The notion I had yesterday — that our standings would be more understandable if we discovered our league was a six-year-old’s dream — is not unprecedented. A few people have proposed, at least half-seriously, that our entire universe is someone’s dream.
Cue today’s theme song.
I suppose this idea might appeal to someone who just can’t make sense of what he sees in the world.
I can’t make sense of the world, either, but I do NOT believe we are just emanations of someone’s dream, nor that we should go quietly through life so as to not wake our Dreamer. But I will say this: yesterday the top 6 teams, spanning from 0 to 6.6 games behind in the standings, compiled a total score of 13 – 21. The bottom 5 teams’ (10.2 to 19.7 games back) total score was 34 – 19.
Sure, we can explain this as randomness over a small sample size. I believe that explanation whole-heartedly. I have full faith in modern statistics. Still… (sh-boom!)
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 51 | 19 | .727 | — | 408.1 | 250.1 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 46 | 24 | .653 | 5.2 | 341.9 | 247.3 |
| D.C. Balk | 41 | 20 | .665 | 5.8 | 332.9 | 237.5 |
| Peshastin Pears | 44 | 25 | .644 | 6 | 324.4 | 244.2 |
| Kaline Drive | 44 | 26 | .635 | 6.5 | 361.2 | 274.5 |
| Haviland Dragons | 44 | 26 | .633 | 6.6 | 335.3 | 259.8 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 36 | 25 | .593 | 10.2 | 323.5 | 271.0 |
| Cottage Cheese | 38 | 31 | .544 | 12.9 | 381.9 | 360.6 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 38 | 31 | .544 | 12.9 | 345.6 | 315.6 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 33 | 36 | .477 | 17.5 | 272.9 | 288.7 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 31 | 38 | .445 | 19.7 | 354.7 | 404.1 |
Old Detroit: W, 3 – 2. (20 PA, .158 .200. .211; 9.7 ip, 1.86 ERA) The W’s have the league’s leading offense, and only a middling ERA. But the offense faltered yesterday: Carlos Correa’s double was the highlight, but the bigger boon was the small number of plate appearances. Things looked bad after Marcus Stroman’s first inning, in which he gave up 2 earned runs. But Stroman settled down, and he and two relievers proceeded to spin 8.7 shutout innings, extending to 6 the W’s winning streak. We’re still living the inexplicable dream in Old Detroit (sh-boom!).
Flint Hill: “W”, 1 – 2. (20 PA, .150, .150, .200; 7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA) This line is similar to the Wolverines’. The pitching was a shade better, even, with German Marquez’ 6 scoreless innings anchoring the day.
Ah, but here we encounter another dream-like element in the EFL: Flint Hill management just yesterday morning reallocated Marquez 100% to Flint Hill’s AAA team, the Rock City Dust Devils. So those 6 shutout innings did not help the Tornados. This turns “Life Could Be a Dream” into the theme song for a nightmare. (Sh-boom!)
DC: “W”, 4 – 5. (21 PA, .167, .286, .278; 11.3 ip, 6 er, 4.78 ERA). The Balk, those clever rascals, snuck in one more plate appearance than the two teams in front of them. Why the fuss over one plate appearance? Well, you never know. That 21st plate appearance in this case was quite literally Shed Long, with one out in the bottom of the ninth, a double already on his daily batting line, runners on first and second, the M’s down by a run (and, apparently, the Balk down by a different run). Here is what happened.
Never sneer at squeezing out one more plate appearance. The result could be a dream! (Sh-BOOM!).
Peshastin: L, 3 – 5. (27 PA, .200, .259, .320. No pitching) The Pears make the fourth straight league-leading team to try the weeny offense strategy. Any why not? Their predecessors got a W and two “W”s that way. Ryan Mountcastle almost ruined things with his two hits, but he held himself to singles. Shortstop Willi Castro indulged in a double, and Ozzie Albies went way overboard with a triple, but each refrained from doing any more damage However, the Pears left out something we normally like to see in a ballgame.
Pitching.
