Time is passing – The Official EFL Web Site

The main development in the EFL pennant race was the passing of another day. The top two teams have only 11 left to play. Baseball is America’s pastime, and sure enough, time is passing.

EFL Standings for 2021

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Old Detroit Wolverines	105	46	.694	—	875.0	580.4
Flint Hill Tornadoes	99	52	.656	5.8	840.5	602.9
D.C. Balk	92	56	.622	11.2	847.8	661.4
Kaline Drive	93	57	.617	11.9	795.2	627.1
Peshastin Pears	91	59	.606	13.5	757.5	617.6
Canberra Kangaroos	81	67	.549	22.2	787.1	726.8
Cottage Cheese	82	68	.545	22.6	821.9	765.6
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	81	69	.539	23.6	743.0	686.5
Haviland Dragons	79	71	.526	25.5	765.1	751.3
Bellingham Cascades	77	73	.514	27.2	636.9	619.8
Portland Rosebuds	74	76	.491	30.7	790.6	816.7

OLD DETROIT: W, 10 – 9. (38 PA, ..380, .421, .694; 1.7 IP, 2 ER, 10.59 ERA) The Wolverines are suffering from a late season starting-pitching drought. In times like these, relievers can help by locking down a few innings to keep the replacements to a minimum. Three Oldie relievers tried to do this, but they just made things worse. Nate Pearson went 0.7 ip, 1 er. Craig Kimbrel went 1.0 ip, 1 er. Sam Clay, bless his heart, went out there in the bottom of the tenth with a ghost runner on second, who promptly stole third. Clay intentionally walked the next batter, then uncorked a wild pitch, losing the game for the Nats without retiring anyone, but also without surrendering an earned run.

Set a target of 9 runs, the Wolverine hitters set to work. Tommy Edman dug the hole a little deeper, going 0 for 5. But everyone else accounted for multiple bases. Marcus Semien hit homer #41. All 6 remaining batters hit doubles, Austin Riley slashing 3 of them, and Carlos Correa adding 3 singles to go 4 for 5. It was just enough to nail down the team’s 105th win.

FLINT HILL: L, 2 – 6. (48 PA, .182, .229, .295; 4 ip, 2 er, 4.50 ERA). Jamie sent me a note early this morning with a self-contradictory message: “No words.” It was very early, before 6:00 AM, when he sent that. He gave no explanation. Was he asking me to do today’s update with no words? Impossible. I am left to guess, and here’s my guess:

Jamie was speechless over the W’s ability to overcome a 9-run deficit, whereas the Tornados couldn’t climb out of a 6-run hole. This is because so many famous Tornados went 0 for the day: Gallo, Bregman, Bichette, Goldschmidt, Haase, Kelenic, Lowrie. Mitch Haniger (2 doubles in 4 AB, plus a walk) and Keibert Ruiz (3 for 5) were the only guys having really good days.

But the Tornados should take heart. They only lost 0.1 games in the standings, and only 1 of their last dozen games to play. It’s not good, but speech should be possible.

DC: L, 5 – 12. (19 PA, .294, .368, .353; 5.3 ip, 7 er, 11.89 ERA). The Balk still have 14 games to play, having somehow slipped back off the pace after having caught up their 7-game deficit. But those extra games may not be a boon if the thin performance from yesterday is going to be typical from here on out. The hitting line is solid with that nice OBP, but it’s only 5 batters (although Myles Straw did go 3 for 7 with a double). The ptching line was crippled by Triston McKenzie’s discouraging 4.3 ip, 7 er outing. It will be a challenge to get back to 10 games behind — or to hold off the charging Drive!

KALINE: W 2, L (-1); 7 – 2. (30 IP, .333, .400, .556 — Happy Edgar Martinez Day! 11.3 ip, 3 er, 2.39 ERA). On a day when most of the league lost, and no one else won by more than 1 run, the Drive had a great day. Yuli Gurriel of the phantom tag of 3rd base followed that up with a 3 for 4 day to lead the Driven offense. John Means tossed 6.7 shutout innings. Kaline gained an entire game on DC in the race for 3rd place.

PESHASTIN: DNP, (-3) – (-3) (38 PA, .206, .263, .412; 11 ip, 7 er, 5.73 ERA). Jazz Chisholm cracked two homers — but that was 6/7ths of the team’s total extra bases, leaving the Pears losing runs on a day off. BUT the team came up with 11 innings pitched! They were not exciting innings, but they cut the team’s pile of replacement innings by about 40%, meaning each inning pitched on this off-day slashed almost 0.3 runs allowed off their total. So the Pears added 0.001 to their winning percentage and subtracted 0.1 from their games behind.

CANBERRA: “L”, 6 – 5. (24 PA, .176, .417, .235; 2.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 era) The Kangaroos finally slipped past the Cheese into that coveted 6th-place pivot spot in the lineup. They did two things especially well.

First, they took 6 walks and a HBP to produce an OBP .241 points better than their batting average, the biggest isolated OB rate in the EFL, almost twice that of the #2 team (Portland).

Second, they accumulated 2.7 scoreless innings, more than twice as many as the second place team (Bellingham).

The database wasn’t impressed, saddling the ‘Roos with a loss, but… well, it’s not like the database is stupid, it’s just that it has a particularly specialized form of intelligence, rigid, without nuance, etc. Here’s the consolation: even the database noticed the ‘Roos gained 0.1 games on the first place team, even though the W’s also won.

