The month ends with the Wolverine lead back to about what it was when the month started, but with a different team in second place, and the peloton several games further back. It looks like almost nothing happened. But beneath the placid surface there was quite a bit of drama. The Wolverines’ threat to run away with the race, and the Tornadoes’ dramatic (and nearly successful) attempt to take the lead away, cannot be seen in these standings.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 74 | 31 | .703 | — | 600.5 | 390.5 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 70 | 35 | .666 | 3.9 | 549.7 | 386.9 |
| Peshastin Pears | 66 | 38 | .633 | 7.4 | 514.6 | 394.9 |
| D.C. Balk | 64 | 39 | .626 | 8.3 | 570.8 | 442.7 |
| Kaline Drive | 65 | 40 | .616 | 9 | 551.4 | 434.1 |
| Haviland Dragons | 61 | 44 | .580 | 12.9 | 534.9 | 469.3 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 58 | 45 | .561 | 15 | 525.1 | 475.5 |
| Cottage Cheese | 57 | 48 | .542 | 16.9 | 611.0 | 573.4 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 56 | 49 | .538 | 17.3 | 530.4 | 490.6 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 54 | 51 | .510 | 20.2 | 443.9 | 435.7 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 46 | 58 | .442 | 27.3 | 524.6 | 596.8 |
Old Detroit: W, 8 – 2. (7/30: 42 PA, .278, .381, .750; 18 ip, 6 er, 3.00 ERA). (7/31: 47 PA, .238, .319, .286; 10.7 ip, 4 er, 3.36 ERA). The W’s only had one game between Friday and Saturday, so they could finish with a strong. Friday Jameson Taillon teamed with Yankee teammate Jonathan Loaisiga to deliver 7 shutout innings, sprucing things up a bit after Logan Gilbert and Ross Stripling had combined (after taking allocations into account) for 8.3 innings and 5 earned runs. Saturday Mike Minor kind of stank (4 er in 5 ip) but he did so for the Old Toledo Mudrats, having been banished there a couple of weeks ago. The rest of the Wolverine pitching staff (including Loaisiga again, plus Kimbrel, Kittredge, and Clay) finished 3.7 shutout innings.
That parsimonious pitching came in handy with the relatively light Wolverine hitting, especially on Saturday. Adolis Garcia ended his Wolverine career with a bang, going 3 for 8 over the two days with two doubles and a homer. Adolis’ replacement as the team’s Garcia, Luis Garcia, stepped into the Nationals’ lineup to “replace” Trea Turner and went 2 for 8 with a Friday home run. Josh Bell went 2 for 5 with a homer.
It was enough for the Wolverines to escape July still in first place, after looking so much like they would be overtaken by the surging Tornados.
Flint Hill: L, 4 – 8. (7/30: 57 PA, .260, .351, .480; 2 ip, 4 er, 18.00 ERA). (7/31: 47 PA, .217, .234, .261; 18 ip, 13 er, 6.50 ERA). Or we might better attribute Old Detroit’s survival to a sudden collapse in Tornado pitching, with two bad days in a row comprising 20 innings pitched for 17 earned runs allowed. Fortunately the damage was tampered by only having one game to play, and a clean slate starting with today’s games. Friday featured no Tornado starters, but saw Tanner Scott and Ryan Tepera combine for 0 ip, 4 earned runs allowed. Three starters took the mound Saturday. German Marquez did fine (6 ip, 2 er) but Yu Darvish and Nathan Eovaldi each coughed up 5 earned runs in 6 and 5.3 innings, respectively. Tanner Scott came back for another 0.0 ip, 1 er performance, but Ryan Tepera managed to escape 2/3 of an inning without allowing a run.
Tanner Scott deserves some empathy. In his two outings combined he faced 7 batters. He got none of them out. He served up 2 hits (both Friday), three walks, and two HBP. He may be the poster boy for Tornado fans’ discontent at the failure of their surge to overtake the Wolverines, ending the month 3.9 games back. But Flinty fans, take heart! They started the month in 5th place, 5.2 tames back. Their favorites had the best month of any team in the EFL, going 18 – 6, scoring a league-leading 155.8 runs, and allowing a league-second-best 92.8.
