Pujols: Still Gas in the Tank?

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Peshastin Pears	30	11	.726	—	191.5	117.1
Flint Hill Tornadoes	29	13	.682	1.6	189.2	128.1
Haviland Dragons	28	14	.667	2.3	196.5	141.3
Old Detroit Wolverines	28	14	.665	2.3	233.6	163.3
D.C. Balk	24	11	.692	2.5	186.0	124.3
Kaline Drive	27	15	.648	3.1	203.2	149.5
Canberra Kangaroos	19	16	.530	8.2	192.2	181.2
Cottage Cheese	21	20	.524	8.3	235.1	231.9
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	21	19	.516	8.6	201.7	191.9
Portland Rosebuds	20	21	.495	9.5	210.0	212.2
Bellingham Cascades	17	23	.419	12.5	159.4	198.3

Peshastin:  W, 6 – 2. (26 PA, .304,. .385, .652;  no pitching.)  The Pears certainly have something going on.  They are NOT intimidated by hyper-violent illustrations depicting a pear being blown to bits by a metal arrow.  They have now gone 8 days without recording a loss, since they were 23 – 11 on the morning of May 10, in third place, 0.6 games behind the Tornados and essentially tied with the Wolverines. 

 

But none of it seems to be connected to Pujols. The Pears won again yesterday with great hitting.  Willie Calhoun went 2 for 4 with a homer and a double.  Yoan Moncada went 2 for 4 with a double and two walks.  Which had the better day?  Calhoun’s line: .500, .500, 1.500, 2.000.   Moncada’s line:  .500, .667, .750, 1.317.  

 

 

Flint Hill:  W 1, L (-1); 4 – (-4). (20 PA, .333, .400, .667;  7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA)  The Tornados also had a great day.  Yu Darvish put together the day’s best pitching performance in MLB (according to Baseball Reference).  Those 10 strikeouts in those 7 scoreless innings do add some luster, especially with no walks. Anthony Rendon went 3 for 4, while Tyler Naquin went 2 for 4 with a homer, to lead the outstanding Tornado offense, leaping over the Dragons and sneaking 0.4 games closer to the Pears. 

 

 

Haviland: DNP, 1 – 0.  (23 PA, .227, .261, .227;  no pitching).  The Dragons took the day off, a little too literally, with no pithing and very spotty hitting. Jake Cronenworth went 2 for 3 with a HBP to account for half of the Dragon baserunners.  Haviland lost a half game’s ground to the Pears with this lax performance. 

 

 

Old Detroit: W 1, L (-1); 5 – (-4).   (28 PA, .400, .464, .760;  7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  I want you to consider these OPSes: 

Pujols’ OPSes 2001 – 2011:  1.013, .955, .1.106, 1.072, 1.039, 1.102, .997, 1.114, 1.101, 1.011, .906. 

Trout’s OPSes 2001 – 2011: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, .672.

Trout claimed the other day that Pujols had been his mentor for his “entire career.”  But that was clearly NOT true.  In 2011, when Trout debuted, Pujols was still playing in St. Louis.  The Angels signed Pujols on December 8, 2011.  Here is what happened after that: 

Pujols for LAA, 2012 – 2021:  .859, .767, .790, .787, .780, .672, .700, .734, .665, .617, .622

Trout for LAA, 2012 – 2021: .963, .988, .939, .991, .991, 1.071, 1.088, 1.083, .993, 1.090

As Trout increased, Pujols decreased.  That’s more than mentoring. It’s kind of creepy, as if Trout was a vampire.  

This is a lot of writing about a Kangaroo in a Wolverine update, but I can explain.  Pujols debuted for the Dodgers.  The Wolverines have three Dodgers:   Walker Buehler, Will Smith, and Gavin Lux. They all played last night. 

Buehler’s ERA going into last night’s game was something like 3.85.  His ERA in last night’s game:  0.00 in 7 innings, the second best (barely) to Yu Darvish.   Buehler’s season ERA is now 2.98.  Pujols plays, and Buehler shaves almost 0.90 off his ERA in a single game. 

Will Smith’s OPS going into last night’s game was .798.  Pujols plays, and Smith goes 2 for 4 with a homer and a double for a daily OPS of 2.000.  His OPS is now .834, a .036 increase. 

