on a gasping bobble by Murphy, who got an easy 2-out grounder from Ryan Dawson and still misfiled it up his furry arse. The Coons, down 1-0, continued to play disjointed baseball, foremost Canning, who was on first with two outs and Dickerson batting in the bottom 5th, then got picked off, which not only ended the inning, but put Dickerson up to lead off the sixth.

… or he would have, had he survived the top of the sixth. Three of the first four Indians singled, putting them 2-0 ahead with Mathews and Kym on the corners and Manny Cruz batting with one out. Cruz bounced one right into Nunley’s glove, quick throw to second base, and Bergquist simply took a dump on the play and dropped the ball. Mathews scored, there were still two on, and Dickerson had nothing whatsoever. Mike Denny singled, loading the bases, and Dickerson was yanked. Mathis replaced him, allowed a run on a grounder to Nunley that could have retired two (Bergquist looking bad again), then brought in another run with a WILD pitch. Ron Richards drove in a run in the bottom of the inning, barely scratching the 5-0 deficit, before Bruno allowed doubles to Wilson and Mathews in the top 7th, which now didn’t cost a run since Wilson was caught stealing third base prematurely. Entwistle wobbled in the eighth but didn’t fall for once, and Sugano handled the ninth, and while the home team wasn’t doing anything, the umpires had everybody wait through a 55-minute rain delay in the middle of the ninth inning before the Raccoons finally went down feebly against Jarrod Morrison in the bottom 9th. 5-1 Indians. Nunley 3-4; Bednarski 2-4; Richards 3-4, 2B, RBI; Murphy 2-4;

Lots of losing-team baseball to be seen here. The last few games have been appalling.

Game 3
IND: CF J. Wilson – 3B Dawson – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – C Padilla – RF Gilmor – LF M. Cruz – 3B Mathews – P Weise
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS Taylor – P Brown

In an alarming trend of being completely ****, Nick Brown was torn up for four runs in the first inning. After striking out John Wilson, the next six Indians reached base one way or another, starting with a double by Ryan Dawson, Kym getting dinked, Guerra drew a walk, and then it went single, single, single before Nunley got hold of Joey Mathews’ grounder and turned a double play. Brown’s ERA shot over nine, the Raccoons made three outs on six pitches in the bottom of the inning, and I turned to a travel website to make arrangements for an October vacation on an uninhabited island.

The Raccoons happened into a run in the fourth when Weise had a wild phase, walked a pair, but Nunley’s RBI single was all that sprung out of it. The Raccoons had two on again in the fifth, and left those on consequently. Brown allowed only one hit from the second through the fifth inning before all things turned around once more in the sixth inning. A single to center, a single to right, Nunley with an error, and the bases were loaded with nobody out. The Indians continued to find the ****ing seams between the ****ing fielders, and hung another three runs (two earned) onto Brown, before he was yanked in favor of Bruno, who walked Ryan Dawson, but got out of the inning. The Coons also had the bases loaded with two outs in the inning, but Bednarski, hitting for Bruno, grounded out in poor fashion. Constantino pitched effective long relief after that, which ended up the team highlight of the game. The offense hit into double plays in the last two innings, and Weise almost threw a complete game, being removed after a 2-out single by Cookie in the ninth. 7-1 Indians. Carmona 2-5; Nunley 2-4, RBI; Taylor 2-3, BB; Constantino 3.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K;

I am hurting on so many levels right now…

Game 4
IND: CF J. Wilson – C Padilla – RF Gilmor – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – LF M. Cruz – 3B Mathews – SS Dawson – P A. Mendez
POR: CF Carmona – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 1B Reya – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – SS Taylor – P Toner

Staving off an embarrassing sweep would be quite a task for the heavily burdened offense once Toner was romped by a Jong-beom Kym 3-run homer in the first inning. As usual, a single here, a single there, and then the big knell. The Coons went down quickly in the first, but Luis Reya opened the second with a double into the gap in left center. D-Alex failed before Bergquist reached with an infield single, scoring Reya from third. Bergquist stole second base as Taylor struck out, moved up on Toner’s infield single, and Cookie walked to load the bases for Nunley, who snapped the ball right back to Mendez and was out at first by about 65 feet. Nunley also left runners on the corners in the fourth, in which the Raccoons had already scored an unearned run after a throwing error by Kym, but remained 3-2 down. Making an already bad impression worse, Nunley made an error in the fifth inning, but Toner managed to wiggle out to leave runners on the corners.

After a Bednarski double and Reya single, the Coons had runners on the corners yet again in the bottom 5th. D-Alex batted with one out, and his grounder to right was hard enough to beat Kym and find rightfield for the game-tying RBI single. A passed ball moved the runners into scoring position for Bergquist, who failed capitally with a foul pop. Taylor was walked intentionally for Toner to drive a ball to deep center, but not deep enough to beat John Wilson. The misery continued with Toner allowing a leadoff double to Joey Mathews in the seventh. He struck out Dawson and Mendez before John Wilson found his way up the leftfield line with a high fly that was not deep at all, but Ron Richards was pretty much beat by everything that was not right at him, and this was a single that scored Mathews easily. Bottom 8th, Taylor led off with a double to be the tying run. Murphy hit for Toner, was completely useless and grounded out to short, Cookie popped out, and Nunley, who had nothing but failed the entire game, singled to center and FINALLY plated that tying run, evening the score at four. Richards then singled, Bednarski singled, the bases were loaded, and Luis Reya grounded out to Kym to leave them loaded.

Angel Casas held the Indians where they were in the top of the ninth, and when D-Alex doubled off Ed Bryan, the long-ago Raccoon, to open the bottom 9th there was another chance for a walkoff win. Bergquist was walked intentionally before Sandy hit for Taylor against the left-handed Bryan, who lost Sambrano in a full count, loading the bases with nobody out for Murphy, who had replaced Reya at first base. Come the **** on, Murphy! You don’t even have to get a hit to liven up your ****ty .231 clip, just hit one to an outfielder! He hit a 1-1 pitch up the middle, Tom Bowers, manning short, lunged at it, but couldn’t get it, and the ball made to center as Dylan Alexander crossed home plate. 5-4 Coons. Bednarski 2-5, 2B; Reya 2-5, 2B; Alexander 2-5, 2B, RBI; Bergquist 2-4, BB, RBI; Murphy 1-2, RBI;

In other news

April 13 – The Thunder are dealt a crippling blow with the news that 38-yr old RF/LF/1B Will Bailey (0-for-8) needs to have reconstructive surgery on his labrum and shoulder, putting him out for probably the entire season. Bailey hit 40 home runs and plated 200 for the Thunder between 2013 and 2014.
April 14 – BOS 1B Steve Butler (.281, 1 HR, 4 RBI) has his hitting streak end at 22 games at the hands of the Knights.
April 17 – The hitting streak of SFB 3B Javy Rodriguez (.333, 0 HR, 4 RBI) reaches 25 games with a single in the Bayhawks’ 5-0 defeat against the Knights.
April 17 – DAL OF/1B Hugo Mendoza (.447, 4 HR, 12 RBI) will miss about two weeks with an abdominal strain.
April 18 – SFB LF/RF Ron Alston (.362, 4 HR, 10 RBI) reaches 2,500 career hits with a single off Atlanta’s Shaun Yoder, who takes the loss in a 10-4 drubbing. Alston also has 414 HR and 1,371 RBI to his credit.
April 18 – The Thunder trade LF/RF Jose Gomez (.235, 0 HR, 2 RBI) to the Miners for LF Earl Clark (.300, 0 HR, 7 RBI) and a minor leaguer. Both Gomez and Clark are in their mid-30s and not what they once were.

Complaints and stuff

Jimmy Oatmeal homered off Nick Brown. Now I have seen everything. Turns out, the more you see, the more **** things get. But really, we’re behind the ****ing Loggers, so something has been going wrong colossally the last week…

Well, the team is 2nd/2nd/3rd in slashing in the CL, but is only scoring middling runs, which is not something out of the ordinary ‘round here, but what is the opposite of amazing is the bludgeoned pitching. The rotation is eighth in ERA, the bullpen is dead-last, and the defense is also dead-last, which fits well with the defensive shortstop already on the DL.

Fielding’s canning was somewhere between disinterested and quite frankly inept, and the Raccoons can’t go with that sucker in any capacity. Palmer Taylor is nothing special for sure, but at least he might be able to hold the fort for another ten days until McKnight comes back.

Dan Moon was traded once more this week in an odd early-season deal between the Knights and Condors. The latter receive him now along with infielder Aaron Nelson, while dealing C Bill Bedinghaus to the Knights. Nelson has no major league hits, and Bedinghaus had only nine AB this season. In terms of former Raccoons farmhands, 1B Ralph Myers, who is almost 33 and has his first starting assignment in the majors nailed down for the Falcons, had a 5-hit day on Saturday. Maybe a trade for Stan Murphy can be worked out.

Although the less you say about Nick Brown’s performance so far the better, but there’s still this to mention:

ABL CAREER STRIKEOUTS

1st – Tony Hamlyn – 3,872 (active)
2nd – Martin Garcia – 3,783
3rd – Woody Roberts – 3,313 (HOF)
4th – Aaron Anderson – 3,225 (HOF)
5th – Carlos Castro – 3,198 (HOF)
6th – Javier Cruz – 3,164
7th – Chris York – 3,103 (active)
8th – Carlos Asquabal – 2,995 (HOF)
9th – Arnold McCray – 2,900 (HOF)
10th – Bastyao Caixinha – 2,844 (HOF)
11th – Nick Brown – 2,808 (active)
12th – Kisho Saito – 2,800 (HOF)
13th – Kelvin Yates – 2,773
14th – Pancho Trevino – 2,766 (active)

Kel Yates retired during the winter and Chris York has ongoing issues as the air is getting thinner near the top. Pancho Trevino should overtake Brown at some point during the season. The next active player on the list is Rod Taylor, who has now broken into the top 20 with 2,548 K and is chasing down Pittsburgh’s Hall of Famer Craig Hansen.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (6-6) vs. Titans (4-8) – April 20-22, 2015

The last set of the depressing homestand were three games against the Titans, who had lost four in a row and had the worst offense in the Continental League overall, having scored only 30 runs (2.5 R/G). How that would mingle with the Raccoons’ pitching, which had yet to be scraped off the front of that bus, remained to be seen. The Titans’ pitching was fifth in ERA. The season series had been split evenly in 2014, nine games each.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (2-0, 1.62 ERA) vs. Chae-ku Lee (1-1, 3.00 ERA)
Bill Conway (0-1, 3.46 ERA) vs. Johnny Krom (0-1, 1.80 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-2, 5.59 ERA) vs. Melvin Andrade (0-1, 2.30 ERA)

Krom was a left-hander, the only one the Titans had in their rotation.

Game 1
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – CF J. Alexander – C T. Robinson – RF R. Lopez – LF J. Silva – 3B Rentz – P C.K. Lee
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 1B Reya – 3B Nunley – C D. Alexander – SS Taylor – P Santos

The weekend’s nightmare continued unabated with Mike Rivera’s and Jose Gutierrez’ hard singles to start the game, a passed ball and a wild pitch, John Alexander’s RBI double and stolen base, and finally a deep fly to third base for the last out, plating two runs on Santos in the first inning, which took him well over 30 pitches to complete. It didn’t get better after that, either, with Gutierrez’ leadoff double in the third inning being followed by a walk to Steve Butler, Santos’ first walk issued after 18.2 innings in the season. But the Titans kept whacking it, with J-Alex ramming a double off the wall in right. Gutierrez scored, 3-0, Butler tried to, but was thrown out on Sandy Sambrano’s relay, however, the Titans also brought in Alexander to run the score to 4-0. The Coons had stranded two men in scoring position in the first inning when Luis Reya had flown out to Rodrigo Lopez in right, but they had the bases loaded with nobody out in the third inning after Cookie doubled and Sandy and Richards both walked. The next three batters each brought home a single run as Bednarski grounded out, Reya reached on Mike Rivera’s error, and Nunley singled, getting the team back to 4-3 before Dylan Alexander hit into a two-for-one with Rivera to end the inning.

None of that helped Santos, who remained awful, allowed another run in the fourth inning and didn’t make it out of the fifth. Zack Entwistle had to come in and strike out Lopez with two men to end the inning. Mathis pitched two scoreless innings, keeping the Titans close, and in between the Coons had the tying runs on when Sandy and Richards drew walks – the last of six for Chae-ku Lee – but were left on by the presumed big bats. Bottom 8th, the pen was at it for Boston, and the bases were loaded with nobody out as Nunley walked, D-Alex singled, and Murphy walked in place of Taylor against the new reliever, lefty Bill Dean. Bergquist batted for the reliever Mathis, and hit a 2-0 pitch hard up the middle, and through between the fielders, for an RBI single. The bases remained loaded for Cookie, who fell behind 0-2 before looping a ball up the leftfield line for a 2-run double, which flipped the score. Dean was bowled over completely on Sandy’s following 2-run single to center, but he also had to watch that sixth run score after Richards’ single and a pinch-hit sac fly from Danny Margolis. That put the game out of save range for Angel Casas, who didn’t have any saves so far (nobody on the team had one), and Ron Thrasher wasn’t creating one, retiring the Titans in order in the ninth. 9-5 Raccoons. Carmona 3-5, 2 2B, 2 RBI; Sambrano 1-2, 3 BB, 2 RBI; Richards 2-3, 2 BB; Nunley 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Bergquist (PH) 1-1, RBI; Mathis 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W (1-0);

Game 2
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – CF J. Alexander – C T. Robinson – RF R. Lopez – LF Thurman – 3B Rentz – P Krom
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 2B Bergquist – 3B Canning – C Margolis – P Conway

Steve Butler was thrown out at home for the second day in a row, this time in the first inning. It was not the only run the Titans forfeited on the bases, as Mike Rivera had been caught stealing by Margolis after a leadoff walk. Butler had been hit by a pitch, and was thrown out on J-Alex’ double to center. And that was not the only mistake made by anybody early in this mess of a game. Cookie was thrown out stealing in the bottom of the inning when Sambrano fell asleep on a hit-and-run call, but in the bottom 2nd the Coons had their first two batters on when Krom threw a wild pitch to Bergquist, and when Bergquist grounded over to Tommy Rentz, the third baseman made a capital throwing error for two bases, allowing both Raccoons on the paths to score the first runs of the game. Walking canned, Margolis doubled, and Cookie hit a sac fly to run up four runs total in the inning, two of which were earned, and two of which were blamed on Rentz.

In a game of two’s, Margolis would have a second extra-base hit, a solo homer in the fourth, Carmona was caught stealing once more right after that, and Conway allowed two runs in the fifth after a rain shower had forced a delay of just over 30 minutes. He got two more outs in the sixth – Krom had been done after four – but was replaced after Zachary Thurman’s double. Bruno retired Rentz to stifle the Titans in the 5-2 game. Manobu Sugano faced five Titans and retired them all, including four left-handers, in the seventh and eighth, and with two outs, Constantino was supposed to retire Tim Robinson, but walked him. Okay, bring Angel. The first 4-out save hadn’t worked, but this was his now. Rodrigo Lopez grounded out to short to end the inning. Angel had come in along with Reya, double-switching out Richards. Bergquist walked and Canning singled to go to the corners with one out in the bottom 8th. Margolis popped out against Bill Dean, but Reya came up now and rammed a double off the leftfield fence. Both runners scored, and Angel Casas had a comfy ninth. 7-2 Raccoons. Carmona 2-4, RBI; Murphy 2-4, 2B; Bergquist 2-3, BB; Margolis 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Reya 1-1, 2B, 2 RBI; Sugano 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K; Casas 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, SV (1);

Cookie is now 3-for-8 in stolen bases this year, so lock the showers.

The Titans made a switch with their rotation, sending Ian Rutter (1-1, 1.08 ERA) into the final game on Wednesday.

Game 3
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – CF J. Alexander – C T. Robinson – RF R. Lopez – LF X. Williams – 3B Rentz – P Rutter
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C D. Alexander – SS Taylor – P Dickerson

Dickerson was shackled early, as Rivera and Butler both doubled in the first, and he also walked two, conceding two runs. Luis Reya was the death for all offense the Raccoons tried to generate, flying out to end the first with two Furballs on base, and also in the third, when the bases were loaded. Nobody scored, while the Titans were smelling Dickerson’s corpse having more runs in them. In a telling moment, Ian Rutter was told to swing away with Xavier Williams on first and one out in the fourth inning and lined out hard to Palmer Taylor at short. The Coons would finally come up even in the bottom of the fourth inning when Carmona tripled with Nunley and D-Alex on base, tying the game at two. Ron Richards then gave the Coons the lead with a leadoff jack in the fifth. That was the last run off Rutter, who was hit for in the sixth when his spot came up just after a walk to Tommy Rentz that loaded the bases with nobody out and ended Dickerson’s shoddy performance. Entwistle had PH Jose Silva at 0-2, but failed to clean up when Silva singled in the tying run, and surrendered another run on a sac fly. Thrasher came on to face Steve Butler with two men still on base in a 4-3 deficit, but the Titans again ran themselves out of a big inning when Rentz was caught stealing third base. Thrasher surrendered an RBI double anyway, and the Coons were down 5-3 before J-Alex struck out. Xavier Williams further opened the score in the seventh with a 2-run blast off Constantino. The Raccoons looked on, and amounted to nothing in the final few innings. 7-3 Titans. Carmona 3-5, 3B, 2 RBI;

We keep having the very worst defense in the league… Hits just fall in everywhere, all the time.

Raccoons (8-7) @ Aces (9-6) – April 24-26, 2015

The Aces had gotten off well, ranking second in both runs scored and runs allowed in the Continental League. Most of the pitching merits rested with the rotation, however, as their bullpen had been sub par, ranking ninth with a 4.28 ERA – nothing compared to the Coons, however. The Coons had taken last year’s series, 7-2.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (1-2, 7.79 ERA) vs. Jaquan Wagoner (2-1, 0.42 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (1-0, 2.45 ERA) vs. Juan Valdevez (1-2, 3.79 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-0, 3.38 ERA) vs. Alonso Alonso (1.1, 7.00 ERA)

This is a full set of right-handed pitchers. Have we had something like that this year? I don’t think so. The Aces also led the league in stolen bases with 16, with Cookie Carmona getting close in getting caught stealing…

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – SS Taylor – P Brown
LVA: 3B R. Avila – C D. Rice – 1B B. Thomas – SS B. Burke – CF Kelsey – 2B Beard – LF J. Garcia – RF J. Alvarez – P Wagoner

Stan Murphy doubled home the first run of the game in the first inning, plating Ron Richards, who had singled, but it remained to be seen how Nick Brown, who had effectively been dismembered in his last two starts, conceding more than a run per inning, would fare against the high-offense Aces. Turns out: not well. Ricky Avila singled hard to left to start the Aces’ night, stole second base on a tardy Alexander, and scored easily on a sac fly by Brent Burke after Bill Thomas had been smacked by Brown. Avila found himself with runners in scoring position in the bottom 2nd after Brown had walked both Jaime Garcia and Jesus Alvarez and that also came back to bite him when Avila hit a bloop into shallow left. Both runs scored, and Brown’s ERA was closing in on nine. Friggin’ nine!! The same situation came up again in the fifth, Garcia and Alvarez in scoring position – this time after singles – and two outs for Avila, who this time bounced out to Matt Nunley.

By then, D-Alex had been struck in the leg by a Wagoner pitch and had left the game, leaving catching duties to Danny Margolis, who hit into a double play in the seventh, the third straight inning in which the Raccoons hit into a two-for-one to completely blast the foundations off any comeback opportunity. Brownie was nothing special, but kept the team in the game all the way through eight innings, striking out seven, most of those in the sixth inning and later.

The Raccoons had the tying run at the plate once more in the ninth against Manuel Reyes after a 1-out, pinch-hit single by Jason Seeley. Canning hit for Brown, singled to right to bring up the go-ahead run, but Cookie lined out to Jaime Garcia. Bergquist hit for Sambrano, who had suffered through a completely black day, and managed a single to center, plating a run to get the Coons to 3-2. Ron Richards hit a 2-1 pitch hard to right, Rusty Beard lunging – NOT GETTING IT!! A single, Canning scored, and the game was tied! Murphy bounced to short on the first pitch to hand Brownie a no-decision. The Aces loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth against Bruno and Sugano, but Carmona made a flying grab on Avila’s soft line to shallow center to retire the side and send the game to extras. The Coons had a 2-out double by Margolis in the top 10th, but had an empty bench and Sugano’s spot came up. Sugano struck out, but at least also got Danny Rice with a K to start the bottom 10th. Mathis then took over, Nunley made a throwing error to put the winning run at second base with one out, but Mathis somehow made it through. Cookie doubled in the 11th, but was stranded when Geoff Struck gobbled up two wannabe-doubles by Bergquist and Richards. Reya then reached second base on Bill Thomas’ throwing error in the top 11th (Thomas had been the runner reaching on Nunley’s error), but Nunley was walked intentionally and Margolis hit into a double play. Nunley would strike out with runners on the corners to end the top 14th, as this game dragged on way longer than anybody appreciated. The bottom 15th was Ron Thrasher’s second inning. Bill Thomas singled with one out, Brent Burke doubled, and rookie Justin Bellows zinged the very next pitch into leftfield to end this stinker. 4-3 Aces. Richards 2-5, 2 BB, RBI; Murphy 3-7, 2B, RBI; Reya 2-4; Margolis 2-5, 2B; Seeley (PH) 1-1; Canning (PH) 2-4; Brown 8.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 K; Mathis 3.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

The little ****s left EIGHTEEN men on base. I don’t even know what to do…

Dylan Alexander had a bruised thigh, and this would not put him out for longer than a week, so I didn’t want to disable him, but I also couldn’t go with only one catcher. D-Alex claimed he could play and was only listed as day-to-day, but I didn’t feel easy about this. Tom McNeela in St. Petersburg was put on alert to have a bag ready with a toothbrush and two fresh sets of underwear, just in case.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – SS Taylor – C Margolis – P Toner
LVA: 3B R. Avila – C D. Rice – SS B. Burke – LF Bellows – 1B Bovane – CF Kelsey – RF Struck – 2B Beard – P Valdevez

Toner faced the minimum the first time through, though not without a single by Bellows and drilling Geoff Struck. Both leadoff runners were erased on double play grounders, while the Raccoons were already up 1-0 thanks to Ron Richards’ fifth home run of the season and would add their second run on another solo homer, this one by Mike Bednarski, his third, in the fourth inning. While Jonny Toner more or less had the Aces under control except for the fourth inning when he suffered a short bout of wildness, ran back-to-back full counts and issued a walk to Brent Burke, which raised his pitch count suddenly, the offense kept trickling at the pace of a run every other inning. Carmona was on third base and scored on Richards’ sac fly in the sixth inning, giving Toner a 3-0 lead.

Jonny finally had his bell rung in the bottom 7th when out of nowhere between K’s and soft pops and grounders Justin Bellows got hold of one and ripped a solo homer to right. This one was outta here so clearly, Bednarski didn’t even look, he stood motionless and kept staring at home plate as the ball vanished in the cheap seats. Toner completed eight innings, getting another double play in the eighth, in the top of which the Coons had missed their usual even-inning run when Richards had been called out on strikes with Carmona and Canning in scoring position and two outs, and they had the fourth run thrown out at home plate in the ninth inning. Bergquist had been clunked by Kevin Johnston, had been bunted over by Taylor and had tried to score on Margolis’ single, but it was not enough. Avila hit a leadoff double off Angel in the ninth, but that was all the Aces got. 3-1 Raccoons. Carmona 2-3, BB, 2B; Toner 8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, W (2-0);

This was Justin Bellows‘ first career homer. He was the first overall pick in the 2008 draft, taken out of high school, but it had been a long struggle for him before he made it to the majors. He had cups of coffee in each of the last three years, never hit much at all, and only this season, at age 26, had fought his role into a starting spot.

Jason Seeley has yet to start a game this season. Poor kid does his best, let’s put him in for Sunday.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 1B Murphy – RF Richards – 3B Nunley – SS Canning – LF Seeley – C Margolis – P Santos
LVA: 3B R. Avila – C D. Rice – SS B. Burke – 1B Bovane – CF Kelsey – RF Struck – LF J. Garcia – 2B Beard – P A. Alonso

The Coons scored two on Alonso Alonso in the first inning, which started with a Cookie single and stolen base, with Sandy walking, before the Raccoons made consecutive force outs at second base, but that allowed Carmona to score, and Richards would come home on Canning’s single after Nunley had worked a walk to shove him to second base. Unfortunately, Santos couldn’t even hold on for one inning, getting whacked for a Danny Rice single, a Brent Burke triple, and a Raúl Bovane single, all hard, all line drives, to fall back to a 2-2 tie after one. The Aces had three more hits in the second inning, scoring two more runs, and it was the obnoxious Avila again, that highly annoying pest, with a 2-out, 2-run single.

The Raccoons put up a threat in the fifth inning, but Carmona made a baserunning mistake, not going all-out from first base on Murphy’s 2-out double to right, which had him then stop on third base, and he was stranded along with Murphy and Richards, who walked, when Nunley grounded out to Rusty Beard. Chances wound up few and far between for the Raccoons in this game. A pinch-hit triple by Bednarski would at least bring up the tying run again in the eighth inning, but that was with two outs and Margolis coming up, and Margolis could not be hit for. He grounded out. Luis Reya hit for Thrasher to start the top 9th against Reyes, who had blown the save on Friday, and singled hard to right. The tying run was up again, since the Aces hadn’t scored since Avila’s evil deed in the second inning. Santos through six and a third, Bruno, and Thrasher had held the Aces where they were. Cookie grounded out, Sandy popped out, and Murphy whiffed to end the game and lose the series. 4-2 Aces. Murphy 2-5, 2B; Bednarski (PH) 1-1, 3B; Reya (PH) 1-1;

In other news

April 20 – It looks like the Rebels will be without RF/LF Winston Jones (.279, 1 HR, 13 RBI) for a while. The 31-year old sprained his ankle and might need a month of rest.
April 21 – SAC 2B Ricky Luna (.175, 1 HR, 3 RBI) is hit in the face by Dallas’ Chris Domingue (3-0, 0.75 ERA), who pitches a 4-hit shutout in a 7-0 Stars win, and gets away with a fractured cheekbone. He will be out for at least one month.
April 22 – It’s a 20-game hitting streak for LAP LF Jimmy Roberts (.328, 3 HR, 8 RBI), who hits three singles in the Pacifics’ 4-2 win over the Warriors.
April 22 – The 500-save milestone has been reached by VAN CL Pedro Alvarado (0-1, 1.08 ERA, 4 SV), who saves the Canadiens’ 9-5 lead over the Indians from mortal danger to become only the fifth pitcher to reach 500 saves, following Andres Ramirez, Lawson Steward, Grant West (all Hall of Famers), as well as Jim Durden.
April 22 – The Blue Sox outlast the Rebels in a wild slugfest, beating them 15-11. There are four innings in which a team scored four runs or more in the contest, but not a single player with more than two runs batted in!
April 23 – The hitting streak of SFB 3B Javy Rodriguez (.377, 0 HR, 6 RBI) has reached 30 games with a second-inning single in Randy Farley’s (2-0, 1.80 ERA) 6-hit shutout of the Falcons. The Bayhawks win 3-0.
April 23 – The Capitals have found out what’s wrong with SP Brian Benjamin (0-2, 8.79 ERA). The 25-year old right-hander has a tear in his flexor tendon and needs surgery, ending his season.
April 24 – TIJ SP Manuel Rojas (2-1, 0.73 ERA) might miss most of the season with a torn labrum.
April 24 – As they beat the Scorpions 8-0, the Buffaloes score all their runs in the eighth inning.
April 25 – The Titans snap the hitting streak of SFB 3B Javier Rodriguez (.364, 0 HR, 6 RBI) at 31 games, holding him dry in a 4-1 defeat against the Bayhawks.
April 26 – Also no more: the hitting streak of LAP LF Jimmy Roberts (.354, 3 HR, 9 RBI), which ends after 23 games as Roberts goes 0-for-3 in the Pacifics’ 8-1 rout at the hands of the Cyclones.