Yes, Tanner Scott single-handedly cost the Tornadoes 4 earned runs in 0 ip the last two days of July, or Flint Hill would have been the best both in pitching and hitting. And at the pace of gaining 1.3 games per month, the T’s would need three months to overtake the W’s. There are only two months left. But maybe Tornado ownership will send Scott to Rock City for August.
Peshastin: W 1, L 1; 12 – 12. (7/30: 40 PA, .316, .350, .553; 8 ip, 1 er, 1.13 ERA) (7/31: The trade deadline had a traumatic effect on the Pear bull pen. Four Pear relief pitchers switched teams. Kendall Graveman handled it well, throwing 1.3 shutout innings on Friday after his tearful departure from Seattle to join the Astros in the other clubhouse at T-Mobile Park. But Saturday saw melt-downs from Trevor Rogers (3.7 ip, 2 er), Yimi Garcia ( 1 ip, 1 er) and especially John Curtiss (0.7 ip, 5 er), whose heart-wrenching septuple chulk was impossible to watch, and cost the Pears probably a half-game in the standings.
Peshastin started the month 3.5 games behind Old Detroit, in second place. The Pears slipped one notch to third, but the worst part is they are now more than twice as far off the pace. 7.4 games back is not an impossible gap, not with two months to go, but the Pesties will need to gain about a game a week to win their first EFL championship.
DC: W (-1), L 3; 11 – 22. (7/30: 41 PA, .281, .439, .500; 6 ip, 7 er, 10.50 ERA) (7/31: 45 PA, .132, .267, .263; 6 ip, 7 er, 10.50 ERA). Two identically dismal days from their pitchers doomed the Balk to a three-loss outcome to conclude July, dropping them 1.8 games in the standings over the two days, and 4.3 games for the month. In addition, the Balk had to watch as the Pears leapt back over them into third place. DC finds itself in 4th place at the end of July compared to third place at its start.
DC hitters resisted dismality Friday. Ryan McMahon and Matt Chapman homered, and every Drive except Jorge Alfaro reached base safely, matching their 9 hits with 9 walks. But Martin Perez’ 4 ip, 6 earned run outing undid the progress the hitters had made. So Saturday, with Triston McKenzie duplicating Perez’ line, the hitters gave into despair. They still walked 7 times, but only got 5 hits. Jorge Alfaro was a little out of sync, dasying for a triple along with a walk and a stolen base, and Xander Bogaerts homered, but there was just too little else going on to avoid a triple-loss outcome for the two games.
Kaline: W 1, L 1; 5 – 5. (7/30: 67 PA, .250, .299, .467; no pitching). (7/31: 56 PA, .132, .179, . 226; 12 ip, 2 er, 1.50 ERA). The Drive ended July with one game’s worth of good play spread over two games. Drive hitters did fine on Friday, carried by Jose Altuve’s two homers and Willy Adames’ homer and a double. More offensive leadership from middle infielders! And Adames has been on a wild tear since being traded from Tampa Bay to Milwaukee.
Except the tear ended July 31. Adames went 0 for 5 and his listless fellow hitters followed his lead. On the other hand, the pitchers came back from their Friday furlough with two almost identical outings Saturday from John Means and JT Brubaker, who each pitched 6 innings, allowed only 5 baserunners and only 1 earned run apiece.
The result was an almost perfect split of the two game series. Kaline retained its position in 5th place but slid another 0.7 games to 9 games back, compared to 4th place 4 games back at the beginning of the month).
Haviland: W 1, L 1; 10 – 14. (7/31: 53 PA, .224, .264, .388; 6.7 ip, 4 er, 5.37 ERA) (7/31: 53 PA, .250, .302, .729; 9 ip, 7 er, 7.00 ERA) The Dragons got exactly 53 plate appearances both days, so there’s something solid to build on. Brendan Rodgers and Jonah Heim homered on Friday t provide most of what little spark there was. But Saturday Jonah Heim clouted TWO homers, the last a walk-off game-winner against the Mariners’ new closer Diego Castillo. And Amed Rosario, Brendan Rodgers (again!), Maikel Franco, and Jake Cronenworth joined in the homer-hitting festival.