I know, I know, the Flinties sent their starter to Rock City to get his scoreless innings. Maybe the Pears were just conserving gasoline by just not letting their pitchers pitch. But Flint Hill still had a reliever show up. The Pears? Zilch. I don’t see how this lines up with any sort of dreaming, so the Pears get no sh-boom from me today.
Kaline: W (-1), L 1; (-2) – 5. (49 PA, .231, .354, .385; 8.7 ip, 8 er, 8.28 ERA). Ay-yi what a night it must have been on Whidbey Island. There were LOTS of hitters — 12 of them — and they hit reasonably well — especially with the 8 walks they took. Jonathon Schoop drilled a homer, and all… but still, on this off-day, all that effort LOWERED the Drive’s average offense for the month, costing them two runs.
Meanwhile, over on the pitching side, an all-too-familiar story. Good starting pitching (Urquidy: 7 ip, 2 er) followed by disastrous relief pitching. Rafael Montero, demoted from closing in Seattle, showed why: 1 ip, 2 er for a chulk. Then Mark Melancon made things far worse: 0.7 ip, 4 earned runs, a nasty sextuple chulk. Life was a nightmare! (Sh-boom!)
And then, with the game tied in the bottom of the ninth, Taylor Trammell’s spot in the batting order came up — and the M’s pinch-hit Kyle Seager for him. So Seager got to drive in the walk-off run, which benefited no one in the EFL.
Haviland: DNP. 4 – 2. (30 PA, .345, .367, .621; 1.6 ip, 2 er , 11.25 ERA). That there is an ugly ERA, but there are two good things about it. First, the recently re-activated Chad Green tossed 1.3 scoreless innings. Second, while that leaves both runs allowed to Ryan Hendrix, they got him out of there after only 1/3 of an inning (our second sextuple chulk of the day!) so he couldn’t do any more damage.
It was an offday in Haviland — all their fans probably went over to Rock City to see Marquez’ gem — so there’s no win to record. But the Dragons have part of win stored up for tomorrow. (Sh-boom!)
Canberra: L, 5 – 6. (20 PA, .222, .300, .444; 6 ip, 4 er, 6.00 ERA). The Kangaroos went back to the 20 PA standard set by the Wolverines and Tornados. The ‘Roos 20 PA went better than those other teams, festooned as they were with a Javier Baez homer and a Mauricio Dubon double. (Note the shortstops again: a Dubon double and a Javier homer!)
On the mound, however, Rich Hill stumbled: 5 ip 4 er. So the ‘Roos’ nightmare (Sh-boom!) has come to pass: they have slipped beyond 10 games back in the standings. This has to be hard to accept when your team is cruising along at a .593 winning percentage for the season, and a very nice 10-5 record for the month.
Cottage: W 2, L (-1); 9 – 2. (15 PA, .500, .600, 1.000 WOW!; 6 IP, 1 ER 1.50 ERA) What a day at the Cottage! Not many hitters, but SO MUCH HITTING. All four Cheese batters reached base safely at least twice. Randy Arozarena went 3 for 4 with a homer, Abraham Toro (Hey! Good to see you, former Wolverine Toro!) went 2 for 4 with a homer, Shohei Ohtani went 0 for 1 with two walks, and Marcus Semien brought up the rear with a mere 1 for 3 with walk.
When Ohtani wasn’t walking down to first, he was pitching a dominant game: 6 ip, 1 er. He allowed fewer walks (1) to the 22 batters he faced than he wangled at the plate (2) in his own 3 PA. There’s the Cottage Dream as the Head Cheese dreamt it when he signed Ohtani. (Sh-boom!).
Oh, and the double win vaulted the Cheese past the Alleghenys even though a) it wasn’t quite the best performance of the day in the EFL, and b)…
Pittsburgh: W, 7 – 5. (18 PA, .308, .444, .769; no pitchers) ... the Alleghenys won their game, too. They did it without any pitchers, although that loaded them with 1.7 replacement innings. Not to worry; those are easily erased… and in the meantime, the few Allegheny hitters played very well. Of the five hitters, only Andrew Vaughn failed to reach base, and only Dominic Smith reached base only once. Shortstop Dansby Swanson walked twice, and Shortstop Garrett Hampson added a homer to his single. (So did Jose Altuve but he’s not a shortstop). The result was a clean win, and a not-too-far-behind-Cottage result. (Sh-boom!)
