Today’s update about Saturday’s baseball games was delayed by the second annual Newberg High School Booster Club golf tournament. I was part of the school board foursome in the best-ball contest. Of our 63 strokes, I think my team used about 7. At least one of those was charitable, just so they could count one of my wild drives as their best ball.
Today’s update was also delayed by the nap that felled me when I got home. And by my enjoying some exciting news from today’s actions about Rafael Devers (again), Luis Urias (for the first time) and even Austin Hedges (4 for 4 with a homer!). The update is being further delayed while I listen to my sole starting pitcher today, hot Pirates prospect Mitch Keller, being lit up by the Cubs, who have scored 4 in 3 1/3 innings, including even a single from Kyle Schwarber. Believe me, if you can’t get Kyle Schwarber out, you are not a major league pitcher no matter how intense my hopes for you are.
But why do I trouble myself about the present? I need to let today’s troubles take care of themselves. Right now my job is to dwell in the past.
EFL Standings for 2019 through SATURDAY, AUG 17, 2019
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Portland Rosebuds | 82 | 43 | .653 | — | 777.2 | 565.0 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 77 | 48 | .613 | 5 | 776.4 | 613.8 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 74 | 51 | .588 | 8.1 | 743.8 | 612.7 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 68 | 55 | .552 | 12.8 | 639.5 | 568.8 |
| Haviland Dragons | 66 | 58 | .529 | 15.5 | 707.5 | 656.0 |
| Peshastin Pears | 65 | 60 | .522 | 16.3 | 652.9 | 624.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 62 | 62 | .501 | 19 | 593.0 | 594.0 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 61 | 64 | .485 | 21 | 680.8 | 705.7 |
| Cottage Cheese | 55 | 66 | .455 | 24.6 | 686.4 | 735.0 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 55 | 68 | .450 | 25.2 | 593.0 | 658.1 |
| Brookland Outs | 51 | 70 | .425 | 28.2 | 602.6 | 701.8 |
| D.C. Balk | 50 | 75 | .397 | 32 | 574.1 | 708.3 |
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Portland: W, 7 – 5. (63 PA, .310, .333, .621; 16.3 ip, 9 er, 4.96 ERA)
The sharpest-eyed among you might note that the Rosebuds’ runs allowed appears here to be about run LESS than the standings reported this morning. Yesterday Jamie had that figure at 559.6, but when I re-ran the standings last night using my data, the ‘Buds came in at 567 runs allowed.
Why did I re-run the standings? I have worried all month that Jamie’s BP data might look different than my BP data. So I re-ran the stats the same day as Jamie had done them, to see if the standings would come out the same. They did, for 23/24ths of the data. Every team was identical in our two updates, except the Rosebuds. Portland was also identical in terms of runs scored, but I had them allowing 7.1 runs more than Jamie did. Which meant that every team in the league was about 0.4 or 0.5 games closer to first in my standings.
But today my data seems to be aligning itself with Jamie’s. 16.3 ip of 4.96 ERS would not reduce a team’s runs allowed from 567 to 565. But it might increase runs allowed from 559.6 to 565. So…
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Flint Hill: L, 0 – 12. (57 PA, .235, .316, .294; 12.3 ip, 13 er, 9.49 ERA)
… Sorry, Tornados, you really have fallen 5 games back of your fraternal rivals. Keston Hiura (3 for 7 with tw0 doubles, 1.143 OPS) might be the bomb, but 8 of your hitters bombed. (I operationalized “to bomb” as “to OPS .500 or lower.”)
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Old Detritus: “W”, 4 – 7. (51 PA, .213, .275, .553; 5.7 ip, 4 er, 6.35 ERA).
Mitch Keller makes the second floundering Wolverine phenom in two days. Saturday it was Zach Plesac coughing up four earned runs in 4.7 innings. That more than undid the 5 Wolverine homers (scoring 4 runs!), bouncing Old Detroit back out beyond the 8-game-behind mark. More of the same tomorrow? Or will the Wolverines pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and return to the task of pushing the boulder back up the ever-growing hill?
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Pittsburgh: W, 9 – 7. (48 PA, .378, .396, .689; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA)
Of the five Alleghenys who OPSed over 1.000 Saturday, the lowest was newly acquired third baseman Mike Moustakas (3 for 7 with a homer, for a 1.286 OPS). Even so, the A’s didn’t quite keep pace with the Rosebuds.
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Haviland: “W”, 6 – 6. (34 PA, .313, .421, .438; 1.3 ip, 0 er, 0 era).
Jake Lamb batted .333 Saturday, which even in today’s grotesquely inflated offensive environment, is still a nice-looking number.
Lamb also had an OBP of .333, which, again, even today is an average MLB OBP.
Lamb also slugged .333. Is he even a major league hitter, in today’s world?
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Peshastin: L, 4 – 8. (52 PA, .265, .288, .490; 8.7 ip, 7 er, 7.27 ERA)
Adam Eaton had a big day: 4 for 8 with two doubles and a homer. After that the offensive performance tails off. The pitching would have been great had Freddy Peralta restrained himself from handing out runs like party favors (4 of them in o innings, for a nice fat infinite chulk).
