(Editor’s Note: Today my GFU contract officially kicks in.  I will be busy.  It will be hard to do ambitious updates. This one might be the last for a while.  Thank you for your patience and forbearance.)

Don’t you hate it when baseball writers, hoping to be cute, try to force a dumb premise down your throat?  Like MLB did when they published a piece yesterday about a position player pitching to a pitcher in an AL ballpark?  Their hook was that this somehow would cause the space-time continuum to unravel, even though the same scenario had played out as recently as 1987.  I’ve given you a link to that article, but I don’t recommend wasting time reading it.

I mean, we live in the EFL, not some poor MLB writer’s fantasy land.  Odd stuff happens to us all the time.

 

Haviland:  W, 5 – 1.  .242, .306, .455; 17.3 ip, 3 er.     Haviland is entirely populated by Dragons, as everyone knows, so it’s a shock to read a headline like this:

Correa bear-hugs Altuve after game-winner

 

Correa is a Dragon.  Altuve is an Allegheny.  Come on. This isn’t golf where Justin Speith gets rave reviews for congratulating Jason Day for sealing the PGA with a fantastic long lag put so announcers can tell us over and over how golf is such a wonderful genteel sport.

This is baseball, and dragons are reptiles. Whoever heard of a dragon rejoicing in the successes of his rivals?  Especially when you consider the character normally displayed in the Allegheny clubhouse (see below — although I hasten to add the Allegheny clubhouse is no reflection on the club’s owner, president, and/or general manager).  I’m not lame enough to try to make this into ripping-the-fabric-of-the-space-time-continuum like that poor MLB writer did.  Not for me such wild, overwrought exaggeration.  It’s not the end of the world as we know it.

It’s just the beginning of world peace.

 

Old Detroit: W, 4 – 2;  .250, .316, .404; 19 ip, 6 er.     I suppose I don’t have to look any further for inexplicable Old Detroit mysteries than the other day when the Wolverines went (-1) and (-1) in a negative double-header. But I don’t even think they can conceive of a negative doubleheader in MLB.  So let’s try something they might be able to get their heads around:  how we add an extra dimension to veterans mentoring rookies on EFL teams.

Madison Bumgarner took Joe Ross under his wing Sunday when they faced each other as opposing starting pitchers for the Wolverines. Ross struggled through 4 innings, surrendering 4 earned runs.  Meanwhile, Madison mowed down hitters left and right, striking out 14 on the way to a complete game shutout.  After Ross was pulled from the game in the 5th inning, Madison spent half of every inning giving quiet encouragement and counsel to the discouraged younger pitcher.  And he even put on a little batting clinic for Ross, going 2 for 3 with an RBI double off Ross.  Bumgarner’s other hit was a home run, which he thoughtfully postponed until Ross was no longer pitching.

Heartwarming, isn’t it, to see veterans helping rookies so generously?

 

Pittsburgh:  W, 4 – 3.  .220,  .304, .317;  16 ip, 2 er.     I’m thinking our EFL Pittsburgh team is the one that should be called the Pirates. Consider the fierce, anarchic spirit in their clubhouse.

Like the Wolverines, the Allegheny Pirates had two of their pitchers going against each other Sunday,  Rubby de la Rosa against Shelby Miller. But this was no friendly mentorship between a veteran and a rookie. Instead, it was every man for himself.    Through seven innings,  De la Rosa had allowed only one run.  Then fellow Allegheny Nick Ahmed betrayed him, booting the ball behind de la Rosa to allow a runner to score — the only run de la Rosa surrendered.

I suppose I should acknowledge that Ahmed is an even-handed backstabber, a man of punctilious principle compared to his piratical compatriots. Having plundered one of his teammates’ shutouts, he turned his attention to his other teammate, Miller, who hadn’t allowed any hits through seven innings. Ahmed led off the eighth inning against Miller.  On an 0 – 2 pitch, Ahmed flared a little pop-up just beyond second base for a single.  That not only cost Miller his no – hitter, but also his win, since Ahmed came around to score the tying run after Miller was pulled from the game.

So — will the Allegheny clubhouse be riven with resentment this morning? Or do Alleghenys respect each other for deeds of despicable derring-do, like Ahmed’s?

 

Cottage: W, 10 – 7.   .364, .382, .727;   12.7 ip, 7 er.   Yesterday I made a big honking deal about Jackie Bradley, Jr. going 5 for 6 with three doubles and two homers for the W’s.  Well, Sunday Gerardo Parra went 5 for 6, too, in the Orioles trouncing of the Athletics.  True, he only had one double and one homer. But, still.  Bradley’s day was touted as a landscape-changing seismic super-event. Couldn’t Parra’s be treated as at least a modest temblor?

