The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation of knowledge, and look what it got them.  Will things go as badly for us now that we have two days of box scores to consider before allocating our players?

Old Detroit:  W 1, L 1; 11 – 6. (.324, .370, .514; 31.7 ip, 20 er)    Coming into June the Wolverines had 4 starting pitchers set in my rotation, and 4 more guys to choose from for the fifth spot, all with ugly May ERA’s ranging up to 7.20-ish.  One of them would have to be the 5th starter and at least two more would have to do part-time duty as relievers.  So I arranged for all  4 of them to get starts on either June 1 or June 2.  Here’s how they did:

• John Lamb twirled 7 ip, 1 er at Colorado.   I have my fifth starter!
• Matt Moore sort of escaped from the Twins Thursday afternoon, 5 ip, 4 er.  Not very good, but I need a lefty reliever…

So I had one reliever spot left open on Thursday evening, with Wade Miley and Colin Rea facing off against each other in San Diego.  What could be more exciting than that?

The final game score: 16 – 13.  Of course, neither Miley nor Rea was responsible for ALL that carnage.  Rea’s 5.3 innings only accounted for 5 of the M’s earned runs.  But when Rea left the game, his team was ahead 12 – 4.  Wade Miley’s 4.7 innings produced 9 of those runs, all earned. So Miley will be going on sabbatical this month (making OD’s relevant pitching line 27 ip, 11 er, transforming that 5.68 ERA into 3.67), and the W’s will take their 6+ ERA bullpen, plus Will Harris, and go as far as this scary crew will take them.

One more note:  Manny Machado takes over the bulk of the duties as shortstop for Old Detroit, with Mark Reynolds moving to third and Sean Rodriguez platooning with Wong at second base.  Also, Dae-ho Lee will start every chance he gets at 1b, with Rizzo spending part of his time in the OH position.

Haviland:  L, 2 – 5. (.181 .241, .264; 29.7 ip. 16 er.) The Dragons als0 held a tryout for pitching spots, too, and got much better results. By much better I mean, four of the five starters turned in ERA’s in the 4.50 – 6.00 ERA range — so there were no Miley Meltdowns. The fifth starter was Buck Farmer, who only went two scoreless innings.  The picture looks  better if you consider FIP:  Carlos Carrasco’s 5.51 FIP neatly matched is 5.40 ERA, but every one else had very showy FIPs ranging from 3.78 all the way down to 0.11 (Buck Farmer, again).  Did Buck Farmer win a job with those scoreless innings? Sort of — he’s a reliever at 50%.  The top two rotations spots went to Archer and Carrasco (ERA’s: 6.00 and 5.40, respectively).

Canberra: W, 5 – 5. (.262, .372, .431;  10 ip 5 er). Canberra, like last month, has all its pitchers at 100% — even newcomers Biagini and Devenski.  The latter rewarded his manager’s confidence with 2 scoreless innings in relief of Rick Porcello (pronounced “Poorfellow”) who coughed up 5 runs in 6 ip. Whereas the Wolverines continue to try to manage hitter playing time with precision, getting the best bats in the lineup, the Kangaroos take the approach of abundance to avoid getting replacement hitters. Except for second base, every offensive position is covered at least 130%.

Portland: W 1, L 1; 8 – 10. (.237, .310, .440; 20 ip, 1 er) .  Mookie Betts’ drive to join the Boston Killer B’s continues, with a nice 3 for 7 with two homers and three walks giving him a healthy 1.886 OPS so far in June. Surely he’ll get lots of playing time.  I the meantime Adam Conley and Yordano Ventura dominated, each going 6 innings and Ventura allowing the only earned run — which earned Conley a spot in the bullpen and Ventura a spot in AAA.  Wow!  What does it take to impress that hard-nosed Rosebud owner?

Pittsburgh: L, 3 – 10.  (.234 , .296, .375; 11.7 ip, 15 er).      Aaron Blair had a two-hit shutout going into the 5th inning against the Giants Thursday afternoon, with 3 strikeouts and only 1 walk – pretty much matching Madison Bumgarner’s equally scoreless 3 hits 5 strikeouts and 1 walk.  Blair walked Gregor Blanco to start the inning, bringing up Bumgarner.  On the first pitch Bumgarner homered. Blair, a little rattled, walked Denard Span on a 3 – 2 pitch.  The pitching coach came out to encourage Blair.  On the next pitch Joe Panik homered. Blair got to 2 – 2 on Matt Duffy, then hit him.  On the next pitch Buster Posey homered. Alas for Blair, it’s Pittsburgh, not Pityburgh.   Blair’s been banished to the boonies.

Flint Hill: W 0, L 2; 7 – 13. (.269, .328, .385;  10.7 ip, 5 er ).   Robbie Ray is the Tornado’s # 1 starter!  I didn’t know that, figuring it would go to Samardzija or Iwakuma.  The Top Tornado saw something he liked in Ray’s 5 ip, 3 er outing against the Astros Wednesday. New Tornado Brad Hand debuted in Flint Hill with 1 shutout inning versus the Mariners Wednesday.  The next day he added 0.7 ip 1 er encore Thursday, highlighted by Dae-Ho Lee’s pinch hit, three-run homer!  I love Brad Hand!

Peshastin: W 2, L 0; 14 – 10. (.298, .364, .544; 8 ip, 2 er).  Scherzer did his thing again, justifying his big salary.  A bunch of good hitting performances — not much there that seems like it would affect allocations.  The Pears use a complex system for OF allocations. Most teams either split their allocations 33/33/34, or allocate individuals 100% to one particular slot.  The Pears put their main guys 70% in one spot and 30% in another, but this leaves LF with a total allocation of 120% while CF has 225% and RF has 195%.  I wonder what dark art is behind this practice. Perhaps the Pear Master is hiding poor hitting in  CF? Or just counting on Kiermaier to be out most of the month.

Cottage: W 2, L 0; 12 – 4. (.275, .329, .507;  13.7 ip, 1 er).  The Cheese lost Todd Frazier’s homer, but gained Wil Myers’ homer — plus 2 doubles and 2 singles, showing he deserves his role as the Cheese’ starting firstbaseman.  So they are winning that trade so far, even though the other half of the deal (Cesar Vargas) is slated to start his Cheese career with the Corvallis Curds.  New Cheese hurler Michael Fulmer paid a 7.7 shutout inning dividend, so that turned out wel, too, earning him the #4 slot in the Cheese rotation.

Kaline: L, 4 – 6. (.242, .296, .424;  25.7 ip, 17 er).  Newly-acquired starter Chase Anderson had a nice Drive debut, spinning 5.7 ip with only 1 er, winning Anderson the #3 spot in the Drive rotation.  Joe Kelly also came over in the trade from Portland, but he didn’t fare as well (2.3 ip, 7 er, a Triple Chulk).  This earned him a demotion to Pawtucket from the Red Sox. The Drive are more forgiving, slotting Kelly into the #5 spot in the rotation. Fortunately, Kelly shares that role with Clay Buccholz, so the Drive may escape the worst effects of having a starter in the minor leagues  — although it would help if Buchholz had done a little better than 3.3 ip, 3 er in his latest appearance.

D.C.: L, 2 – 8. (.254, .320, .313;  9.3 ip, 7 er.)  New Balk Pat Dean didn’t do all that well in his D.C. Debut — 5 ip, 4 er.  But the Balk still gave him the #4 slot in their June rotation. New outfielder Hyun-Soo Kim had a nice start in his Balky career, going 4 for 10 with a double ad a walk, earning him a full-time starting position in the OF — and honor he shares with 6 others!