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Kaline: L, 6 – 6. (52 PA, .277, .346, .553; 6 ip, 3 er, 4.50 ERA)
Wilmer Flores led the offense with a 4 for 5 day, including a double. This should have been a win, and would have been had there been a couple of innings of real relief pitching, rather than two more innings of replacement relief pitching.
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Canberra: W, 6 – 6. (42 PA, .257, .381, .371; 7 ip, 4 er, 5.14 ERA)
The ‘Roos didn’t quite have the offense the Drive had. The pitching was just a scoosh less satisfactory, even in today’s torrid offensive climate. But the ‘Roos don’t have any replacement relief innings, so the 3 scoreless innings by Kangaroo relievers were improving the team ERA. But Jose Suarez 4 ip, 4 er as a starter actually added an inning of starting replacement pitching ( a better inning than Suarez’ 9.00 ERA on the day). The advantage of adding scoreless innings to the relief total, plus adding only one inning of replacement pitching, gave the ‘Roos just enough to earn a win instead of Kaline’s narrow loss.
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Cottage: L, 3 – 6. (36 PA, .265, .306, .441; 0 pitching)
Jorge Polanco was the bright spot for the Cheese, going 3 for 5 with a double and a walk. Eric Thames homered, but it was his only hit in 6 AB. Even with a walk, his line starts badly (.167, .286) before finishing with a flourish (.667). That .286 undermines the .667 pretty significantly.
Bellingham: L, 5 – 7. (35 PA, .258, .343, .258; 0.7 ip, 0 er , 0 era).
0.7 is not a lot of innings — not enough to stave off suffocation by replacement pitching. I complained about the Cheese’s lack of OBP. But the Cascades’ 0.000 ISO doesn’t help any, either.
Brookland: L, 6 – 8. (.318, .400, .500 — Happy Edgar Martinez Day!; 5 ip, 5 er , 9 era)
Didn’t Jordan Lyles nearly throw a no-hitter or something earlier this year? He’s been kind of a mess on the mound since then: 5 ip, 4 er Saturday. Even the barest of Edgar Martinez Days used to be a pretty good indicator of a win. But not any more! Not with the post-near-no-no Jordan Lyles or any other average MLB hurler. The Outs are now 0.9 games ahead of the sad Pittsburgh Pirates — about whom I intend to write a lot more tomorrow.
DC: W, 11 – 9. (39 PA, .294, .385, .618; 2.3 ip, 3 er , 11.57 ERA)
“OK,” said the Outs. “If you’re going to abuse our pitchers, pummeling them into dust, we’ll just have to abuse yours more.” And they did. Ryan McMahon — whose name hasn’t appeared in these pages much — blasted two homers, and Brock Holt (likewise underappreciated) added another as a pinch hitter. The Outs thereby extended their lead over the hapless cellar-dwelling Marlins to 2.9 games
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Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2014
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| New York Yankees | 83 | 42 | .664 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 77 | 48 | .613 | 6.4 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 74 | 51 | .588 | 9.4 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 72 | 52 | .581 | 10.5 |
| Boston Red Sox | 66 | 59 | .528 | 17 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 52 | 74 | .413 | 31.5 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 39 | 84 | .317 | 43 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Atlanta Braves | 73 | 52 | .584 | — |
| Washington Nationals | 66 | 56 | .541 | 5.5 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 64 | 59 | .520 | 8 |
| New York Mets | 63 | 60 | .512 | 9 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 61 | 64 | .485 | 12.4 |
| D.C. Balk | 50 | 75 | .397 | 23.4 |
| Miami Marlins | 45 | 77 | .369 | 26.5 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Minnesota Twins | 75 | 48 | .610 | — |
| Cleveland Indians | 73 | 51 | .589 | 2.5 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 68 | 55 | .552 | 7.2 |
| Chicago White Sox | 55 | 67 | .451 | 19.5 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 55 | 68 | .450 | 19.6 |
| Kansas City Royals | 44 | 79 | .358 | 31 |
| Detroit Tigers | 37 | 83 | .308 | 36.5 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 64 | 57 | .529 | — |
| Chicago Cubs | 65 | 58 | .528 | — |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 64 | 59 | .520 | 1 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 58 | 64 | .475 | 6.5 |
| Cottage Cheese | 55 | 66 | .455 | 9 |
| Brookland Outs | 51 | 70 | .425 | 12.6 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 51 | 71 | .418 | 13.5 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Houston Astros | 78 | 46 | .629 | — |
| Oakland A’s | 71 | 52 | .577 | 6.5 |
| Haviland Dragons | 66 | 58 | .529 | 12.4 |
| Kaline Drive | 62 | 62 | .501 | 15.9 |
| Texas Rangers | 60 | 63 | .488 | 17.5 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 61 | 64 | .488 | 17.5 |
| Seattle Mariners | 51 | 73 | .411 | 27 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 82 | 43 | .656 | — |
| Portland Rosebuds | 82 | 43 | .653 | 0.4 |
| Peshastin Pears | 65 | 60 | .522 | 16.7 |
| San Francisco Giants | 63 | 61 | .508 | 18.5 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 61 | 63 | .492 | 20.5 |
| San Diego Padres | 57 | 65 | .467 | 23.5 |
| Colorado Rockies | 56 | 67 | .455 | 25 |