I don’t know.  I’m kind of bored of 5 for 6 days.  Maybe if Parra would do something interesting…

 

Peshastin: “W”, 2 – 2.  .184, .231, .367;  7.7 ip, 1 er.   Remember in Back to the Future II when Marty McFly sees the news-hologram’s report on the outcome of the 2015 World Series?

McFly has trouble grasping what he’s seeing. A team in Miami?  The Cubs in the World Series?  Utterly strange and incomprehensible.  But, you know, truth turns out to be even stranger than fiction.  The Cubs brought a nine-game winning streak into Sunday’s game — just the kind of thing they need if they are going to make their way to the World Series this year.

But they were stopped cold in their tracks, by Chris Sale (7 ip, 0 er).  Of the American League White Sox. In August. Marty McFly would never believe that! So, how about this, Marty? The White Sox are just Sale’s side job.  His main commitment is the Pears. Out of Peshastin, Washington (population… unknown, and unknowable, because Peshastin is an unincorporated area without boundaries). In an fantasy league.

 

Flint Hill:  L,  4 – 9.  .194, .242, .452;  7 ip, 7 er.         According to Fangraphs, here is how Jean Segura and JJ Hardy have performed this year (with MLB ranks in parentheses out of 859 players ranked):

Player          Runs Above Average       Def Runs Above Ave      WAR

Segura:        -16.7  (852)                           3.3  (171)                     -0.1

Hardy:         -15.8  (851)                            13.1  (8 )                      0.9

Right after we traded, Jean Segura started carrying on like the Welington Castillo of shortstops. I was beginning to think this was an iron rule in our league pertaining to former Wolverines who underperformed while playing in Old Detroit. But lately Segura has unexpectedly returned to his Wolverine level of performance. I can’t explain why this would happen.

But no matter — JJ Hardy has stopped carrying on at the plate at all. So you still are coming out ahead unless this defense thing works out.

 

Canberra: “W”,  3 – 5. .217, .240, .391;  1 ip 0 er.   Here’s a season-long mystery: how are the Kangaroos leading the league in offense?  They’ve been doing this almost all season, at least since the Wolverines fell out of the lead in this category back in May.

But when you look at the Kangaroo lineup, it does not scream “league-leading offense.” Sure, they have Bryce Harper and his 1.100 season OPS, which Fangraphs says is worth  52.7 runs above the average MLB hitter.  But the #2 and #3 MLB hitters in this category (Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt) are also in the EFL, and only 6 and 7 runs behind Harper.

I did a little study of this, using Fangraphs data, and… I still don’t understand it. It must be magic.

I did discover, however, that the Dragons did a superb job of moving out low-producing hitters and bringing in high-producing ones. So the ‘Roos better be relying on voodoo to get the job done, because by any objective standard the Dragons should pass them in total offense pretty soon.

 

Kaline:  W, 3 – 3.  .250, .300,  .250, .300, .357;  14 ip, 8 er.         Now here’s something no one’s ever going to believe:  The Mariners won a game in Boston!  After they’d been beaten in the previous two games by a total score of 37 – 11.  After they had taken a 7-run lead in Sunday’s game, and Fernando Rodney had failed to cough all that lead back up in 1.7 innings of pitching. After Carson Smith did let the Red Sox get within one in the bottom of the ninth and THEN let them load the bases and THEN surrendered a single to left … but the winning run was thrown out at the plate!

All that is exciting but (especially in the case of Carson Smith, alas) kind of predictable. So here’s the mind-bender:  The M’s won!  In the 12th!  On a two-out single! By… no, you won’t believe it.

Ok, I’ll tell you: Mike Zunino.

On his second hit of the game.

And you know what else? The game ended with Jackie Bradley, Jr. grounding out softly to the pitcher. Doesn’t seem possible, does it?

 

Portland: L, 4 – 6.  .222, .239, .422;  11 ip, 7 er.       The Marlins had to play the Cardinals in St. Louis.  The Marlins had the third-worst record in baseball, a couple of games above the Rosebuds and a shade above the Phillies.  The Cardinals had the second-best record in baseball, just a bit behind the Dragons.  The Marlins were 0 – 5 against the Cardinals for the season.  If they lost Sunday they would have suffered a season sweep by St. Louis.

The Marlins lost Giancarlo Stanton (3.8 rWAR this season) to injury over a month ago.  They lost Dan Haren (2.1 rWAR) to a trade last month.  They lost Christian Yelich (2.1 rWAR) to injury last week.  Going into Sunday’s game, only one man stood between the Marlins and having Adeiny Hechavarria as their most valuable player (1.9 rWAR).

That player was Portland Rosebud Dee Gordon.  And he was enough to lead them to victory over the mighty Cardinals Monday, going 3 for 5 with a stolen base.

Maybe not incredible, but magical nonetheless, given the suffering so far this season in both Miami and Portland.