League Updates Uncategorized

From the Pears and back again

How it’s all connected, in a meandering kind of way. 

EFL Standings for 2021
EFL
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB RS RA
Peshastin Pears 32 13 .704 206.8 134.1
Flint Hill Tornadoes 32 14 .700 216.2 139.0
Haviland Dragons 32 15 .685 0.7 228.9 156.5
Old Detroit Wolverines 31 15 .679 1 269.0 184.6
Kaline Drive 30 16 .648 2.4 226.1 165.9
D.C. Balk 26 12 .676 2.5 197.8 137.3
Canberra Kangaroos 21 17 .547 7.4 210.6 192.0
Cottage Cheese 24 20 .535 7.6 254.9 245.3
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 21 22 .495 9.4 216.1 215.4
Portland Rosebuds 21 24 .475 10.3 225.2 237.0
Bellingham Cascades 18 25 .415 12.8 169.9 210.6
 
 
Peshastin: W, 8 – 5.   (37 PA, .353, .405, .588 – Happy Edgar Martinez Day!;  9 ip 5 er, 5.00 ERA).  Of the eight Pears who batted Friday, seven got hits.  The one who didn’t , Tom Murphy,  had only two plate appearances since his brother Sean started at catcher for the Pears. They really did hit like they were a team of Edgars: one homer, 5 doubles, a walk and 6 singles.  They needed an Edgar reincarnation since Alex Wood’s good start (6 ip, 2 er) was almost ruined by some slovenly relief pitching.  I say this even though the Pears won by a relatively comfortable three runs because…
 
 
Flint Hill: W, 3 – 1.   (39 PA, .206, .308, .353; 22.7 IP, 4 er, 1.59 ERA) … the Tornados got three games worth of OUTSTANDING pitching in a single day. Anthony Kay only lasted 4 innings (with 2 er).  James Kaprielian started for the second time this season — the first was nine days ago — and got through 5.7 innngs with only 2 earned runs.  Carlos Rodon and German Marquez topped everything off with 13 scoreless innings, giving the Flinties a 0.2 game boost in the standings, bringing them within a millimeter of the lead. 
 
To pass the Pears, the T’s thin offense  needed just a little extra boost from somewhere…
 
 
Haviland:  W 2, L 1; 21 – 17. (53 PA, .298, .358, .723;  5.7 ip, 6 er, 9.47 ERA)… like maybe the same gremlin in the database that boosted the Dragons today?  Yesterday the Dragons woke up with a 30 – 14 record, befitting their presence in the AL West division where the Astros (at 26 – 18) were the non-EFL top dogs.  Today they wake up with a 32-15 record. That’s 47 games played,  three games more than the yesterday.  In the AL West, the A’s passed the Astros last night, but Oakland’s record is only 27 – 19, or 46 games. The only other AL West team with 47 games played are the Texas Rangers, in sixth place at 20 – 27.   
 
Keeping in mind the unreliability of the Dragons’ listing in the standings (which is why I highlighted them with yellow), we can still admire that huge slugging percentage, the product of six home runs, two by Brandon Lowe (rhymes with “holy cow!”).  And Ramon Laureano’s perfect day: a homer, a double, two singles and a walk in 5 plate appearances.  Even with Maikel Franco’s day – according to Baseball Reference, the worst of any EFL hitter at 0 for 4 with one of only three GDP’s in the MLB Friday — that kind of hitting will produce lots of wins.  It just shouldn’t produce extra games… 
 
 
Old Detroit:  W, 14 – 3. (47 PA, .432, .447, .773;  20.3 ip, 8 er, 3.55 ERA)... because if the database did that for the Dragons, the Wolverines should get one, too.  All eleven Wolverine hitters reached base safely at least once.  Austin Riley blasted two homers.  Just-benched Josh Bell went 3 for 5 (of course he did!),  but even without his numbers, the rest of the Oldies still batted .410, .429, .769.   On the pitching side, Chris Paddack squirmed his way through 6 innings with only 1 run scored, and Marcus Stroman’s six innings cost only 2 runs, so Mike Minor’s more expensive six innings (4 er) were affordable. The Wolverines gained 0.8 games on the Pears, even though they did not leapfrog anyone in the standings like…
 