Complaints and stuff

Defense remains questionable. Lots of innings where they won’t make a play for three, four batters, and that is how these 3-run innings happen. Every day, more or less, although the pitching was much better in the Aces series – but the offense went sour.

Canning has been really inefficient at short, but has been hitting, while Taylor has been good at short, but has not been hitting a lick. Ronnie McKnight can come off the DL on Tuesday, solving this issue, thankfully. McKnight is ready to go, but his 15 days aren’t up yet…

Should have signed ancient Randy Farley. He can basically take anybody’s spot in the rotation right now, except Jonny Toner’s. Everybody else looks like last week’s leftover vegetables.

Graham Wasserman made his second start for the Cyclones this week but left the game with an injury after getting socked for six runs early, which I guess is called adding injury to insult.

We’ll play the two fifth-place teams next week, but I dare say that the Crusaders are already merely a tiny silhouette against the setting sun.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (9-9) @ Falcons (7-12) – April 27-29, 2015

The Falcons were fifth in offense and ninth in runs allowed, while putting up mostly middling numbers in individual categories. It didn’t look like there was anything special to them. We had lost the season series in 2014, dropping to the Falcons 3-6. They had just lost LF/RF/1B Jorge Garcia (.267, 0 HR, 3 RBI) to a torn back muscle. The 34-year old should be out for most of the season.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (1-1, 3.38 ERA) vs. Jorge Silva (0-3, 5.87 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-3, 5.52 ERA) vs. John Key (0-0, 4.26 ERA)
Nick Brown (1-2, 6.39 ERA) vs. Steve Kreider (3-1, 1.97 ERA)

The Falcons will send three right-handers against us. We will shove Dickerson throughout the rotation in the next week-plus to take a start from him. The Raccoons will have the next three Thursdays off. It doesn’t work out for this week, yet.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Reya – SS Taylor – C Margolis – P Conway
CHA: 2B Wagner – 3B Best – RF Nieves – 1B Myers – SS P. Hall – CF Pearcy – C Case – LF Monreal – P J. Silva

Former Raccoons farmhand Ralph Myers put the Falcons atop quickly with a 2-out double in the bottom of the first inning. Conway had walked Steve Best and had advanced him on a wild pitch, hinting early at his potential for terrible control. He did not get better even one bit. By the fourth, he had zero strikeouts, but another run had already scored after a walk with nobody out. Conway had Silva at the plate with two outs and two runners on first and second in the fourth inning. Conway threw a wild pitch, then conceded a 2-run single to the pitcher to put himself into a 4-0 hole. Two runs were stranded in scoring position by the Falcons in the fifth. Ralph Myers had reached on a fielder’s choice, Paul Hall had doubled, but then Erik Pearcy popped out to Reya in shallow right and Aaron Case grounded a pitch to first base for Stan Murphy to end it. The Coons’ offense had yet to be mentioned, but was frankly completely AWOL. They had a man in scoring position once early, then again when Sandy Sambrano made it to second on an errant pickoff throw, that with nobody out although he never reached third base, and when Jason Seeley batted for Conway with two outs and Taylor on first base in the top of the seventh and launched a liner into the gap in left center, Mario Monreal appeared out of nowhere and robbed him. The Raccoons were so harmless, Silva breezed through the game for a 7-hit shutout, finishing them up in under 2:30. 4-0 Falcons. Sambrano 2-4; Margolis 2-3, 2B; Entwistle 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

The Crusaders are now the only team over .500 in the North.

Palmer Taylor, batting .182, was returned to St. Petersburg after the game as we activated Ronnie McKnight off the DL. Also, D-Alex claimed he was good to go. Ivan the Druid had his doubts, but I think D-Alex definitely wanted to get out of the Druid’s treatment, which consisted of D-Alex being beaten with a wet towel for half an hour, twice daily.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS McKnight – P Dickerson
CHA: 2B Wagner – CF Huibregtse – C Holliman – SS P. Hall – 3B Best – RF Puckett – 1B Griffin – LF Pearcy – P Key

Fueled by Ryan Holliman’s RBI triple, the Falcons put up two runs off the pale Dickerson right in the first inning. Randy Wagner had hit a leadoff single, and Paul Hall plated Holliman with a groundout to short. The Coons made up the deficit in the third inning. After McKnight hit a triple that made Steve Huibregtse in centerfield real bad, Dickerson made himself useful and singled to left to plate him. Cookie grounded up the middle, getting Dickerson forced, but then stole second and took third on Holliman’s errant throw. Sandy then doubled through Steve Best on a real hard shot (not really Best’s fault, human reaction times have a certain limit), chasing home Cookie with the tying run. Key had Ron Richards in a full count with two outs and the two battled until Richards swung over a low fastball. Dickerson, while moderately useful at the plate, was of no greater benefit to have on the mound than a block of wet soap, and surrendered back-to-back doubles to Huibregtse and Holliman in the bottom of the same inning, setting the Falcons ahead 3-2 again.

Other than that, the Raccoons remained somewhere between embarrassing and pathetic. They hit into double plays in the fifth and seventh innings, the latter after Matt Nunley’s drive to deep right was caught by Chris Puckett, with Murphy on first base and no outs. Dickerson made it into the seventh inning, logging one more out before Myers had a pinch-hit double and knocked him out. Ron Thrasher killed off that insurance run at second base, and then the Falcons were in their pen, too, in the top 8th and the Coons threw out the contents of their bench and see whether something might stick. Indeed, it did, as Jason Bergquist had an infield single hitting for McKnight against southpaw Mauro Ortega, and Luis Reya walked against righty Roberto Ramirez, bringing up the top of the order with the tying and go-ahead runs on and one out. Ramirez also lost Cookie on a walk, loading the bases, at which point Walt Canning was brought in to run for Reya as the go-ahead run on second base. That move turned out to be unnecessary (but Canning would have taken over at short anyway), as Sandy struck out, but Ron Richards beat Puckett with a double that dinked just in front of the wall and emptied the bases for three runs! Murphy fouled out to end the inning.

Up 5-3, the first thing the Coons’ pen could think of was to load the bases and have nobody out while doing that. Entwistle allowed singles to both Holliman and Hall, and when Sugano replaced him for the three following left-handed bats, he walked Steve Best. Puckett scored one run with a groundout before Daron Griffin popped up. With righty Erik Pearcy up, Angel Casas entered the fray, but the Falcons sent Mario Monreal, another left-handed batter. Angel struck him out on three pitches, maintaining a 5-4 edge. The bottom 9th was no less unnerving. With one out, Ryan Miller (yeah, that one) doubled and became the tying run. Domingo Nieves grounded out to short, keeping Miller there, but that brought up Ryan Holliman, who was a homer shy of the cycle. 2-1 pitch, -clonk!-, soaring to deep center. Uh-oh. Cookie back, Cookie back, way back, at the track, and – he has it!! 5-4 Raccoons. McKnight 1-1, BB, 3B; Bergquist (PH) 1-1; Casas 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (3);

D-Alex had gone oh-fer in the game, didn’t run well, and I penciled in Margolis again for the Wednesday game, but I had to promise D-Alex not to tell the Druid.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – P Brown
CHA: 3B Best – 1B Myers – RF Nieves – C Holliman – LF Huibregtse – SS P. Hall – 2B R. Miller – CF Monreal – P Kreider

Brownie stayed out of a first-inning deficit, retiring the side on three grounders in seven pitches, so that was progress. Huibregtse had a single in the second, the only Falcons runner through three, while the Coons didn’t get a hit until McKnight’s leadoff single in the fourth. Richards flew out to deep right, but Murphy hit a looper into right, close to the line, and McKnight made it to third base. Nunley hit a fly to left, no issue for Huibregtse, but it allowed McKnight to score with the first run. Bednarski flew out to deep right to end the inning, 1-0. The Falcons made up the run immediately with Brown walking Myers to start the inning and the Falcons moved him around to score on a sac fly. Myers was then up with Miller (single) and Monreal (walk) in scoring position and two outs in the next inning, and after the Jimmy Oatmeal homer off Brown earlier this month I was waiting on the next boom from a player that left Portland with a value best measured in nickels, but Brown struck him out to end the fifth inning, only his third K on the day.

McKnight homered off Steve Kreider to start the sixth inning, giving Brownie a 2-1 lead, which he nursed to just well enough for another two innings before Jason Seeley hit for him leading off the eighth inning. Seeley flew out to left before Cookie doubled, but grabbed his thigh with one hand while clawing into the bag with the other. The Druid was shot out of the dugout with a catapult to check in on him, and Cookie could not continue, having felt a pinch. Sandy ran for him and was stranded eventually. The bottom 8th was another mild nightmare in the making after Thrasher put on Myers with a single, Mathis replaced him for the right-handers and threw a wild pitch to move up the tying run to second base before striking out Nieves. Holliman hit a ball hard to left center, but like on Tuesday he was denied – Seeley had replaced Richards for defense and it paid off BIG as he made the catch in left center. The top 9th still saw Kreider on the mound, but he did not get another out, much the opposite. Matt Nunley hit a leadoff jack, 3-1, and then Bednarski and Margolis got on. When Reya apperared hitting for Bergquist, the Falcons went to the pen and Mauro Ortega, but a wild pitch moved up the runners before Reya walked, and then Seeley hit an RBI single. Sandy popped to third and McKnight grounded to first base and was out, but another run scored, 5-1. Canning hit for reliever Chris Mathis, but grounded out, ending the 3-run ninth. Marcos Bruno got the inning with Angel being left to look on after having warmed up. His time came after Bruno struck out Huibregtse, but walked Hall and allowed a single to Miller. He got Monreal to ground out and PH Aaron Case struck out. 5-1 Brownies! McKnight 2-4, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Seeley 1-2, 2B, RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, W (2-2) and 1-2;

And now exhale. Cookie looked more dramatic than was necessary after coming out of the game. He only has a sore hamstring, not a strain, merely a tweak. We have Thursday off, and that should be enough to get him back onto his paws for Friday against the Loggers.

Raccoons (11-10) vs. Loggers (9-11) – May 1-3, 2015

The Loggers’ offense was respectable, scoring the fifth-most runs in the league (and more than the Coons, mind you), but their pitching was moist, hollow, creaky, and everything else you didn’t want or need with the guy on the mound. They were allowing over six runs a game, clearly last in the Continental League, with a rotation just under a 5 ERA, and a pen well over that. The Raccoons had gone 2-0 against them at the start of the season.

Projected matchups:
Jonathan Toner (2-0, 2.10 ERA) vs. Adam Euteneuer (2-1, 2.70 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-1, 3.90 ERA) vs. Melvin Alvarado (1-0, 1.69 ERA)
Bill Conway (1-2, 4.01 ERA) vs. Chester Graham (3-2, 6.75 ERA)

The latter two are left-handers, including Alvarado, who had been moved to the rotation this season after last getting starting assignments in 2012. Adam Euteneuer is the guy that lost a zillion games last year with an ERA of 6.75. His career record is 13-36.

Game 1
MIL: RF Hodgers – 3B Yu – LF Dally – 1B M. Rucker – 2B Enriquez – C Leach – SS Kingsley – CF Cooper – P Euteneuer
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – SS McKnight – C Alexander – P Toner

Victor Hodgers reached on a drag bunt to start the game, and while Toner struck out Min-tae Yu (that pest of old is back!) and Justin Dally, Hodgers stole second base and scored on Mike Rucker’s single to left to give the Loggers an early 1-0 lead. The Raccoons came right back, with Reya doubling home Richards with two outs in the bottom 1st, but McKnight left the bases loaded with a grounder to Victor Enriquez. Jonny Toner struck out seven in the first three innings, but also bled five hits and another run in the third inning, Dally driving that one home with two outs. Toner struck out two more in the fourth, racking up nine, but as the K’s were shooting up, so was his pitch count. Euteneuer became the tenth victim leading off the fifth inning, and Enriquez made the 12th K on his ledger in the sixth inning, but that didn’t change that the Loggers still led 2-1 and the Coons were completely fooled by Euteneuer, who looked like he had replaced his arm with some advanced form of power prosthetic in the offseason. Eric Kingsley and Andrew Cooper struck out to start the seventh inning, giving Jonny 14 on the day, which tied Nick Brown’s franchise mark and also put him at 100 pitches. Another strikeout on Euteneuer later, Brownie had to find something else to brag about. With the offense failing capitally, Toner came back for the eighth, Hodgers bounced out to first, and Yu went down in flames once more, which gave Toner a share of the CL record! Dally popped up over the infield, but the last two at-bats had been long and had put Toner just over 120 pitches, while the bottom 8th saw Sandy reach with a leadoff single, but then the middle of the order failed, failed, Reya singled, and Nunley lined out to first base. Toner was begging to get back out there, but 123 pitches was as far as we were willing to chase him, even more so in a losing effort WHICH WAS AN UTTER SHAME. So, Toner could not get a W for his pains, but the Coons had the tying run on in the bottom 9th when Margolis hit a 1-out single off lefty Kevin Cummings. Margolis had hit for D-Alex, with Bednarski already in the #9 hole after entering in a double switch. He singled real hard to left to become the winning run for Cookie, who was hitless and grounded out, leaving the runners in scoring position for Sandy to work the magic, but he grounded back to the mound and Cummings made a strong play to end the game. 2-1 Loggers. Reya 3-4, 2B, RBI; Margolis (PH) 1-1; Bednarski 1-1; Toner 8.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 16 K, L (2-1) and 1-3;

I hate this team.

Game 2
MIL: RF Hodgers – 3B Yu – LF Dally – 1B M. Rucker – 2B Enriquez – SS O. Sandoval – C Leach – CF Cooper – P M. Alvarado
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Bergquist – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – C Margolis – SS Canning – P Santos

Alvarado walked four in the first inning and Ron Richards hit that 3-run homer that had been missing from Friday’s action. Alvarado’s command really wouldn’t get better, but the Raccoons only had Richards’ dinger to match the seven walks they received through three innings, with Walt Canning twice making the last out and stranding five runners in total.

Santos’s wouldn’t get a win, just like Toner the previous night. It had drizzled in the second inning, then had stopped, and in the fourth it started again. Then it poured, and the game was in delay for almost 90 minutes. Santos went completely cold and with his limited stamina it was not a good idea to send him back out. Unfortunately he had left two runners on the corners, Min-tae Yu reaching on an infield single and Justin Dally singling hard to right. Zack Entwistle had to clean up the mess before Constantino could get into long relief, but Entwistle continued to **** up just about everything and surrendered a game-tying 3-bomb to Mike Rucker. In the top 5th the Loggers had two infield singles off Constantino (giving them FOUR on the day!), but this time Rucker struck out in the key spot. The Coons didn’t get a second hit until Murphy hit a single off Dane Geiger in the bottom 5th, adding himself to Ron Richards, who had been hit by a pitch to start the inning. Nunley hit into a double play, but Danny Margolis came through, hitting a gapper that went all the way to the wall and then remained there after hitting the wall right at the bottom. Richards scored from third, where Margolis slid in safely with a go-ahead RBI triple! Margolis came through again in the seventh inning, finding Murphy and Nunley in scoring position after a single and a double off Greg Dodson, respectively. Margolis chipped a bloop to shallow right, uncatchable, but right where it had to be for both runners to score and extend the lead to three runs.

The extra runs were very calming, especially since the Loggers brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth inning anyway. Thrasher walked Rucker, and Oscar Sandoval doubled against Chris Mathis, but Foster Leach grounded out to Nunley to end the inning. At least Angel put only one guy on, walking Hodgers with two outs in the ninth, but then struck out Yu. 6-3 Furballs. Murphy 2-2, 2 BB; Margolis 2-2, 2 BB, 3B, 3 RBI; Constantino 2.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W (1-0);

In the doldrums: Ricardo Carmona is 4-for-24 since last Sunday, and maybe a day off against Chester Graham would help him.

Game 3
MIL: RF Hodgers – 3B Yu – LF Dally – 1B M. Rucker – 2B Enriquez – SS O. Sandoval – C Leach – CF Cooper – P C. Graham
POR: CF Sambrano – SS McKnight – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Margolis – 3B Nunley – 2B Bergquist – P Conway

Hodgers, who had been a thorn in the side all weekend, opened the game with a jack off Conway, who was used to trailing in games by now, so this would make him feel right at home, I fear. Conway was clobbered for another four hits and two runs in the inning, with all hits having in common that they were quite hard. Ronnie McKnight would counter for the Raccoons with a first-inning homer (where was all that comin’ from?), but that was literally all the Raccoons could mount. The next scoring happened in the fifth, Mike Rucker homering in solo fashion to put the Loggers up 4-1. The Coons did nothing, Conway labored through six before a leadoff single by Graham (…) put him out of his misery in the seventh inning. Sugano came on with the four left-handed bats atop the Loggers order, whiffed Hodgers, walked Yu, then got a nice 4-6-3 grounder from Dally. Bottom 7th, leadoff jack by Ron Richards, which put the Coons back 4-2, and half their four hits were homers. Graham put the tying runs on when he hit Murphy (quite hard, too), and Nunley singled, putting them on the corners with one out for Bergquist, who lined into a double play when he lined to center, where Andrew Cooper, hustling in and on the run was almost surprised to see Murphy tag and make for home. Murphy was out by 10 feet. A hit batter would give the Raccoons the tying run at the plate in the bottom 9th again; Cummings hit Ron Richards, and now came Murphy and he was visibly angry with the Loggers by now. Cummings’ first fastball was low, but Murphy dug it out and blasted it for 414 feet outta left center – tied ballgame!! Unfortunately, all that did was to spare Conway the loss, which was picked up by Entwistle, who had already pitched the ninth and now had to do the tenth. He walked Dally, then ran into Rucker, who crushed a pitch that didn’t do much at all straight out of centerfield to give the Loggers a new lead that Cummings didn’t relinquish a second time. 6-4 Loggers. Murphy 2-3, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Nunley 2-4;

Well, six hits don’t do, not even against the Loggers!

In other news

April 27 – OCT OF/1B Tom Reese (.246, 1 HR, 4 RBI) will miss six weeks with a sprained ankle.
April 29 – Sacramento’s Wiliam Kay (2-1, 1.91 ERA) 2-hits the Cyclones in an 8-0 win. In the same game, SAC RF/LF Pablo “Vulture” Sanchez (.412, 0 HR, 15 RBI) completes a 20-game hitting streak with a 2-run double.
April 29 – The Loggers and Aces engage in a good old slugfest, with five innings of 4+ runs and the Loggers overturning a 13-9 deficit with a 10-run ninth inning before almost melting away in the bottom half and eventually getting away with a nuts 19-16 win. MIL Andrew Cooper and Aces Bill Thomas and Adam Flack all have 4-hit days. Cooper also drives in five, the most of any player in the game.
April 29 – CHA SP Graham Wasserman (0-1, 6.46 ERA) is out for four months with shoulder inflammation.
May 2 – SFW SP Bartolo Ortíz (2-0, 0.91 ERA) throws a 3-hit shutout against the Wolves. The Warriors win 5-0.
May 3 – Two singles in a 7-5 win over the Capitals give PIT INF Joe Chappelle (.346, 0 HR, 9 RBI) a 20-game hitting streak.

Complaints and stuff

The ABL record for strikeouts in a game still rests with Chris York, who struck out 18 in a game in 2004 when he was with the Capitals. PIT Miguel Rodriguez struck out 17 in 2014, and then it’s a lot of 16’s in the FL, but in the CL only four pitchers have ever struck out 16 batters in a game: Rod Taylor, Curtis Tobitt (twice), Kel Yates, and now also Jonny Toner.

And he lost the ****ing game.

There are … no words.

Except for that Margolis kid, who makes it real hard for D-Alex to getting any assignment against a left-hander now. When a long string of right-handed opposing pitchers looms? I don’t think that Margolis will just sit down.
Off-beat note: I like seeing Margolis come through; there was a writer for the show MacGyver with that name, which I always liked, and which I used as a nickname on the internet for a while years back. Has a really nice ring to it! Today, with hardly any credits at the start of TV episodes, you can’t find names like that anymore. Not that I watch much TV these days, there’s nothing on for me anymore.

Starting Monday, the Elks are in town. Keep your windows closed.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (12-12) vs. Canadiens (10-14) – May 4-6, 2015

The Elks were in last place, not a usual sight these days, and the issue was hard to isolate. They actually had a +9 run differential, ranking seventh in runs scored and fourth in runs allowed, so rotten luck was probably a thing. Their rotation had put up a crummy 4.38 ERA, 9th in the CL, but that was just marginally worse than the Raccoons’ assemblage of Jonny Toner and a whole lot of mediocrity. Their pen was in the top 3. We have won the season series from them for six straight years, but that includes four 10-8 campaigns, including the last three consecutive years.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (2-2, 5.29 ERA) vs. Rod Taylor (1-2, 4.28 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-3, 5.14 ERA) vs. William Raven (1-2, 4.50 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (2-1, 2.13 ERA) vs. Samuel McMullen (3-2, 2.84 ERA)

Notice how neatly the pitchers are paired. First it’s the two struggling stars, then it’s the two guys getting shifted around because nobody wants to see them, and then it’s the lone sparkle of the staff. Sam McMullen is also another left-handed starter to face for the Coons.

Game 1
VAN: SS Irvin – LF K. Evans – 1B Gilbert – RF Medina – 2B Madison – C M. Torres – CF St. George – 3B Paull – P R. Taylor
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Brown

When the best thing you get to say about your starter is that Ron Richards played nice defense, it’s probably one of those games. Nick Brown was not even just crummy, he sucked hard – so hard that he had allowed two runs on seven hits with one out in the fourth inning, including a rarely seen Jeremiah Irvin home run in the third, and when the pitching coach and trainer went out there to inquire whether everything was alright, Brown actually acceded that it wasn’t. He came out of the game. Marcos Bruno replaced him, loaded the bases with an infield single by Eric Paull before Taylor popped out to first, and the last out came on a heroic play by Richards in left center, throwing himself into a gap-bound scorcher and contained it to strand three Elks – already his second defensive highlight of the game. The Raccoons had yet to score, down 2-0, and had had runners on the corners in the second inning (for Nunley to strike out and Sambrano to hit into a double play), and left two more in the third inning.

Bruno got ruffled for two runs in the fifth, but that was nothing against Constantino in the seventh, who not only allowed a 2-run double to Rod Taylor to put the game definitely out of reach, but also another follow-up double to Irvin to put the Raccoons in a 7-0 hole. The Critters didn’t wake up until the bottom of that inning. Sandy singled with two outs, which was followed by an RBI double by D-Alex and an RBI single by Ron Thrasher (!!) – because things didn’t matter by now. The final score would be even closer thanks to solo home runs by Ron Richards in the eighth (off Taylor) and Mike Bednarski in the ninth (off the nightmare Pedro Alvarado), but too little, too late, and too worried about a certain chocolate dessert way past its due time. 7-4 Canadiens. Carmona 2-4; Alexander 1-2, BB, 2B, RBI; Bednarski (PH) 1-1, HR, RBI; Thrasher 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K and 1-1, RBI;

The Elks had 17 hits against the worst defense in baseball (!!), while Matt Nunley had none, but instead collected a golden sombrero.

Tuesday was a really long day. Steve from Accounting presented me with a receipt that the Druid had given him … for a chainsaw. I could only assume that this was in some way related to Nick Brown’s treatment…

Then it started to rain, just before game time. The contest was eventually washed out and a double header scheduled for Wednesday, which gave us a chance to rest the beaten bullpen a bit. I would also do my usual thing for Wednesday, where I send the better guy first, because he will likely use less relievers, so Jonny Toner moved ahead of Dickerson and into the middle game.

Game 2
VAN: 2B Lawrence – RF K. Evans – 1B Gilbert – 3B Madison – LF E. Garcia – C M. Torres – CF Medina – SS Irvin – P Raven
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – 3B Canning – 2B Bergquist – P Toner

Like Brownie on Monday, Jonny started the game with a leadoff walk, this one to Jaylin Lawrence, who made it to third on Kurt Evans’ single right under Jason Bergquist (there’s that last-place defense…). Unlike Brownie on Monday, Toner mauled his way through, striking out Ray Gilbert, Steve Madison, and Enrique Garcia in order. The Coons also had their first two batters on as Cookie walked and McKnight singled before both pulled off a double steal against the tardy Raven. Alas, the middle of the order barely amounted to one run on Richards’ groundout to Lawrence, while Murphy whiffed and Bednarski fouled out. About two minutes later it started to rain, which was not a good thing in the first place, and before long we had a 50-minute rain delay on our hands. Okay, Plan B. Nurse Toner through five innings somehow, and then … I don’t know, I got nothing anymore.

While the Raccoons loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom 2nd when Bergquist and Toner walked and Cookie singled, McKnight left the runners stranded. The 1-0 score held true until Toner was officially congratulated on a well-pitched start in adverse conditions. He even made it through six innings on 87 pitches, but with the long break in between he had started to lose cohesion and the Elks had made sound contact a few times in the fifth and sixth innings; nothing countable though. Entwistle took over and immediately blew the lead. Enrique Garcia had a leadoff single, got forced by Juan Medina, who then stole second base and came home on Ross Holland’s pinch-hit single, tying the score. The Elks would then leave the go-ahead run on third base in the eighth, and the bases loaded in the ninth, both against Chris Mathis. The Raccoons continued to be completely inept and were held to three hits in regulation.

This changed plans. Daniel Dickerson and Hector Santos vanished from view in the dugout between the ninth and tenth innings. Remember that ****ty weather had held Santos to 38 pitches in his last start. With this first leg of the double header going to extras, the previous concept was thrown overboard. Marcos Bruno got the 10th inning, after that it would be Dickerson to the most likely bitter end. Santos would start the second leg of the double header on short rest and had to start preparing. We would worry about trivial things like the weekend’s rotation once the Elks were out of town. Bruno retired the Elks on three grounders in the top 10th and the bottom of the inning saw Cookie get on with a 2-out single before he was caught stealing. Dickerson tumbled his way through the 11th before coming to bat against Alvarado with two outs and Ron Richards on first base. No way we could hit for him now. Dickerson singled (!), bringing up D-Alex, who rolled one over to Ray Gilbert to forfeit the inning. The 12th inning started with Alvarado reaching on Walt Canning’s disinterested error (!!!!!!), and Dickerson folded like a really badly built house of cards. The Elks rapped him for three hits and two (unearned) runs in the inning, and the Coons were down 3-1. Bottom 12th, Alvarado retired Seeley and Bergquist before Reya singled to center. In a very curious move, Alvarado (the closer!) was replaced by lefty Orlando Valdez, who promptly surrendered an RBI triple to Cookie, who was the tying run on third base for McKnight. After hitting for Canning to start the inning, we couldn’t hit for McKnight, despite Margolis ready, warm, and countering Valdez, since only one infielder was left on the bench (Sandy). McKnight smacked a 2-1 pitch up the middle, where it left the infield on two bounces only and Cookie came home with the tying run. Richards struck out, and this sorry parade went on.

