Back in September 2009, the Alleghenys CC Sabathia  broke Haviland Dragon’s Carlos Pena’s fingers with a fastball in the midst of a Dragons/Alleghenys pennant race.  The Allegheny’s won narrowly.

Last September Dragon Chris Coghlan took out Allegheny Jung-Ho Kang on a vicious slide at second, ending Kang’s season and very likely making the difference in the pennant race as Haviland won by only 0.9 games.

These are the brutal lengths some EFL teams are willing to go to beat their rivals.  Most of us have steered clear of such tactics, even with two iconic EFL teams demonstrating a pattern of violence toward rivals.  So far. But it appears the dam has broken.

My dearly-bought first round Rookie Draft pick Kyle Schwarber was injured last night when he collided in left center field with Dexter Fowler. He could not leave the field under his own power.  So which rival team decided to strike in April to eliminate the Wolverines and clear their own path to the EFL championship?

Dexter Fowler is a Kaline Drive.

The Drive?  The team run by the nicest person in the EFL, the gentle and wise Wizard of Whidbey?  Now even the Drive are resorting to violence to eliminate their rivals?  Why has it come to this?

It’s all the fault of those Dragons and Alleghenys.  Did they ever stop to think that other EFL teams look up to them as role models?  If they set the pattern of taking out one’s opponents to win the prize, didn’t they realize that impressionable fellow EFL owners would conclude that they, too, should encourage their players to put their competitors on the DL?

Now look what you’ve done!  The Wizard brought so low.  My poor baby Kyle writhing on the warning track, his season in jeopardy.  How do Dragons and Alleghenys sleep at night?

Perhaps it’s time to re-clarify the moral nature of these kinds of actions.

As you know, we rely on Baseball Prospectus for all our statistics. BP is the ultimate authority if any dispute arises about the nature of any player’s performance.  Let’s see what BP thinks of Fowler’s mayhem:

What You Need to Know

The One Unambiguous Evil In This World Is Kyle Schwarber Going Down In A Heap

by Nicolas Stellini

So what will be the effects on the Wolverines of this Unambiguous Evil?

“The best case scenario is that the sprain is all. The worst is that his knee is badly damaged. Either way, the stakes are higher for [the Wolverines] than for the Cubs, who are well prepared to fill the hole in left field.”

And now to see what Fowler’s devastation of their roster has done to the Wolverines’ place in the standings:

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Haviland Dragons	2	1	.792	—	16.9	8.7
Old Detroit Wolverines	2	1	.712	0.2	23.8	15.2
Portland Rosebuds	3	1	.650	0.3	22.9	16.8
Cottage Cheese	2	1	.543	0.7	15.1	13.8
Canberra Kangaroos	1	2	.474	1	14.6	15.4
Kaline Drive	1	2	.376	1.2	12.5	16.1
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	1	1	.298	1.3	6.0	9.2
Peshastin Pears	1	3	.324	1.6	18.0	26.0
Flint Hill Tornadoes	1	2	.275	1.6	13.9	22.5
D.C. Balk	1	2	.251	1.6	12.6	21.8

Haviland: DNP, 1 – 0.  (.500, .500, .500; 0 ip)  5 singles in 10 AB, with a walk thrown in to offset a sacrifice fly.  All three Dragon hitters reached base safely twice.  It was a light workout for the defending champions, now back in first place. It’s almost like the winter never happened. .

Old Detroit:  W, 13 – 5.  (.500, .650, 1.071; 0 ip) Wow!  Look at that. The W’s rallied around their fallen young hero and took their outrage out on opposing pitchers. It was only 20 plate appearances, but they went 7 for 14 with a triple, two homers, 5 walks and a HBP.   BP has already spoken (Unambiguous Evil!).  Apparently God has spoken, too: “It shall no longer avail you to commit mayhem on your opponents!”

Portland: “W”, 6 – 8.  (.235, .409, .353; 1 ip, 3 er.)  So now the Balk get to see two more distinctively EFL experiences: the phantom win, and the chulk.  In the EFL it is possible to get credit for a win while being outscored.  This is hard to explain, but basically it’s one of the glorious possibilities created by rounding errors.  And a chulk happens when one of your pitchers allows at least twice as many earned runs as innings pitched.  In this case, Adam Conley only lasted 1 inning but allowed 3 earned runs, for a nice, straightforward triple chulk.

Cottage:  W 1, L (-1), 1 – (-1).  (.394, .412, .636;  14.3 ip, 7 er.) That sparkling batting line involved 34 plate appearances, so it was enough to help the Cheese mimic the direct intervention of God on behalf of the Wolverines. That and the fact that today (as opposed to yesterday) I actually entered the Cheese’ pitching stats into the spreadsheet which I upload to the database.  I’m not SURE I omitted the Cheese pitchers yesterday, but it sure appeared this morning that I may have.  Another one of the glories of the EFL – the random element introduced by Commissioner errors.

Canberra: L, 5 – 8.  ( .238, .292, .571; 0 ip) As opposed to the Dragons and Wolverines, who have stored up ample pitching to avoid replacements for a game or two, the Kangaroos’ failure to provide a pitcher meant that they took on some replacement innings.  This undermined a reasonable effort from the Kangaroo offense, led by former Wolverine (and Cheese) Adeiny Hechavarria’s 2 for 4 with a double. The much maligned Hechavarria has a .364, .385, .636 batting line so far this season.  Second on the ‘Roos, right after Bryce Harper’s .300, .500, .900.

Kaline: DNP, 2 – 1.  (.333, .379, .519; 1 ip, 0 er).  A day off, so the solid hitting had a muted impact on the Drive’s record.  But even muted, it was enough to rocket Kaline up four places in the standings!  Does Fowler’s (2 for 4 with a triple and two walks) mayhem pay after all?  Where is the wrath of God to smite them?  Or at least him?  Is this more of that grace stuff Tom is always talking about?

Pittsburgh: DNP, (-1) – 4. (.143, .182, .143; 3.3 ip, 6 er).  Rubby de la Rosa didn’t quite achieve a chulk. Nevertheless, it was enough to send the Alleghenys tumbling down the standings.

Peshastin: L,  2 – 9 (.208, .208 .250; 5 ip, 5 er.)  Alex Wood had a bad day. So did most of the Pear hitters.  But Peshastin only slipped one spot in the standings.

Flint Hill: “W”, 5 – 6. (.273, .333, .636;  8 ip, 0 er).  So here we have a case of a showy stat line  — but modest results in the standings (actually, almost no change: same position, only 0.2 games further behind).  Why? Well all that offense was only over 12 plate appearances, so there was no volume.  And Mat Latos’ 6 scoreless innings were wasted since he’s allocated at 0% this month.  Ouch.

D.C.: W (-1), L (2); 3 – 16. (.214, .267, .286;  7 ip, 12 er.) Now that Balk management knows about chulks, maybe they’ll find a way to avoid 3 chulks in a single day:  Delgado (2 ip, 4 er); Yimi (0.7 ip, 2 er) and Liam (1 ip, 4 er). Wow — look at that neat arrangement: a chulk, a triple chulk, and a quadruple chulk all lined up neat as pins. Like a well-tended library.  And DC tucked on the shelf in proper Dewey catalog order (under “Expansion Teams”).