Here’s a little study in the perils of mimesis.
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 9 | 4 | .662 | — | 59.3 | 42.4 |
| Haviland Dragons | 8 | 5 | .606 | 0.7 | 62.0 | 50.0 |
| Peshastin Pears | 7 | 5 | .579 | 1.2 | 46.5 | 39.7 |
| Cottage Cheese | 6 | 5 | .560 | 1.4 | 52.7 | 46.8 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 6 | 6 | .511 | 2 | 52.1 | 51.0 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 6 | 7 | .499 | 2.1 | 54.5 | 54.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 5 | 8 | .387 | 3.6 | 50.0 | 63.0 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 5 | 8 | .381 | 3.6 | 58.3 | 74.2 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 4 | 9 | .344 | 4.1 | 47.8 | 66.1 |
Old Detroit: W 2, L (-1); 3 – (-4). .208, .298, .208; 15 ip, 0 er. Trevor Bauer and Anthony DeSclafani — the #5 starter and the long reliever — discovered how to ensure a win in the EFL: allow zero earned runs. As long as your hitters do something, you’ll win inevitably. And it doesn’t even matter how many runs your hitters create as long as it’s more than zero: you’ll still generate an infinitely high winning percentage. Since Wolverine hitters have obviously just given up, management has given W pitchers the go-ahead to try the Bauer-DeSclafani approach.
Haviland: L, 3 – 7; .176, .176, .294; 1 ip, 0 er. Apparently Dragon spies overheard the discovery of the Bauer/DeSclafani strategy. “Infinite winning percentage, eh?” said the Chiefest of Calamities. “Let’s do a little mimesis!” (By which he meant, “let’s copy the new idea.” He has apparently read his Toynbee.) He instructed Kelvin Herrera to pitch a scoreless inning, which Herrera did. But the “infinite winning percentage” plan requires the shutout-pitching pitchers to pitch plenty of innings to prevent the piling up of replacement performances. One inning just doesn’t do it.
Peshastin: DNP, 0 – 0. .200, .250, .367; 1 ip, 1 er. No, no, no. You can’t just round your runs off to zero for the day. They have to actually BE zero. And only on the pitching side. You can’t also score 0 — or in this case, slightly less than zero.
Cottage: DNP, 2 – 1. .571, .533, .643; 4 ip, 4 er. The Cheese attempted a different approach: hit the snot out of the ball (8 for 14 with a double) and hope for the best. It’s actually a great approach, but it ought to be spread over more than 14 at bats a day. Ideally the pitchers shouldn’t go quite so belly up at the same time; Arquimedes Caminero’s little chulk doesn’t help win under any strategy.
Portland: DNP, 0 – (-1). .188, .235, .438; 1.7 ip, 2 er. By the time the Bauer/DeSclafani rumors reached the Rosebuds, the whole thing was a garbled mess. “Make sure there’s a 0 in your score” is what they heard in the Rose Garden. “Seems awfully easy,” said a skeptical American Beauty. But they tried it anyway — and found themselves unpleasantly pruned as a result, even on a day off.
Flint Hill: L, 5 – 5. .269, .321, .462; 0 ip, 0 er. The Tornadoes tried their own distorted version of Bauer/DeSclafani: they allowed 0 runs over 0 ip. But this only led to a smattering of replacement innings, and didn’t achieve the desired effect. The Tornados continued their knife-edge balancing act on the .500 mark, this time teetering slightly to the downward side.
Kaline: L, 3 – 4. .208, .259, .292; 1 ip, 0 er. (Sigh.) Look: if you can’t muster a BUNCH of zero-ERA innings, don’t bother. One will just not do the trick — even if Travis Snider goes 1 for 3 with a triple. Especially not when Snider’s 1.333 OPS is twice the second-best hitter’s.
Canberra: DNP, (-2) – 0. .217, .208, .435; 0 ip, 0 er. 0 runs allowed but with negative runs scored? I give up.
Pittsburgh: W (-1), L 2; 1 – 7. .160, .192, .200; 5.3 ip, 4 er. Hisashi Iwakuma is dragging the Alleghenys down with the Mariners. His 6.75 ERA from yesterday fits in nicely with his entire season so far (6.61 ERA). Anemic offense and ineffective pitching has the advantage of being absolutely clear in its results, so at least there are no nagging mimetic mysteries in Pittsburgh.