Top 13th, Eric Paull tripled with one out before Dickerson came back with unlikely back-to-back strikeouts against Valdez (the Elks’ bench was empty) AND Jaime Mateo. When Murphy drew a leadoff walk in the bottom 13th, Dickerson was perfectly placed to bunt him over for two left-handed batters both under .200 and sinking, D-Alex and Seeley. D-Alex was walked intentionally, so it was left to Seeley and Bergquist to screw up, which they did reliably. The Raccoons overcame another error at third base (Sandy this time) to survive two on in the top 14th, but Dickerson had given his all in four innings and we needed another pitcher unless somebody could come up with a walkoff. Luis Reya struck out, but Cookie singled and went aggro with McKnight batting, despite having been thrown out before. McKnight however singled to center, sending Cookie to third with one out and Sandy Sambrano appearing at the plate. COME ON SANDY. GET **** DONE!!! Valdez had Sandy at 0-2 before drilling him, loading the bases, and control was not his strong suit, perhaps we could get a walkoff walk and … and maybe Murphy would feebly strike out. Margolis batted for Dickerson, … and struck out. On to Angel! … who seemed like he wanted this one to end quickly. Juan Medina hit a leadoff single to center before Casas hit Paull. Valdez then bunted … badly. Angel took the ball to third and Sandy fired to first for your everyday 1-5-4 double play. Mateo grounded out before the Raccoons had a leadoff single by D-Alex in the bottom 15th, but uh, well. By the 17th, Constantino was in the game and soon enough messed things up. Eric Paull singled home Enrique Garcia with one out, giving the Elks their first lead since the 12th inning. They had Hunter Park, who had already logged four outs, to nail down the game for them in the bottom 17th, but he was a right-hander, and the Raccoons had six left-handed bats waiting in the next seven batters. D-Alex got on, Seeley didn’t, and Bergquist hit into a double play. 4-3 Canadiens. Carmona 4-7, BB, 3B, RBI; McKnight 3-8, RBI; Reya 2-5; Toner 6.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K; Mathis 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K; Dickerson 4.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K and 1-1; Casas 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

Murphy hit for a golden sombrero and left seven stranded. Bergquist went 0-for-7. Madison hit for a platinum sombrero for the Elks, but they still got away with this one. I don’t have to mention how our bullpen is completely wrecked and how the nightcap (which will honor it’s name after this mess that took six hours and 20 minutes to resolve) will consist of Santos, Thrasher (the only reliever not pawing in that game), and if that isn’t enough Conway on two days’ rest? How are we even completing NINE innings!?

Game 3
VAN: CF Holland – RF K. Evans – 1B Gilbert – 3B Madison – LF E. Garcia – 2B Lawrence – C R. Hernandez – SS Irvin – P McMullen
POR: LF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – SS McKnight – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – C Margolis – CF Seeley – 3B Canning – P Santos

This nightcap, pushed back by the insane first game that had gotten underway just after 4pm PT, didn’t start until just past 11pm PT. 20,882 tickets had been sold, but much less than half of those tickets ended up being used (Maud was working on an offer to exchange these for other home games later in the year).

The Coons took a 1-0 lead in the third inning of this game that was played rather quickly early on, with every batter readily swinging (but often missing) in an attempt to get into some kind of bed, with singles by Canning and McKnight being key for the run. In between, Sandy had walked onto an open base. The Elks quickly tied the game back on singles by Kurt Evans and Steve Madison in the fourth. Despite the batters’ readiness to swing at most crap, Santos had a few wild episodes in the middle innings and ran up 99 pitches through seven innings, with the game still tied at one as a few thousand hardcore fans sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” like they really meant it at one in the morning. Santos came back out for the eighth inning, but lost PH Eric Paull after seven pitches to a leadoff single, and that was enough. Our only easily identifiable available reliever, Ron Thrasher, took over. At least the #1, #2, #5, and #6 batters were left-handers. (The only other pitchers in the pen at all were Conway, the guy to follow up Thrasher if things would run long AGAIN, and then Bruno, Sugano, and Entwistle, who had created the mess we were in in the first place; the three actual relievers all had thrown under 15 pitches in anger in the first game)

Thrasher decided to be crap, however, and walked PH Stephen St. George and Ray Gilbert before Madison, the platinum sombrero from the first game, popped out foul on the first pitch with the bases loaded, completely wasting the Elks’ second out, and once Enrique Garcia grounded out to Sambrano, they stranded all three runners. The Elks didn’t pounce in the ninth, either, and the Raccoons were completely redundant at the plate, and so … extra innings. Even the hardcore fans, like the bare-chested guy in section 82 with black stripes on his face and fake coontail started to moan. Thrasher gave all he had in four scoreless innings, with NO help whatsoever from the offense, and by the 12th the last few fans were hissing and Bill Conway did his best to not have his arm turn black and fall off. The Elks had Jeremiah Irvin on the bases in that 12th inning, but he was thrown out by Luis Reya trying to make it to third base on a fly out. That ended the inning. The Elks were not above using their closer in this spot to really rub it in for the Coons, and then took the lead in the 13th when Stephen St. George singled and went to third on Juan Medina’s single. Nobody out, Gilbert hit into a double play, but the run scored. Hunter Park now got the actual save opportunity. Cookie hit a 1-out single, and that was it. 2-1 Canadiens. Carmona 2-5, BB, 2B; McKnight 2-6, RBI; Santos 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K; Thrasher 4.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 6 K;

The Raccoons struck out SEVENTEEN times before sending the last six fans home unhappy at precisely 2:41am.

Maud told me that we were in last place when she woke me up at nine in the morning on Thursday, which was shortly before the Druid came in and I could inquire about the chainsaw. Turns out it was actually for treatment for Nick Brown’s barking hamstring, but a lot of the details he explained in Spanish and I don’t …

Bottom line, Brownie has a mild hamstring strain, the Druid is somehow messing with it, but he can’t start on the weekend. Well, who CAN start on the weekend??

Dickerson had thrown 85 pitches and was unavailable until at least Sunday. Toner had thrown 87, so it was about the same for him. Santos had expended himself for 106 pitches and was out of the weekend set in Topeka. Conway hat thrown 26 pitches in losing the Early Morning Sadness Game, so he could probably go on Saturday (hey, hard times!). We needed some scum to start on Friday, and Constantino wasn’t going to be it. In fact, Constantino was being designated for assignment with his 8.56 ERA. His spot went to 25-year old Chris Brown (1-3, 3.38 ERA in AAA), who fit the mold of scum perfectly and was going to make his major league debut on Friday. Brown had walked 18 in 37.1 innings in St. Pete. He was our 2011 second-rounder and had never excelled anywhere. He throws right-handed.

Raccoons (12-15) @ Buffaloes (10-18) – May 8-10, 2015

Another team that was staring into the abyss. The Buffaloes actually managed to be even more pathetic than the Raccoons when it came to scoring runs, managing only 3.1 runs per game, by far the worst mark in either league. They had decent pitching and ranked fifth in runs allowed, but no pitching in the world could lift this kind of offense, which was also missing the production of useful shortstop Tyler Gray, who had chopped off his finger last November and was still getting used to everyday tasks again with the reattached digit, with baseball far in the future for the 26-year old. We had swept the Buffaloes in 2014 after not seeing them for four straight years.

Projected matchups:
Chris Brown (0-0) vs. Ron Carter (0-4, 6.18 ERA)
Bill Conway (1-3, 4.41 ERA) vs. Cody Zimmerman (2-4, 4.37 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (2-1, 1.84 ERA) vs. Dave Flores (2-0, 2.45 ERA)

The Buffaloes also played a double header on Wednesday, albeit with 12 less innings and they had also swept the double header from the Cyclones, and we might just as likely see Ian Norman (3-1, 2.85 ERA) in the Sunday game. Either way, Zimmermann is their only left-handed starter.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – C Alexander – 3B Nunley – 2B Sambrano – P C. Brown
TOP: C Schoelzel – 2B Sykes – LF B. Adams – 1B J. Roberts – 3B P. Cruz – CF Grady – RF E. Jackson – SS Humphres – P Carter

Chris Brown struck out his first major league batter, J.P. Schoelzel, but the first impression didn’t last. Bill Adams hit a huge home run right in the first inning, and the second inning saw Pedro Cruz ram a triple off the top of the leftfield fence only to be most swiftly followed by a 2-run homer by Dan Grady, which was a bombastic sight to behold. Eddie Jackson’s single and a walk to Robby Humphres indicated serious trouble, but the Buffaloes didn’t have Ron Carter bunt, eager for blood, leading to Carter to strike out, as did Schoelzel, again, and Harrison Sykes was handily retired by Luis Reya in shallow right, so the Buffaloes had to be content with those three runs. In between their slugfest parades off Brown, Stan Murphy had hit a leadoff jack – looong and impressive, too – off Ron Carter, so it was safe to say that neither starter was giving its fan base much to root for. After a clean third, the fourth inning turned out to be Brown’s last, with Jackson hitting a double, Carter hitting a hard RBI single with two outs, and Schoelzel getting revenge with the Buffaloes’ third home run of the day, another huge affair. Down 6-1, Brown’s major league debut was over. The Buffaloes continued to get the well-drummed Zack Entwistle for a run in the fifth, but lost Bill Adams to a calf injury. Mathis allowed a run in the seventh, putting the Raccoons down 8-1 before they showed a slight sign of life in the top 8th. Sandy walked and Seeley singled, chasing Ron Carter from the game. Cookie then hit an RBI single off Art Cox, leaving him and Seeley on base with nobody out and the tying run was somewhere in the dugout having a snack. But as everything for these Raccoons, the offense died quickly and the next three batters all failed. Instead, Ron Thrasher was hammered for four runs in the bottom of the inning, walking two, throwing a wild pitch, and also allowing three hits, the last of those a 2-run triple to J.P. Schoelzel. 12-2 Buffaloes. Reya 2-4; Seeley (PH) 1-1;

Friendly reminder: yes, that is the team that never, ever scores.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – C Margolis – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – P Conway
TOP: RF Piepoli – 2B Sykes – LF B. Adams – 1B J. Roberts – 3B P. Cruz – CF Grady – C Schoelzel – SS Humphres – P Zimmerman

The Buffaloes loaded the bases with nobody out in the first inning as Conway walked Saverio Piepoli on four pitches, Sykes singled more or less right through McKnight’s O-shaped legs, and Nunley dropped Adams’ grounder for an error. Conway managed to avoid surrendering a slam by throwing a wild pitch to Pedro Cruz before having taken himself deep for a 3-run homer. While Murphy homered leading off the second inning (already hinting at continued great success by the top of the order), he couldn’t even muster a ball hit somewhere interesting when he came up with two in scoring position and two outs in the third inning, instead calmly took a walk, and Bednarski refused to drive home runners by default and lifted out softly to center. Murphy would be on again to lead off the sixth (charming!), followed by Piepoli denying both Bednarski and Margolis of doubles to deep right with his excellent range. Another inept moment was shared with everybody by Conway in the seventh inning, when Nunley had reached with a leadoff single, but was double-played out of the game on Conway’s horrific bunt. Top 8th, Murphy had a 2-out single with nobody on (I hate you!), and Bednarski walked, which was precisely the point where the Buffaloes brought righty Art Cox again to face Margolis, only that the Coons called them out and sent Luis Reya to bat instead. Reya dished a ball high and deep to center, but too high and not deep enough. Dan Grady caught it, and the Coons had a 6-game losing streak. 4-1 Buffaloes. Murphy 3-3, BB, HR, RBI;

Despite his pathetic appearance and cashing in his second loss in 60 hours, which shouldn’t even be possible for a starting pitcher, Conway still got the Hopeless Hero award for this game, lasting 7.1 innings en route to a crisp 2:30 defeat. But these days, we take everything that’s under six hours.

Convinced that we can somehow work out the rotation (maybe), we sent Chris Brown back to St. Pete and called up Josh Gibson, who has yet to walk anybody or pull any stupid stuff this year. He has a 1.35 ERA in 6.2 innings.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – P Toner
TOP: RF Piepoli – 2B Sykes – LF B. Adams – 1B J. Roberts – 3B P. Cruz – CF Grady – C Schoelzel – SS Humphres – P Norman

Jonny Toner struck out the side in the first inning of a Sunday game in which he was starting on short rest following on two other stress-heavy starts (the one where he whiffed 16, throwing over 120 pitches, and the one where he threw 87 after a rain delay) and would be removed after about 90-95 pitches. He also found himself down early after Dan Grady’s 2-run homer in the second inning, a lead the Buffaloes extended to 3-0 in the next inning when Ian Norman snipped a leadoff single and eventually scored on Adams’ double. The Coons failed to get a hit until the fifth inning, when Alexander singled to right center. He would score on Jonny’s 2-out RBI double into the gap in left center, nominally putting the Raccoons on the board and into a 3-1 game. We didn’t know it then (but could have assumed it), but these two hits were the only ones the Raccoons managed in the entire game. Toner made it through six and two thirds and picked up the loss, being left in the rain by a horrendously inept lineup, top to bottom. Bruno allowed another run in the eighth, not that it mattered much. 4-1 Buffaloes.

In other news

May 4 – NYC LF Martin Ortíz (.299, 2 HR, 10 RBI) reaches 2,500 career hits with a 3-hit day against the Titans. All his hits in the 7-4 Crusaders win are singles, with the milestone coming off Johnny Krom in the third inning. Ortíz has more awards than anyone can list, including five Player of the Year awards, 11 Gold Gloves, 10 All Star nominations, and some assorted bling like five World Series rings.
May 5 – While the hitting streak of SAC RF/LF Pablo Sanchez (.413, 0 HR, 17 RBI) reaches 25 games with a single in the Scorpions’ 8-5 win over the Gold Sox, Pittsburgh’s Joe Chappelle (.326, 0 HR, 9 RBI) is held dry by the Rebels and has his streak end at 21 games. The Miners still win, 6-3.
May 6 – SFW SP Tony Hamlyn (4-3, 3.27 ERA) holds the Stars to two runs over eight innings to claim victory in the Warriors’ 5-2 triumph. This is Hamlyn’s 300th career win, against 168 losses and with a 2.60 ERA and 3,883 strikeouts, and he is the first pitcher to reach the mark after having passed previous wins leader Martin Garcia (292 W) last season. Garcia had also been disowned of his career strikeouts title by Hamlyn.
May 7 – A torn triceps puts LAP SP Bruce Mark (2-0, 4.15 ERA) on the DL. He is probably out until the All Star game.
May 7 – The hitting streak of SAC RF/LF Pablo “Vulture” Sanchez (.402, 0 HR, 19 RBI) is halted at 26 games with a hitless appearance in a 5-3 win over the Gold Sox. Sanchez is only 20 years old and the league might see a lot more good things from him in the future.
May 9 – The Loggers pour out FOURTEEN runs in the fifth inning of their game in Cincinnati and end up needing most every bit of that outburst, beating the Cyclones merely 18-8.
May 9 – PIT SS Tom McWhorter (.287, 2 HR, 13 RBI) will have to sit out until late June with a rotator cuff strain.
May 10 – The season might be over for DAL SP Reynaldo Rendon (1-2, 6.29 ERA) whose season-long issues have now been explained with shoulder inflammation and who figures to miss at least four months, if not longer.
May 10 – Pittsburgh’s Fred Dugo (5-1, 2.39 ERA) 3-hits the Indians in a 5-0 shutout.

Complaints and stuff

My, what a toxic train wreck we have here. I just wished I knew where I had left the ammo for the pistol. I can hardly shoot myself with the blunderbuss.

Last in the power rankings, but not last in the North. We were in there on Thursday morning, but the Titans lost on Thursday to reclaim the red lantern.

The rotation will remain a complete mess into next week. I don’t know when Nick Brown can pitch, and if Daniel Dickerson should pitch, and whether anybody wants to witness any of all this. Hector Santos will start on Monday, and everything else is in a bit of flux.

The defense is ridiculously porous. All the hits are falling in all the time. Nobody makes any play anymore. The offense… well, **** all those batters. I’m glad most of them will be gone this fall.

The team stats page was not missing because I wanted to spare you the image, which will sear into your eyes and will never be able to be unseen, but because I fail on a Bednarskian level all the time.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (12-18) vs. Warriors (19-13) – May 11-13, 2015

The Warriors were half a game off the leader in the FL West, while the Raccoons were half a game away from the bottom of the CL North and in freefall mode on top of all, having lost seven straight games. The Warriors’ strength was pitching, allowing the least runs in the Federal League, but they were only ninth in runs scored. The Coons had fallen into the bottom 3 in the CL with their dismal last week. We won the last two season series in 2009 and 2011, not having played the Warriors since then.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (2-1, 3.58 ERA) vs. Tony Hamlyn (4-3, 3.27 ERA)
Nick Brown (2-3, 5.30 ERA) vs. Bartolo Ortíz (3-0, 0.96 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-3, 4.32 ERA) vs. Ken Harris (3-3, 5.93 ERA)

We will start this series facing two left-handed starting pitchers, and Tony Hamlyn needs no introduction by now. Nick Brown in turn was checked out on Sunday evening by the Druid and declared to have well-healing chainsaw cuts and could take the start after Santos on Tuesday. We will see how well that is going to go…

Game 1
SFW: RF I. Flores – 3B J. Wilson – LF J. Morales – C Luckert – 1B Gershkovich – SS Howell – CF Keller – 2B Zuhlke – P Hamlyn
POR: CF Carmona – C Margolis – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – SS McKnight – 3B Canning – P Santos

The Coons rattled on all-kinds-of-stuff career leader Hamlyn’s gate early on, with Carmona, Margolis, and Murphy all hitting singles in the first inning, plating one run before Bednarski hit into a double play to end the frame. Hamlyn got crowded in the second inning again, with Bergquist doubling and Canning walking. Bunt or swing for Santos? He had to swing, lined over Rob Howell and had an RBI single, 2-0. Cookie hit an infield single to load the bases and then Margolis hit into the double play… Hamlyn, maddened anyway, led off the third with a single, Santos threw a wild pitch, and Hamlyn eventually came around to score. And Santos did not have a good game, and it would get worse. In the sixth he would issue his second leadoff walk of the day, to Jamie Wilson. “Dingus” Morales singled hard to center, and then Santos threw his second wild pitch. The Warriors couldn’t hit with runners in scoring position, either, as was evidenced by three weak grounders hit between Jerrod Luckert, Mike Gershkovich, and Howell, with only the Gershkovich’s being productive and getting the tying run home.

At 96 pitches in six innings, Santos was probably done, and he was definitely done when Hamlyn glitched for two walks in the bottom 6th and Canning filled the bags with a blooper to right. Reya batted for Santos with one out, whiffed, and Cookie lined right to Adam Zuhlke. The Warriors left the go-ahead run in scoring position in the seventh and eighth, while the Raccoons managed to bowl themselves out of the bottom of the eighth when Matt Nunley’s grounder hit Jason Bergquist on the base paths. The game went to extra innings, with the Raccoons reduced to Josh Gibson by then. He got the first guy in the 10th, Pedro Estrada, and that was quite literally the last guy he got. Ivan Flores reached on an infield single, he hit Mitsuhide Suzuki, Morales hit an RBI single, Luckert walked, and then Gershkovich hit a grand slam to left. Rob Howell then reached on another ****ing infield single and Thrasher had to bail out the sucker Gibson. 7-2 Warriors. Carmona 2-5; Murphy 2-5, RBI;

The Titans were idle, so we dropped into a tie for last place again. That’s also eight straight losses and by now I have zero confidence for Brownie to out-pitch ANYONE.

Then we were able to break the tie and get back to fifth place on Tuesday because the Portland weather remained abysmal and the contest was rained out for the second Tuesday in a row. Another Wednesday double header. I swear you lot, if you play another 30 innings… The spare time was used productively by some of us – which did not include Chad, the mascot guy, who face-painted himself black eye patches with a permanent marker IN MY OFFICE - as Calderón compiled a “Who’s hot / Who’s not” list, and the latter column reads like our entire primary lineup, minus Cookie, Richards, and Nunley.

Game 2
SFW: RF I. Flores – 3B J. Wilson – CF Gross – LF J. Morales – 1B Gershkovich – C Luckert – SS Howell – 2B Zuhlke – P B. Ortíz
POR: CF Carmona – C Margolis – 1B Murphy – LF Reya – RF Bednarski – 3B Nunley – 2B Bergquist – SS McKnight – P N. Brown

I remembered Nick Brown that the bullpen had to be enough for two duds on this Wednesday, but this didn’t help much. He hit Luckert in the second inning, and while he got around that and even got a lead when Nunley hit a solo homer in the bottom 2nd, the top 3rd saw Zuhlke reach base with a leadoff single well inside of what I previously considered McKnight’s range, and while Margolis forced out Zuhlke on Ortíz’ poor throw, Ivan Flores shrugged and belted a 2-run homer anyway. A Nunley error allowed Flores to drive in another run with two outs in the fifth, plating Rob Howell from second base. At least Brown’s hind paws were still working. He hit a 2-out double in the bottom 5th which required a bit of hustle to get there against “Dingus” Morales, and scored on Cookie’s single to right center, which put the Raccoons back one run only – but this would probably take them more than four innings to make up. Besides, once Nunley made his second error of the day, a catastrophic airmailed throw on Ortíz’ bunt in the seventh inning, the point was moot. Zuhlke and Ortíz were in scoring position, there was nobody out, and Nick Brown had been sunk once again. He was already over 100 pitches, but he was also visibly angry. Maybe that vigor could be exploited. He struck out pinch-hitter Pat Eaton, and he also struck out Jamie Wilson. Now we walked Gil Gross intentionally to get to the left-handed Morales.

If you go down, Brownie, go down in flames.

Morales grounded the first pitch to the right side, Bergquist got into the way of it and made a play in time to end the inning and strand three. THAT’S MY BROWNIE!! Well, minus the leadoff walk to Zuhlke and all the other **** that was going on. Bottom 7th, Nunley hit a leadoff single (YOU GOT **** TO MAKE UP, PAL!!), and McKnight doubled to left center. Ron Richards hit for Brownie and took strike three, two second before a half-empty bottle of booze shattered against my wall. That brought up Cookie, who also quickly had two strikes on him with two outs, but Ortíz missed the location on the fourth pitch and came inside, giving Cookie a nice one to line up the righfield line. Past Pedro Estrada, into the corner, Nunley in to score, McKnight in to score, Cookie sliding in at third base – the Coons were ahead!! Then Entwistle came on and walked Gershkovich to start the eighth. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! YOU ****ING ASSHOLE!!! He probably couldn’t hear me in the moaning park, but he must have felt something down there, maybe the vibrations of the window panes that I rammed my fists (and a chair) against. The next pitch was a dandy, Luckert chipped it back to him and Entwistle started a double play. Hoorah! Then Howell singled to right and he walked Zuhlke. GODDAMN **** IT, YOU FU-

Then, I assume, Maud unloaded another tranquilizer bolt from the crossbow. Looks like the second game is just about to get underway. Did Maud do that to me, Slappy? – Thought so. And did they win? – Oh thank heavens! – And did Brownie win it? – Great! – What do you mean I missed Ron Thrasher’s RBI single?

The manager sent Thrasher into the eighth to clean up Entwistle’s ****, I guess, and then the Coons filled the bases in the bottom 8th against Matt Ruffin and Valentim Innocentes. D-Alex fouled out for the second out, but McKnight singled in a pair and then Thrasher was kept around to finish the game and also hit an RBI single. McKnight was thrown out at third base on the play. 7-3 Brownies! Carmona 2-4, 3B, 3 RBI; McKnight 3-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, W (3-3) and 1-2; Thrasher 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (1) and 1-1, RBI;

It’s probably a shocker, but Nick Brown now holds sole possession of the team lead in wins. Don’t come along with wins don’t matter for pitchers. It’s a team thing!!

Game 3
SFW: RF I. Flores – 3B J. Wilson – CF Gross – LF J. Morales – 1B Gershkovich – SS Howell – C Eaton – 2B Zuhlke – P Harris
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Dickerson

Dickerson simply got slaughtered. He didn’t retire any of the first three batters, threw a wild pitch and allowed two doubles in the first inning, which cost him four runs in total, and in the second and third innings he had the bases empty with two outs, managed to load the bases both times, and when Gil Gross slapped a 2-run single off him in the third to run the score to 7-1 it was well enough. Josh Gibson, with a marginally higher ERA of 135 (there is no point missing there), got a grounder from Morales to end the inning, but of course the game was already in the bin. While Gibson managed to shave 115 points off that ERA, his outing was still embarrassing, as his three runs allowed in 3.1 innings more than negated the Raccoons’ honest best efforts at an unlikely comeback, which included runs scoring on sac flies in consecutive innings – heavens forbid them once getting a hit with a runner on third base – while Cookie managed to get caught stealing even by wooden-armed Pat Eaton. Sugano appeared for the seventh inning and walked the bases loaded before Morales hit into a run-scoring double play. Bruno replaced Sugano, conceded another run on a Gershkovich double, plus a Howell single and walked Eaton before Zuhlke accidentally made the third out. And we don’t even want to go into the ninth inning and Chris Mathis, who walked a batter, hit a batter, allowed a few line drive singles, and threw a wild pitch to bloom the score. 14-3 Warriors. Carmona 2-5, 3B; Murphy 1-2, 2 BB; Nunley 2-4, 2B; Alexander 2-3, 2 RBI;

Our moral victory shall me Gil Gross (.286, 7 HR, 27 RBI) straining an oblique in the game. At least we got one of them. The rest of them drummed us for 20 hits, but oh well.

How dreadful are they? I mean, they are VERY dreadful, but just how dreadful exactly? Quantify it. Well, Bergquist is 1-for-29, for example. Bednarski is 1-for-20. Seeley is 3-for-22. There are more that are under .200 for the last two weeks. Even Richards dumped under .200 with this oh-fer on Wednesday.

Raccoons (13-20) @ Titans (14-20) – May 15-17, 2015

Last place shootouts in Boston, who would have thought that. The Titans were last in runs scored (but we were getting there quickly now) and sixth in runs allowed (oh we wish!). Their pen was quite good, the rotation was more like tense to look at. We were 2-1 against them in 2015.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (1-4, 4.28 ERA) vs. Johnny Krom (1-3, 4.81 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (2-2, 2.13 ERA) vs. Toshiro Uenohara (1-4, 5.54 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-1, 3.50 ERA) vs. Chae-ku Lee (2-4, 4.87 ERA)

This series is headed by another left-handed starter. We faced just over 20 left-handed starters in both of the last to season, but with Krom’s start on Friday we will already have played against southpaws 14 times in ’15.

The Friday lineup would be laden with all right-handed bats I could find to maybe spark ANYTHING at all.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – C Margolis – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 3B Canning – 2B Bergquist – SS Sambrano – P Conway
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – C T. Robinson – RF R. Lopez – CF X. Williams – CF J. Silva – CF Rentz – P Krom

Sandy and Cookie both had RBI singles in the second inning, driving home Bednarski and Canning, who had also singled, to give Conway an early 2-0 lead. The Titans were slow to put up pressure, but for the Raccoons it was mostly all Cookie by now, who powered the offense single-pawedly, and when Conway lucked into a gapper for a 2-out double in the fourth inning could come up with another triple into the rightfield corner to make it 3-0. Jose Gutierrez and Steve Butler had singles to lead off the bottom 4th, both getting past Canning at third base, but a soft pop to center and a double play grounder cleaned that threat up.

