League Updates Uncategorized

The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away

… blessed be the name of the Lord.  Job 1:21.

EFL
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB RS RA
Old Detroit Wolverines 15 4 .777 115.4 61.9
Flint Hill Tornadoes 13 6 .710 1.3 82.0 52.4
Haviland Dragons 13 6 .663 2.2 77.7 55.4
D.C. Balk 9 4 .687 2.8 64.8 43.7
Peshastin Pears 11 7 .610 3.3 74.5 59.6
Bellingham Cascades 10 7 .601 3.5 74.2 60.4
Canberra Kangaroos 8 5 .593 4 71.6 59.4
Kaline Drive 10 9 .545 4.4 89.4 81.7
Portland Rosebuds 10 8 .538 4.6 79.3 73.5
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 9 8 .530 4.7 85.3 80.2
Cottage Cheese 7 11 .375 7.5 97.8 126.3
 
 
Old Detroit:  W, 15 – 7.  (37 PA, .400, .514, .800; 0.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  The Wolverines took on 6.3 more replacement innings, but didn’t collapse. All nine Wolverine batters reached base safely, led by the restored-to-health Byron Buxton (3 for 6 with a double and a homer).  Tommy Edman brought up the offensive rear with a hit-by-pitch to go with the W’s six walks.  The Oldies are carrying 12 replacement innings, so if they could get a two-starter pitching day, they could off-load some  runs allowed.  I prayed in my reallocation transaction for Buxton to be healed ASAP, and he was within the next hour.  Now I pray here for healing for Nate Pearson (to erase some replacement innings) and Ke’Bryan Hayes (or else the W’s will start taking on replacement PA’s at 3b with their next game).  We’ll see if prayers in an update bring the same instant results.  If they do, I bet more owners will want turns writing updates.
 
Flint Hill: L, 6 – 7. (25 PA, .300, .440, .400;  11 ip, 7 er, 5.73 ERA).  The Tornados slipped a bit, despite a nice day at the plate.  Five of their six batters reached safely, led by Austin Meadows’ 2 for 3 with a doubele and 2 walks. And Zach Eflin pitched 6 shiny innings with only 1 earned run allowed. Unfortunately, the hitherto sturdy Anthony DeSclafani surrendered 3 earned runs in only four innings, while the hitherto stellar Keone Kela triple chulked (1 ip, 3 er) but walking a batter and serving up two taters.  Perhaps the campus pastor needs to renew his prayer life. 
 
Haviland: W, 5 – 2. (34 PA, .172, .265, .414;  6.3 p, 0 er, 0.00 era).  Dragon management are clearly allocation wizards, if they can wring 5 runs out of that team batting line. (They are! Jonah Heim is mostly on the bench, and Gary Sanchez is divided between the bench and OH here his stats are being partially suppressed, which between them removes at least an 0 for 4, bringing the OPS up to about .800.) They didn’t need allocation wizardry to wring a nice pitching day out of those innings, keeping up with the Wolverines and creeping up on the Tornados.
 
DC: W, 7 – 1.   (39 PA, .258, .385, .548; 7.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  Ian Anderson grabbed headlines in the baseball mainstream media for his brilliant 6.7 innings — despite 4 walks and only 4 strikeouts — as did Bryce Harper for his crucial homer to go with a single and a walk in 5 plate appearances.  It must be nice playing in DC and having so much access to mainstream media bosses.  The Balk remained in 4th place, but gained 0.4 games on first and third place and 1.1 games on second.
 
Peshastin: W 1, L (-1); 0 – (-9). (26 PA, .250, .308, .250;  8 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). The Pears popped up three places in the standings on an off day by producing 8 shutout innings.  Seven of them were by Trevor Rogers, a shrewd under-the-radar draft by the Philosopher-King Pear.  Rogers’ 2021 ERA is down to 1.64.  That other Marlin find, Jazz Chisholm, kept his season OPS above 1.000 (1.069) by going 2 for 4. He threw in a stolen base for good measure.
 
Bellingham: W, 3- 1.   (32 PA, .207, .258, .379;  14.7 ip. 3 er, 1.84 ERA)  Michael Wacha had a bit of a rough day (5.7 ip, 3 er) by serving up 2 homers, but Tyler Mahl picked him up with 6.7 scoreless innings and two relievers added 2.3 more shutout innings. Brad Miller — who I wrote off years ago, but keeps coming back — went 4 for 5 to provide 2/3 of the Cascades’ offense.
 
Canberra:  W, 7 – 4. (37 PA, .303, .361, .515;  3 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).    Mike Trout homered and singled in four plate appearances for a neat 2.000 OPS on the day, lifting his season total to 1.311. Vlad Guerrero Jr went 2 for 3 with a double and two walks for a daily OPS of 1.800 and a season OPS of 1.163.  The Cannies’ 71.6 runs scored ranks 10th in the league, but they have only   played 13 games.  Thanks to Trout and Vladdy (and the rest), they are second in the league in runs scored per game at just over 5.5.     
 
