In which I prove thrill-seeking is not a successful life strategy

EFL Standings for 2017

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Cottage: L, 2 – 4.  (.195, .227, .439;  13.7 ip , 5 er). Huh — a little middle infielder hitting multiple home runs doesn’t happen that often. But that’s exactly what Jonathan Schoop did: hit not one but two homers. And the last one tied the game in the bottom of the ninth so his Orioles could win in the 10th.  So is this “eye-catching”? Sort of. A pennant race shock? Well, it didn’t help the Cheese hold off the Dragons, so not really a shock.  Do I find it fascinating? Meh.  I’m done with it.

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Haviland: “L”, 11 – 6. (,306, .419, .639;  17.3 ip, 12 er).  Gary Sanchez went 0 for 5.  Maybe rival EFL owners will be happy to know this little fact.  But Manny Machado did the same thing, and I found it totally banal, so, no, 0 for 5 is not worth spending one’s time on.  How about the Dragons moving into a tie with the Cheese?  I suppose that could be interesting, except I’ve been expecting this for a couple of weeks now.

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Flint Hill: W, 8 – 2.  (.303, .351, .758; 9.7 IP, 2 er).     Newly acquired Mark Reynolds hit two homers in a game last night…but we already talked about this. Two homers in a game is nice for the hitter, but not earthshaking. Passing the Alleghenys ought to be interesting, but these teams have been dancing in the standings for a while.  Dancing as a spectator activity gets pretty boring pretty quickly, in my humble opinion.

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Pittsburgh: W (-1); (-15) – (-7).  (.256, .306, .326;  7.7 ip, 4 er). Here’s something you don’t see very often: a team losing a win, it’s total games played shrinking by one.  It happens in the EFL sometimes when an MLB team with fewer games passes one with more games atop a division’s standings.  That’s not what happened here.  Yesterday I made an error in the American League Central standings, assigning two extra games to the Twins. Today I fixed that, resulting in the Allegheny’s lost win.  Then again, this is only a clerical error. Clerical errors tend not to be all that compelling .

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Kaline: “L”, 11 – 7. (.333, .396, .500; 16.7 ip, 10 er)  Dinelson Lamet, just acquired, made his first appearance knowing he was a Drive.  It didn’t go too well: 3 ip, 9 runs,  7 earned, striking out 3 but walking 5.  It’s sad, this chulk.  It’s troubling to Drive fans, but fascinating? To his credit, everything Dinelson Lamet does is already a little bit interesting because his name is Dinelson Lamet.

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Portland: W, 4 – 3. (.200, .333, .250; 8.7 ip, 4 er).  Four runs is a lot to get out of that batting line.  I suppose mysteries like that could be intriguing, if they didn’t happen so often in the EFL.  In this case, I have a theory:  yesterday I inadvertently uploaded 2016 June stats into the database. I noticed the mistake immediately and loaded the 2017 stats. However, what I didn’t know is this: any players who were active in 2016 but not 2017 would not be over-written by the database.  So Mike Trout’s 2016 June stats were credited to the Cheese, for example, as were Jurickson Profar’s to the Wolverines.  Trout’s stats didn’t affect yesterday’s standings, because the Cheese benched him to punish him for stupidly injuring himself on a head-first slide. Profar’s might have affected the W’s a little, since we have him active 33% at 1b for some reason even though this year he has buried himself in the minor leagues befitting his performance.  So maybe the Rosebuds had a guy active this month who hadn’t actually played yet, and was active for them last year.

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Never mind… Commissioner errors are about as exciting as mosquito bites.  They come with the territory. Dave cleaned up after me and we should be good.

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Peshastin W 2, L (-1); 8 – (-1). (.289 .327, .667; 7 ip, 0 er).:  Kiermaier went 3 for 5. But they were all singles, and I just talked about his offense yesterday. Boring. Hunter Renfroe hit two hom… STOP!  How can you possibly think something that happened three times just for EFL hitters is going to count as compelling? An no, I am only mildly interested in Scherzer’s 7 shutout innings, because he does that stuff all the time.  Give me something new, UNexpected, jaw-dropping.

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Canberra: “L”, 4 – 2.  (.243, .317, .351;  9.0 ip, 3 er).  Koda Glover didn’t chulk. Dan Altavilla gave up 4 hits but no earned runs in two innings of relief. Chris Davis hit a homer… all very nice, and I’m sure you’re proud and pleased, but we’re looking for more than domestic happiness today.

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Old Detroit:  L, (-7 ) – 9.  (.103, .212, .103;  6.3 ip, 4 er).  So it looks like the W’s were inflated yesterday with spurious 2016 stats.  Serves ’em right to have to take a giant loss today.  Justice being served is pretty interesting, I guess, in a grim sort of way. But it’s not what we’re looking for today.

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How about this? Jose Iglesias, the W’s leading hitter in June, singled with two out in the bottom of the ninth. It was the Tigers’ 10th hit, and with it every one of the 9 Tiger hitters had at least one hit.  Do you see the implications? 10 hits, 9 people with at least one.  How improbable is that? And to finish the feat with 2 outs in the last inning?  No? Does it help that the guy batting in front of Iglesias also came to the plate with 2 outs and got his first hit (and the Tigers’ ninth) of the game?  Still no?  Ok, sorry to bother you…

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DC: W, 14 – 7.  (.400, .463, 1.029;  11 ip, 4 er).  All right, I give up.  We’ve gone through 9 teams, and all that’s left is the Balk. The Balk. Balks are not interesting. From the fan’s point of view it’s an ump waving his arms and guys walking from base to base  at rare (once every 250 innings or so) and random times for no discernible reason.  It might be mystifying, but no one ever really tries to understand balks because they are not interesting enough to be worth the effort.

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And these Balks are in last place. Has anything interesting ever come out of DC? I mean, in a good way?

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And you are all so demanding. It would take something unheard of — some record tied or broken by the kind of person who could never tie or break it.  Maybe a little middle infielder hitting homers? Not two — been there, done that three times just this morning. Three, maybe? Nah, you’d probably insist on at least an all-time record-tying 4 homers in a single game. Probably you’d demand that at least one of them be a grand slam. Probably you’d insist that there be double-digit RBI’s.  You’d want it to be done by a player who hadn’t hit 40 homers in his life, so his homers in one game represent more than a 10% increase in his lifetime totals after, say, over 500 career games. Let’s say he’d be the 17th person in history to hit 4 homers in one game: you’d probably insist he’d be the one with by far the fewest career homers. Probably you’d insist the player have a nickname that described him as small and quick, more of a gnat than a gorilla.

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Would all that interest you?

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It would? I’m skeptical. Prove it. Look it up yourself and see if it happened.  Or maybe get Rob to tell you about it.  He might be willing.

 

 

 

Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2017