Johnny Krom stopped retiring batters completely by the fifth inning, with the Coons socking the ball every which way, including Bergquist socking a ball into Canning – that was the SECOND out via hit runner the Raccoons made this week. The Coons still added two runs, leading 5-0, while Krom didn’t make it out of the inning, and the Portland weather showed up in Boston as it started to rain. There was a 42-minute rain delay after the bottom 5th, Cookie was caught stealing in the top 6th (as usual), and Conway felt good enough to go out again for the bottom 6th. Mike Rivera hit a leadoff single, but that was it for the Titans in that inning, and Conway was retired after the sixth. Walt Canning extended the lead to 7-0 with a 2-run homer off Bill Dean in the seventh, and the game was about done by then. Marcos Bruno found it necessary though to blow the team shutout on the Titans’ last out of the game, allowing an RBI double to Jose Silva. 8-1 Raccoons. Carmona 3-4, BB, 3B, 2 RBI; Richards 2-5; Murphy 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Bednarski 2-4, RBI; Canning 3-4, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Conway 6.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W (2-4);

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 3B Nunley – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Toner
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – C T. Robinson – RF R. Lopez – LF X. Williams – CF J. Silva – 3B Rentz – P Uenohara

Before anything remarkable happened, there was another rain delay of almost 45 minutes in this game, coming after Jonny Toner had made the first out in the fifth inning with a fly to center. The Coons would get runners to the corners to start the fourth inning when Murphy was brushed by an Uenohara pitch and Reya singled hard to right. Nunley and D-Alex had RBI singles to plate two runs before Uenohara kept melting with a 4-pitch walk to Toner which loaded the bases. Cookie poked at 3-1 and grounded to third base, but the Titans got only Toner at second base, bringing home another run to make it a 3-0 game. Uenohara didn’t make it out of the fifth inning after a leadoff single by Richards, but Jonny made it through five on just 62 pitches, giving the Titans only a first-inning Gutierrez single and nothing else. Butler had mopped up Gutierrez on a double play grounder, and the Titans would not get another base runner through eight innings! But there had been that rain delay, and he was over 100 pitches, and the Coons had not added any runs since the fourth inning… and so Angel Casas appeared for the bottom 9th to face the bottom of the order. Jose Silva singled, Tommy Rentz homered, and it was 3-2 with nobody out. Rivera was hit, Sean McDermott got a hit, and just when I was ready to faint, Steve Butler lined out softly to Sandy in leftfield, and Tim Robinson struck out. 3-2 Furballs. Carmona 2-5, RBI; Richards 2-5; Nunley 2-4, RBI; Alexander 2-4, RBI; Toner 8.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K, W (3-2) and 1-3, BB;

WINNING STREAK!!

Also, Cookie has five consecutive multi-hit games, and has been caught stealing four times in a row.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – RF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – 2B Sambrano – LF Seeley – C Alexander – P Santos
BOS: SS M. Rivera – CF J. Silva – 1B S. Butler – C T. Robinson – RF R. Lopez – CF X. Williams – 2B Fletcher – 3B Rentz – P C.K. Lee

Another game – another rain delay. This one came even earlier than Saturday’s, interrupting proceedings for 34 minutes in the second inning, with Santos just 16 pitches into his game. The Titans remained remarkably hitless early on again, but Santos had control issues and walked four by the time he made it to the fourth inning. He had walked four all season up to that point. Just when the Druid and the pitching coach agreed that it might be a good thing to check on his condition out there, Dave Fletcher whacked a 2-run double, the Titans’ first hit in the game. Tommy Rentz hit another double, plating Fletcher, making it 3-0, and when Santos was checked out, he admitted to a back issue, pain in the lower back. He was out of the game. Mathis struck out Chae-ku Lee, with Gibson taking over in the fifth. He pitched two innings, allowed three hits, walked a pair, and somehow escaped with only one run allowed. Would it make much difference? The Coons had next to nothing going against Lee, but he was gone after six innings. Ricardo Rocha took over for the seventh, allowing a leadoff single to D-Alex, and then Reya hit for Gibson and singled to center, putting runners on the corners. Cookie had hit into a double play earlier today, but now singled hard to right center, plating D-Alex and bringing up McKnight as the tying run with no outs, and McKnight got the fourth straight single off Rocha, loading the bases with a shot into shallow center. Ron Richards lifted a ball to right, deep enough to plate Reya and get the Coons to 4-2 down, and brought up Stan Murphy, who crashed Rocha’s second pitch for a 3-run shot to left! Rocha, owned, was now on the short side of the score, 5-4, Matt Branch took over, but Sandy reached base with a walk, Robinson was called out for a passed ball, and then Seeley hit a 2-out double to center to bring home Sambrano, 6-4. The Titans wouldn’t get out of the mess until D-Alex walked and Reya had his second single of the inning, this one scoring Seeley, 7-4, before Cookie grounded out to Dave Fletcher. Entwistle, Thrasher, and Casas killed off the Titans in quick succession to end this and seal the sweep. 7-4 Coons! McKnight 4-5, 2B; Seeley 2-5, 2B, RBI; Reya (PH) 2-2, RBI;

In other news

May 11 – VAN CL Pedro Alvarado (1-1, 1.53 ERA, 6 SV) needs to have bone spurs removed from his elbow and will miss a substantial amount of the remaining season, probably only to return in September.
May 12 – The Titans deal OF John Alexander (.281, 1 HR, 15 RBI) to the Capitals for two second-rate prospects.
May 14 – BOS SP Ian Rutter (4-2, 1.99 ERA) 3-hits the Rebels in a 4-0 shutout.
May 14 – SFB SP Juan Garcia (3-2, 4.79 ERA) is headed for Tommy John surgery with a torn UCL and will miss over a year.
May 14 – The Canadiens acquire C Morgan Little (.450, 0 HR, 7 RBI) and a minor leaguer from the Rebels while sending them OF Ross Holland (.265, 1 HR, 9 RBI) and cash.

Complaints and stuff

First the good news: Hector Santos only has a back tweak and will not even miss a start. He should be good to go by next weekend! I sure turned blue in the face for a moment when the Druid hauled him in there…

Jonny Toner is a pleasure to have! Apart from that… By the way, Jonny Toner is not leading the league in ERA right now with his 1.84 mark. That honor would go to LVA Jaquan Wagoner – 0.62 ERA!!

The Crusaders have been swept by the Loggers this weekend (!!), and have lost five straight, and seven of their last nine. We’ll be there starting on Tuesday.

Down on the farm, all teams have losing records of either 15-17 or 14-18. Jimmy Fucito has a .805 OPS in AAA, but that’s not enough to swap him for Seeley, who can play some competent center. Jeff Magnotta is 2-1 with a 2.70 ERA, but has only 4.8 K/9 in AAA. Scrap heap signing SP David Tucci was really good in A-ball, but I would hope for that from a 23-year old. He was 3-1 with a 2.51 ERA and was moved up to Ham Lake.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (16-20) @ Crusaders (23-14) – May 19-21, 2015

The Raccoons had been handled by the Crusaders the last two years, including a close 10-8 defeat over the 2014 season series. Given the fact that the Crusaders led the North – as usual – and were second in runs scored against the Coons’ moribund pitching, a good old drumming was probably coming. That the Crusaders themselves were only ninth in runs allowed and their starting rotation was in the bottom three didn’t actually matter, since the Raccoons’ offense was what it was.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (3-3, 4.85 ERA) vs. Pancho Trevino (2-2, 4.44 ERA)
Bill Conway (2-4, 3.72 ERA) vs. A.J. Bartels (1-3, 5.79 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (3-2, 1.84 ERA) vs. Colin Sabatino (2-1, 4.47 ERA)

We get three right-handers. The Crusaders are entirely healthy (like the Coons, who are just plain bad), but their heart of the order has been a bit lacking in the power department so far. Overall, they’re doing fine, and can stash their second-best home run hitters in Miguel Salinas and Francisco Caraballo in the #2 and #8 holes. Both have five dingers. “Clockwork” Martin leads them with six. Overall the team is third in home runs.

In a stunner, the Crusaders have signed former Indians catcher Jose Paraz in the offseason. They have put him in centerfield. It’s not pretty, but it could even be worse. He has bad knees and can’t catch anymore, apparently.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P N. Brown
NYC: CF Paraz – 2B Caraballo – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Manfull – 3B Salinas – C Durango – SS J. Ortega – P Trevino

Nick Brown starts in 2015 were pretty much about seeing how long you could hold your breath before fainting and missing the inevitable, but he got well into this one and put a few zeroes onto the board early on. The same couldn’t be said for Trevino, who crumbled slightly in the second inning and conceded a run to Sandy Sambrano’s single, then was taken deep by Ron Richards for one run in the third inning, and by Luis Reya for two in the fourth. The Crusaders had their first scoring opportunity when Stanton Martin clobbered a ball over the third base bag for a leadoff double in the fourth, following by B.J. Manfull accepting a close pitch to tip a button on his uniform. Miguel Salinas’ grounder to short and Eduardo Durango’s double play ball to second base dissolved the threat, however, and the Coons remained up 4-0. Pancho Trevino then loaded the bases with nobody out in the top 5th when McKnight singled, Richards walked, and Murphy also singled. Matt Nunley hit a ball to left center that didn’t make it past Martin Ortíz, and this sac fly was the only run the Coons tagged on in the inning. The bottom 6th saw Brown strike out both the Martin Brothers before getting a slow roller to short on the first pitch from B.J. Manfull – an inning that greatly soothed the souls of all the mangled Brownieists out there. Brownie then had a laborious seventh, walking Salinas and losing PH Jesus Ramirez to an infield single, but ended his day with a K to Jose Paraz that ended the inning. The first pitch by a Raccoon that didn’t have BROWN sewn onto the shirt was then yanked for 410 feet by Caraballo, and also the only pitch that the sucker Entwistle threw in the game. Thrasher replaced him, allowed a single to Martin Ortíz, then struck out the next four batters he faced before Mathis took over in the ninth, struck out Jorge Ortega and got a fly to Sandy Sambrano in left from Bill Miller to end the game. 5-1 Brownies! Nunley 2-3, 2B, RBI; Reya 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Sambrano 2-4, RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 8 K, W (4-3); Thrasher 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K;

Trevino lasted five, striking out nobody. Overall the Crusaders managed just 3 K against the Critters, who struck out 13 Crusaders in the game.

Is it wrong to look at Nick Brown’s career wins once in a while? He has 187 with this one. A lot of wins were forfeited by rabidly bad teams in the first half of the 2000s, of course.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Conway
NYC: CF Paraz – SS Caraballo – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Manfull – C Lowe – 2B J. Ramirez – 3B Salinas – P Bartels

The Raccoons’ infamous defense reared its ugly head in the second inning in which poor Bill Conway could make whatever pitch he wanted, the Crusaders would somehow snip it through the porous infield. Manfull opened the inning with a homer, and after that it was five singles for two runs before Stanton Martin, who had struck out with Ortíz in scoring position in the first inning, flew out to deep center to strand three more runners. The bags were full again in the third inning, which ended on a marvelous flying grab of Jose Paraz’ liner by Ronnie McKnight. Conway had nothing, but the balls were falling in EVERYWHERE, while the Raccoons weren’t batting squid themselves. Murphy and Nunley found the gaps consecutively in the fourth inning to produce a run, and there was a wild-pitch-aided run in the fifth inning, but the Coons’ pen – which had replaced Conway in the fourth inning already – continued to bleed runs until the game was thoroughly decided by Martin Ortíz’ 3-run blow off Josh Gibson in the seventh inning. Right-hander Alex Ramirez allowed two runs in the eighth inning, but the Raccoons were already well out of slam range. Ramirez remained in the game for the ninth inning, which the Raccoons started down 9-4. Bergquist made the first out before Cookie singled, and McKnight walked. Ramirez struck out Richards before being clobbered by Stan Murphy for a 3-run homer. But there came Salvadaro Soure, handed Matt Nunley his only retirement of the game, and ended the same. 9-7 Crusaders. Murphy 3-5, HR, 3B, 3 RBI; Nunley 4-5, 2 2B, RBI; Bednarski (PH) 1-1, RBI;

That 3-run shot off Josh Gibson not only handed Gibson his placement on waivers after the game and a 13.50 ERA, no, it was also Martin Ortíz’ 300th career homer. The 35-year old was batting .327 with 4 HR and 20 RBI on the season, and .296 with 1,355 RBI for his career.

Lacking any real inspiration in AAA, George Youngblood was called up to replace Gibson, giving us a third left-handed reliever.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – P Toner
NYC: C Paraz – SS Caraballo – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Manfull – C Lowe – 2B J. Ramirez – 3B Salinas – P Sabatino

A first inning leadoff double by Cookie and a second inning leadoff triple by Bednarski gave the Raccoons two early runs that Jonny Toner didn’t hold on to for very long. Stanton Martin’s first hit in the series was a leadoff jack in the bottom 2nd, and Drew Lowe also got on, only to score on Jesus Ramirez’ double to tie the game. Toner didn’t whiff anybody until Sabatino came up and clearly had an off day. As if the point wasn’t clear enough yet, the third inning continued like that. Paraz had a deep fly out to Richards, but Caraballo doubled, Ortíz was drilled, and “Clockwork” hit another one, this one for three runs. The Crusaders would have two more floating singles in the inning before Toner finally somehow got out, but now sat in a 5-2 hole.

The Critters made up two runs with a few more extra base hits off another crummy starter in the fourth inning, pulling back to 5-4, but with McKnight in scoring position and two outs Ron Richards struck out again, becoming colder and colder. But, contrary to what could have been expected earlier, the Coons knocked out Sabatino before Toner was run over completely; Murphy led off the fifth with a single, and Nunley crushed a meager fastball for a 2-run homer, flipping the score to 6-5 for the Raccoons. Another run scored off Hwa-pyung Choe, the right-hander that replaced Sabatino. Choe walked D-Alex with one out, then walked Toner with two outs – Toner’s third walk in the game! – and fell to an RBI single by Cookie, 7-5. Toner retired the next six, but hit Paraz opening the bottom 7th and only accepted Caraballo’s bunt for the out at first base before being replaced by Sugano with Martin Ortíz coming up. The plan was to get Ortíz, walk Martin intentionally, and then retire Manfull, but the Crusaders called the bluff and hit Frederic Roche, a right-handed batter, for Manfull. Mathis replaced Sugano and got the most crucial K.

The Coons got an extra run in the eighth when they put on two with two outs against Helio Maggessi. That brought up Bednarski, whom Reya hit for and singled to center to chase home Stan Murphy with an insurance run, making this an 8-5 effort. Thrasher held the Crusaders short in the bottom 8th, and then Seeley worked a 1-out walk in the ninth. Cookie grounded one across the infield right where nobody had a chance to play it, and we had another two on with one out against Alex Ramirez, who had already been bled on Wednesday. McKnight had a hard single to right to load them up, but Richards had another bad K in a bad spot. Murphy flew out to the surprisingly amble Paraz in center to end the inning. Angel allowed a leadoff single to Paraz in the bottom 9th, but otherwise retired New York to clinch the series. 8-5 Furballs. Carmona 4-6, 2 2B, 2 RBI; McKnight 2-6, 2B, RBI; Murphy 3-5, BB, RBI; Nunley 3-5, HR, 2 RBI; Reya (PH) 1-1, RBI;

I can’t remember any pitcher for the Coons taking three walks in a month, let alone in a single game. Unfortunately, his crummy pitching meant that Toner’s offensive feats will not be remembered in a pretty good light.

Ron Richards got the golden sombrero in this game.

Raccoons (18-21) vs. Knights (18-22) – May 22-24, 2015

The Knights had the outright worst pitching in the Continental League, and it wasn’t even close. With their grim rotation (5.56 ERA) they were allowing more than 5.5 runs per game! Their pen was probably not bad, but creaking under the weight of the rotation and also didn’t fare well overall. Their offense was above average, but there’s only so much an “above average” offense can do for that kind of pitching. The Raccoons had a 2-year winning streak against the Knights, both times beating them 7-2.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (2-1, 3.80 ERA) vs. Felipe Ramirez (0-6, 11.23 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-4, 6.18 ERA) vs. Stephen Quirion (1-3, 6.21 ERA)
Nick Brown (4-3, 4.17 ERA) vs. Ramón Jimenez (2-4, 3.83 ERA)

The Knights lacked a lefty starter, and with the way they were going, you might expect more shuffling at any point.

Game 1
ATL: CF C. Morán – C Bedinghaus – LF Rockwell – RF Raupp – 2B Downing – SS Hibbard – 3B W. White – 1B T. Cardenas – P F. Ramirez
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – C Margolis – LF Sambrano – 2B Bergquist – P Santos

Santos’ struggles continued, and while Gil Rockwell just missed his 12th dinger of the season, the Knights still socked him for two runs in the first inning when Josh Downing doubled to center with two outs, scoring both base runners currently on. Cookie’s leadoff double in the bottom 1st was followed by three batters not getting the ball beyond the infield, stranding him at third base, but the Coons made up for it in the bottom 3rd. Bergquist walked, stole a base, was moved to third by Santos, and scored on Cookie’s sac fly to center, before McKnight homered to tie the score at two. While the Coons would make some more hard contact off Ramirez, none of those drives fell into the outfield, and Ramirez actually got a no-decision on just three hits conceded. He was hit for in the top 7th, which also chased Santos with two outs and Devin Hibbard on base. Mathis cleaned up, striking out Ken Potter and keeping the score tied, but then allowed a hit to Bill Bedinghaus in the eighth and was walloped by Gil Rockwell’s booming moonshot to left. That 4-2 lead didn’t hold up, first because McKnight romped another dinger off Fernando Hernandez jr. in the bottom 8th, and as the Knights burned through their pen, Ron Richards hit a 2-out double off Quinn McCarthy (off an 0-2 pitch), prompting a pitching change to righty Dave Hogan, who surrendered the tying run on Margolis’ single. Sandy would single, but when D-Alex hit for Bergquist, he flew out to Rockwell, ending the inning tied at four. Thrasher held the Knights away in the ninth, and then the Coons got not only the winning run on with a walk to start the bottom 9th, when Adam Harper lost Bednarski, but also that run moved to second base on a walk to Cookie. A bunt would have been an option, but McKnight was seeing the ball quite good, and he countered the right-handed Harper, whose second pitch was also wild, moving the winning run to third base with no outs. Ronnie then walked off the Coons with a looper to left that fell in. 5-4 Critters. McKnight 3-5, 2 HR, 3 RBI; Richards (PH) 1-1, 2B; Sambrano 2-3, BB; Santos 6.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K;

Stephen Quirion was booted from the middle game and Ramón Jimenez moved up to Saturday.

Game 2
ATL: CF M. Reyes – C Bedinghaus – LF Rockwell – RF Raupp – 2B Downing – SS Hibbard – 3B W. White – 1B T. Cardenas – P R. Jimenez
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Dickerson

Dickerson had a clean first inning, but by the second we were all reminded of why he had been pushed through the order and skipped a start over the last few weeks. He failed to retire either Jimmy Raupp (walk), or Josh Downing and Devin Hibbard (both singles), and Tomas Cardenas would run the total damage to three runs with a double. The Critters also had their first three guys on in the second inning, as Nunley walked, Reya singled, and Sandy singled home Nunley to get back to 3-1, but D-Alex found his way into a double play and the team only got the one run. Luis Rey-A hit into a double play to kill the fourth, but on the other side Marty Rey-ES hit an RBI triple to give the Knights an extra run in the fifth inning.

Dickerson avoided complete dissolution and made it through six, after which the Raccoons, despite an out by Cookie leading off, loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning against Jimenez. Nunley batted with the bases loaded and one out, grounded to first for what looked like a fatal double play, but beat out Hibbard’s return throw to allow McKnight to score and the inning to continue – which was a splendid thing! Luis Reya came through this time, hit a double to the warning track in right and plated both runs to tie the game. Dickerson made it through the seventh when he started a double play against pinch-hitter Ken Potter, but the Coons left Margolis and McKnight stranded in the bottom 7th and left him with a no-decision. That was more than the rest of the staff got, since the completely embarrassing Zack Entwistle allowed a go-ahead home run to Gil Rockwell, and starting with a throwing error by Nunley EVERYTHING went to ****s in the ninth, in which the Knights scored two more runs off Nunley (spiritually at least), Entwistle, and Youngblood. Yet, the Coons had the bases loaded with nobody out in the bottom 9th as Sandy and Bednarski had hits, and Margolis walked. Those were the tying runs with nobody out against lefty Mike Tharp. Cookie and McKnight had run-scoring groundouts before Bergquist batted for Bruno after Richards had been removed in a double switch. Tharp walked him before also running a 3-ball count on Murphy, who foolishly flew out softly in a 3-1 count. 7-6 Knights. McKnight 2-5, RBI; Reya 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Sambrano 2-4, RBI; Bednarski 1-1, 2B;

Game 3
ATL: CF M. Reyes – SS Hibbard – LF Rockwell – RF Raupp – 2B Downing – C Rosa – 3B W. White – 1B T. Cardenas – P McKenzie
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – 2B Sambrano – C Margolis – P N. Brown

Brownie entered the game seven strikeouts short of Bastyao Caixinha on the all time table, and got Rockwell in the first to keep crawling towards that goal. The Coons would give him a lead three batters into their game as Cookie and McKnight both singled, and Richards plated Cookie with a sac fly. Murphy walked before Nunley hit into a double play. Brownie drove in a run with a 2-out single in the bottom 2nd, a looper that just barely stretched itself over Josh Downing’s glove, but then got smashed in the third inning. Tomas Cardenas reached on an infield single, Brown walked Hibbard, and then ran into Rockwell, who catapulted a 3-run homer to give the Knights a 3-2 lead. They didn’t have that leas for long, however, since McKenzie loaded the bases in the bottom of the third inning. Sandy came up with two outs, sliced a single to center to tie the game, and then Margolis worked a bases-loaded walk, giving the lead back to Brown, who grounded out to short. Rockwell remained the thorn in Brown’s side however, as he lost him to a leadoff walk in the sixth that was swiftly followed by Jimmy Raupp’s double to right. With runners on second and third and the stuff just not biting (only 3 K through five), the 4-3 lead was as dead as disco, but at least Brown got poor contact only and managed to keep Raupp stranded at third base while preserving the tie.

His own leadoff single in the bottom 6th chased his opposite McKenzie, and also gave the offense another chance. Cookie legged out an infield single, putting up two for our ridiculous power shortstop McKnight, who didn’t care a lick about being down 0-2 on Dave Hogan and still struck hard at a low pitch, dug it out and sent it soaring over Gil Rockwell and ****ing outta here! That blow put the Coons up 7-4, Murphy singled, Nunley singled, Bednarski walked, and a big deciding blow was in reach, but Sandy struck out and Margolis fouled out to waste the opportunity. Brownie hit Bill Bedinghaus in the #9 hole with one out in the seventh, but made it out of the inning without Rockwell making another plate appearance against him – and he would not face him again in this game, unless the Coons would blow the score open in the bottom 7th. But, well, Brown was leading off… ah, the heck. He has two hits already! If Toner can walk thrice, Brownie … can fly out to center. Cookie singled, though, however, nothing came of that. Mathis had the honor to face the right-handed middle of the order in the eighth inning, struck out Rockwell, struck out Raupp, and struck out Downing. Huzzah!! Angel managed only one strikeout in the ninth, but no Knight made it onto base again. 7-4 Brownies! Carmona 4-5; McKnight 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Bednarski 2-3, BB;

Yup, those defensive shortstops are a real pain in the arse on offense… Where’s Calderón? CALDERÒN!! I have scouting reports to discuss!

In other news

May 18 – The Blue Sox’ RF/CF Chris Macias (.366, 5 HR, 31 RBI) hits a solo home run off Pittsburgh’s Ron Funderburk (3-3, 4.73 ERA) in the sixth inning. It is the only hit for the Blue Sox in a 4-1 defeat.
May 19 – Vancouver’s 1B/3B Jaime Mateo (.278, 1 HR, 6 RBI) makes his first home run of the season count, blasting an extra-inning walk-off grand slam to beat the Loggers 8-4 in 10 innings.
May 22 – The Pacifics and Rebels combine for seven home runs in an 8-6 Pacifics win in Richmond. RIC C Errol Spears (.260, 5 HR, 25 RBI) has two home runs in the game.
May 23 – The Loggers beat the Thunder 1-0 on the strength of a solo home run by 1B Mike Rucker (.269, 17 HR, 46 RBI), who enjoys a healthy lead in the CL power race.
May 24 – 24-year old TIJ C Jose Vargas (.305, 5 HR, 15 RBI) has perhaps the best day of his young career, going 5-for-5 in a 12-3 creaming of the Canadiens. The Condors backstop has a homer and a double and drives home three in the win.
May 24 – SAC 3B Jason LaCombe (.318, 1 HR, 19 RBI) might miss a month with a sore shoulder.

Complaints and stuff

Brownie struck out only three on Sunday, and so remains behind Bastyao Caixinha's mark of 2,844 K, continuing to occupy 11th place with 2,840 K. While Pancho Trevino won't catch Brownie now, he might get him before Brownie reaches 9th place Arnold McCray (2,900), so the stay in the top 10 might be temporary for now.

Wanna here a funny story? Martin Ortíz started his career as a Logger at 18 years old, but they had all their good and already developed players back then and had no room for him (tough to break into an outfield with guys like Cristo Ramirez and Bakile Hiwalani entering their prime). Some bright mind in 2001 had the splendid idea to save three bucks by removing him from the 40-man roster. The Crusaders claimed him, and he has wrapped up an indecent amount of trophies because of it.

The Loggers!!

That’s officially way more stupid than the Dennis Fried trade that I did.

Also, the Crusaders have all the Monopoly money there is, and signed Francisco Caraballo to a 3-yr, $5.1M extension this week while we were in town (to rub it in, I assume). Well, our own star is fading, so we might not need to bother anymore. Sooner or later, all those mid-30s stars they have now will give them a real bad awakening. It will be too late for the Raccoons…

I will apologize beforehand, but updates could be scarce next week, mainly because of me having overcommitted to World of Tanks grindfest, and I'm too deep into it to pull out now. Things will get better by the 25th, on way or another. Also, starting on the 26th I'll be in my by now traditional World Series holiday, spending a week and a half glued to my chair gaming and eating junk. Civ VI will be out, though.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (20-22) @ Bayhawks (25-19) – May 26-28, 2015

One game off the lead in the South, the Bayhawks were an offensive powerhouse (first in runs scored) that also pitched rather well (fourth in runs allowed). Their bullpen was really good, while their rotation was about average. The Coons had lost the season series in 2014, quite clearly, 2-7.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (2-5, 4.17 ERA) vs. Milt Beauchamp (1-4, 4.76 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (4-2, 2.35 ERA) vs. Jared D’Attilo (2-1, 3.76 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-1, 3.67 ERA) vs. Gabriel Caro (3-2, 5.75 ERA)

The Bayhawks send three of their four right-handers into the set. They also came in having made a trade with the Wolves, acquiring CL Jeff Boynton (0-1, 1.69 ERA, 12 SV) for bits and pieces.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Conway
SFB: RF Gusmán – 2B A. Martinez – LF Alston – 1B A. Young – CF D. Garcia – 3B J. Rodriguez – SS Ingraham – C A. Ramirez – P Beauchamp

Cookie hit a leadoff single in the game, and nobody else reached for the Coons until the fourth. By then Conway was 2-0 down, allowing hard contact without hesitation, and the infield defense was no aid to him. In the top 4th then Ron Richards hit a 1-out single, the first Critter aboard since Cookie to start the game. Murphy walked in a full count, and Nunley hit a hard single to right, where Javier Gusmán’s arm was negligible, allowing Richards to score from second base. Luis Reya then found the gap in right center for an RBI double, and the remaining runners in scoring position came home on Sandy Sambrano’s single to right and then a wild pitch that Beauchamp threw to Conway.