 
Kaline:  W 2, L 0; 11 – 5. (45 PA, .246, .356, .487;  2.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA) … the Drive did! Kaline took advantage of the two games played in the AL West (without needing a mysterious 3rd game like the Dragons got) to continue its drive toward the top of the standings.  DC became the first Drive roadkill since Kaline left the grounded tier driveway some weeks ago. And in this case it’s easy to pick out the team hero:  Jesse Winker, who went 4 for 4 with a walk and THREE home runs.  The rest of the team batted .171, .275, .171, but Winker’s hat trick was a big enough performance to carry the team and …
 
DC:  “W”, 5 – 6. (38 PA, .212, .316, .455;  15.3 ip, 9 er, 5.29 ERA) … dim the fun players like Austin Riley and the Balk’s Ryan McMahon had from hitting two homers in a single day. McMahon’s carried the Balk a far as he could, but not far enough for the true win they needed to stay ahead of the surging Drive. Not only was the rest of the offense rather meek, Balk pitchers struggled.  Ian Anderson did great (6 ip, 0 er) (see below for what happened to his kinsman and mound opponent Tyler Anderson).  Martin Perez did ok (6 ip, 3 er). but Triston McKenzie got his numbers backward, the “6” going in the “earned runs” column, while the 3 (it was actually 3.3) went into the innings pitched column.   Thus did the Balk slip into the 6th spot in the upper tier of the EFL standings, which might not feel good but…
 
 
Canberra:  L, 6 – 9.  (45 PA, .237, .356, .421;  4.4 IP, 8 ER, 16.36 ERA) … I doubt the Balk would be happy to trade places with the Kangaroos, neither on the season, nor the day.  
 
Actually, the Kangaroos have been on an encouraging trajectory lately, rising from the bottom to become the clear leader of the grounded tier of the EFL.  And thanks to that good play lately — and to Vlad Guerrero’s own two-homer performance yesterday — the Cannies are still leading the grounded tier despite the tragic events in San Diego, where Chris Flexen was beaten by a mob of Padres, surrendering 8 earned runs in only 1.7 ip.  That’s a daily ERA for Flexen of about 43.19.  It’s a sign of the underlying strength of the Kangaroo surge that they still lead the grounded tier even though…
 
 
Cottage:  W, 8 – 3. (42 PA, .278 .381 .556;  1 ip, 0 er, 0 ERA)... the Cheese got a good win, highlighted by Marcus Semien almost hitting for the cycle!  He doubled in the first inning, tripled in the second, and clouted a homer in his third at bat in the 5th inning.  Then he went 7 more innings and three more plate appearances needing “just an itty bitty single” for the cycle. 
 
I am quoting George Kell there.  I remember a game back in the 1980’s, the Tigers at Boston, in which Lou Whitaker came to bat in the 9th inning.  I can still hear Kell observing that all Lou needed to complete the cycle was “just an itty bitty single.” Lou made an out instead, which is what Semien did in his THREE tries for a cycle. 
 
Cheese fans, renowned for their laments, may be saying “of course, what do you expect, he’s a Cheese!”  But the quoted event with Whitaker is most likely to have occurred in 1984, the Tigers’ great season when they were never out of first place, and won the World Series.   It seems to me anything possibly resonating with the 1984 Tigers ought to inspire hope… 
 
 
Pittsburgh: W (-1), L 2; 2 – 12. (33 PA, .194, .242, .387; 7 ip, 9 er, 11.57 ERA)… which Allegheny fans could use after their latest debacle, a lost win with a double loss.  Pittsburgh’s two-way pitcher Tyler Anderson (two-way in that he pitches for both the Alleghenys and the Pirates) had his first tumble of the year when he stumbled upon a Braves team poised for seven homers.  Anderson endured 5 innings of the barrage, surrendering three of the homers and 9 of the earned runs on the way to the Braves’ 20 – 1 win.  Unfortunately the Alleghenys only had one Brave on their roster to join in the offensive rampage, but at least they have this consolation: Dansby Swanson waited until Chasen Shreve was in the game to hit his homer, sparing the Alleghenys further damage and heaping it on … the first place Pears instead! 
 
