I’ve had a busy day: spent the first half at my mom’s old house, helped her choose contractors for $30,000 worth of work on the house she’s selling, ordered a dumpster for delivery there tomorrow, helped hand out awards to Newberg School District employees at their annual Crystal Apple event, etc. So I didn’t get the standings updated from Tuesday evening’s games until about an hour ago.
Kind of pointless, maybe, to write this morning’s comments this evening. But then…
Those of you who know your Douglas Adams ouevre will be able to recite by heart the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s entire entry for the planet Earth (original version). Go ahead, say it before I give it away to the others. I’ll give you plenty of ti–yes, that’s right, it’s “Mostly harmless.”
A Hitchhker’e Guide to Fantasy Baseball’s entry for the EFL would probably be “Mostly pointless.” Some readers will emphasize the “pointless” section of the entry. Those readers will gripe about this post as out of date, no longer relevant, boring … (notice how this list subtly reminds some of you about Father’s Day, which is THIS SUNDAY. Ahem.)
But other more discerning readers will notice that the EFL is only mostly pointless. There’s a big difference between mostly pointless and all pointless. Mostly pointless is slightly pointy. So the only thing to do is go through all these updates and look for loose points.
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| EFL 6/13/17 | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Haviland Dragons | 45 | 21 | .685 | — | 423.1 | 282.9 |
| Cottage Cheese | 43 | 23 | .658 | 1.8 | 357.8 | 253.8 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 40 | 22 | .640 | 3.6 | 298.1 | 222.8 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 39 | 22 | .634 | 4.1 | 336.9 | 252.4 |
| Kaline Drive | 39 | 27 | .594 | 6 | 341.0 | 282.4 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 38 | 27 | .588 | 6.5 | 364.5 | 295.5 |
| Peshastin Pears | 37 | 28 | .565 | 8 | 315.4 | 282.1 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 31 | 33 | .483 | 13.3 | 296.8 | 306.7 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 26 | 36 | .422 | 17.1 | 251.7 | 296.2 |
| D.C. Balk | 25 | 39 | .397 | 18.9 | 315.5 | 391.4 |
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Haviland: W, 9 – 3. (.324, .422, .649 — Happy Edgar Martinez Day! — 7 ip, 3 er.) Anthony Rizzo is HOT: .500, .600, 1.500 Tuesday from 2 for 4 with a double, a homer and a walk. His June OPS of 1.231 leads the Dragons…barely, just above Neil Walker’s 1.227.
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Cottage: W 1, L 1; 17 – 11. (.404, .483, .596; 0 ip, 0 er). If you’ve been paying attention to Le Fromage, the Cheese’s own blog, you have read how your Commissioner has not always been scrupulously fair in recognizing every team’s accomplishments. And I admit we are distractible here in the Commissioner’s Office. Like right at this very moment, 7:30 in the evening, I am sitting on my back deck, the sun just slipping behind Dundee Hill to my left, the sky blue with fluffy clouds, the light beginning to get that golden cast it often does on early summer evenings. The air is cool, but I don’t quite need that fleece yet. There are doves cooing, and other birds chirping and cawing, although the owls aren’t audible as of yet. The roses are in bloom, the mosquitos are still scarce… life is very pleasant here.
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Flint Hill: W 2, L (-1); 17 – 5. (.393, .471, 893 — another Happy Edgar Martinez Day! 3.0 ip, 0 er.) What a booming day for the Tornadoes! Bogaerts, Broxton and Murphy all collected three hits, including 2 for extra bases.
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Pittsburgh: W 2, L (-1); 12 – (-2). (.373, .429, .686 — Happy EMD!; 17.3 ip, 9 er). The key to this double win day was excellent allocation. EWIE Brandon Drury went 4 for 5 with two doubles and a homer. He’s allocated 100%. Marco Estrada surrendered 6 er in 3.3 innings — but that near-chulk hurt not at all since Estrada is allocated at 0%! The rest of the pitching (14 ip, 3 er) was outstanding.