Neither pitcher then made it out of the bottom of the fifth inning, nor did the 4-2 lead. Conway’s control was crap throughout, and he walked Beauchamp on four pitches in the fourth inning, but the fifth started with a leadoff walk to Ron Alston, who was still on first base with two outs. Then Javy Rodriguez came up with an RBI triple past the reach of Carmona (which was quite the feat), Conway walked Zach Ingraham, and when Antonio Ramirez bounced a ball back to the mound for Conway to at least get away with a 4-3 lead, Conway fumbled it long enough for Ramirez to have an RBI single. With Mike Robinson hitting for Beauchamp, Conway’s days were over, and Sugano came on for face the left-hander – and walked him. Javier Gusmán hit a 2-run single, Sugano also walked Armando Martinez on four pitches, and the inning only ended with four runs across because Ron Alston fouled out. The next violent comeback was authored by Mike Bednarski in the sixth. He batted for Sugano with two out and Reya and Alexander on base after soft singles and launched a 3-run homer just inside the left pole off Jayden Maness, giving the lead back to the Coons, 7-6. Youngblood faced three batters in the bottom 6th, struck out the right-handed Dave Garcia, but lost both the left-handers Adam Young and Rodriguez. The appearance of Zack Entwistle did little more than facilitate the next rapid turnaround in the game, as he helplessly walked Ingraham and then got blastered by Ramirez with a no-doubt slam to right center. That was the final blow in the game. 10-7 Bayhawks. Reya 2-4, 2B, RBI; Bednarski (PH) 1-1, HR, 3 RBI;

Zack Entwistle had a 6.63 ERA after blowing yet another game. He also refused demotion to St. Petersburg.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Toner
SFB: RF Gusmán – SS Ingraham – LF Alston – 1B A. Young – CF D. Garcia – 3B J. Rodriguez – 2B M. Robinson – C A. Ramirez – P D’Attilo

After three 4-spots in the opener, the Raccoons threw up a 5-spot in support of Jonny Toner in the second inning, but it wasn’t like Toner was uninvolved, hitting a 1-out, 2-run single with the bases loaded to run the score to 3-0. Cookie’s groundout and McKnight’s double each plated another run to give Jonny an advantage that under normal conditions should be enough for him to get through this one. But these are the Raccoons. When has **** ever been normal?

Toner threw 29 pitches, then came out of the game with a blister. Chris Mathis was put into the game, although we would probably saddle the bulk of the contest on a left-hander eventually, given five left-handed bats in the Birds’ lineup. D’Attilo ended up laden with seven runs, although the last two were actually surrendered by Ricardo Munoz, allowing back-to-back 2-out singles to Reya and Sambrano in the top 5th to chase home McKnight and Nunley. Munoz also conceded a pinch-hit homer to Jason Seeley, who direly needed a success, to run the score to 8-0 to start the sixth. Youngblood took over for Mathis for the bottom 6th, but made a right mess, conceding single runs in both the sixth and seventh, the latter of which being finished by Marcos Bruno, who got a double play to ease the pain. Thrasher pitched the eighth, Nunley homered in the ninth, and Thrasher took a 9-2 lead into the bottom 9th, and got blasted. Leadoff double, wild pitch, hit batter, another knock, and Ingraham then bowled him over with a 2-out homer that brought the score to 9-6. Sugano replaced Thrasher, the sucker, and walked Alston and Young, bringing up the tying run in Dave Garcia. Angel Casas did the dirty work to FINALLY get this one over with. 9-6 Raccoons. McKnight 3-5, 3 2B, RBI; Murphy 2-5; Nunley 2-3, 2 BB, HR, 2B, RBI; Reya 2-5, 2 RBI; Seeley (PH) 1-2, HR, RBI; Toner 2.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K and 1-1, 2 RBI; Mathis 2.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K, W (2-0);

Can we ever have a game without a colossal ****up? Seems like not!

Youngblood (27.00 ERA) was sent to St. Petersburg do rot there. Juan Gallegos made another appearance here, not having allowed a run in AAA so far. Gallegos made 52 appearances for the Critters between the last two years, running a combined 4.86 ERA.

Ivan the Druid diagnosed Toner’s blister and judged it to maybe take longer than the turnaround to his next start to heal properly. But maybe his famous (in jungle-overgrown South America it was probably famous) onion sauce with bacon strips in it could do some magic here…!

Wait, did I hear bacon?

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Reya – RF Bednarski – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – P Santos
SFB: RF Gusmán – 2B A. Martinez – LF Alston – 1B A. Young – CF D. Garcia – 3B J. Rodriguez – SS M. Robinson – C A. Ramirez – P Maldonado

Maldonado (3-3, 3.77 ERA) replaced the struggling Caro in the rubber game, another right-hander to take swings at. The Coons needed a long start from Santos to rest a murdered bullpen, but Santos made a throwing error to create a long first (even if scoreless), then allowed a run on three hits in the bottom 2nd. In the top 4th he came to bat after Maldonado had surrendered four straight singles. No outs, bases loaded, game tied at one, Santos struck out, but the Coons added two more runs on Cookie’s single and McKnight’s sac fly. Santos struggled a bit, however, with the control not quite there, and although he issued no walks through four innings, he still needed 60 pitches to get there, so a long outing of seven innings was by now almost out of the question. The Bayhawks squeezed another 21 pitches out of him in the fifth, stranding runners on the corners when Alston lined out to Bergquist, but a quick sixth got Santos into the seventh inning, which he left when PH Jasper Holt made the second out with a fly to Reya in left on Santos’ 101st pitch. Thrasher replaced him and struck out Gusmán, maintaining the 3-1 lead through seven, but almost blew it in the eighth against the left-handed batters. Alston walked, and Young almost tied the game to dead center, but the ball lacked length due to excessive height – off the bat, it looked like a bomb for sure – and Cookie made the catch on the warning track. Angel Casas came in right now, and allowed a single to Garcia on the first pitch. Cookie hustled that one back in, with Alston trying to reach third base, and Cookie’s throw rendered him – OUT! But today Angel Casas himself would be our ugly bullpen, conceding a single to Rodriguez to lead off the ninth before getting wonked by Ramirez – tied game, extra innings.

Top 10th, Margolis legged out an infield single with one out – or should be say, bellied out. He threw himself onto first base head first, and actually hurt himself in the process. D-Alex replaced him, while Canning hit for Casas, singled, and Seeley in the #9 hole also singled, loading the sacks with one out for Cookie against right-hander Micah Steele, but Cookie hit too hard to Rodriguez for a force at home, and McKnight struck out. Juan Gallegos allowed two walks and two hits in the bottom of the inning to pick up the loss. 4-3 Bayhawks. Carmona 2-6, RBI; McKnight 2-5, RBI; Nunley 2-4, BB; Margolis 2-5; Canning (PH) 1-1; Santos 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K;

This ****ing bullpen… So much misery…

Margolis was diagnosed with a mild abdominal strain and was DTD, but should be good by Saturday.

Raccoons (21-24) vs. Condors (21-26) – May 29-31, 2015

We were 2-1 so far against Tijuana, who were hot despite their modest record, having won six straight games. They were fourth in offense and ninth in pitching, but with a +9 run differential. Overall the package wasn’t enough yet to overcome a bottom three rotation.

Projected matchups:
Daniel Dickerson (0-4, 5.97 ERA) vs. Frank Guggenheim (1-1, 5.20 ERA)
Nick Brown (5-3, 4.29 ERA) vs. Ethan Knight (2-4, 5.17 ERA)
Bill Conway (2-5, 4.80 ERA) vs. Zach Boyer (3-3, 4.43 ERA)

Handedness seems to match for every game in this series, with left-handed Brownie facing the same-pawed Ethan Knight on Saturday, braced by right-handers.

Game 1
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B Jaeger – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – C J. Vargas – SS Eroh – CF L. Martinez – 2B Lafon – P Guggenheim
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Dickerson

Dickerson got crashed in due time. After a leadoff walk to Ezra Branch in the second inning, the Condors would whack three consecutive extra-base hits off him as Ron Eroh homered to left center, Leon Martinez tripled into right center, and Roland Lafon came up with an RBI double for a timely 3-0 Condors lead. The Coons didn’t have a hit until Nunley singled in the fourth, and didn’t put up a threat until the fifth when Sandy hit a 1-out double and D-Alex singled. With runners on the corners, Dickerson, who had yet to continue the active dismemberment of his remaining reputation, hit a ball to center for a sac fly, getting the Critters on the board, down 3-1. Cookie’s double put the tying runs into scoring position, and McKnight’s grounder to Roland Lafon at least chased home D-Alex, 3-2. Then Nunley was hit by Guggenheim, Murphy walked, and Ron Richards batted with two out and the bases loaded while sitting in a pitch black hole of a slump, 6-for-his-last-42. In a full count, he hit a sharp grounder to the right side, Lafon didn’t get it, and two runs scored, flipping the score. Jose Vargas’ homer off Dickerson in the sixth however tied the score at four before long. Ugly duckling Entwistle took over in the seventh, facing the bottom of the order, all right-handed, and still got hung on the hook after a Lafon double and Kevin Jaeger’s 2-out RBI single. This time the Coons came back instantly, and without making an out. McKnight hit a leadoff single off Scott Vigil in the bottom 7th, stole second base, and scored on Nunley’s single to center that just escaped Lafon. The Raccoons then quickly stopped the hitting, stranded two runners that were washed abase on walks in the ninth, and in the 11th suffered a complete breakdown of EVERYTHING – again. Gallegos was in the game, allowed a leadoff triple to Ezra Branch, and then Sambrano made an error on Vargas’ grounder, and when pitcher Brian Gilbert bunted, Gallegos threw that away for another error. Gallegos got Martinez, but walked Lafon, before retiring Jimmy Oatmeal. Okay, if you can get out of the inning now, we only have - … and then Gallegos allowed another three screaming hits and the Condors took a 5-run lead they weren’t going to surrender. 10-5 Condors. Nunley 3-4, BB, RBI; Seeley (PH) 1-1, 2B; Mathis 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

(has the face buried deep in the hands)

Game 2
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B Jaeger – LF Eichelkraut – CF Feldmann – SS Eroh – RF W. Newman – C A. Gonzales – 2B Lafon – P E. Knight
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – SS McKnight – C Margolis – 3B Canning – P N. Brown

The only guy swinging from the left side that Nick Brown would see in this lineup was the opposing pitcher, so given his recent struggles we expected another long (or short, depending on the point of view) and sad outing for him. Knight allowed a run in the first, hitting Sambrano and serving up an RBI double to Stan Murphy. That was all early on, and Brown soon found trouble. Bitterly it was Jimmy Oatmeal to get the Condors started in the fourth inning with a leadoff single. Brown walked Ryan Feldmann, and Alfredo Gonzales drove home Oatmeal with 2-out RBI double. Lafon was walked intentionally (when did the Coons have Brownie ever put one on intentionally in the last 15 years?) and Brown struck out Knight, his fourth K in the game, and pulling him even for 10th place all time at 2,844.

Bergquist’s surprise assault in the bottom 4th saw him hit his first dinger of the year, a solo shot off Knight, putting the Coons back ahead, 2-1, and the Critters then had the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth for McKnight to bat with two outs. The shortstop grounded to the second baseman, but now Lafon bungled the ball and lost the third out of the inning, allowing a run to score. Knight lost the nerves, walked Margolis on four straight to shove home another run, and was replaced by lefty Scott Vigil, despite Canning up to bat, but Canning grounded out to Craig Dasher on the first pitch, keeping the score at 4-1. Brown went seven innings just over 90 pitches, but didn’t return to the eighth inning, which Bruno took care of instead. The Coons stranded runners in scoring position when Cookie grounded out to short (completing an 0-5 nightmare) in the bottom 8th, and Angel got another, hardly deserved, save opportunity, but there were no accidents this time. 4-1 Brownies! Murphy 2-4, 2B, RBI; Bergquist 2-4, HR, RBI; Margolis 1-2, BB, RBI; Canning 2-3, BB, 2B; Brown 7.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, W (6-3);

Brownie struck out Ron Eroh in the top of the sixth inning to take sole possession of 10th place on the all time strikeout list. Also, the old man has won four starts in a row with a 2.25 ERA to him in those four games.

Game 3
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B Jaeger – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – C J. Vargas – SS Valles – 2B Lafon – P Boyer
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Conway

De-winning-streaked, the Condors got a 1-0 lead in the second inning on a leadoff double by Branch and a dismal throwing error by Conway on Feldmann’s grounder. For the second time this week, it took until Nunley singled in the fourth inning for the Raccoons to get even a hit. Murphy also singled, putting two on with nobody out for Ron Richards, who continued to dispense a certain past-due-date smell, and chopped an 0-2 pitch to center for an easy out. However, Nunley took off as Feldmann made the catch, Feldmann tried to teach him, but his throw to third was wild and went past Dasher and the covering Boyer, and Nunley scampered home with the tying run, while Murphy moved up to second base, but he was stranded as Reya and Sambrano grounded out. The sixth inning started with Jaeger reaching on a clumsy throw by Murphy behind Conway’s back, and that cost two bases. However, the remaining Condors all hit poor contact and the go-ahead run was starved at third base here. The next inning saw Ron Eroh bat for Melvin Valles to lead off, he grounded to Nunley, and now Nunley threw the ball away capitally. Conway got a bouncer back to himself from Lafon, Boyer popped out, and then … then Jimmy Oatmeal hit for Dasher and bounced a ball into the outfield. This raised his average to .197 and gave the Condors a 2-1 lead, and Feldmann homered off Conway in the eighth to knock him out. That was the only earned run Conway allowed, while getting no support from the rest of his team. The error tally kept rising, though; Nunley made another clumsy error in the ninth, but this one didn’t cost a run, for once. It was the fourth E on the Coons’ ledger in this dreadful game that saw the Condors lead 3-1 into the bottom 9th, Brian Gilbert, a right-hander, pitching to Richards, who crashed an 0-2 pitch for a homer to right center. Now it was a 1-run game, and it remained one. Reya and Sambrano rolled out to Eroh, Bednarski hit for Alexander and walked, but Margolis fouled out to end the game. 3-2 Condors. Conway 7.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, L (2-6);

In other news

May 25 – A fractured rib will put DEN 1B Mun-wah Tsung (.278, 6 HR, 30 RBI) out of action for the next month.
May 26 – Elbow reconstruction surgery looms for IND SP Tristan Broun (4-4, 3.96 ERA). The 27-year old southpaw has a ruptured UCL and will be out for at least one year.
May 26 – LVA INF Brent Burke (.299, 4 HR, 29 RBI) might miss more than a month with an intercostal strain.
May 28 – The Indians lose 2B Jong-beom Kym (.266, 5 HR, 14 RBI) to a fractured thumb. He might need six weeks to heal.
May 31 – WAS 1B/2B Ieyoshi Nomura (.317, 2 HR, 28 RBI) draws advantage from the 17-1 drumming his Capitals hand to the Scorpions and raps out six base hits, four singles and two doubles, driving in two in connecting for the 51st 6-hit game in ABL history. It is the second 6-hitter by a Capital (Alberto Rodriguez, 2013), and the Capitals, Scorpions, and Rebels now have taken turns handing the last three 6-hitters in the league to another.
May 31 – DAL 3B/2B Hector Garcia (.285, 3 HR, 28 RBI) gets two hits in the Stars’ 4-3 loss to the Cyclones, reaching the 2,000 hits milestone with a fourth inning single off Luis Guerrero. He later adds an RBI double in the defeat. An 8-time All Star, 2-time Gold Glover, 2006 World Series champion, and 2008 FLCS MVP, Garcia has spent his entire career with the Stars, batting .315/.399/.479 with 144 HR and 1,001 RBI.

Complaints and stuff

Ronnie McKnight merely batted .259, with four homers and 18 RBI, but that was enough to wrap up Rookie of the Month honors in the Continental League.

The Fail is strong on this team. I don’t even know what to do. There’s the handful of players that’s great and still under team control, and you never want to trade those for anything. Y’know, the Cookies and Toners. Then there’s the bits and pieces that nobody wants anyway, mainly because they have a bad year. Sandy Sambrano comes to mind. And then there’s the abysmal brood that has nested all over the 25-man roster. Dickerson. Entwistle. Basically anybody supposed to drive in runs.

Ah, I just remembered, I haven’t yet mentioned why Nick Brown didn’t reappear for the eighth inning on Saturday. He went to the trainer after the seventh and told him of a tight shoulder. There’s some mild strain to the shoulder, apparently, and it looks like he will miss a start, but it’s not bad enough to warrant a DL assignment. We need a replacement pitcher from somewhere for next week, and I’m thinking of the bad copy, wannabe Brownie.

Someone’s showing his age here! (sobs)

Well, we have Thursday off. Until then it’s Toner, Santos, Dickerson. We COULD avoid having a replacement pitcher altogether by just skipping original Brownie’s spot on Thursday. That doesn’t sound too bad. He can always be moved up when he’s ready to pitch, but we’d have Conway, Toner, Santos on the weekend then, when we’ll be in Milwaukee. We’ll have another off day the following Monday, so we could skip Dickerson and try Brownie on Monday in Indianapolis after that. Maybe that’s better than trying to squeeze Chris Brown onto the roster for a game he doesn’t need to take.

ABL CAREER STRIKEOUTS

1st – Tony Hamlyn – 3,893 (active)
2nd – Martin Garcia – 3,783
3rd – Woody Roberts – 3,313 (HOF)
4th – Aaron Anderson – 3,225 (HOF)
5th – Carlos Castro – 3,198 (HOF)
6th – Javier Cruz – 3,164
7th – Chris York – 3,103 (active)
8th – Carlos Asquabal – 2,995 (HOF)
9th – Arnold McCray – 2,900 (HOF)
10th – Nick Brown – 2,845 (active)
11th – Bastyao Caixinha – 2,844 (HOF)
12th – Pancho Trevino – 2,807 (active)

There was also a scouting update on June 1, and Calderón rated down most of the guys that don’t perform like they should (not Brownie, though). More interesting are a few guys on the farm.

In Aumsville, Danny Arguello (the money sink from 2013) has been struggling and is walking more than he whiffs while running a 6+ ERA, but Calderón sings lots of praise of him and bumped up his potential ratings. To be honest, Calderón kinda has to. There’s half a million bucks in that little sucker, and he knows that I’ll beat every single dime out of him if Arguello fails. Recent front line picks Andy Bareford and Chris Schmitt got ratings bumps, but neither hits a lick in their respective league (AA and A), but there’s an interesting emerging player in Ham Lake. INF Dan Riley was the seventh-rounder in ’13, and while he’s still mainly a defensive shortstop, the bat starts to come around, especially when it comes to contact and also finding the gaps for doubles. Lots of strikeouts so far, though.

By the way, the Ham Lake Panthers are 21-24, and that’s clearly the best of our minor league teams…

[Westheim]

2015 DRAFT PREVIEW

The Raccoons will only have the 22nd pick in the 2015 draft, but it can’t hurt to make preparations anyway. What’s Juan Calderón here for anyway if not that? The trusty scout – mind that Arguello sword dangling over his balding head or not – has as always compiled a list of the most promising young talent in all the lands.

It seems like the 2015 draft class is rather balanced, with no type of player underrepresented. Most choice is offered in the realm of pitchers, where there is a whole bevy of promising players available. The question will be what will remain available at #22…

Below, our hotlist of the dozen-or-so best players per the scouting reports. (*denotes college players)

SP Warren Polito (14/13/10)
SP Sean Balzer (14/14/14) *
SP Manny Ortega (12/16/14) *
SP Alan Farrell (13/14/11)
SP Jose Fuentes (16/13/10) *

CL Desi Bowles (18/13/8) *

C/1B Jack Stickley (8/15/11) *

2B Chris Owen (12/8/11) *
1B Austin Metzger (9/11/11) *
1B Michael Wilkerson (12/9/12)

OF/1B Chris Lemone (11/13/12) *
OF/2B/1B Quinn Jewell (8/12/11) *
LF/CF Greg Fortenberry (10/12/12)
1B/LF/RF Brian Perakis (10/14/12)
OF Will Rainey (10/13/10) *

[Questdog]

That Quinn fella looks like Jewell....

P.S. I am in pre-load mode; are you in pre-load mode?

[Westheim]

I had a hunch you'd like young Quinn there. (That contact ain't much however...)

I played the Aces series last evening, but ran out of time trying to do 28 things at once; but there should be a proper update today.

I'm not getting the pre-load mode, though.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I had a hunch you'd like young Quinn there. (That contact ain't much however...)

I played the Aces series last evening, but ran out of time trying to do 28 things at once; but there should be a proper update today.

I'm not getting the pre-load mode, though.

Civ VI

[Westheim]

Ah. No, I pre-ordered, but didn't pre-load. I won't get to it before Sunday anyway due to my ill-chosen commitments, which I am thoroughly fed up with by now.

Which brings us to tonight's update, which has unfortunately been cancelled, because I'm a huge fail.

Please address your right disappointment to Maud, who will sort through it.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Ah. No, I pre-ordered, but didn't pre-load. I won't get to it before Sunday anyway due to my ill-chosen commitments.

Which brings us to tonight's update, which has unfortunately been cancelled, because I'm a huge fail.

Please address your right disappointment to Maud, who will sort through it.

This is the first time I have ever pre-ordered a game and I am fully prepared to be disappointed. However, I figure, even if it is a stinker, I would end up buying it anyway.....

The graphics don't look to be an improvement, but from everything else I have seen, it looks like a step up from Civ V.

I hated Civ V for a long time before I finally started playing it over Civ IV.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Questdog

This is the first time I have ever pre-ordered a game and I am fully prepared to be disappointed. However, I figure, even if it is a stinker, I would end up buying it anyway.....

The graphics don't look to be an improvement, but from everything else I have seen, it looks like a step up from Civ V.

I hated Civ V for a long time before I finally started playing it over Civ IV.

I have pre-ordered before, although it doesn't make much difference with Steam. It's not like I have to go to a shop these days. I even got the Deluxe Edition with the first so-and-so DLC included, just because ...

I didn't like Civ V vanilla, and went back to IV quickly, but with the expansions I think it's become the better game and I haven't played IV in a long time. VI downloaded this morning and I will have a quick sniff now before heading off to non-baseball, most likely non-Civ gaming night.

And now, an actual update!

+++

Raccoons (22-26) vs. Aces (25-24) – June 1-3, 2015

The Aces were third in the South while ranking in fourth place in the CL in both runs scored and runs allowed, a well-balanced team if you want. They were 2-1 against the Coons in 2015, but they were now without their sterling shortstop Brent Burke, who was out with an intercostal strain.

Projected matchups:
Jonathan Toner (4-2, 2.26 ERA) vs. Kevin Poisson (2-3, 5.34 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-1, 3.41 ERA) vs. Jaquan Wagoner (7-1, 0.63 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-4, 5.98 ERA) vs. Juan Valdevez (4-4, 3.68 ERA)

The series will start with a left-handed pitcher in Poisson, before we will swiftly graduate to league ERA leader Jaquan Wagoner. Poor Santos.

Game 1
LVA: SS R. Avila – CF Kelsey – 1B Bovane – RF Bellows – C D. Rice – LF J. Garcia – 2B Beard – 3B O’Slattery – P Poisson
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – SS McKnight – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – C Margolis – SS Canning – P Toner

Like all too many games for this team, this one started with Ricky Avila and John Kelsey sneaking grounders through the inexplicable defense on the infield to get onto the corners with two singles. Nobody out, Toner reached back and struck out Raúl Bovane, Justin Bellows, and Danny Rice consecutively to deny the Aces. Jonny also stranded another pair in the second inning, in which he drilled Rusty Beard with an 0-2 fastball, and by then the Coons were already up 1-0 after McKnight and Murphy had hit back-to-back doubles in the first. With Toner batting in the bottom 2nd and one out, the Coons had Bergquist on second and Margolis on first. Toner singled hard through the left side, Bergquist was waved around and scored, while the runners moved into scoring position, but were stranded by Cookie and Sandy. Toner conceded a run in the fourth inning on another pair of singles, but batted again in the same inning with the same personnel aboard and also one out, though this time Poisson lost him to a walk, loading the bases for the top of the order. Unfortunately, Cookie’s dire straits continued, and he merely managed a run-scoring groundout to Bovane at first base before Sandy grounded out, leaving the score at 3-1.

Mike Bednarski then turned out to be very useful, which was a mild surprise to everybody involved. He hit a solo homer in the fifth inning, to left center and of the line drive variety. Toner started to turn sour in the seventh inning, conceded a homer to Joe O’Slattery, bringing the score to 4-2, and then also allowed Jesus Alvarez on with a double. With two outs and Alvarez on third, Bovane lined to right, and Bednarski hustled in to make a lunging grab and keep the run stranded. Nevertheless, Reya hit for him against righty Jim Cushing with two on in the bottom 7th, but grounded out, and Bergquist also grounded out to leave them stranded, turning things over to the notoriously picky bullpen. Sugano retired his two men, but Mathis allowed a single to PH Bill Thomas before retiring Rusty Beard on a liner to Sandy at second base. The ninth was then led off by O’Slattery with his second homer (of the game and of the season), cutting the lead to a single run. With lefty Geoff Struck announced as hitting in the #9 hole, Ron Thrasher came out of the pen. He struck out Struck, but Avila then doubled. PH Bobby Diersing flew out to center, Avila held, and Bovane was intentionally walked to bring up Bellows, who was batting 85 points less. Thrasher lost him in a full count to load the bases, then had to face lefty Danny Rice, who popped up a 1-2 pitch that Nunley caught. 4-3 Coons. Murphy 2-3, 2B, RBI; Bergquist 2-4, 2B; Toner 7.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, W (5-2) and 1-1, BB, RBI;

Game 2
LVA: SS R. Avila – 2B Beard – 1B Bovane – RF Bellows – LF J. Garcia – CF Flack – C Diersing – 3B O’Slattery – P Wagoner
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Santos

Santos’ first pitch was lined for a triple by Ricky Avila, and there things went. Beard drove him home with a double on pitch number three before Santos settled down and wiggled out of the inning without Beard scoring as well. Cookie hit a leadoff single in the bottom 1st, got doubled up by McKnight, before the Coons still loaded the bases, only for Reya to strike out. The Coons had Murphy roll into a double play, Santos bunted into a force, and there was generally not much going on all the way to the bottom of the sixth, where the Coons were still down 1-0, but McKnight hit a leadoff single and then Nunley doubled into the gap in left center. Runners on second and third with nobody out, Murphy struck out, Richards fouled out, and Reya flew out to center. Nobody scored, like, ever. Santos threw a complete game on 103 pitches – a heroic achievement with his stamina issues – and received absolutely no help. 1-0 Aces. McKnight 2-4; Nunley 2-3, 2B; Santos 9.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, L (2-2);

(deep sigh)

Booze!!