Unfortunately, Dragon pitching was poor Firday (Tarik Skubal struggled over 5.7 innings, allowing 4 earned runs on 3 homers) and worse on Saturday (Michael Kopech quintuple chulked with 1 ip, 5 earned runs allowed). Haviland held on to 6th place, the same place they occupied when July began, but lost 1.1 games over the final two days of the month, and 5.3 games over the month.
Canberra: W 0, L 2; 8 – 21. (7/30: 39 PA, .265, .359, .382; 0 ip, 2 er, infinite ERA). (7/31: 31 PA, .233, .226, .500; 7 ip, 7 er, 9.00 ERA). Kangaroo pitchers turned in two straight iconic stat lines. Yesterday they executed a perfect 9.00 ERA by allowing a run per inning, Rich Hill accounting for 4 of them in 5 innings pitched, and James Karinchak 3 more in 1/3 of an inning (to be cleaned up somewhat by Karinchak’s usual partner Emmanuel Clase, who got through 1.7 innings scoreless). Friday the Cannie pitching line was the first infinite ERA I remember from the year: Karinchak’s 0 ip, 2 er effort.
That’s a lot of stinky relief pitching in two days for Mr. Karinchak, whose July ERA ballooned to 7.36, elevating his once-pristine season ERA all the way to 3.74.
Canberra’s hitting was more consistent, with OPSes of .741 and .726. They did it differently each day, emphasizing on-base percentage on Friday (9 hits, 4 walks and a hbp, with Wander Franco’s triple the only extra-base hit), and slugging on Saturday (with no walks or HBP, but homers by Eric Haase and new Oriole Javier Baez, along with another Wander Franco triple).
Canberra entered July in 7th place but in a surge toward the top that had carried them to a .607 winning percentage within 8.8 games of the lead. The ‘Roos leave July still in 7th place, but amid a slump shrinking their winning percentage to .561 and expanding their deficit in the standings to 15 games.
Cottage: 14 – 15. (7/30: 47 PA, .364, .404, .705; 12 ip, 15 er, 11.25) (7/31: 40 PA, .194, .275, .361; 7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Generally you don’t want your day to go as if your pitchers were pitching to your hitters — not, at least, if you want to win a pennant. Matching your pitching to your hitting doesn’t get you very far from .500 baseball.
Take the Cheese as an example. On Friday their hitters were awesome. Not just awesome — awesome. Yandy Diaz and Randy Arozarena homered, and Pedro Severione matched them with two blasts of his own. Teammates added 12 more hits, including three doubles, to run that slugging percentage way up into the .700’s. But the pitchers coughed up a practically identical line: 4 homers, 16 hits in total, an 11.25 era. Ryan Weathers especially struggled chulking with 8 earned runs in 4 innings.
On Saturday, the Cheese pitchers got their act together. Or rather, the Cheese pitcher did, with Alek Manoah providing all 7 shutout innings. Thankfully, it wasn’t a perfect match with the hitters, who did manage a homer (Francisco Mejia) and a triple (Marcus Semien, saying good-bye to his Cheesy teammates before joining the Wolverines today). Oh, and an Ohtani double. But otherwise, there wasn’t much offense.
Cottage entered July in 8th place, 15.4 games back, with a .518 winning percentage. They leave July in 8th place, 16.9 games out, with a .542 winning percentage.
Pittsburgh: W 2, L 0; 14 – 11. (7/30: 33 PA, .241, .333, .241; 16 ip, 1 earned run, 0.56 ERA) (7/31: 36 PA, .375, .417, .688; 11.3 ip, 4 er, 3.19 ERA). The Cheese should observe how the Alleghenys finished July. The A’s pitching was as awesome on Friday as the Cheese’s hitting, thanks to Wil Crowe’s shutout 6 innings, Sonny Gray’s near-shutout 6 innings, and four relievers each spinning a shutout inning. Their hitting wasn’t great, but it was better than their opponents’ hitting.
On Saturday, the hitters went all awesome. Dansby Swanson led with two home runs, Bobby Dalbec added another. But the pitchers were also very good. New Mariner Tyler Anderson struggled a bit (5.3 ip, 3 er), but Kyle Muller did much better (5 ip, 1 er) and two relievers completed a clean inning.