I think the overwhelming majority of the EFL joins with the Alleghenys in gratitude to Mr. Swanson for this act of both mercy and justice…
 
 
Portland:  L, 7 – 8.  (31 PA, .333, .419, .444; 0.7 ip, 2 er, 25.71 ERA)  … because mercy and justice are what so many of us need right now.  Consider the Rosebuds, whose sole pitcher yesterday, Bryan Abreu, came into the game for the Astros in the bottom of 10th inning, his team having just scored to take a 5 – 4 lead. With the hokey runner on second, Abreu got two outs — one of which was his Rosebud teammate Nick Solak, and the other of which was Wolverine Nate Lowe.  Then he walked Balk Joey Gallo, and some guy not even on an EFL roster blasted a homer on a 1-0 pitch to saddle Abreu and the Rosebuds with two earned runs (and lose the game).  That’s how a 25.71 daily ERA gets loaded onto the Rosebuds’ back, and Portland sinks a little further below .500…
 
 
Bellingham: L, 4 – 8. (46 PA, .200, .283, .400;  no pitching)… although putting 0.3 more games between them and the Cascades.  The good news for Bellingham is they had no pitching on a day when 4 other EFL teams recorded daily ERA’s over 9.  The other good news is Ronald Acuna and Marcell Ozuna also hit homers in the Atlanta bombardment. The bad news: an all-replacements pitching staff produces 7.5 earned runs for your team, plus about 10% more runs that are unearned.  The Cascade offense wasn’t terrible, but a .683 OPS will not keep you up with an opponent scoring 8 runs, nor with the first-place Pears.
 
 
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
AL East
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Flint Hill Tornadoes 32 14 .700
Old Detroit Wolverines 31 15 .679 1
Boston Red Sox 28 18 .609 4.2
Tampa Bay Rays 27 19 .587 5.2
New York Yankees 26 19 .578 5.7
Toronto Blue Jays 23 20 .535 7.7
Baltimore Orioles 17 27 .386 14.2
NL East
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
D.C. Balk 26 12 .676
New York Mets 21 17 .553 4.7
Canberra Kangaroos 21 17 .547 4.9
Philadelphia Phillies 22 23 .489 7.2
Atlanta Braves 21 24 .467 8.2
Miami Marlins 20 24 .455 8.7
Washington Nationals 18 23 .439 9.2
 
AL Central
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Chicago White Sox 26 17 .605
Cleveland Indians 23 19 .548 2.5
Pittsburgh Alleghenys 21 22 .495 4.7
Kansas City Royals 20 23 .465 6
Bellingham Cascades 18 25 .415 8.1
Detroit Tigers 18 26 .409 8.5
Minnesota Twins 16 28 .364 10.5
NL Central
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
St. Louis Cardinals 25 19 .568
Cottage Cheese 24 20 .535 1.5
Chicago Cubs 23 21 .523 2
Milwaukee Brewers 21 23 .477 4
Cincinnati Reds 20 23 .465 4.5
Pittsburgh Pirates 18 26 .409 7
 
AL West
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Haviland Dragons 32 15 .685
Kaline Drive 30 16 .648 1.7
Oakland A’s 27 19 .587 4.5
Houston Astros 26 19 .578 5
Seattle Mariners 21 24 .467 10
Texas Rangers 20 27 .426 12
Los Angeles Angels 19 26 .422 12
NL West
TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT. GB
Peshastin Pears 32 13 .704
San Diego Padres 28 17 .622 3.7
San Francisco Giants 28 17 .622 3.7
Los Angeles Dodgers 27 18 .600 4.7
Portland Rosebuds 21 24 .475 10.3
Arizona Diamondbacks 18 28 .391 14.2
Colorado Rockies 16 29 .356 15.7

 

1 Comment

  • Usually it’s pretty good and even kind of an honor to have a player from your team featured in the opening picture. Not so much today.