Game 3
LVA: SS R. Avila – CF Kelsey – RF Bellows – C D. Rice – 2B Beard – 1B B. Thomas – LF J. Alvarez – 3B O’Slattery – P Valdevez
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Richards – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – LF Seeley – P Dickerson

Dickerson was ravaged from the start. He barely avoided disaster in the first inning in which he made a throwing error to add to his harmless pitching, but in the second inning the Aces raked him for seven hits and five runs. Not one of those hits was soft, and three were doubles. The oddity increased only afterwards, as Dickerson retired the next 11 batters before Valdevez hit a 2-out infield single that McKnight managed to keep in the infield after a stretch and dive, but couldn’t get a throw off in time. Well, maybe Dickerson can fin- … Avila doubled, Valdevez scored casually, and that was it for Dickerson. The Raccoons had achieved three hits and a double play in the meantime and trailed 6-0. The Raccoons didn’t reach third base until the bottom of the seventh inning, when Nunley opened with a double and advanced on Murphy’s single. Richards’ sac fly was all that the team amounted to after that, and they were entirely silent in the last two innings. 6-1 Aces. Murphy 2-4; Gallegos 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Raccoons (23-28) @ Loggers (27-25) – June 5-7, 2015

The increasingly hopeless Raccoons were 3 1/2 games behind the Loggers – which was irritating in itself – but so far had at least maintained a 3-2 clip in 2015 against the usually bottom-bound Milwaukee team. The Loggers had to be doing something right, but it sure wasn’t their pitching, which was the second-worst in the league. Their offense ranked third, but they still had a -16 run differential, almost as bad as the Coons’ (-24). These two teams had the worst pens in the Continental League, with the Raccoons’ already terrible 4.68 ERA mark far surpassed by the Loggers, who added almost two thirds of a run to that.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (2-6, 4.38 ERA) vs. Chester Graham (6-3, 4.16 ERA)
Nick Brown (6-3, 3.96 ERA) vs. Jason McDonald (2-5, 5.19 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (5-2, 2.29 ERA) vs. Michael Foreman (3-4, 4.95 ERA)

Plans were changed with Nick Brown being declared healthy on our off day before departing to Milwaukee. But we would keep Conway in the opener, and insert Brownie afterwards. Santos was thus pushed out of the series and all the way to Tuesday next week, but with the 103 pitches he had thrown on this Tuesday, maybe the extra rest would benefit him.

Graham is the only left-hander we are going to see in this series. Graham and McDonald were the losing pitchers in that opening 2-game set of the season, when the world was still barely okay for the Raccoons.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – C Margolis – SS Canning – P Conway
MIL: CF Hodgers – LF Knowling – RF Dally – 1B M. Rucker – 2B Enriquez – SS O. Sandoval – 3B Yu – C Leach – P C. Graham

The Coons scored a run in the first when Sandy got hit by a 3-2 pitch and was brought around by 2-out singles hit by Murphy and Bednarski. Conway got socked and blew the lead before he even logged an out. Victor Hodgers hit an infield single, Zach Knowling walked, and line drives up either line by Justin Dally and Victor Enriquez resulted in two doubles that plated three runs total in the first inning. Danny Margolis’ solo homer in the second inning drew the Critters back to within a run, but they left the bases loaded in the third inning when Walt Canning flew out to right on a 3-1 pitch. The 3-2 deficit remained true through five innings, although the Raccoons actually out-hit the Loggers a staggering 9-3. Cookie added a tenth hit in the top 6th that was as consequential as the last half dozen. The Loggers tried to squeeze Conway in the seventh, but with Min-tae Yu in scoring position and a left-handed pinch-hitter appearing for Graham, Ron Thrasher was brought in to restore order, which he did. Top 8th, Margolis hit a double to left as the Coons tapped into that moist and moldy Milwaukee bullpen. Ron Richards hit for Canning, left-hander Melvin Alvarado came on and got him to pop out, but Jason Seeley, who had entered with Thrasher in a double switch, singled to right, and Margolis scored with two outs, tying the game. Cookie grounded out. In the top 9th, Kevin Cummings allowed a double to Dylan Alexander, wild-pitched him to third base, but then Bednarski struck out to strand him.

Things spilled into extra innings – and the Raccoons had yet to win a 2015 game in overtime. They hit into double plays in the 11th (Carmona) and 12th (Bednarski) to kill even the tiniest chance (both times only one runner on first base) before Angel Casas loaded the bases in the bottom 12th by allowing hits to Eric Kingsley and Victor Hodgers, and walking Justin Dally. Mike Rucker, the ABL home run leader, grounded a 2-2 pitch to Bergquist for the third out. It didn’t help the team as a whole: Juan Gallegos took his third loss in four appearances when David Mollineaux bombed him in the 15th inning. 4-3 Loggers. Carmona 3-7, 2 2B; Alexander (PH) 1-1, 2B; Margolis 3-6, HR, 2B, RBI; Seeley 2-3, RBI; Thrasher 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K; Entwistle 2.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K;

0-8 in extra innings now, not quite as futile as Matt Nunley’s 0-7 day. Sambrano was 0-6 while getting plunked in a strikeout spot. The entire lineup deserves to be shot, tarred, feathered, torn, quartered, and then the real deal will only just begin…!

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Reya – 2B Bergquist – C Alexander – P N. Brown
MIL: CF Hodgers – SS O. Sandoval – RF Dally – 1B M. Rucker – 2B Enriquez – LF Knowling – C Leach – 3B Yu – P McDonald

Nick Brown had won his last four starts, but that one was out of the window about ten pitches in. Not only were the batters completely inept, but today’s starting pitcher fit in well with the troupe. Hodgers and Sandoval opened with singles, before Brown threw a wild pitch to score the first run for the Loggers. Justin Dally then found the left center gap with a 3-2 pitch, chasing home Sandoval, 2-0, but hurt himself plummeting into second base and had to leave the game. Mollineaux, last night’s spoiler, replaced him. Brown lost Rucker on four pitches (which at this stage was probably the better way to treat the pairing), before Enriquez hit into a double play, but Brown still conceded the run at third on Zach Knowling’s liner to left for the third single and the fourth hit of the inning. Lots of hard contact, hardly a pleasant pitch thrown.

The Coons didn’t get a hit until the fourth inning, once more a Nunley single, a common theme these days. Nunley’s single was actually the first of four consecutive singles for the Critters, but they only scored one run before Bergquist hit into a force at home and Alexander popped up the first pitch he saw. The Coons would score a run induced by a Hodgers error in the top 6th, but Brown gave it back with a leadoff triple by Enriquez and Knowling’s really hard RBI single in the bottom of the inning and departed after the inning on a 4-2 hook. The Raccoons came one base away from taking him off that hook in the eighth inning. McDonald departed with two on and two out, and Troy Charters quickly threw a wild pitch to move the tying runs to scoring position. Luis Reya stumbled across first base safe after a 1-2 chipper somewhere between Enriquez, Rucker, and Charters, but when Bednarski hit for Bergquist, he rolled out to Enriquez in most harmless fashion. Cummings made short work of the Raccoons in the ninth. 4-3 Loggers. Murphy 3-4; Reya 2-4, 3 RBI;

Justin Dally had strained something in his back and was likely to miss about two weeks. His .319, 11 HR, 36 RBI bat was surely to be missed by the Loggers, who required a potent offense to mitigate their flawed pitching.

Although it wasn’t looking so flawed in THIS series.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Reya – 2B Bergquist – C Alexander – P Toner
MIL: RF Hodgers – LF Knowling – 2B Enriquez – 1B M. Rucker – SS O. Sandoval – 3B Yu – C Leach – CF Cooper – P Foreman

The Coons jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first as McKnight doubled, Murphy singled to drive him home, Foster Leach threw an errant pickoff attempt into rightfield to advance Murphy, although that didn’t really matter since Ron Richards finally met a ball and drove it to the next county for his 11th dinger of the season. The offense died with that, managing to load the bases in the fifth inning before leaving them loaded under pathetic circumstances, nothing out of the ordinary. A whiff, a pop, done with it. At least Jonny Toner was on the top of his game, holding the Loggers to a single in the second and two walks early on. He struck out three in the fourth and two in the fifth, before Foreman hit a leadoff single through on the right side to start the bottom of the sixth inning. Hodgers got him forced with a sharp grounder to Nunley, then was caught stealing, and a K to Zach Knowling ended the inning.

Foreman didn’t make it through the next inning. Bergquist hit a leadoff single before Alexander failed and Toner bunted him over. Cookie finally hit a ball hard that wasn’t caught in some weird fashion and came up with a double to the corner in right, plating Bergquist and running the score to 4-0. Greg Dodson (ex-Coon!) replaced him but conceded the remaining run on McKnight’s single, 5-0. The bottom 7th saw Jonny Toner in trouble for the first time in the game. Victor Enriquez led off with an infield single (Bergquist to blame), and then he slightly and gently brushed Rucker with an 0-2 pitch. That put two on with nobody out, but now anger came into play. Jonny struck out Sandoval and Yu before Foster Leach flew out to center. Toner made it around a leadoff walk in the eighth to arrive in the ninth on 108 pitches, and with a serviceable reliever standing by in Chris Mathis. The serviceable reliever was not required. After Enriquez grounded right back to the mound for an easy first out, Toner hung third K’s on both Rucker and Sandoval to end the game – a fantastic pitching display to break a 4-game losing spell. 5-0 Furballs! McKnight 3-5, 2B, RBI; Richards 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Bergquist 3-4; Toner 9.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 14 K, W (6-2);

In other news

June 2 – SFB 1B/2B Armando Martinez (.257, 0 HR, 22 RBI) breaks up BOS SP Johnny Krom’s (3-5, 3.75 ERA) no-hitter as the Bayhawks are down to their final out, snipping a single to right. Krom doesn’t finish the game, with Jeff Lyon saving the 3-0 contest.
June 2 – Nashville will be without SS Andrew Showalter (.273, 7 HR, 30 RBI), who has suffered a torn hamstring and could be out for up to three months. NAS SP Matt McCabe’s (4-4, 3.06 ERA) 2-hit shutout over the Stars in a 4-0 win the same night is little consolation for the personal loss.
June 3 – Cincy’s Juan Ortíz (.346, 12 HR, 45 RBI) hits two homers and drives home five in the Cyclones’ 8-4 win over the Pacifics. Ortíz’ latter home run is a tie-breaking grand slam off Dusty Balzer in the ninth inning.
June 3 – The Titans celebrate a 1-0 walkoff win against the Bayhawks when Micah Steele loses Randy Porter (.286, 0 HR, 4 RBI) to ball four with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning.
June 5 – The Bayhawks acquire 31-yr old SS Ryan Miller (.262, 0 HR, 7 RBI) from the Falcons, sending them #72 prospect INF Alfonso Pellot.
June 6 – What a third career game for NAS 2B/SS Bobby Eason (.500, 1 HR, 4 RBI)! The 22-year old rookie, who had only debuted a few days earlier as replacement for Andrew Showalter, connects for four hits and all the legs of a cycle in the Blue Sox’ 15-7 stomping of the Cyclones, and drives in four runs while doing so. The 55th cycle in league history is also the fourth for the Blue Sox (Ryan Childress, 1977; Gabriel Cruz, 1989; Felix Hernandez, 2000).
June 6 – The Bayhawks cream the Condors, 16-2. They have 23 hits in total, and all positional starters have a multi-hit game. Five have three hits or more, including Ron Alston (.310, 9 HR, 28 RBI), who has four.

Complaints and stuff

Jonnyyyyyy! I love this kid!! There, I said it. Next week he’ll get BOTH hands stuck in a meat grinder. How do you throw a curveball with a hook prosthetic?

For now, this was his first shutout of the year after five of those in 2014, giving him six for his career at age 24.

Down in AAA, Tom Constantino was diagnosed with chronic shoulder soreness. It doesn’t look like he will pitch again this year.

Who gave up the home run in Bobby Eason’s cycle? Rich Hood.

[edtheguy]

Well.... this is definitely NOT the season I was expecting.... I need more bobbleheads

[Westheim]

Raccoons (24-30) @ Indians (27-30) – June 9-11, 2015

Neither of these teams was scoring a lot, with both ranking in the bottom four in offense in the CL. Neither were they pitching well… While the Raccoons were ninth in offense and eighth in pitching, the Indians both times were one rank below them, but somehow had three more wins. Beating the Coons 3-1 earlier in the season had certainly helped them.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (2-2, 3.10 ERA) vs. Kyle Lamb (3-6, 5.66 ERA)
Bill Conway (2-6, 4.37 ERA) vs. Dan Lambert (6-3, 3.45 ERA)
Nick Brown (6-4, 4.13 ERA) vs. Tom Weise (2-5, 4.48 ERA)

We open the set on Tuesday with a southpaw opposing us, before two right-handers would bring up the rear.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Bergquist – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – C Margolis – SS Canning – P Santos
IND: CF J. Wilson – LF Britton – RF Gilmor – C Padilla – SS M. Thompson – 1B Shank – 2B Bowers – 3B Dawson – P Lamb

The Indians made three outs on three hard hit balls in the first inning, which gave me a pretty glum idea about how this game would end, especially since the Coons had already stranded a gift runner on third base (after a throwing error) in the top of the first inning. Then it was still the Raccoons to get on the board first, but not in any usual manner. Lamb issued a leadoff walk to Santos in the third inning, which was bad enough, before Jimmy Shank forewent an opportunity to get the lead runner on Carmona’s hard grounder to first, only nipping Cookie. Santos moved up on Bergquist’s fly out to deep center, then scored on Nunley’s single – so there was the gift run after all! The Coons tacked on two the next inning, drawing walks and walks off Lamb, who showed to have no control over anything in his arsenal. Through four innings, he had walked as many, and had struck out none. He only made it through one more inning, walking Bednarski before whiffing Richards with two aboard. Margolis flew out to right to end the frame, and Lamb was hit for in the bottom 5th, in which Santos struck out the side to maintain a 3-hit shutout through the qualifying distance. The shutout went out of the window in the sixth, which dragged on forever, and Santos had things blown up by Walt Canning’s non-chalant fielding at shortstop, bungling a double play ball hit by Nick Gilmor with a careless flick to Bergquist, and beyond.

This was after Murphy had struck out to end the top 6th with the bases loaded, before a clueless offensive display in the top 7th, and then Entwistle’s indifferent leadoff walk issued to Ryan Dawson in the bottom 7th. Thrasher took over with one out, but his second pitch was deposited in the rightfield stands by John Wilson, knotting the score at three. Thrasher also faced further left-handers Apasyu Britton and Gilmor, conceded hard singles to both, and then got to watch from the dugout as Chris Mathis fudged in the inherited runners with a Dave Padilla RBI single and an RBI groundout by Marc Thompson. While I was grieving, the ninth inning brought an actual rally. Down 5-3, the Coons faced righty Jarrod Morrison, who issued a walk to Jason Seeley to get going. Nunley then singled, putting the tying runs on with nobody out. Murphy flew out to deep left, but Bednarski crashed a ball through Dawson for an RBI double, leaving the tying run on third and the go-ahead run on second base. D-Alex hit for reliever Juan Gallegos, flew out poorly, and Margolis sealed the defeat with a strikeout. 5-4 Indians. Carmona 2-5, RBI; Nunley 3-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Santos 6.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K and 0-1, BB, RBI;

Ron Richards had left for defense when the Raccoons had still been in front 3-1. That point proved moot as well, since Luis Reya never had a ball hit to him, and all the damage done in the seventh inning escaped on either side of Bergquist, and mostly up the middle.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Reya – 2B Bergquist – C Alexander – P Conway
IND: CF J. Wilson – LF Britton – 1B S. Guerra – RF Gilmor – C Padilla – 2B Mathews – SS Matias – 3B Dawson – P Lambert

The Indians took a 1-0 lead in the first as John Wilson drew a 4-pitch walk, stole two bases over the next two at-bats and then scored on Santiago Guerra’s double. Top 2nd, Dan Lambert walked Luis Reya before drilling consecutive batters, but Conway’s sac fly was all that sprung out of a total gift of a big inning. A Guerra error would give the Coons a runner in the fourth, but through that, none of the Raccoons’ four runners had reached on an actual hit, and no offense was coming forth for now.

The bottom 5th saw Conway in a dire spot when both Raul Matias and Ryan Dawson collected singles to start the inning. Lambert bunted them into scoring position, but Conway got a house-sized strikeout against Wilson and escaped a deficit when Ape Britton grounded out to Murphy. Things got worse in the sixth. Conway lost both Guerra and Gilmor to walks starting the inning, then threw his first pitch clear past Alexander to move the runners to scoring position. This time, there was no escape. Dave Padilla hit a clear single to center for an RBI single (his 35th RBI), and Joey Mathews scored another run with a sac fly to right, putting the Indians 3-1 ahead, with the Coons still lacking even a single hit, but that came in the seventh, a 1-out double by … Bill Conway. (deep sigh) After Cookie flew out gingerly to center, Ronnie McKnight ended Lambert’s great day with a homer socked to center, and again we had a game tied at three in the seventh inning.

When Britton hit a 2-out single in the bottom 7th, that was it for Conway. Sugano came on to face pinch-hitter Josh Baker, who singled through Nunley, and then Marcos Bruno was tabbed to face pinch-hitter Marc Thompson with two on and as many out, and struck him out. Top 9th, still tied, Morrison at work again. Sandy Sambrano had a leadoff single in Bergquist’s spot, only to be eaten up on Alexander’s grounder to short. With the platters clear again, Seeley drew a walk in the #9 hole and scored on singles by Cookie to right and McKnight to left, giving the Critters the lead. Morrison would allow one final hit to Matt Nunley, a soaring 2-run double into the rightfield corner. Murphy left him on (as usual), but Angel Casas was not threatened in the bottom of the ninth. 6-3 Critters. McKnight 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Sambrano (PH) 1-1; Seeley (PH) 0-0, BB;

There would be a change for game 3 by the Indians, who sent swingman and right-hander Josh Hatfield (0-2, 3.33 ERA) into the game. He brought back memories of Kevin Hatfield for me. The shivers were real.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P N. Brown
IND: CF J. Wilson – LF Britton – C Padilla – 1B S. Guerra – RF Gilmor – 3B Dawson – 2B Mathews – SS Bowers – P Hatfield

The Coons had a first-inning run when Cookie singled and stole second base (#13), scoring from there on Nunley’s single. Brownie then wasted 24 pitches in the bottom of the inning, conceding hits to Wilson and Britton before hitting Gilmor with a 2-2 pitch to load them up and somehow escaped when Mathews lined out right to Sandy. Much offense was killed by double plays on either side in the following innings before D-Alex lit a tiny candle in the pitch black hole he was sitting in and hit a solo jack in the fifth inning to run the score to 2-0; he basically lucked into a fat pitch there.

While keeping the Indians shut out that far, Brownie was in no way or shape magnificent, relying on whatever the last-place defense around him could provide. Nunley upped to 3-0 with another solo homer in the sixth, while Brownie had escaped damage in the bottom 5th when Hatfield had struck out with a foul bunt with Tom Bowers on first base and nobody out. The defense finally deserted Brown in the bottom 7th. Hatfield doubled right through Stan Murphy with one out before John Wilson not only single under McKnight’s not-so-sure-after-all glove and Hatfield scored on a horrendous throw home by Ron Richards. Britton’s buzzard luck had him scorch a ball right into Brown’s glove for the second out, but it was high time to get the former ace out of there. Mathis appeared to face Padilla with Wilson on third and two outs, with the Coons up 3-1, and got a grounder to Sandy to escape the inning. The Coons kept stapling on runs, however. McKnight hit a solo homer to right in the top 8th before Murphy reached with a single and scored on Richards’ double, finally sinking swingman Hatfield in a 5-1 game. And somehow the ball was flying really well, it seemed. The Coons got a fourth solo homer in the ninth – and it was Dylan Alexander again! This one went to left; the first one had gone to right center. It took until the bottom 9th for the Indians to also get hold of one. Wilson bombed Juan Gallegos for two with two outs, but that was as far as they would get with a comeback. Sugano struck out Britton to end the game. 6-3 Brownies! Carmona 2-5; Nunley 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Alexander 2-4, 2 HR, 2 RBI; Brown 6.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 4 K, W (7-4); Mathis 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Raccoons (26-31) vs. Blue Sox (25-33) – June 12-14, 2015

The Blue Sox’ record hinted at untapped potential. While they were eight under .500, they also had a +4 run differential, and were third in runs scored in the Federal League. Dreadful pitching was holding them back, but in the last six days alone they had enjoyed two players hitting for the cycle and a shutout (see more under the News) while pouring out runs. They also had a 3-game winning streak. We had last played them in 2013, taking two of three, and had won four of the last five series, including two sweeps in 2007 and 2008.

Projected matchups:
Jonathan Toner (6-2, 2.04 ERA) vs. Matt McCabe (4-5, 2.97 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-6, 6.41 ERA) vs. J.J. Wirth (3-7, 7.69 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-2, 2.85 ERA) vs. Joe Medina (4-6, 5.89 ERA)

The Blue Sox had only right-handed starting pitching. They also had their starting middle infield on the DL, including the familiar T.J. Hilderbrand, who had been with the Knights until 2014.

Game 1
NAS: SS J. Thomas – LF Kretz – 3B Esquivel – C Walston – CF Macias – 1B Roncero – RF Blake – 2B Eason – P McCabe
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – P Toner

Cookie tripled in the bottom 1st and was left to die on third base, which was ONE way to disgruntle the fans at the start of a luckily short homestand. Things didn’t get better in the second, with Richards hitting a single and being shoved to third base on two walks to bring up Jonny Toner, who flew out to Chris Macias in fairly central center. Richards tagged, snail-paced home, and was thrown out to end the inning. And that was before Cookie was left on third base again in the third inning…

Toner did his thing on the mound, ending the fourth inning with a K to Pat Walston, his sixth in the game, and his 100th on the season. Someone had to climb into the history books and see whether we ever had anybody faster to 100 K than him. The Coons still refused to give any support. Toner couldn’t help himself in the fourth and struck out with Richards on third base to end that inning, but in the fifth the dismal 2-3-4 batters AGAIN left Cookie in scoring position, the third time in the scoreless affair. They finally ended their consecutive innings streak of RISP futility when Richards, Bednarski, and Sambrano went down in order in the sixth…

Trouble found Jonny Toner in the seventh. Antonio Esquivel hit a 1-out double to left center, the Blue Sox’ first base runner since Joey Kretz’ single in the first inning. Toner slightly clipped Macias with a pitch to put on a second runner before Silvestro Roncero (former Logger) found the gap besides Bednarski and drove in both of them with a triple. Jonny was hit for in the bottom 7th to no great effect other than to further dismay the home crowd, and the Coons remained off the board until the eighth, when McKnight homered to cut the gap back to 2-1. Bottom 9th, Sandy hit a leadoff double off righty Kyle Mullins to mount pressure. He was also the first Critter in scoring position since the fifth inning. D-Alex failed, but Margolis, hitting for Gallegos, bounced a ball up the middle and into center to allow Sandy to score comfortably. That brought up Cookie, who ran a full count with the so-so Mullins (ERA over 4 coming in) before sending a ball soaring to left center, and fairly deep. Both Kretz and centerfielder Bobby Webster dashed after it, Webster swiped at it, but it fell onto the warning track, Kretz fell in front of the warning track, and the races were on! Margolis had been on second base aggressively as the ball made its way out there, and when Webster missed it put on the afterburners. Webster’s throw was merely decent, Margolis was waved around third base, the relay by Jonathan Thomas bounced, Margolis slid in – SAFE!!! 3-2 Raccoons!! Carmona 4-5, 2 3B, RBI; Richards 2-4, 2B; Margolis (PH) 1-1, RBI; Toner 7.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 10 K;

Game 2
NAS: SS J. Thomas – LF Kretz – 3B Esquivel – C Walston – CF Macias – 1B Roncero – RF Blake – 2B Barton – P Wirth
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Reya – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – P Dickerson

Misery would pitch against suffering on Saturday, so we expected something else than a 3-2 game. Maybe 3-2 in the third inning.

Dickerson started with a 4-pitch walk to Jonathan Thomas, who stole a base and then scored on Esquivel’s single. Pat Walston hit into a double play, but the Sox were up 1-0. McKnight (single) and Nunley (RBI double) made up the difference in the bottom of the inning, and this one developed right as expected, including Dickerson allowing three hits for another run in the top 2nd before escaping with a double play grounder to short. That was only the beginning. The Blue Sox rolled over Dickerson for three runs in the third inning, while the Coons had Murphy at the plate with two outs and two on the corners, and all he managed was the usual ****ty grounder. Dickerson made it through five without more damage, but the damage that was done was well enough. The Coons had nothing going against Wirth through five, but the bottom 6th started with a double by McKnight. Nunley walked, and then Murphy was struck in the knee by Wirth and fell down. He had to be helped off, which gave the Raccoons a replacement first baseman in Sandy Sambrano in addition to the bases being loaded with no outs in general. Wirth and Walston got crossed up to concede a run on a wild pitch before Richards struck out, Reya walked, and Margolis hit into an inning-ending double play…

Zack Entwistle’s second inning would have been the seventh, but he loaded the bases without getting an out. Thrasher replaced him, with three left-handers in the next four batters, but fell to 3-0 against Walston, who then lunged at the fourth pitch and lined out to Sambrano at first base. Thrasher then K’ed the right-handed Macias before drilling the left-handed Roncero. That brought up Jonathan Blake, not much of an offensive rightfielder, who rammed the first pitch by Thrasher to deep left, off the wall, Richards played it quickly, two runs scored, but Roncero was cut down at home. This was hardly a consolation in a game where they now trailed by six. That deficit never changed as the Raccoons went down harmlessly until the end. 8-2 Blue Sox. McKnight 2-4, 2B; Nunley 1-2, 2 BB, 2B, RBI;

Murphy had a bruised knee that was soon swollen pretty good. He was probably going to be hampered by this for a week, and we would completely hold him out of games for at least a day or two. Not that it would hurt our offense greatly.

Game 3
NAS: SS J. Thomas – LF Kretz – 3B Esquivel – C Walston – CF Macias – 1B Roncero – RF Blake – 2B Eason – P J. Medina
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – RF Reya – 2B Bergquist – C Alexander – 1B Sambrano – P Santos

Santos struck out five against one hit in the first three innings, but was conquered by Antonio Esquivel with a solo homer in the fourth. The Raccoons had done their usual things so far, nothing. Thomas, Kretz, and Macias piled up three hits in the sixth to plate another two runs against Santos, whose team was still held to a single hit, a leadoff single by Cookie in the first inning. Santos went seven, then retreated to his locker, uncherished by the other 24 players on the roster.