Gavin Lux’s OPS going into last night’s game:  .592.  Pujols plays, and Lux goes 2 for 3 with a double and a walk for a daily OPS of 1.750.  His OPS now is .627, a .031 increase. 

I get it now.  The Dodgers watched what Pujols gave to Trout, and decided to get that for at least three of their own young formerly highly-rated prospects.  And it paid off, starting on the first day Pujols was on the job. Pujols can OPS .500 every day, if his presence on the team results in players recording daily OPS nearly triple their season OPS, or shaving a run off their season ERA in a single day. 

And the W’s can come along for the ride.  I think I could be a Pujols fan if he keeps this up.

 

DC:  L, 5 – 5.  (17 PA, .133, .235, .133;  1.7 ip, 2 er, 10.59 ERA) Matt Wisler triple-chulked to ruin Garrett Crochet’s scoreless inning.  The Balky offense only managed two singles and two walks on the day.  The Balk got by on stored-up stats, using the Mets’ lead in the NL East to mask a poor day on the field.  But with the Pears surging, a team treading water loses 0.4 games in the standings. 

 

 

Kaline: DNP, 3 – (-1).  (31 PA, .367, .387, .800;  6 ip, 1 er, 1.50 ERA). The Drive were also insulated from any Pujols effects yesterday, not having any Dodgers or Angels take the field. But they used their day off effectively, blistering 4 homers (Wilmer Flores, Willson Contreras, Jonathan Schoop, and Yermin Mercedes) and getting the day’s fourth best starting pitching performance from Max Fried, who accounted for all 6 of the Drive innings. 

 

 

Canberra: W, 7 – 2.  (14 PA, .333, .439, 1.000;  9.7 ip, 1 er, 0.93 ERA).   Casey Mize pulled off the THIRD best start in MLB last night, completing 7.7 innings with only one earned run.  That gives the EFL the #s 1, 2, 3, and 4 starts of the day yesterday. Yay EFL!

 

Caleb Smith added 2 more shutout innings to make it a great day in Canberra.  (Alas, “great day” and “Canberra” don’t rhyme, not even in Australian — pronounced ” ‘Strine”).  Mauricio Dubon — such a ‘Strine name — led the way offensively with a homer, a double, and a walk in 4 plate appearances.  Thus the ‘Roos rose 0.1 games in the standings, and stayed ahead (barely) of the Cheese. 

 

As for the Pujols Effect?  Mike Trout went 0 for 1 (0.000000 OPS) and left the game with a right calf strain.  Without Pujols’ “mentorship” is Trout anything special?

 

 

Cottage: DNP, 3 – (-5). (10 PA, .286, .500, 1.143;  4 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  It was a great off day at the Cottage. Khalil Lee debuted on the MLB stat line, but not on the field for the Cheese (preserving for now his 2099 contract status), but that’s ok because he went 0 for 1.  The other two Cheesy hitters did nothing good except hit a combined 2 homers and take a combined 5 walks to create that extremely showy slash line.  Meanwhile Taijuan Walker pitched only 3 scoreless innings, good enough to be the 7th best start of the day per Baseball Reference, before leaving after experiencing ominous “left side tightness.”

 

I should acknowledge some evidence that might call into question whether Albert Pujols can really be counted on to transfuse young potential stars with his baseball essence: the case of Shohei Ohtani.  Ohtani struggled for two years with injuries, etc., not a great look for the Pujols gasoline-fueled emPowerment theory. And last night, with Pujols debuting for the Dodgers,  Shohei hit his 13th homer on a shoulder-high 94-mph fastball.  To lead the league.  His ERA at the moment is 2.10 with 40 strikeouts in 25 2/3 innings.  

 

This may be more about Shohei than it is about Pujols. Shohei is his own phenomenon. 

 

 

1.  Cheese isn’t green, either, and the Kangaroos do use green in their color scheme. So we needed a color that wasn’t already taken.  

 

2.  When the Cheese joined the league there was a period of experimentation.  Cottage Cheese is white,  invariably so (one hopes).  But here is what white looks like on the page: 

 

 

So white would not do.  Dave solved the problem by coming up with this as his team’s  logo: 

 

 

Note the prominent use of Dodger blue.  Dave is a Dodger fan. We — at least we older EFLers — are all familiar with the cottage cheese that comes in the Dodger blue tub.  Since no one else was using Dodger blue, we adopted it for the Cheese. 