COTTAGE: L, 2 – 6. (35 PA, .176, .171, .324; 16.3 ip, 10 er, 5.52 ERA). The Cheese, on the other hand, were the only team to have a negative isolated OB rate, due to earning 0 free passes while hitting a sacrifice fly. Which, in the EFL, doesn’t guarantee that a run scored! But, in this case, it did apparently score a run, to go with Yandy Diaz’s homer to account for the 2 runs the Cheese scored. All three — three! I would LOVE to have three starters in one game. I barely have 3 starters total — all struggled, the best being Matt Manning at 5 ip, 3 er, and the worst being Sean Manaea at 5 ip, 4 er, with Robbie Ray right there at 4.3 ip, 3 er.

But in this race, where Cottage in 7th place is only 0.4 games out of 6th, with Canberra having 14 games left and the Cheese 12, there is plenty of time for things to change…

PITTSBURGH: L, 2 – 5. (10 IP, .111, .200, .111; 13.6 ip, 8 er, 5.29 ERA)... especially when you notice the Alleghenys are still within reach of 6th place, only 1.4 games out. That’s after a truly skeletal offensive performance, with only 3 batters, only one hit (a Luis Robert single) and one free pass (a Luis Robert HBP). Nothing is more skeletal than only 1 hitter actually hitting, unless it’s those .111s in the slash line.

Nothing was skeletal about Allegheny pitching. Allegheny/Mariner Tyler Anderson was great: 7 ip, 1 er. So was Anthony Bender in his more limited role (1.3 ip 0er). On the other hand, Vladimir Gutierrez was a little bit gross (3.3 ip, 5 er), as was Cody Pence (2 ip, 2 er).

HAVILAND: L, 2 – 8 (23 PA, .174, .174, .304; 11 ip, 9 er, 7.36 ERA) There was a lot of rough pitching in our league yesterday. In Haviland, it took the form of two struggling starters (Jesus Luzardo, 4 ip, 5.5 er; AJ Alexy 3.3 ip, 4 er) making a bigger mess than three solid relievers (combined 3.7 ip, 0 er) could clean up. And it’s not like they got much help from the Dragon offense, in which Yoshi Tsutsugo’s home run was the only highlight.

BELLINGHAM: “L”, 5 – 4. (39 PA, .242, .359, .364; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Bailey Falter didn’t. He got that scoreless inning. That modestly solid batting line was mostly thanks to Alcides Escobar ( 3 for 6), Hanser ALberto (2 for 3 with a double) and Kyle Farmer (2 for 5 with a home run). Austin Hedges’ single was the onluy other hit… and if you are counting on Austin Hedges to carry your offense, you are in a bad spot. Still, the Cascades got a real win.

PORTLAND: W, 3 – 0. (24 PA, .263, .391, .632; 2 ip, 1 er, 4.50 ERA). The offense was thin but spectacular, with homers from Gary Sanchez and… well, see if you can guess who the other one was. No, not Eric Lauer, he’s a pitcher. Another ex-W with u’s and a’s in his name. The Rosebuds’ owner did post, late, comments on his own team yesterday. Check them out. Their “great month” continues, and has brought them back to the brink of being less than 30 games out

Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Old Detroit Wolverines	105	46	.694	—
Flint Hill Tornadoes	99	52	.656	5.8
Tampa Bay Rays	93	58	.616	11.9
Boston Red Sox	86	65	.570	18.9
Toronto Blue Jays	84	66	.560	20.4
New York Yankees	84	67	.556	20.9
Baltimore Orioles	48	102	.320	56.4

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
D.C. Balk	92	56	.622	—
Canberra Kangaroos	81	67	.549	10.9
Atlanta Braves	78	70	.527	14.1
Philadelphia Phillies	76	74	.507	17.1
New York Mets	73	77	.487	20.1
Miami Marlins	64	86	.427	29.1
Washington Nationals	61	89	.407	32.1

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Chicago White Sox	85	65	.567	—
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	81	69	.539	4.2
Bellingham Cascades	77	73	.514	7.9
Cleveland Indians	73	76	.490	11.5
Detroit Tigers	73	78	.483	12.5
Kansas City Royals	69	82	.457	16.5
Minnesota Twins	65	85	.433	20

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Milwaukee Brewers	91	59	.607	—
Cottage Cheese	82	68	.545	9.3
St. Louis Cardinals	80	69	.537	10.5
Cincinnati Reds	78	73	.517	13.5
Chicago Cubs	67	83	.447	24
Pittsburgh Pirates	56	94	.373	35

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Kaline Drive	93	57	.617	—
Houston Astros	89	61	.593	3.5
Oakland A’s	82	68	.547	10.5
Seattle Mariners	81	69	.540	11.5
Haviland Dragons	79	71	.526	13.6
Los Angeles Angels	72	78	.480	20.5
Texas Rangers	55	95	.367	37.5

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
San Francisco Giants	97	53	.647	—
Los Angeles Dodgers	96	54	.640	1
Peshastin Pears	91	59	.606	6.2
San Diego Padres	76	73	.510	20.5
Portland Rosebuds	74	76	.491	23.4
Colorado Rockies	70	79	.470	26.5
Arizona Diamondbacks	48	101	.322	48.5