Tasty Baseball

Sunday afternoon while I was grading papers and watching the Masters, I had the M’s game on to give my mind something to do.

What a disturbing game.  Felix wasn’t sharp.  The M’s had Mitis, meaning they were hitting into harmless outs at every opportunity. When Felix came out of the game after the bottom of the 5th inning, the M’s still hadn’t got a hit and they trailed 3 – 0.

Then in the top of the 6th, the Mariners finally scored. With the score 3 – 1 and two outs, Cano hit a hard low liner into right, Josh Reddick got there… but dropped the ball!  Two more runs scored. And then another one.  Felix was in line for the win!

After last year, when his puny teammates let him down repeatedly by not scoring, or not nailing down wins after he left the game, it was good to see Felix getting a win when he wasn’t at his best.  And later in the game when Ricky Weeks blasted a three run homer, we didn’t even have to feel bad that the key blow had been an Oakland error.

I missed most of the ninth inning because either Justin Spieth was wrapping up his historic Masters win or the paper I was grading was so enthralling. But when I turned back to the M’s game to watch the post game wrap up, Rodney had allowed two runs and had the bases loaded with nobody out. Two of those runners scored before that big phony Rodney got out of the inning. Felix had lost his win.  (I’ve never liked nor trusted Fernando Rodney.)

But in the top of the 10th Nelson Cruz hit a homer, and in the bottom Yoervis Medina closed it out. Medina got the save.

Rodney got the win.

There hasn’t been a Mariners win that tasted worse in my mouth since May of 1984.

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Portland Rosebuds	4	2	.667	—	28.3	20.0
Haviland Dragons	4	2	.660	—	28.9	20.7
Old Detroit Wolverines	4	2	.629	0.2	28.7	22.1
Peshastin Pears	4	2	.595	0.4	22.3	18.4
Kaline Drive	3	3	.549	0.7	21.5	19.5
Cottage Cheese	3	3	.453	1.3	23.3	25.6
Canberra Kangaroos	2	4	.385	1.7	26.5	33.6
Flint Hill Tornadoes	2	4	.365	1.8	20.0	26.4
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	1	5	.220	2.7	18.0	33.9

Portland: W 3, L 1; 13 – (-7).  .303, .361, .561; 34 ip, 8 er.   Yordano lives!  That thumb cramp didn’t kill him after all! Mike Trout didn’t kill him, either, even though Yordano came all the way to home plate to complain about how the stadium smells after Trout’s been cooking.  The Rosebuds, you would think, would be well protected from odd fish smells, but… They got 34 innings for only 8 earned runs over the weekend, eliminating all but 2.7 ip of their replacements.  Oh, oh! Now Ventura’s down again. Another cramp! This time in his leg.

Haviland: W 2,  L 1;  16 – 10.  .242, .360, .484; 24.7 ip, 8 er.   If the day’s theme is going to be the tastes baseball can leave in your mouth, then it might be appropriate to catalog the resources each team brings to the barbecue. The Dragons immediately show up as a well-managed franchise.  They’ve got their own (Buck) Farmer.  They’ve even got a farming specialist: (Andy) Oliver. Both of those guys are top prospects currently down on the farm at this moment, honing their crafts. Because you need herbs, spices, and olives when you are feasting, as Dragons so love to do, on (Jake) Lamb: 2 for 4 over the weekend.

Old Detroit:  W 1, L 1; 9 – 13. .235, .306, .353; 9.7 ip, 8 er.        Madison Bumgarner will cost the W’s $51,250,000 over the next five years.  His first start was exactly as expected: 7 ip, 1 er.  How sweet it was! Of course he’d do that — it’s just him picking up where he left off last October.  Well, I hope Wolverine fans savored that opening day tidbit, because Saturday Bumgarner did this: 3 ip, 5 er. Blecch. Something you pay so much for should keep a little longer.

Peshastin:  W 1, L 1; 8 – 12.   .232, .308, .378; 26.3 ip, 12 er.  Pears don’t need much help to come out sweet on the tongue.  But they don’t need to be infested with nasty worms like Dillon Gee  (5 earned runs in 5 ip), either.    You remember what I call an Edgar Martinez batting line? .300, .400, .500.   Jay Bruce is trying to invent his own distinctive batting line:  the .100, .300, .500.  Over the weekend he went .150, .300, .500.  For the season he’s .200, .360, .500 (4 for 20 with 2 hr and 5 walks).

Kaline: W1, L 2; 11 – 14.  .214, .325, .314;  20.7 ip, 12 er.    Kyle Kendrick was even better than Bumgarner on opening day: 7 ip, 0 er.  And even worse yesterday: 5 ip, 8 er. Even though he’s a lot cheaper ( $6.5 million over the next two years), he still costs more than peanuts, so Drive fans have to be disappointed.  Over the weekend the Orioles traded Ryan Webb to the Dodgers, who immediately designated him for assignment.  The media are now concluding this trade was almost entirely a device for the Orioles to get rid of their responsibility to pay Webb – essentially trading away a compensation draft pick in exchange for the Dodgers covering $2.75 million in costs this season. But this kind of leftovers cuisine is familiar to us in the EFL.  Consider the Drive trade of Mitch Moreland to the Wolverines last month. The W’s dropped Moreland, thus clearing his salary and the two players they traded to Kaline.  And then the Drive drafted Moreland back… so he could get hit by a pitch three times  and go .400 , .625, .600 over the weekend.

Cottage:  W 1, L 1; 9 – 14.  .250, .305, .458; 17.7 ip, 13 er.  Anyone who has ever unknowingly opened an old tub of cottage cheese and gotten a glimpse (and a whiff) of what that stuff looks like a couple of weeks too late probably has a good idea of how Cheese fans feel after watching Clay Buchholz allow 9 earned runs in 3.3 innings Sunday. I shudder just thinking about it.  Pity the poor Head Cheese who had to be the one to dig that beauty out of the fridge.

Canberra: W 0, L 2; 7 – 13. .209, .299, .388; 4 ip, 1 er.  The Kangaroos are themselves, I gather, a fine source of red meat proteins, which, they say, tastes like venison or beef with a kick to it.  Kangaroo goes down well with some (Josmil) Pinto beans (DNP) and some (Shane) Greenes (DNP), all washed down with some ice cold (Phil) Coke (1.7 ip, 1 er).  If you hesitate to eat the Australian national symbol — I know I’ve never even considered eating any bald eagle — you could always settle for some (Brad) Peacock, as long as you can wait for it to exit the disabled list through the back door.

Flint Hill: W 1, L 1; 9 – 10.  .267, .321, .376; 26.7 ip, 15 er.  Here’s a taste Leonys Martin might never get out of his mouth, thanks to George Springer :

 

Pittsburgh: L 2, 9 – 13.  .254, .333,, .418. 14.3 ip, 6 er. Baseball is thick with birds — Blue Jays, Orioles, Cardinals. None are known as good eating, but if you’ve got a hankering, the Alleghenys have a (Dexter) Fowler who should be able to meet your needs, like he tried to do for Pittsburgh this weekend:  4 for 8 with 2 walks, a stolen base, a homer and two triples.  Trout was there, too (3 for 6 with a walk) and Altuve, of course (3 for 10 with a walk)… but it wasn’t quite enough, especially with a league-worst 29.3 defense.