 

I don’t know why Dave chose to accoutre his stats page with green and yellow.  Yellow would be a nauseous color for cottage cheese, and no better than white for use in updates.  Green was taken, and the Pears are first in line to take it over if Canberra ever changes its team colors to Kangaroo tan and ‘Strine sand. 

 

 

Pittsburgh: W, 6 – 2.  (22 PA, .278, .409, .389;  11 ip, 3 er, 2.45 ERA.)  Logan Webb twirled 6 scoreless innings, allowing only 4 hits and a walk, to account for the 5th best start of the day according to BR.  (If you’re keeping score, that gives the EFL starts # 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. Come on Jordan Lyles (#6)!)  That made Sonny Gray’s 3 er in 5 innings more palatable.  Also helping was that excellent OBP, driven by 4 walks and 6 hits.  Andrew Vaughn and Garrett Hampson both hit a double and a single…except Vaughn took 6 plate appearances to do it while Hampson only required 3. Max Muncy, displaced from 1b to 2b to accommodate Pujols, went 0 for 3 (with a walk) — but Max doesn’t really qualify as a young ex-top prospect, so there was no reason to expect a positive Pujols effect. 

 

The Alleghenys rode their fine day to a spot just a smidge behind the ‘Roos and Cheese in the standings, distinctly above .500.

 

 

Portland: L, 2 – 8.  (16 PA, .063, .063, .063;  12 ip, 9 er, 6.75 ERA).  The Rosebuds had arguably the worst day in the EFL. Are there any Pujolsian fingerprints on their suffering? Seemingly not — no Angels or Dodgers took the field for the Portlies.  Jorge Polanco got the lone hit. None of the pitchers did very well, with Adbert Alzolay escaping with the least damage (3 er in 5 ip).  Portland dropped two places in the standings, and fell a full game further behind the Pears. 

 

 

Bellingham: L, 3- 9. (17 PA, .235, .235, .235;  no pitching).  The main competition to Portland for worst day in the league came from Bellingham.  Not having any pitching clearly hurt, but so did an offense entirely composed of singles.  At least the C’s got 4 singles instead of just 1, in the same number of AB as the Rosebuds had, to get enough runs to round off to a respectable “3” on this report. 

 

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Flint Hill Tornadoes	29	13	.682	—
Old Detroit Wolverines	28	14	.665	0.7
Boston Red Sox	25	17	.595	3.6
Toronto Blue Jays	22	17	.564	5.1
New York Yankees	22	18	.550	5.6
Tampa Bay Rays	23	19	.548	5.6
Baltimore Orioles	17	23	.425	10.6

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
D.C. Balk	24	11	.692	—
New York Mets	19	16	.543	5.2
Canberra Kangaroos	19	16	.530	5.7
Philadelphia Phillies	21	20	.512	6.2
Atlanta Braves	19	22	.463	8.2
Miami Marlins	18	22	.450	8.7
Washington Nationals	16	21	.432	9.2

 

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Chicago White Sox	25	15	.625	—
Cleveland Indians	21	18	.538	3.5
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	21	19	.516	4.4
Kansas City Royals	18	22	.450	7
Bellingham Cascades	17	23	.419	8.2
Detroit Tigers	15	26	.366	10.5
Minnesota Twins	13	26	.333	11.5

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
St. Louis Cardinals	23	18	.561	—
Cottage Cheese	21	20	.524	1.5
Milwaukee Brewers	21	20	.512	2
Chicago Cubs	20	20	.500	2.5
Cincinnati Reds	19	20	.487	3
Pittsburgh Pirates	17	23	.425	5.5

 

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Haviland Dragons	28	14	.667	—
Kaline Drive	27	15	.648	0.8
Oakland A’s	25	17	.595	3
Houston Astros	24	17	.585	3.5
Seattle Mariners	21	21	.500	7
Los Angeles Angels	18	22	.450	9
Texas Rangers	19	24	.442	9.5

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Peshastin Pears	30	11	.726	—
San Francisco Giants	25	16	.610	4.8
San Diego Padres	25	17	.595	5.3
Los Angeles Dodgers	23	18	.561	6.8
Portland Rosebuds	20	21	.495	9.5
Arizona Diamondbacks	18	24	.429	12.3
Colorado Rockies	15	27	.357	15.3