Altitude Adjustments

Just try to put yourself in the Kangaroos’ hopping boots for a minute. Your batters batter their opponents to a tune of .286, .419, .457  — which ought to be championship-level performance.  But you look at that and know it might not be enough. Rhys Hoskins’ 3 walks in 0 AB — even alchemy like that cannot help you.  Jose Abreu’s homer and 2 walks in 3 AB won’t add enough, either. Some of your other players must have gone 0 for 4!  Jorge Soler, for instance, whose runs per game plummet utterly from 82 (thanks, Ryan) to a mere 18.15!  That’s a 64-run per game collapse in a single day — nearly 80%!!  No one faces such terrors whose winning percentage is only, say, .696. Or even lower, if such things exist (which they sometimes do in your nightmares when you live at over .800 altitudes).

Old Detroit: W, 9 – 6. (43 PA, .256, .353, .512; 9 ip, 5 er, 5.00 ERA).  See what I mean?  When you start your day at only a .711 winning percentage, your winning percentage can go DOWN and you can still get a win.  The Wolverines have it so easy.  Sure, Trea Turner blasted two homers, including a game winner, justifying his curious transition this spring to OH for the W’s. Nick Ahmed’s playing short this year; he only went 2 for 4 with a double, but it’s sort of enough for a 9.6 shortstop).  But nothing else all that outstanding happened in Old Detroit yesterday,  the W’s were just sort of lazing around. Yet they get an under-deserved win. It’s just not FAIR!

Cottage: W 2, L 1; 17 – 12. (31, .258, .324, .323; 14 ip, 3 er, 1.93 ERA).  The Cheese lazed around even more than the W’s on offense, but the Cottage pitchers turned in a great performance. Tyler Skaggs got his rickety body through 4.7 innings with only 2 earned runs, and Yonny Chirinos led the rest of the staff through a complete game’s worth of innings with only 1 earned run on a solo homer.  And with that, the Cheese are treating the Kangaroos like the league is a fondue.

Pittsburgh: “W”, 3 – 4. (.172, .314, .310; 16 ip, 7 er, 3.94 ERA).   JD Martinez terrorized the Mariners with his homer and single in just 3 trips to the plate, but otherwise the Alleghenys were more meek than offensive. Sonny Gray (2.7 ip, 2 er) and Luke Weaver (4.3 ip,  4 er) got things off to a rough start, but Frankie Montas led the rest of the staff through a complete game’s worth of innings with only 1 earned run on a solo homer. This leaves the A’s teetering on the knife blade of .500, where any little thing slipping can send them tumbling underwater.

Bellingham: W, 8 – 4. (24 PA, .333, .467, .792;  7 ip, 3 er. 3.86 ERA).  Woah!! What’s this?  The brand-new expansion Cascades are suddenly in 5th place, just 0.2 games behind the EFL’s historically dominant team!  How is this possible?  Well, Bryce Harper homered and doubled: that’s part of it.  But the big blow was Rowdy Tellez’ three-run pinch-hit home run — leaving him with a daily OPS of 5.000, worth over 1,000,000 runs per game!  (See below.)  You know, Andre, expansion teams are not supposed to hanging around the pennant race. We had trouble with the Outs last year, and look where they are now.  We like DC so much better. They’ve been tiptoeing up the standings for years…

Portland: “W”, 5 – 6. (43 PA, .279, .347, .465; 5 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). … On the other hand, Andre, if you can stay ahead of the Rosebuds, block them out, keep them stuck in the middle of the standings, I think everyone would appreciate that.  Trent Thornton is not supposed to be their ace or anything, but those 5 shutout innings  (with 8 strikeouts) are looking kind of ominous. And supposed EWIE Jeimer Candelario, who hadn’t done anything (literally) so far this season, went 5 for 6 with a double.  We can’t have any more of that.  So keep an eye on them, will you please, Andre?

Peshastin: L, 4 – 8. (47 PA, .298, .327, .426; 1.3 ip, 1 er). Paltry pitching in Peshastin. Too bad, because 6 consecutive Pears OPSed 1.000 or better (Eaton, Gallo, Haniger, Maldonado, Robles, Semien). Eaton hit three singles, but the rest of those hit doubles. Robles hit two doubles to lead the team with a 1.500 OPS for the day. Everyone else went 2 for 21, but it still should have been enough for a win.

Kaline: W, (-1) – (-8); (45 PA, .156, .174, .178; 16 ip, 1 er, 0.560).  Two starters (Arrieta, T. Williams) each went 6 innings, and four relievers covered the rest.  Arrieta surrendered the only earned run, even though the staff allowed 10 hits and 9 walks. Only AJ Pollock managed to OPS 1.000 — the next highest was Kris Bryan at .667.  But, see, this is another advantage you have this low in the standings:  a little boost from the pitching staff can snd you soaring.

DC: “W”, 6 – 12. (42 PA, .333, .370, .643;  10.3 ip, 11 er, 9.58 ERA) The Balk got a win despite dismal pitching from Dylan Bundy, Carlos Carrasco and Tim Mayza, who combined for 8.3 innings and 11 earned runs.  Joe Musgrove undid some of the damage, but he only had 2 innings to work with. Omar Narvaez’ 3 run homer was the big blow for the Balk.  Or maybe Willians Astudillo did:  2 for 2 with 2 doubles. Willians is bigger than Omar, so…

Brookland: W 0, L 3; 7 – 14 (37 PA, .216 .237, .324; 6.3 ip, 4 er, 5.68 ERA). When the league saddles you with three games in one day (because two MLB teams traded places atop your division), it is hard to cover all that playing time (IP and PA), especially early in the month.  You can generally undo most of the damage during the rest of the month by catching up on games played, or at least not falling further behind.  Cody Bellinger did his best to help: 3 for 4 with a homer.  Adam Jones is having a great start — a 1.105 OPS so far over 19 plate appearances.  It sure would be fun to see Jones rebound for the Outs.

Haviland: W, 4.8 – 4.6. (36 PA, .278, .316, .389; 2 ip, 1 er).  The Dragons finally got a win on the board — and it was a real, honest win (by 0.2 runs)!  As mentioned on email, Carlos Santana led th way with 4 hits in 4 PA, including a double.  Kolten Wong went 2 for 4.  Those two ex-Wolverines are leading the team so far: Santana’s season OPS is 1.145, Wong’s is 1.671.  The Dragons have 24.7 innings of pitching  this season —  not enough to cover 5 games. There will be at least 10.3 ip by replacements lugging around 7.50 ERAs.  They also have 132 PA — again, not enough for 5 games, at least 7.5 short, being filled by batters who create 2.69 runs per game and play crummy defense.

Still: they have a win!  There will be dancing in the street in Haviland tonight — or at least, later this afternoon.  See how easy it is to find happiness in Haviland?  One nice win is all you need. No one is breathing down your neck, poised to take your dreams away. Nothing like the angst plaguing those poor Kangaroo fans.