When Kretz homered off Gallegos to run the score to 4-0 in the eighth inning, the Coons still had not had a base runner since Cookie. Maybe it was time to pull the plug on this one? The Coons went down 1-2-3 in the bottom 8th, but the Blue Sox got another run off Gallegos in the ninth. Would Joe Medina manage to retire 27 consecutive batters after the leadoff single? Sandy hit a 2-2 pitch to deep left, where Joey Kretz sold out like it was to save an actual no-hitter – and caught it! Bednarski struck out before Cookie lined a pitch over the shortstop Thomas into left center – the Coons’ second base runner of the day after 26 consecutive outs. McKnight then grounded out to Bobby Eason. 5-0 Blue Sox. Carmona 2-4; Santos 7.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, L (2-3);

Coons fans were snarling at the groundskeepers as they left the park.

In other news

June 8 – NYC LF Martin Ortíz (.344, 7 HR, 36 RBI) makes his presence felt with a 4-for-4 day, plating five in the Crusaders’ 14-2 crushing of the Canadiens. The special thing is that three of his hits are home runs. This is the 29th occurrence of a player hitting three or more home runs in a game in ABL history, and the fourth time a Crusader has done it, which also includes the most recent 3-homer game by Jesus Ramirez in August 2014. Before that, Michinaga Yamada (1978) and Gabriel Ortíz (2010) hit three home runs in a game.
June 8 – The Cyclones kill off Pittsburgh’s Dave McCormick’s (.348, 9 HR, 30 RBI) hitting streak at 20 games. McCormick is held dry in a 2-1 defeat, in which the Miners amount to only four hits total.
June 8 – The Titans hang seven onto the Loggers in the seventh inning, but their closer Jeff Lyon (2-5, 3.86 ERA, 11 SV) blows another save and they lose, 8-7.
June 9 – Cycle! Just three days after his team mate Bobby Eason, NAS RF/CF Chris Macias (.378, 7 HR, 43 RBI) also hits for the cycle in a 12-7 Blue Sox win over the Buffaloes. The 56th cycle in ABL history is the record-tying fifth for the Blue Sox (also with five: the Stars), who set a new record for closest-together cycles by the same team.
June 10 – Radial nerve compression will cost WAS SP Paul Kirkland (1-7, 5.19 ERA) the rest of the season. Given that Kirkland is 40 years old, that might also be the end of the road for the 156-game winner.
June 10 – The Aces send INF Ricky Avila (.286, 1 HR, 27 RBI) to the Stars for 2B Aaron Walsh (.264, 3 HR, 15 RBI) and a negligible prospect.
June 10 – The Buffaloes acquire SP Luis Guerrero (1-9, 8.74 ERA) from the Cyclones for 3B Pedro Cruz (.234, 4 HR, 24 RBI) and prospect 3B Russ Belvedere, who was once ranked in the top 100, but dropped out of the ranks in 2014.
June 10 – NAS Alfredo Collazo (5-5, 5.67 ERA) 3-hits the Buffaloes in a 3-0 shutout.
June 10 – The Rebels and Capitals play ten shutout innings before the Rebels break out for five runs in the 11th to beat Washington, 5-0.
June 11 – Charlotte’s SP Jorge Silva (6-6, 3.54 ERA) sparkles with a 2-hit shutout of the Buffaloes. The Cyclones win 1-0. Poor Buffaloes.
June 12 – The Cyclones beat the Indians 6-4, despite being out-hit 14-6 by them.
June 13 – TOP SP Juan Ortega (2-9, 5.24 ERA) gets revenge for all the humiliation and hands in a 2-hit shutout against the Falcons.
June 13 – DAL 3B/2B Hector Garcia (.272, 4 HR, 30 RBI) will miss six weeks with a strained oblique.

Complaints and stuff

Will Dud Dickerson get another start? Hard to say. If he had started on the road, I would have just bound his leash on a lamp post and left him there, but he’s still around here in Portland, and isn’t going anywhere, unfortunately. He has that sad look in his eyes.

I have it, too.

Marcos Bruno picked up his 43rd win as a Coon on Wednesday, which ties him with two other long-tenured Raccoons relievers, Juan Martinez and HOF Grant West, for second place among pitchers that were at least primarily relievers. Only one reliever has more franchise wins: Wally Gaston (49);

In case you bother, the record for closest-together cycles by players on the same team was previously held by the Wolves for Carlos León’s pair of cycles in 1982, which came 51 days apart. The new record is now three days, and was it any wonder it would be by the same team that the Raccoons had to face the following weekend? Nah.

Another interesting bit: the closest-together cycles by ANY two players involve both the Raccoons and the Blue Sox! Mark Dawson hit for the cycle on August 1, 1989, followed two days later by Nashville’s Gabriel Cruz.

Also, we might want to mention that while the Blue Sox and Stars hold the record with five cycles for each team, the Raccoons stand alone with their five no-hitters. We also lead in no-hitters and cycles combined, with eight total. No team has seven, and only the Stars join the Blue Sox with six. Still having squid: Capitals and Scorpions.

WAS Colin Baldwin had a 6-hit shutout against the Thunder on Sunday. He’s 6-4 with a 2.93 ERA; well better than the 6.50 ERA he ran with the Stars in the first half of last season.

Monday we’ll have a draft on our hands, plus the start of our series in Denver. After that: Crusaders at home for four.

[Westheim]

2015 AMATEUR DRAFT

The Raccoons were coming into the 2015 draft with the third-best record in the previous season (boy, was that a long time ago), and thus were left with the #22 pick. And of course the #22 pick was nothing to have wet dreams about. At least we had hung onto it last winter…

Since a number of compensation-eligible players had retired in the winter and a few had been left over (including type A free agent Gabriel Ortíz), there were relatively few compensation picks. As such the ABL decreed that the draft would be over 13 rounds rather than the usual 12 to get more young people off the street.

There are a lot of pitchers especially to like in the draft, although there’s ultimately some of everything available for grabs in this almost well-balanced draft. The Raccoons could use to happen into a slugger for once, but we all know how these things go.

Juan Calderón had done the dirty work leading up to the draft:

Originally Posted by Westheim

Below, our hotlist of the dozen-or-so best players per the scouting reports. (*denotes college players)

SP Warren Polito (14/13/10)
SP Sean Balzer (14/14/14) *
SP Manny Ortega (12/16/14) *
SP Alan Farrell (13/14/11)
SP Jose Fuentes (16/13/10) *

CL Desi Bowles (18/13/8) *

C/1B Jack Stickley (8/15/11) *

2B Chris Owen (12/8/11) *
1B Austin Metzger (9/11/11) *
1B Michael Wilkerson (12/9/12)

OF/1B Chris LeMoine (11/13/12) *
OF/2B/1B Quinn Jewell (8/12/11) *
LF/CF Greg Fortenberry (10/12/12)
1B/LF/RF Brian Perakis (10/14/12)
OF Will Rainey (10/13/10) *

Those were 15 players, so theoretically the hotlist could be empty before we ever got a pick (but when has that ever happened?).

The Loggers customarily had the first pick in the 2015 draft and selected OF/1B Chris LeMoine to get this thing started. After that it was on to the pitchers. The Falcons picked SP Sean Balzer at #2, followed by the Gold Sox taking SP Warren Polito with the #3 pick, the Indians selecting SP Manny Ortega at #4, and the top 5 were completed by the Titans’ selection of SP Jose Fuentes. Uh, our pretty hotlist! It melted down further, as the Wolves selected OF/2B/1B Quinn Jewell at #6, and a few more hotlist players were grabbed away in the 10’s.

By the time the Raccoons finally got to pick, only four players on the hotlist remained, and none of them a pitcher. First basemen Metzger and Wilkerson were still available, as well as outfielders Fortenberry and Perakis. Fortenberry was probably the best defender in the group, and was also the only one with any meaningful speed. But according to Calderón, Perakis, who was not yet 18, had the higher ceiling, although his alleged power potential had yet to be seen in action. Calderón was preferring Perakis to the rest, and so we picked Perakis. Only Wilkerson remained around for our next draft pick.

While we usually always had some players on the normal shortlist hanging around until the middle rounds of the draft, things got really thin, especially pitching-wise, early on this time. There was a whole lot of consensus among teams, it seemed. By the time of our third round pick, there were only four pitchers remaining on that half of the shortlist!

The shortlist ran out of outfielders in the middle of the fourth round (thankfully we had already selected a pair), and pitchers were gone in the middle of the sixth round.

2015 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS

Round 1 (#22) – 1B/LF/RF Brian Perakis, 17, from Victorville, CA – loves to rake and tries to drive the ball, which doesn’t always work out; nevertheless has quite high power potential (but we said that about Jimmy Oatmeal, too, just in more flowery language), and slugging the ball could really help to cover up for his mediocre speed and defense
Supp. Round (#31) – 1B Michael Wilkerson, 18, from Levittown, PA – not the standard skill set in that he hits for a bit of power, but is better at making contact, and he actually has speed and can bunt for hits (!!), but is clumsy as all hell and a stomach-turning defender even at the first sack
Round 2 (#55) – SP Travis Garrett, 19, from Gilmer, TX – this right-hander dazzles with a curveball and has really good stamina, but as great as that curveball is, as bad is his third pitch, a changeup, and he really needs to work on that one hard
Round 3 (#79) – RF/CF Kevin DeWald, 18, from Amesti, CA – able defender and quick on the feet, with a steady contact bat that unfortunately generates no power whatsoever
Round 4 (#103) – 1B/C Karl Otto, 20, from Longueuil, Canada – switch-hitting, so-so defensive catcher that sometimes forgets the signs, but maybe we still want to try him as backstop before moving him to first base; the bat seems to be more on the contact side, and he has drawn lots of walks in college ball
Round 5 (#127) – 2B Francisco Diaz, 17, from Acuna, Mexico – good range at the keystone, good enough speed to run him a little, contact bat with good discipline; needs more reps in the field to get useful, but there’s no hope for him ever developing any power with his slight frame
Round 6 (#151) – SS Gary Coffin, 18, from Lavaltrie, Canada – definitely not an offensive shortstop with no power and easily fooled by breaking stuff, but the defensive charts with him don’t look pretty, either
Round 7 (#175) – SP Dave Mirabella, 17, from Burien, WA – this right-hander uses an evil mix of four pitches to get through games; “evil” because it’s really hard to watch his 86mph fastball and the slider that doesn’t do a whole lot in terms of sliding
Round 8 (#199) – C Jake Tanner, 20, from Robinson, TX – not much in terms of batting potential, but is agile behind the plate, which always helps with wild single-A pitchers
Round 9 (#223) – 2B Nick Moist, 18, from Poolesville, MD – steady glove, good speed, takes ball four as an insult
Round 10 (#247) – CL Dave Lipari, 22, from Appleton, WI – right-hander with a curve and nightmarish control
Round 11 (#271) – SP Joe Morley, 19, from Estherville, IA – towering 6’7’’ left-hander that unfortunately is all over the place with his stuff; there is a raw changeup in his 4-pitch mix, but it has to be hewn out of the rough rock with utmost care (though we’ve drafted less left-handed potential in the 11th round and ended up pleasantly surprised)
Round 12 (#295) – RF/LF Devin Anderson, 19, from Grand Rapids, MN – left-handed batter that doesn’t do anything well, and often doesn’t do anything
Round 13 (#319) – SP Cody Burdette, 20, from New York, NY – really nothing special about this right-hander; I would have drafted another janitor if there had been any left in the pool

All draft picks were assigned to the single-A Aumsville Beetles.

With the influx of new players, some older personnel was released. Among those shown the door were 27-yr old SP Ian Cumins, who had made three spot starts for the Coons between 2012 and 2013 to horrendous results, and was getting lit up in AAA this year. Also gone: 2011 first-rounder (!) SS Dylan Thorne, who was batting .195 in Ham Lake, and had never been better than that; 2013 sixth-rounder Isaiah Franks, whose control had never been good and had gotten worse in the last two years; 2011 fourth-rounder INF/RF Sean Patterson, who had never batted more than .239 in the low minors, and was at .152 in AA this year; 2014 seventh-rounder RF/LF/1B Julius Jordan, who was a living strikeout; plus a few more, including last-rounders from 2009 and 2014 and a few guys from the international complex.

On a side note, 2013’s last-rounder, pitcher Jason Slaughter, was moved to AA after performing really well in the last 12 months.

In total, we still have 116 active players across our four teams, plus four on the minor league DL, and normally I don’t like to carry 30 per roster. I’d like to trim things by another handful.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (27-33) @ Gold Sox (31-31) – June 15-17, 2015

The Gold Sox were dropping a bit after losing three straight. They were fourth in runs scored in the Federal League, but a horrid 11th in runs allowed, with more than five runs scored against them per game. Their rotation and bullpen were posting ERA’s around 4.70 alike.

This was the fourth straight year of us playing the Gold Sox, and if the pattern of alternating 2-1 series wins was to continue, the Gold Sox would win two of three from us this year. The last seven series had all resulted in 2-1 wins for a team, though not all alternating. The last sweep had happened in 2002 (for the Gold Sox), and the Raccoons hadn’t swept them since 1992.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (2-6, 4.34 ERA) vs. Willis Sanguino (10-2, 3.63 ERA)
Nick Brown (7-4, 3.89 ERA) vs. Randy Prater (1-0, 6.94 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (6-2, 2.08 ERA) vs. Brendan Teasdale (3-9, 4.53 ERA)

Prater would be a left-hander, unless he is going to be skipped, which looks possible. The Gold Sox had five players on the DL, including SP C.J. Fishel, 1B Mun-wah Tsung, and veteran infielder Jose Perez. Tsung led the team with meager six home runs, and the team as a whole was last in homers in the FL. They were playing small ball instead.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – RF Richards – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – LF Seeley – 1B Sambrano – P Conway
DEN: SS Oosterom – 1B E. Carter – LF V. Sanchez – CF R. Pena – C G. Brown – RF Hiscock – 3B Lulli – 2B Saunders – P Sanguino

Sanguino was 25 years old and had lost 18 games apiece in the last two seasons. This year, he was getting excessive run support, with the Gold Sox scoring five or more runs for him in the last 11 consecutive games, in which he had gone 10-1. And here, old Crusaders schreck Roberto Pena put the Gold Sox 1-0 ahead with a 2-out RBI single in the first inning. Piet Oosterom had initially singled and stolen a base. Cookie had also singled in the top 1st, but had been washed up in McKnight’s double play. Bergquist hit into a double play in the top 2nd, the Gold Sox scored Bill Hiscock after his leadoff double in the bottom 2nd, and Eugene Carter upped to 3-0 in the third with a solo shot to left.

At that point, there wasn’t much to hope for, and Sanguino was well looking like getting his five runs plus change again. But McKnight led off the fourth with a single to right, before Sanguino threw a wild pitch, walked Nunley, threw another wild pitch, and walked Richards. The bases were loaded with nobody out, but the Coons would be held to the run that scored on Dylan Alexander’s groundout. Bergquist walked onto the open base, Seeley hit into a force at home, and Sambrano grounded out to Matt Saunders to end the inning still down 3-1. Conway’s many wounds kept bleeding, and he allowed a single run in every one of his five desolate innings. The Raccoons had only two hits through six frames, but then got three in the seventh. Two were given up by Sanguino, and the third by Rick Gillespie, a 2-out, 2-run single by Matt Nunley that got the Raccoons back to 5-3. If they managed a comeback, they sure set it up in the oddest way, with Sandy Sambrano hitting a leadoff jack off Jerry Counts in the ninth inning. Sandy hadn’t homered at all since 2013. The Coons made it to the corners with two outs with singles by Cookie and Nunley, after which Chris Mathis had to be hit for with Ron Richards having been double-switched out earlier (and he had been 0-3 once more). The trust that Mike Bednarski enjoyed was sure impressive, since Danny Margolis got to grab the bat with the team down to the last out. He sent the first pitch to deep center, but not deep enough to beat Pena. 5-4 Gold Sox. Carmona 2-5; Nunley 2-3, 2 BB, 2 RBI; Sambrano 2-4, HR, RBI; Reya (PH) 1-2;

Jason Seeley had an ugly 0-for-4, dropped his average to .203 and was rewarded with a designation for assignment. At some point you have to accept that a 28-year old career .236/.312/.375 batter will never help you with anything related to a stick. Once more, a great first round pick!

We promoted 26-year old Danny Ochoa from AAA. Ochoa, a left-handed Cuban corner outfielder and first baseman (more on that in the next sentence), had made over in a boat in the fall of 2013 and had been signed as an international free agent by the Raccoons, dwelling in AAA since then. He batted only .243 with ten homers in 2014, but this year he was hitting .368 with eight dingers in 57 games. With Seeley dudding it out, and Murphy hurting, Ochoa would get a few starting assignments at first base for this week, and after that we’d see where he’d stick. He notably does not play centerfield, so Cookie and Sandy are now our only options for that job.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – 1B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – LF Ochoa – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – SS Canning – P N. Brown
DEN: SS Oosterom – CF R. Pena – 1B E. Carter – LF V. Sanchez – C G. Brown – RF Hiscock – 3B Lulli – 2B Saunders – P Prater

Danny Ochoa’s first action in the Bigs was to hit into a double play to kill off the first inning after even Bednarski had managed to hit an RBI single to place Cookie Carmona for a 1-0 lead. The Gold Sox had two infield singles against Jason Bergquist’s so-called defensive ability, but Nick Brown wobbled out when Carmona caught Gary Brown’s deep fly to center. Brownie didn’t fool anybody, and didn’t get a strikeout until the fourth, when he whiffed old Thunder warhorse Victorino Sanchez and Gary Brown back-to-back after Eugene Carter’s leadoff single, the first hit against Brownie that actually left the infield. By then, the Coons were up 2-0, the run again scored by Cookie, who had singled, stolen second base (thanks to Saunders dropping Brown’s throw), and came home on Nunley’s double. Nunley added another run in the fifth, a 2-out single that scored Nick Brown from second base after his own single to start the inning, and the score was run up to 3-0.

Prater was out of the game by the top 6th. He walked Bergquist with two outs and Bergquist then took off to steal second base. Brown’s throw went into center, Bergquist scampered to third base, but the Gold Sox walked Canning intentionally in the now 2-0 count. Danny Munos replaced Prater and retired Brownie to end the inning. On the mound, Brownie had regained control after looking like nothing much in the first few innings. Between the sixth and seventh, he struck out the 3-4-5-6 batters in order, maintaining a shutout, and sat down the Sox in order in the eighth, which ended with a K to Piet Oosterom, which posed a bit of a dilemma. Brown’s season so far hinted at a catastrophic inning lurking right around the corner. The lead was only 3-0. And he had to lead off the top 9th.

Screw it. Let’s go for it. Brown picked up a K leading off against right-hander John Watson, but then the top of the order came through: Carmona singled, Sambrano lined over Carter and the ball raced up the line and made it to the corner. Bill Hiscock was a Gold Glover, but he had no chance against this one, which became an RBI triple, moving the game out of save range anyway. Nunley remained unretired when Watson nicked him, and Richards walked in place of Bednarski. Ochoa continued a black debut with a K, but Margolis drew a bases-loaded walk, 5-0, before Stan Murphy hobbled out to bat for Bergquist. He hacked out, ending the inning, but setting the stage for Brownie. Pena rolled out to McKnight at second base to start the bottom 9th; McKnight was playing there because Canning had no experience at the keystone and Murphy was not going to play the field with the bum knee yet, so Sandy was left on first. Eugene Carter tried to dent Brownie with a double, but Sanchez flew out to center and he remained at second base. It was Brown vs. Brown with two outs, and Gary Brown grounded over to Canning, who made a sure-handed play to end the game! 5-0 Brownies!!!! Carmona 3-5, 2B; Sambrano 2-5, 3B, RBI; Nunley 4-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Margolis 2-4, BB, RBI; Brown 9.0 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K, W (8-4) and 1-4;

BROWNIE!!!!

I will freely admit that I was fanboying hard over his 15th career shutout, and the first this season. It almost made me forget Danny Ochoa’s 0-for-5, 8 LOB debut.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – RF Reya – 1B Ochoa – C Alexander – 2B Sambrano – P Toner
DEN: SS Oosterom – 1B E. Carter – LF V. Sanchez – RF Hiscock – CF R. Pena – C G. Brown – 2B Saunders – 3B Bleeker – P Teasdale

The skies were dark, hopefully indicating a swift end to Brenda’s start in this Wednesday game, in which he would face only one right-handed batter, and that would be Jonny Toner. But things do go funnily sometimes, and it was the Gold Sox with the first run of the game, right in the first inning. The run was unearned, since Piet Oosterom had reached on a colossal throwing gaffe by Danny Ochoa, who was running up his purge score at an alarming pace. By the middle of the fourth inning, the Gold Sox had one hit, a Danny Bleeker single, and were still up 1-0 with Ron Richards hitting into a pair of double plays. The Sox then led off the fourth with a hard single by Sanchez and a Hiscock double off the fence in left center, giving them runners in scoring position with nobody out. Pena flew out to Reya in right, Sanchez tagged and went and found himself thrown out with a laser beam. Gary Brown struck out to keep the Sox away in the fourth.

While offensive misery continued unabated for the Coons, Matt Saunders provided some cushion for the Gold Sox with a fifth-inning solo home run. Up 2-0, the Sox looked winners, while the Raccoons… (sigh). Ochoa led off the seventh by fouling out, running his career batting to 0-for-8, and D-Alex made another ****ty out before Sandy doubled. Toner dished a 2-1 pitch to left and through between Bleeker and Oosterom, scoring Sandy to FINALLY get the Critters onto the board. Cookie was hit by Brenda, bringing up McKnight, and this might have been a spot to finally bring a left-handed reliever, but the Gold Sox didn’t and McKnight punished them with a booming 3-run homer to right center, which flipped the score to 4-2 in Jonny’s favor. Amped up, Jonny struck out Brown, Saunders, and Bleeker in order in the bottom 7th. Oosterom hit a single in the eighth, and while Toner retired Carter, his pitch count had shot over 100 AND a string of left-handers was next. Sugano was called out of the pen and exited the inning with a grounder from Victorino Sanchez. The Coons were sat down quickly in the top 9th although Cookie actually singled and was caught stealing. Angel Casas got the ninth, walked Hiscock on four pitches, then got a double play grounder from Pena. And THEN … the skies finally opened and we had a quick rain delay with the Sox down to their final out. It was about half an hour before the rain let up and play resumed. With the right-hander Gary Brown batting, Angel remained in, and struck him out. 4-2 Raccoons! Carmona 3-4; Nunley 2-3, BB; Alexander 2-4, 2B; Toner 7.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, W (7-2) and 1-3, RBI;

Ochoa went 0-for-4.

Raccoons (29-34) vs. Crusaders (42-23) – June 18-21, 2015

There was probably no point in pretending that we were playing for anything here. Yes, if the Raccoons sweep the Crusaders at home in this long weekend set, they will be only eight games out. Hurrah, hurrah. As a matter of fact, the Crusaders continued to lead the league in many categories, especially offensively. They also had a top 3 pen, but had those mysterious struggles with their rotation that put up the second-worst ERA mark in the Continental League at 4.38; they had also dropped two of three to the Coons earlier in the season.

Projected matchups:
Daniel Dickerson (0-6, 6.66 ERA) vs. Jaylen Martin (8-2, 3.02 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-3, 2.94 ERA) vs. Fernando Cruz (5-2, 4.84 ERA)
Bill Conway (2-7, 4.63 ERA) vs. Pancho Trevino (5-5, 4.05 ERA)
Nick Brown (8-4, 3.48 ERA) vs. A.J. Bartels (4-4, 4.88 ERA)

Maybe it was the two ex-Loggers in their rotation… one of them, Cruz, was also their only southpaw. The Crusaders were without their first baseman B.J. Manfull (.275, 7 HR, 32 RBI) for this series, who was nursing an abdominal strain. Also, serial killer Stanton Martin (.298, 17 HR, 64 RBI) was laboring on a sore ankle and might miss the first game or two.

Game 1
NYC: CF Paraz – SS J. Ortega – LF M. Ortíz – C Lowe – 2B Caraballo – 1B Roche – RF B. Miller – 3B Salinas – P J. Martin
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – RF Reya – 1B Ochoa – C Alexander – 2B Sambrano – P Dickerson

While no obvious replacement was lying around, this Thursday night affair had a bit of a taste of final start for Dickerson, who had been torched every time he had been out recently. There was a bit of a bare minimum of qualifying criteria for him to stick in the rotation, like, make it five innings and get that hellish ERA down, but the Crusaders jumped on him for two runs on three hard hits right in the first inning. Things got slower after that, but the fact that they left a bushel of runners in scoring position also contributed. In the fourth, both teams left the bases loaded, with Carmona selling out on Bill Miller’s deep drive to end the top half, while Dickerson made the third out for the Raccoons after hitting a double in his first at-bat. The Coons remained shut out at that point, down 3-0, and it wasn’t until the fifth and Luis Reya’s 2-out RBI single that they got onto the board. Dickerson actually made it six innings on three runs (technically a quality start), and “Midnight” Martin as crumbling. Bottom 6th, leadoff double by D-Alex and a single by Sandy, putting the tying runs on the corners with no outs as Bednarski hit for Dickerson. He hit a fly to center for a sac fly, 3-2, and then Cookie doubled up the leftfield line, putting the go-ahead run in scoring position for McKnight. Both him and Nunley hit flies to deep center, but neither managed to beat catcher-turned-centerfielder Jose Paraz, with the Raccoons only getting the tying run home on McKnight’s sac fly.

Nevertheless, next thing “Midnight” knew was that he was on the hook. Thrasher pitched a scoreless seventh in which Martin Ortíz was caught stealing by D-Alex, who then batted against Alex Ramirez, who had replaced Jaylen Martin after Danny Ochoa’s double to left with two outs in the bottom 7th. Ochoa had already singled in his first two at-bats against Martin. D-Alex hit one deep to center, and FINALLY someone got it past the chump Paraz, and in for a go-ahead RBI double! Ramirez walked Sandy, allowed a hit to load the bags to Stan Murphy, but then was lucky that Jorge Ortega to the tips of his gloves onto Cookie’s grounder up the middle, just enough to make a play to end the inning at 4-3 for the home team. Entwistle and Sugano fiddled together the eighth before Angel Casas started the ninth with K’s to Miguel Salinas and Amari Brissett. Jose Paraz was not only defensive spoiler, but was also 4-for-4 on the day and hit Angel’s first pitch to deep right – but he was denied as well, as Reya made the play without much drama. 4-3 Coons. Nunley 2-5, 2B; Reya 2-5, RBI; Ochoa 3-4, 2B; Alexander 2-4, 2 2B, RBI; Sambrano 2-3; Murphy (PH) 1-1;

Okay, I will admit I thought this one was a sure loss, especially against “Midnight”.

Game 2
NYC: CF Paraz – SS J. Ortega – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – C Lowe – 1B Roche – 2B J. Diaz – 3B Salinas – P F. Cruz
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – SS McKnight – RF Bednarski – LF Reya – C Margolis – 1B Ochoa – 3B Canning – P Santos

Hector Santos had started the season 2-0, but hadn’t won any of his last 11 games, which had not been his fault entirely. Unfortunately we had to play a lot of left-handed bats against Cruz, so he better be on top of his pitching…

… and the defense be better on its ****ing paws, too. Ochoa made a clumsy error on Paraz’ grounder in the first and the Crusaders had a free runner to start the game. While surprisingly nothing came of that, the second inning developed into pure horror. Drew Lowe started it with a high pop that dropped between the converging Reya and McKnight for a leadoff single. Frederic Roche then lined a single to the exact same spot, before Sandy made a scrambling play on Juan Diaz’ sharp grounder to second base, getting the out at first. That was about the last thing that went right for the Coons. Salinas hit an RBI single, and Cruz bunted him to second base. Santos then uncorked a wild pitch to plate the second run of the inning, and when Paraz put a 3-1 pitch into play, Ochoa’s feed to Santos was terrible and Santos dropped it – and was also charged with the error while Salinas scored. Francisco Caraballo – who had replaced an injured Jorge Ortega in the first – then fouled out to mercifully end the 3-run frame. The game entered a bit of a lull after that, which abruptly ended when Caraballo slugged his tenth homer of the season, a solo shot, in the fifth. In the bottom 5th Luis Reya would reach on an error by Roche, which made him the first Raccoons baserunner in the game, but he was swiftly reduced to nothing by Margolis’ grounder to short that was good enough for two.