The A’s gained 0.7 games on first place, and 1.3 games on the Cheese, finishing July just 0.4 games out of 8th place. They started the month only 0.2 games behind the same Cheese for 8th place, so the month was kind of wash for the Alleghenys.
Bellingham: W 2, L 0; 12 – 10. (7/30: 19 PA, .538, .526, .938; 6.3 ip, 4 er, 5.71 ERA) (7/31: 13 PA, .273, .385, .545; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Bellingham continues its strategy of only playing a few hitters, but making sure (somehow!) they are consistently great. Friday it was Jonathan India homering twice and doubling once who led the way, with all five of the other Cascade hitters also reaching base safely at least once. Saturday it was Kevin Newman tripling and Curt Casali doubling and singling to account for nearly all the sparse-but-impressive offending.
Pitching was also sparse, overall, for the two games. It wasn’t quite as great, considering Kevin Gausman did more than 60 % of the total pitching in his 4.3 inning, 3 earned run outing.
Bellingham had a good month. They entered the month 38 – 41, 18.5 games out of first in 10th place. They spent part of the month in 9th place, but end the month 54 – 51, 20.2 games out, back in 10th place but having had a very nice 16 – 10 month.
Portland: W 1, L 1; 5 – 4. (7/30: 42 PA, .289, .357, .316; 15.9 IP, 5 er, 2.83 ERA) (7/31: 45 PA, .125, .222, .250; 0.7 ip 0 er, 0.00 ERA) If you put the two days together, the pitching was excellent. Only 0.7 innings on Saturday, but with 16 innings on Friday, the two combine for 16.7 ip, 5 er, and ERA of about 2.70. The hitting doesn’t add up as well, with Saturday’s disappointing .472 OPS undermining a better day on Friday. But still, with Ryan Jeffers’ Saturday homer the only real highlight of the two days, there was just enough offense to get one win.
The A’s occupied last place every day of the month. They started July with a .437 winning percentage, 21.9 games out. They end it with a .442 percentage, 27.3 games out.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 74 | 31 | .703 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 70 | 35 | .666 | 3.9 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 63 | 42 | .600 | 10.8 |
| Boston Red Sox | 63 | 43 | .594 | 11.3 |
| New York Yankees | 55 | 48 | .534 | 17.8 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 53 | 48 | .525 | 18.8 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 37 | 66 | .359 | 35.8 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 64 | 39 | .626 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 58 | 45 | .561 | 6.7 |
| New York Mets | 55 | 48 | .534 | 9.5 |
| Atlanta Braves | 52 | 53 | .495 | 13.5 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 51 | 53 | .490 | 14 |
| Washington Nationals | 48 | 56 | .462 | 17 |
| Miami Marlins | 44 | 60 | .423 | 21 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 61 | 44 | .581 | — |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 56 | 49 | .538 | 4.6 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 54 | 51 | .510 | 7.4 |
| Cleveland Indians | 51 | 50 | .505 | 8 |
| Detroit Tigers | 50 | 57 | .467 | 12 |
| Kansas City Royals | 45 | 58 | .437 | 15 |
| Minnesota Twins | 44 | 61 | .419 | 17 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 62 | 43 | .590 | — |
| Cottage Cheese | 57 | 48 | .542 | 5.1 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 55 | 50 | .524 | 7 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 52 | 52 | .500 | 9.5 |
| Chicago Cubs | 51 | 55 | .481 | 11.5 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 40 | 64 | .385 | 21.5 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Kaline Drive | 65 | 40 | .616 | — |
| Houston Astros | 64 | 41 | .610 | 0.7 |
| Haviland Dragons | 61 | 44 | .580 | 3.8 |
| Oakland A’s | 59 | 46 | .562 | 5.7 |
| Seattle Mariners | 56 | 49 | .533 | 8.7 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 52 | 52 | .500 | 12.2 |
| Texas Rangers | 37 | 67 | .356 | 27.2 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 66 | 38 | .633 | — |
| San Francisco Giants | 65 | 39 | .625 | 0.8 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 63 | 43 | .594 | 3.8 |
| San Diego Padres | 60 | 47 | .561 | 7.3 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 46 | 58 | .442 | 19.9 |
| Colorado Rockies | 46 | 59 | .438 | 20.3 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 33 | 72 | .314 | 33.3 |