Bellingham: W 2, L (-1); 7-(-2). (24 PA, .350, .417, .750. 17.7 ip, 2 er, 1.02 ERA). Here is the best performance of the day in the league. The hitting wasn’t as showy on the rate stats as the Cheese, but the Cascades used their 5 extra plate appearances to get 2 extra hits, including a triple, for a 1.200 OPS on those extra appearances. This added more to their monthly averages than the Cheese did.
And even better: look at that pitching. LOTS of it, all very good to overwhelming, 8 more innings than Old Detroit with no more earned runs. On a day when the Wolverines won, the Cascades gained an entire game on them. They also gained 1.1 on the Alleghenys and 0.7 on the Cheese. And they gained a rounded-off 3 games on .500! What a dream of a day! (Sh-boom, Sh-BOOM!)
Portland: “W”, 6 – 8. (21 PA, .263, .333, .536; no pitching) The Rosebuds had their hitting shoes on, and put up a nice six-spot behind CJ Cron (2 for 4 with a double and a homer) and Shortstop Luis Urias (2 for 5 with a double). All those innings not pitched went straight to the Portlies replacement-pitching waistline which now measures 21.3 innings, and accounts for the Rosebuds’ loss and slipping 0.4 games further from the EFL lead. At 19.7 games back, the portentous 20-games-behind mark looms just ahead. Alas … and sh-boom.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 51 | 19 | .727 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 46 | 24 | .653 | 5.2 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 43 | 27 | .614 | 7.9 |
| Boston Red Sox | 42 | 27 | .609 | 8.4 |
| New York Yankees | 36 | 32 | .529 | 13.9 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 33 | 34 | .493 | 16.4 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 22 | 46 | .324 | 27.9 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 41 | 20 | .665 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 36 | 25 | .593 | 4.4 |
| New York Mets | 35 | 26 | .574 | 5.6 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 33 | 33 | .500 | 10.1 |
| Atlanta Braves | 31 | 35 | .470 | 12.1 |
| Washington Nationals | 30 | 35 | .462 | 12.6 |
| Miami Marlins | 29 | 39 | .426 | 15.1 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 43 | 26 | .623 | — |
| Cleveland Indians | 38 | 28 | .576 | 3.5 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 38 | 31 | .544 | 5.4 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 33 | 36 | .477 | 10.1 |
| Kansas City Royals | 30 | 37 | .448 | 12 |
| Detroit Tigers | 29 | 40 | .420 | 14 |
| Minnesota Twins | 27 | 41 | .397 | 15.5 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago Cubs | 39 | 30 | .565 | — |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 38 | 31 | .551 | 1 |
| Cottage Cheese | 38 | 31 | .544 | 1.5 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 35 | 32 | .522 | 3 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 35 | 34 | .507 | 4 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 23 | 44 | .343 | 15 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Kaline Drive | 44 | 26 | .635 | — |
| Haviland Dragons | 44 | 26 | .633 | 0.1 |
| Oakland A’s | 43 | 27 | .614 | 1.5 |
| Houston Astros | 40 | 28 | .588 | 3.5 |
| Seattle Mariners | 35 | 36 | .493 | 10 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 34 | 35 | .493 | 10 |
| Texas Rangers | 25 | 43 | .368 | 18.5 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 44 | 25 | .644 | — |
| San Francisco Giants | 44 | 25 | .638 | 0.4 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 41 | 27 | .603 | 2.9 |
| San Diego Padres | 39 | 32 | .549 | 6.4 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 31 | 38 | .445 | 13.7 |
| Colorado Rockies | 29 | 41 | .414 | 15.9 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 20 | 50 | .286 | 24.9 |