Magic v. Muggles

It was a good day for the EFL: nine teams, nine wins.  There still weren’t enough to go around because someone was a little bit of a pig.

 

Haviland: W, 6 – 1.  .256,  .347,  .349;  0.3 ip, 0 er.  How do the Dragons drag 6 runs out of such a modest offense? Especially considering their three boys named Sue (Souza, Susac, and Suzuki) went a combined 0 for 9. Here are possible explanations:  The Sues are only allocated an average of 71%, so they only had about 6.4 plate appearances. Preston Tucker went 0 for 5, and he’s allocated only 0% Cut those 7.6 AB out of the Dragon line and you get .311,  .411, .424  — easily worth 6 runs per game.  More Dragon magic from the Chiefest of Calamaties.

Old Detroit: W,  3 – 0.  .212, .350, .212 ;  11 ip, 2 er.  Wolverine fans looking for signs of hope found them coming from two players who were sort of accidentally acquired mid-season:  Lance McCullers (5 ip, 1 er) and Erasmo Ramirez (6 ip, 1 er).  Also — the three Wolverine shortstops combined to go 6 for 12 to spark the Wolverine offense.  Since the offense was pretty much limited to that one spark, this was a very good thing. (Of course, only half that shortstop offense was actually allocated to playing time.  What’s the opposite of magic?  Whatever it is, it’s the Woeverine management’s native medium.)

Cottage:  W, 9 – 7.  .364, .382, .576;  0.3 ip, 0 er.  So the Cheese and the Dragons put up identical pitching lines. One results in 1 run scored, the other in 7 runs scored.  The difference?  Cottage is now carrying 6.1 replacement innings thanks to their pitchers’ sloth on Sunday. Welcome to the muggle world, Head Cheese!

Peshastin: W, 9 – 7.  .366,  .429,  .561;  5.7 ip, 5 er.  The Pears matched the Cheese score almost down to the tenth of a run, but did it with an entirely different approach to pitching: trotting Danny Salazar out there for 4.7 ip and 5 er.  Thus the Pears proved there is more than one way for a cat to get himself skinned.

Pittsburgh:  W 2, L (-1); 2 – (-10 !!). So how does a team hog two wins with only a .205, .244, .231 batting line?  Well, before Sunday the Alleghenys had played 4 games with only 6 ip from its starters, leaving them with 14 replacement innings. Sunday they got 25.3 starting innings — good ones, with only 6 er (all from Rubby De La Rosa in 5 ip).   De La Rosa essentially replaced replacement innings with replacement innings, so the net effect was more like 29 shutout innings in one day.  That’s as good as Dragon magic.

Flint Hill:  W, 4 – 4.  .316, .333, .526;  16.7 ip 9 er. Youngsters James McCann and Xander Bogaerts lead the Tornado offense in July, both batting .455 with a .500 OBP.  Youngsters Jesse Hahn and Eduardo Rodriguez lead the pitching staff with ERA’s under 2 (1.50 and 1.80, respectively).  So the rest of the league is under a Tornado watch: powerful storms are brewing in Flint Hill.

Canberra:  W, 5 – 2. .265, .342, .353;  6.7 ip, 1 er.  Canberra slipped past Kaline yesterday with solid work on both sides of the plate.  AJ Pierzynski played Robin to Harper’s Batman, both going for a 1.750 OPS (2 for 3 wth a double and a walk for Batman, 3 for 4 with a double for Robin).  Mike Montgomery tried to help the Captain Kangaroo forget about trading away Erasmo Ramirez by matching his pitching (5.7 ip, 1 er).

Kaline:  L, 2 – 6.   .161, .188, .226;  6.3 ip, 4 er.  Even Wizards can’t always conjure up the magic when it’s needed.  Mike Bolsinger’s inexplicable run of good pitching hit a bump (5 ip, 4 er) which tells me the spell may be wearing off.  Or maybe it was stolen!  Who might have stolen it?  I suggest you look around for some team not normally associated with magic — say, maybe more connected to inert lumps of rock — whose team had more than its share of wins yesterday.

Portland: W, 4 – 2.  .244,  .326,  366;  14.3 ip, 4 er.  Even the lowly Rosebuds got a nice win yesterday. Two starters pitched well and five hitters had daily OPSes over 1.000… although 5 more had daily OPSes of precisely 0.000 to kind of break the spell a little bit.