Santos lasted as long as Dickerson the previous night, six innings with three earned runs, but trailed 4-0 with the team actively trying to get no-hit by Fernando Cruz, who for his career was 93-110 with a 4.09 ERA (no George Kirk, though). Bad Walt Canning spoiled the party with a bloop single in the sixth, scoring on Cookie’s 2-out double. Stanton Martin doubled home Paraz against Gallegos in the top 7th to restore the old gap, though. That one was crucial: Cruz spilled singles by Reya and Margolis in the bottom 7th, after which Bergquist hit for Ochoa to counter Cruz, and hacked away at the first pitch and hit it right in the sweet spot for a no-doubt 3-run homer that nevertheless left the Raccoons a run short, 5-4. The eighth was uneventful, with Cruz still holding out, but the ninth saw Ron Thrasher put on Paraz with one out. Marcos Bruno replaced him, but wouldn’t retire anybody for a while. Caraballo singled, Ortíz walked, and then Stanton Martin grounded to the right side. Bergquist intercepted it, the ball broke free again and bounced a few feet, bad throw to first, Sambrano stretched and got into Martin’s way and while evading, the veteran rightfielder took a bad tumble and left the game with an injury. He was safe though, a run scored, and the bleeding continued for another run driven in by Eduardo Durango. Salvadaro Soure hit Bednarski to start the bottom 9th, but that still didn’t create a problem for him. 7-4 Crusaders. Bergquist (PH) 1-2, HR, 3 RBI;

Terrible game for everybody involved. We delivered a big box of poo, but the Crusaders’ victory might turn out to be Pyrrhic. I’m no doctor, but I don’t think that all was well with Stanton Martin’s leg being bent 90 degrees, and all the screaming. – Well, Slappy says it was me screaming and that was Martin’s knee, but I disagree.

It’s good to have restocked on Capt’n Coma.

Game 3
NYC: 1B Roche – SS J. Ortega – LF M. Ortíz – RF B. Miller – C Lowe – CF Brissett – 2B J. Diaz – 3B Salinas – P Trevino
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – C Alexander – P Conway

It’s Trevino and he’s after Brownie in the strikeout table – don’t whiff too often, boys!

The Coons left Cookie on third base in the first inning, but the Crusaders left them loaded in the second after getting singles by Miller and Brissett before Diaz walked to fill them up with one out. Reya caught Salinas’ poor fly in shallow right and kept Miller on his base, and Conway struck out Trevino to escape. Trevino only pitched three innings before getting hurt and being replaced with Ken McKenzie, and in those three innings he didn’t strike out anybody. McKenzie fell behind in the fourth, first conceding the second double of the day to Luis Reya, and then another single to Sambrano to drive Reya home.

But Conway didn’t respond too well to leading and created the worst mess in the sixth inning: bases loaded, nobody out. It started with Ortega’s bloop single, but then he walked both Ortíz and Miller. Sugano was sent in with two more left-handers coming up, blew the lead on Drew Lowe’s sac fly to center, but K’ed Brissett and got out of the inning with a 1-1 tie on the board. While the bullpen held up, with Entwistle getting five outs and Mathis pitching a quick and perfect ninth, the offense was completely paralyzed. D-Alex had a leadoff single in the eighth – nothing happened. Reya had a 2-out single in the ninth – not worth bothering. Extras started with a pinch-hit double by Paraz off Mathis, but now Paraz pulled up lame and was replaced by Soure (!) to pinch-run. The gamble, bold as it was, worked. With one out, Ortega and Ortíz had consecutive RBI hits, and Bruno replaced the fallen Mathis, getting a double play from Miller. Bottom 10th, Ron Richards’ first hit since Christmas was a double to lead off the inning, but the Raccoons were held to two groundouts to score him, and never put another man on base. 3-2 Crusaders. Carmona 2-5; Reya 3-4, 2 2B; Sugano 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K; Entwistle 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Uhm, we’re still winless in overtime this year.

Game 4
NYC: CF Paraz – 3B Salinas – LF M. Ortíz – RF B. Miller- 1B Roche – SS J. Ortega – 2B J. Diaz – C Durango – P Bartels
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – C Margolis – 2B Sambrano – LF Ochoa – P N. Brown

Ochoa cashed in his first career RBI with a sac fly in the second inning. With that, Sandy remained on first base with two outs for Brownie, who split Paraz and Miller for a double, but Sandy almost tumbled after tripping over second base and failed to score. Cookie’s floater to center hung for too long and was caught by Paraz, ending the inning with two left in scoring position. This gave the Coons a 1-0 lead, and Brown seemed to have everything working on this Sunday … and then it started to rain.

There was a 1-hour delay after the third inning, which was likely to cut both starters’ outings short. Brown came back for the fourth, worked around a leadoff single and kept the Crusaders at bay, and squeezed through six innings, but upon returning to the dugout then told the pitching coach that he could feel his arm going dead – the pen had to take over despite only one hit against Brownie and seven strikeouts to his credit. At least the team added a run in the bottom 6th on three soft singles, one of them of the infield variety, to hand a 2-0 lead to Entwistle, who had a quick and clean seventh inning. Bottom 7th, Canning grounded out hitting for Entwistle, but then Cookie reached with a single. McKnight hit a fly to deep center, but there was Paraz somewhere out it, so you could forget about that one. Actually, you could really forget about this one, because it was outta here!

Now the gambling part. With a 4-0 lead, Gallegos got to face the bottom of the order in the eighth inning (but his ERA was within a run of Entwistle’s, so…). He struck out Diaz, Durango popped out foul to Margolis, and PH Jesus Ramirez flew out to Cookie without generating any panic. The bottom of the eighth saw Kevin Wanless be about to have a perfect frame until Ortega dropped Ochoa’s 2-out grounder. The Coons now could have Gallegos bat and try the top of the order in the nin- … or we would rather bat for him and put Angel in a non-save situation, yeah, that sounded MUCH better. D-Alex grabbed a bat, slugged a 2-run shot to dead center, and then things started to creep up on Angel. Salinas drew a 1-out walk in the ninth. Ortíz grounded to McKnight, who bumbled the ball, losing at least one out. But thankfully, Stanton Martin was absent – it was Bill Miller to come up. While he grounded hard to the right side, Sandy was perfectly positioned, zipped to McKnight, who zipped to first – game over! 6-0 Brownies!!! Richards (PH) 1-1, 2B; Sambrano 2-4, RBI; Alexander (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI; Brown 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K, W (9-4) and 1-2, 2B;

In other news

June 20 – The Capitals acquire SP Wade Davis (6-5, 5.19 ERA) from the Scorpions, sending them two prospects, including #185 prospect 2B Ben Markel.
June 21 – DAL LF/RF Lionnel Perri (.270, 6 HR, 38 RBI) collects his 2,500th career hit, a single, in the Stars’ 8-7 loss the Wolves. Perri is a career .262/.357/.414 batter with 246 homers and 1,321 RBI. He has also stolen 233 bases, including an active streak of 13 consecutive seasons with double digit bags taken, and is a 5-time All Star.

Complaints and stuff

Jason Seeley went unclaimed and was assigned to the Alley Cats. On the other hand of the batting spectrum, Matt Nunley’s .346 batting average leads the Continental League at this point. He was as high as .358 this week, but didn’t fare too well in the Crusaders series.

As we are on Critters leading stuff, Nick Brown ties with Jaquan Wagoner (whose ERA is still miniscule at 0.73) for most wins in the CL, and Jonny Toner leads the majors in strikeouts. He has 112, while nobody else has more than 94. But while Cookie is slowly coming around with the bags taken, he has a huge deficit on the CL leader, and it’s not an old foe, no. A bit out of the shadows and with 29 steals the leader is MIL Victor Hodgers.

Run support in starts by pitcher:
Nick Brown – 70 runs – 5.0 R/G
Jonny Toner – 61 runs – 4.4 R/G
Bill Conway – 57 runs – 4.1 R/G
Hector Santos – 54 runs – 3.9 R/G
Daniel Dickerson – 32 runs – 3.2 R/G

Well, that's new!

I would really love to replace Dud Dickerson with Jeff Magnotta. But while Magnotta’s ERA in St. Petersburg is quite good (3.06), he has been riding a fairly amazing BABIP to get there. He barely strikes out FOUR per nine innings and walks almost as many. No reason to pretend that he can be (much) better than Dickerson at this point. It’s okay for Magnotta, who turned 22 in April, but we remain stuck with a fabulously expensive jack-in-the-box … with a broken spring.

Other starters in AAA: Chris Brown and Enrique Guzman have been horrendous, and while Francisquo Bocanegra has put up a 3-some ERA, he walks more than he strikes out. The fifth spot has been rotating, but nothing good can be reported there, either. In AA (…), there’s 21-year old Blake Kelly with a 2.61 ERA, but also hardly 2 K/BB.

So what is it then? More of the Dud? Bring up Chris Brown, who won’t get any better, and don’t care anymore? It’s not like the season wouldn’t be in the trash anyway…

Angel, what are you doing in here? – Yes, I said trash. – No, I don’t have any trash here. – No, don’t … get out of my paper basket! – Maud, I need help!

[Westheim]

Raccoons (31-36) @ Titans (27-42) – June 22-24, 2015

The Raccoons weren’t feeling well where they are, but the Titans were in a black hole and still falling. They had lost seven straight games, ranked second from the bottom in offense in the Continental League, and their pitching was below average as well, with an average rotation with a flat 4 ERA immensely weighed down by a crumbling bullpen in the bottom three in ERA. The Raccoons had had their number so far this year, winning five of six from the Titans so far.

Projected matchups:
Jonathan Toner (7-2, 2.01 ERA) vs. Johnny Krom (3-8, 4.20 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (0-6, 6.44 ERA) vs. Chae-ku Lee (3-7, 5.45 ERA)
Hector Santos (2-4, 3.05 ERA) vs. Melvin Andrade (4-5, 3.83 ERA)

We had saved up Cookie’s off day during this 2-week stretch of games for the series opener here, since Krom was a conveniently placed left-hander.

Game 1
POR: SS McKnight – CF Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – P Toner
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – 3B Holley – RF R. Lopez – LF X. Williams – C Porter – CF Thurman – P Krom

… and Krom started to dig himself a hole right away. McKnight singled to center, Sambrano walked, and a bloop single by Nunley to right loaded the bases with nobody out. Time for someone to **** it up! Bednarski stepped in at the plate, grounded to short, the Titans got two, and escaped with only one run allowed once Murphy also rolled over to short. There would be a 3-spot in the second inning, however. Richards and Margolis hit singles to start the inning, Bergquist grounded out, Toner lined out to Rob Holley on the hot corner, but then came McKnight, lined a ball into the rightfield corner to score both runners, and then came home himself on Sandy’s bloop single to left center. That gave Jonny a 4-0 game and should have been enough to kick up the feet and have a fine glass of something that wasn’t going to let you go blind.

Maybe there could be drama after all. While Krom was knocked out after five-plus when Bergquist’s 2-run homer ran the score to 6-0, Jonny Toner was mildly amazing and a walk in the second and another one in the fourth aside had not allowed any base runners so far. The Titans didn’t get much on the ball in the sixth, and the seventh saw strikeouts by Steve Butler and Holley before Rodrigo Lopez lined one to center; Sandy came on and grabbed that one, as hot as it was. A Furball of many talents, Toner singled in a run in the eighth inning before trying to forge his masterpiece. He struck out Xavier Williams, but – oh, calamity – Randy Porter beat him with a grounder right in the middle between McKnight and Nunley, and broke up the no-hitter with a single with five outs to go. Porter was the last baserunner for the pesky Titans. Toner retired the next five to claim another shutout. 7-0 Raccoons! McKnight 2-4, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Sambrano 2-4, BB, RBI; Bergquist 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Toner 9.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 9 K, W (8-2) and 1-4, RBI;

This is shutout number seven for Jonny Toner, and the second this year. It’s also his second one-hitter, and the second shutout against the Titans, who were the victims of his first shutout just over 12 months ago.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – 2B Sambrano – C Alexander – LF Ochoa – P Dickerson
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – C T. Robinson – 3B Holley – RF R. Lopez – LF X. Williams – CF J. Silva – P C.K. Lee

The Coons’ early lead in this game was kindly sponsored by Jose Gutierrez, who made two errors in the second inning to create a bit of a mess. Danny Ochoa hit a 2-run single just past Gutierrez to make him look like a fool for good, and since Dickerson hadn’t ignited on exposure to daylight for once, the Coons were up 2-0. Dickerson allowed only two hits in the first three innings before Gutierrez hit a leadoff single in the bottom of the fourth. He went aggro to third on Tim Robinson’s 1-out single, eager to make up the deficit he had helped the Raccoons to hang on the Titans. With runners on the corners, Rob Holley popped out to Sandy, and Lopez grounded to short to end the inning. It was the last mess that Dickerson avoided.

Bottom 5th, Xavier Williams had a leadoff single, hard to right. Jose Silva found the gap in left center (which was spacious with Danny Ochoa being no better in the field than Ron Richards) for a double, and Chae-ku Lee hit an RBI single, also hard, also to right. Since the Raccoons had basically sat straight down ever since taking the lead, the Titans were now trying to break through the gates, breaking through it without much hesitation. Rivera, Butler, and Robinson all hit singles off Dickerson, with one run thrown out at home by Luis Reya, but the Titans took a 3-2 lead. Dickerson was yanked, and Entwistle retired Rob Holley by allowing a drive to center that Carmona could just barely get a claw onto. Dickerson was spared the loss when Ochoa hit a terrible 2-out bloop that fell in for a single and scored D-Alex, who had doubled, tying the game at three.

Bruno’s scoreless sixth was followed by a chance in the top of the seventh. McKnight singled before Nunley split the outfielders Lopez and Silva just barely for a double. Since Silva almost caught the ball, McKnight got a late start and only made it to third base. Lee remained in the game. His third pitch was cracked up the third base line by Stan Murphy, headed for the bag, Holley lunged but missed it, and it was a fair ball! Two runs scored before Williams recovered the ball in foul territory with a 2-run double. Murphy would later score on Sandy Sambrano’s 2-run single, giving the team the 6-3 upside. Sugano put two on in the bottom of the inning, but Mathis got Robinson to pop up to Ochoa, who moved over to right in a double switch. Mathis allowed a solo home run to Williams in the bottom 8th, which prompted Angel Casas to come in with a 6-4 lead and four outs left, and Silva’s easy fly to right was a quick first one. Top 9th, Nunley hit a leadoff single off Matt Branch, a left-hander with not really pretty numbers. Murphy reliably grounded to a middle infielder, but that was Gutierrez, and he borked his third ball of the game. That put two on with nobody out. Canning was up next after the second double switch that had brought in Angel Casas, and lined out to short, and the next two Critters didn’t have any more luck. Zachary Thurman had a leadoff single against Angel in the bottom 9th, but that was the last runner the Titans got on. 6-4 Coons. Nunley 4-5, 2 2B; Reya 2-4; Ochoa 2-4, 3 RBI; Bergquist 1-1;

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – RF Reya – LF Richards – 2B Bergquist – C Alexander – P Santos
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B S. Butler – C T. Robinson – 3B Holley – RF R. Lopez – LF X. Williams – CF J. Silva – P Andrade

Santos hadn’t won since the fall of the Roman Empire, but maybe the Titans, who had now dropped nine in a row, could at least give him a fair chance. Raccoons offense and Titans defense sure worked together to make it happen very early on, conspiring for a 3-run first. Cookie led off with a double, his 100th hit of the season, and after a balk by Andrade and a Nunley sac fly came across to score. Then it was Mike Rivera with an error on Reya’s grounder, and Ron Richards found the gap in left center for a 2-run double. Andrade needed 38 pitches in that first inning, while Santos took seven each for the first two frames before Xavier Williams hit a leadoff double in the third inning. Santos threw a wild pitch to Silva, moving Williams to third base, but that was where he was glued down and didn’t move off anymore. Silva bounced sharply to Nunley, who held Williams one before retiring Silva, Andrade struck out, and Rivera flew out to Richards in left.

The Coons lost a run in the fifth inning when Cookie was caught stealing before McKnight could double him in, but scored one in the sixth when Santos hit a single to plate Richards from third base, extending his own lead to 4-0. But the bottom 6th saw the Titans on the move: Gutierrez hit a leadoff single, and Steve Butler beat Carmona with a double to center. But this team – while maybe marginal ability-wise – was truly plagued by the most rotten luck. Tim Robinson lined a scorched pitch to the right side, but Bergquist swiped it and fired to second base to double off Butler for a double play. The Titans probably would have failed to score – Holley flew out softly eventually – if Santos hadn’t thrown a wild pitch once again, and that wild pitch got the Titans on the board. Not that they could enjoy that run for long; Ronnie McKnight blasted another home run in the top of the seventh, restoring the 4-run gap at 5-1. After the long sixth inning, Santos tired in the seventh, and the Titans mounted an uprising in the eighth. Thrasher put on Rivera, and Marcos Bruno added Robinson and Holley with two outs before Rodrigo Lopez was kind enough to ground to short to end the inning. Not that the Coons’ struggles were over. In the bottom of the ninth, Sugano got only one out before Porter and Rivera got on with sharp hits. Angel Casas conceded another run on a single by Gutierrez before Butler grounded out to end the game. 5-3 Raccoons. Carmona 2-5, 2B; McKnight 2-5, HR, 2B, RBI; Reya 3-4; Santos 6.2 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, W (3-4) and 2-2, RBI;

We’re on a roll!

Raccoons (34-36) @ Thunder (39-32) – June 26-28, 2015

Better don’t hope for high-offense games with the Thunder! They were allowing the least runs in the league, just barely more than 3.5 runs per game, but they were also in the bottom three in runs scored. Their offensive misery was partly the result of injuries. Will Bailey going down for the season on April 9 had not been a good start, and Emilio Farias was also a big hole since breaking his foot earlier in the month.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (2-7, 4.46 ERA) vs. Ed Michaels (4-7, 3.52 ERA)
Nick Brown (9-4, 3.25 ERA) vs. Bob King (8-4, 2.19 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (8-2, 1.84 ERA) vs. Jorge Gine (5-5, 3.04 ERA)

Again a left-handed pitcher to face in the opener. We will miss both Curtis Tobitt (7-7, 3.58 ERA) and our old guy Ralph Ford (8-3, 2.59 ERA).

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Bergquist – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – C Margolis – SS Canning – P Conway
OCT: RF Reese – SS Janes – LF E. Clark – C Parks – 1B Pixeiro – 3B J. Soto – 2B A. Rodriguez – CF S. Young – P Michaels

This series started off with a terrible blow as Cookie legged out an infield single, but came up lame, to start this opener. Sambrano replaced him and we had to browse our minor leagues for a centerfielder probably. And after the Raccoons failed to plate the Cookie Memorial Run, Conway walked the bases loaded in the bottom 1st on the first three guys he faced. Jalen Parks struck out, but Bernalldino Pixeiro (now, THERE’S some name!) legged out an infield single. The Thunder got another run on Jesus Soto’s groundout, Conway walked Armando Rodriguez (…!), but escaped on Sean Young’s groundout, allowing only two runs on a hit and four walks. The Thunder loaded the bases again in the bottom 2nd, this time on three singles, and when Jalen Parks was up again, he cranked a grand slam to put the Coons in a 6-0 hole. Conway continued to allow a single to Pixeiro, walked Soto, and that was it … bullpen day! In a memorable appearance, Juan Gallegos allowed a bases-loading single to Sean Young, then a grand slam to … Ed Michaels.

Gallegos was churned for another two runs in the third inning, while the Raccoons were held to one hit over four innings, before slightly wiggling the bushy tail in the fifth when Bergquist hit an RBI single. Whoah, only down by eleven now, we’re comin’ back! No, of course we weren’t. Entwistle pitched two scoreless, and Sandy Sambrano had a run-scoring groundout in the meantime, but that was merely dressing of wounds by then. And the middle of the order merrily hit into double plays the entire time, like Richards to end the eighth with two men on base. Ed Michaels pitched a complete game 10-hitter, a thing I didn’t know existed before. 12-2 Thunder. Carmona 1-1; Nunley 2-4; Murphy 1-2, 2 BB; Margolis 3-4, 2B; Entwistle 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 0 K;

Well, roster moves.

One was Cookie, who had tweaked his knee and after rubbing it with a toothbrush for half an hour, the Druid was fairly confident that he was suffering from patellar tendinitis. This was quite good news since it meant that he would probably be not out for much longer than ten days. It still meant that he went to the DL, since we need the roster spot. Since I didn’t want Jason Seeley batting .205 for any longer than he already had, the callup went to Brandon Johnson, 26. Johnson, a left-hander, was a quite good defender, but while he had been a third round pick in the 2010 draft, he had never batted a lot and had instead been released and resigned a few times. We had picked him out of the trash last fall, and he had batted .355 in semi-regular use in AAA so far. This was a case of flinging **** to the wall to see whether it would stick, but that was pretty much how we had wound up with Danny Margolis.

Also, Juan Gallegos (7.20 ERA) was recycled to St. Petersburg. The long relief role went to … Dickerson. Sorry, Dud, it’s just … you suck. Chris Brown won promotion to fill the hole in the rotation.

Who the **** is going to bat leadoff??

Game 2
POR: 2B Sambrano – SS McKnight – 3B Nunley – RF Reya – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – C Alexander – CF Johnson – P N. Brown
OCT: RF Reese – 2B A. Rodriguez – LF E. Clark – 1B Pixeiro – C Parks – 3B J. Soto – SS Janes – CF S. Young – P King

Sandy hit a leadoff single was caught stealing, but the Raccoons came back with Nunley, who walked, and Reya, who singled, putting runners on the corners. Bob King threw a wild pitch to plate the first run of the game, then walked the bases full without getting a strike against Murphy and Richards. D-Alex hit the gap in left center for a 2-run double, and Brandon Johnson lined out to the pitcher, who was lucky to not get beheaded by the shot, but that was also the third out. Brownie, who had thrown 15 shutout innings the previous week, came out and struck out Tom Reese and Armando Rodriguez to start his day, before Earl Clark singled in an 0-2 count. He was the only Thunder to reach base in the first three innings. The fourth inning saw D-Alex hit a leadoff single before Brandon Johnson also singled, his maiden hit in the Bigs. Brownie flew out to left, and Sandy forced out Johnson, but Ronnie McKnight, the surprise slugger, came through with a 2-run double to left, running the score to 5-0. Nunley legged out an infield single before Reya hit a hard single to left, plating McKnight 6-0. The inning ended when a full count pitch splintered Murphy’s bat into a million pieces, resulting in a grounder to short. It was the last out that King got; Ron Richards crushed a leadoff jack in the fifth, knocking him from the game after allowing seven runs in four-plus innings.

Brownie was still dealin’, with the Thunder having gotten a runner in the fourth only for an error by McKnight, and the defense actually got the Thunder back into the game in the fifth. While Brownie allowed a leadoff single to Soto in the fifth, the inning only began to spiral out of control once Sandy Sambrano dropped a ball for an error. With two out, Tom Reese crushed a 3-run shot to center to bring the Thunder back into slam range, but all the runs were unearned. And after 15 years, I do know when Nick Brown is pissed. He was now. There were subtle signs. When he came back to the dugout, he kicked over the Gaytirade barrel, smashed one of Sandy’s bats against the bench, and when it was time for the next inning, he struck out the side and yelled at them while they trudged back to their own dugout. With the long middle innings, he only managed to go seven, but it was still some impressive seven innings. The top 8th started with walks issued by Wes Yates to Walt Canning and Sambrano, but McKnight whiffed and Nunley hit into a double play, however, Bergquist drove home a run with two outs in the ninth against Yates. The Raccoons got scoreless (though not entirely pretty) relief from Sugano, Bruno, and Thrasher to finish the game even without the insurance run. 8-3 Brownies! Reya 2-4, BB, RBI; Alexander 2-4, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Bergquist 1-2, RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, W (10-4);

Guess who’s first to ten wins in the Continental League!

Well, there would have been another game on Sunday, but … it was washed out. It rained all day, and then an actual storm moved in. The Coons saw they got the heck outta town and on to Atlanta.

In other news

June 23 – The Crusaders announce that RF/LF Stanton Martin (.303, 17 HR, 66 RBI) is down with a knee sprain and will miss time until late July.
June 23 – The Aces’ rookie utility player Arturo Perez (.300, 1 HR, 10 RBI) has five hits in the Aces’ 14-0 creaming of the Falcons. Perez hits a triple and two doubles and drives in four.
June 26 – It’s another cycle! CHA LF/CF Jose Jimenez (.234, 3 HR, 15 RBI) connects for four hits, one of each kind, in the Falcons’ 9-2 win over the Titans, contributing five RBI in the rout. It is the 57th cycle in ABL history, the third this season, and the second not by a Blue Sox player. The Falcons had two cycles to their credit before, achieved three months apart in 1999 by Hubert Green and Joe Morton. The Titans hadn’t been cycled against since 1988, when TIJ Thomas Martin did it.
June 26 – SAC SP Antonio Pena (7-6, 5.38 ERA) is out for the year, suffering from radial nerve compression.
June 26 – Not only are the Canadiens routed 12-0 by the Bayhawks, they also manage to get shut out while collecting 11 hits for themselves.
June 27 – Los Angeles’ Ernest Green (9-5, 2.24 ERA) one-hits the Blue Sox, who only amount to a leadoff single by shortstop Ernesto Rios in the sixth inning. The Pacifics win 3-0.
June 28 – Cincy’s Brian Doumas (9-3, 2.98 ERA) and Francisco Rodriguez (2-5, 4.09 ERA, 4 SV) pitch a combined 1-hitter against the Gold Sox, with Doumas claiming the 8-0 win. Victorino Sanchez has the lone hit for the Gold Sox.

Complaints and stuff

This franchise had horrible teams that did the most outrageous things, but I can’t recall ever allowing two grand slams in a single inning, and even less so with one hit by the ****ING OPPOSING PITCHER.

Losing Cookie sucks on a few different levels, but at least we would get him back after only 15 days – most likely.

… and of course Brownie is the first to ten wins in the Continental League! Now, who would have thought THAT before the season? The only guy with more wins in the ABL is that Willis Sanguino guy who gets an arse full of runs EVERY SINGLE GAME.

The rescheduled Thunder game will take place in a double header in our last series with them in Oklahoma on August 2. This is going to create great pains, since that will be the seventh day in a 20-day string of games without an off day. We will have the Knights and Indians to deal with next week, the second-to-last week before the All Star Game. Chris Brown would have started the middle game in Atlanta, but we’ll push him behind Santos, who will start on regular rest in the middle game.