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Kaline: L, 9 – 10. (.322, .412, .475; 0.3 ip, 3 er). Alas — just short of an EMD. Rzepczynki blew up a little with that nonuple chulk. I am watching the M’s – Twins game right now (it got chilly outside), and just saw Rzepczymski walk a guy on four pitches. Think how nervous those two teams must be! The M’s won 14-3 on Monday and took a nice lead on Tuesday… but lost 20 – 7!. Now they’re ahead 6-4, going into the ninth… but is any lead safe with these two teams? (Oh, and don’t worry, Tom, I think Ben Gamel is going to survive his amazing crashing-int0-the-wall catch.)
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Portland: (-1) W, 0 L; 0 – (-3). (.333, .400, .750 — Happy EMD!; 6.3 ip, 4 er). Things are weird when you get a game taken away from you. Here an EMD results in 0 runs! But that’s actually a good outcome when you have one fewer game to multiply your Runs Created per Game by.
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Peshastin: W 0, L (-1), (-6) – (-8). (.188, .294 .354; 0 ip, 0 er). A bad day at the plate and on the mound… skewed by a subtracted game. Chris Seager just muffed a grounder to put the tieing run on first with one out in the bottom of the ninth. See what I mean about nervous?
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Canberra: L, 5 – 7. (.374, .400, .375; 0 pitching). The Kangaroos continued their slide, getting 2/3 of an EMD but no pitching. With only 25 plate appearances, even the 2/3 of an EMD didn’t have much of an impact.
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Old Detroit: W, 5 – 1. (.302, .339, .340; 8.7 ip, 2 er). No EM Day in Old Detroit Tuesday, but a win nonetheless. Clayton “Mirage” Richard pitched a real great game,just when we needed one. The W offense is still not the juggernaut it was supposed to be, but at least it’s racking up 56 plate appearances a day which is a lot better than the sub-subsistence diet of playing time we had last month.So now that it’s plentiful enough all it has to do is get good.
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DC: “L”, 9 – 8. (.289, .373, .467; 8 ip, 5 er). Not far from an EMD for even the Balk! The bottom of the league is quietly getting its act together. We may just decide to move up in the standings… And Edwin Diaz nailed down the save after all.
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Combined MLB + EFL Standings after 6/13/2017
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 40 | 22 | .640 | — |
| New York Yankees | 38 | 24 | .613 | 1.7 |
| Boston Red Sox | 36 | 28 | .563 | 4.7 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 35 | 32 | .522 | 7.2 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 31 | 32 | .492 | 9.2 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 31 | 33 | .484 | 9.7 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 26 | 36 | .422 | 13.5 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Washington Nationals | 39 | 25 | .609 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 31 | 33 | .483 | 8.1 |
| New York Mets | 29 | 34 | .460 | 9.5 |
| Miami Marlins | 29 | 35 | .453 | 10 |
| Atlanta Braves | 29 | 35 | .453 | 10 |
| D.C. Balk | 25 | 39 | .397 | 13.6 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 21 | 42 | .333 | 17.5 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 39 | 22 | .634 | — |
| Minnesota Twins | 33 | 28 | .541 | 5.7 |
| Cleveland Indians | 31 | 30 | .508 | 7.7 |
| Detroit Tigers | 30 | 33 | .476 | 9.7 |
| Kansas City Royals | 30 | 34 | .469 | 10.2 |
| Chicago White Sox | 28 | 35 | .444 | 11.7 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Cottage Cheese | 43 | 23 | .658 | — |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 34 | 32 | .515 | 9.5 |
| Chicago Cubs | 32 | 32 | .500 | 10.5 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 30 | 32 | .484 | 11.5 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 30 | 35 | .462 | 13 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 29 | 36 | .446 | 14 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Haviland Dragons | 45 | 21 | .685 | — |
| Houston Astros | 44 | 22 | .667 | 1.2 |
| Kaline Drive | 39 | 27 | .594 | 6 |
| Texas Rangers | 32 | 32 | .500 | 12.2 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 34 | 34 | .500 | 12.2 |
| Seattle Mariners | 32 | 34 | .485 | 13.2 |
| Oakland A’s | 27 | 38 | .415 | 17.7 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 40 | 25 | .615 | — |
| Colorado Rockies | 41 | 26 | .612 | — |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 40 | 26 | .606 | 0.5 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 38 | 27 | .588 | 1.8 |
| Peshastin Pears | 37 | 28 | .565 | 3.3 |
| San Francisco Giants | 27 | 40 | .403 | 14 |
| San Diego Padres | 26 | 41 | .388 | 15 |