Kaline: “L”, 9 – 7.  (52 PA, .298, .365, .596;  7 ip,  4 er, 5.14 ERA). Dinelson Lamet got in 2 innings, his first of the season, before leaving the mound with the dreaded forearm tightness. Jose Urquidy, clearly upset, surrendered 4 earned runs in 5 ip.  But the stalwart catching corps of Omar Narvaez (2 for 4 with a homer) and Willson Contreras ( 2 for 5 with a double) picked the team up and earned what was really a win, even though our empathy-rich database shared the feeling that it was a loss. 
 
By the way, Tom, I cannot recommend praying in an update.  Just now, when I  went to mlbtraderumors looking for Lamet’s status,  I discovered right above the lamentable Lamet entry a report that  Ke’Bryan Hayes re-injured his wrist taking swings as part of his rehab.  That is also instantaneous answer to prayer, but a stinking pickle of an answer. 
 
 
Portland: W 1, L (-1); 1 – (-5).  (47 PA, .286, .362, .357; 13 ip, 4 er, 2.77 ERA).  Spencer Turnbull, one of the three players the Rosebuds squeezed out of the Wolverines in their clearly star-crossed craze to get Ke’Bryan Hayes (star-crossed craze… Ke’Bryan Hayes: Dave, write that down, you can use it in your annual lament!), made his 2021 debut and re-re-re-re-re-confirmed Rosebud management’s genius by giving up only 1 run in 5 ip. Fellow former-Wolverine Nick Senzel went 2 for 3 with a walk (1.427 daily OPS), with Jorge Polanco contributing 4 for 6 with a stolen base for (a sick-ish 1.500 daily OPS).    With that effort, Portland cleared the .500 bar, and we are back to having 90.9% of the league over .500.
 
Pittsburgh: L, 6 – 11. (20 PA, .263, .300, .526;  11.7 ip, 10 er, 7.69 ERA)  Frankie Montas took a tumble (6 er in 4 ip) and three other pitchers couldn’t remedy the harm.  So, despite a decent day at the dish (Jorge Soler especially, going 3 for 4 with a homer and a double), the Alleghenys plunged 0.9 games and four places in the standings. 
 
Cottage: W 1, L (-2); 18 – 28. (50 PA, .295, .380, .432; 1 ip, 2 er, 18.00  ERA).  It’s a cruel thing when a team, desperate for pitching, gets only one inning — and it’s a chulk. But there was mercy, too!  Robert Gsellman actually surrendered 4 runs in that one inning. W’s catcher James McCann merciful catcher-interference error on Javier Baez made the last 2 of Gsellman’s runs unearned.  Do you suspect McCann didn’t do that to relieve Cheese pain?  Nonsense. In the previous inning, with Gsellman on the mound, McCann’s hustle to backup Lindor’s errant throw to first enabled him to get the ball to the bag in time to nail Ian Happ, who was trying to scramble back to the bag.  
 
And Gsellman was long gone a while later when Baez came up again and blasted the grand slam homer featured in the photo atop this post, with McCann apparently still verging on interference territory.  See?  There is mercy in the cosmos.
 
Cottage always has Shohei, who hit another homer yesterday, and took a HBP, for a sick daily OPS of 1.733.  Ohtani’s season OPS: 1.044. 
 
 
 
 
 
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
AL East
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Old Detroit Wolverines 15 4 .777
Flint Hill Tornadoes 13 6 .710 1.3
Boston Red Sox 12 7 .632 2.8
Tampa Bay Rays 10 9 .526 4.8
Baltimore Orioles 8 10 .444 6.3
Toronto Blue Jays 8 10 .444 6.3
New York Yankees 6 11 .353 7.8
NL East
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
D.C. Balk 9 4 .687
Canberra Kangaroos 8 5 .593 1.2
New York Mets 7 6 .538 1.9
Philadelphia Phillies 9 9 .500 2.4
Miami Marlins 8 9 .471 2.9
Atlanta Braves 8 10 .444 3.4
Washington Nationals 7 9 .438 3.4
 
AL Central
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Bellingham Cascades 10 7 .601
Kansas City Royals 10 7 .588 0.2
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 9 8 .530 1.2
Chicago White Sox 9 9 .500 1.7
Cleveland Indians 8 8 .500 1.7
Detroit Tigers 7 11 .389 3.7
Minnesota Twins 6 11 .353 4.2
NL Central
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Milwaukee Brewers 11 7 .611
Cincinnati Reds 9 8 .529 1.5
Chicago Cubs 8 9 .471 2.5
Pittsburgh Pirates 8 10 .444 3
St. Louis Cardinals 8 10 .444 3
Cottage Cheese 7 11 .375 4.2
 
AL West
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Haviland Dragons 13 6 .663
Oakland A’s 12 7 .632 0.6
Seattle Mariners 11 7 .611 1.1
Los Angeles Angels 9 7 .563 2.1
Kaline Drive 10 9 .545 2.2
Texas Rangers 9 10 .474 3.6
Houston Astros 7 10 .412 4.6
NL West
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Los Angeles Dodgers 14 4 .778
San Francisco Giants 11 7 .611 3
Peshastin Pears 11 7 .610 3
Portland Rosebuds 10 8 .538 4.3
San Diego Padres 10 10 .500 5
Arizona Diamondbacks 8 10 .444 6
Colorado Rockies 6 12 .333 8