Sooner and/or later

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Old Detroit Wolverines	107	49	.684	—	901.1	613.5
Flint Hill Tornadoes	101	55	.648	5.6	862.4	634.4
D.C. Balk	96	59	.621	9.8	886.6	692.7
Kaline Drive	97	59	.619	10.1	831.8	653.0
Peshastin Pears	92	64	.590	14.6	791.6	672.2
Canberra Kangaroos	86	69	.556	19.9	831.2	753.0
Cottage Cheese	85	71	.546	21.4	856.0	794.8
Haviland Dragons	82	74	.528	24.4	809.9	792.9
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	82	75	.521	25.4	766.8	732.1
Bellingham Cascades	81	76	.517	25.9	668.9	646.8
Portland Rosebuds	80	76	.511	27	846.0	836.2

 

OLD DETROIT: DNP, 1 – 0  (23 PA, .381, .435, .524 — Happy Edgar Martinez Off-Day!  no pitching)  Former shiny new star Josh Bell and current maybe-still-shiny new star Ke’Bryan Hayes posted twin oh-for-fours, and Luis Garcia (2 for 4) is still playing in Toledo for some reason… so all this offensive goodness is down to JP Crawford (3 for 5) and suddenly awakened Eloy Jimenez (3 for 4 with a homer and a walk).  If Eloy can stay awake through the weekend, the W’s will be fine.  

 

 

 

FLINT HILL:  DNP, 2 – 2. (18 PA, .375 .444, .750;  5 ip, 4 er, 7.29 ERA)  Aw, too bad!  The Tornados got too greedy with the slugging percentage to qualify for a Happy Edgar Martinez Off-Day. And their consolation prize (doubling the W’s runs scored) got spoiled because German Marquez was almost replacement-level in his 5 innings.  

 

Sunday the T’s gained 1.1 games in a single day, setting a pace that would put them in first place by this coming Saturday, with an entire day to spare.  But Monday they lost 0.2 games in a single day, putting them on pace to move into first place on August 31, 2021. The EFL has many amazing features, but the  reverse-the-calendar feature has not yet been attempted.  I guess we will saw what happensed. 

 

 

DC: W (-1), L 1; (-4) – 1.  (26 PA, .160, .192, .240;  4.7 ip, 5 er, 9.57 ERA)  Having pitching apparently isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, at least on off-days. So far the best approach has been to skip the pitching entirely.  James Kaprielian, touched for 3 runs in 2.7 innings in Seattle,  discovered a Mariners buzz-saw few believed existed.  Garrett Crochet actually chulked (1 ip, 2 er).  Trevor Stephan…I don’t know who this is.  He pitched a scoreless inning.

 

Scoreless innings would have been better than the innings endured by Balk batters.  0 for 4’s by Sean Murphy, Matt Chapman and Sam Hilliard gnawed away at the Balk’s rc/g numbers.  The Balk had the 4th best offense in the EFL in April. In the months since then their RC/G has ranked 6th, 1st, 5th, 1st, and now back down to 5th, for the moment.  

 

 

 

KALINE:  W 1, L (-1); 1 – 0.  (13 PA, .364, .308, .727;  no pitching).  That is an amazing slash line, with its isolated on base percentage of -0.056! (There were two sacrifice flies, and no free passes). I suppose such things will turned out to be routine when we eventually reversed the calendar like they are wanted to do in Flint Hill.  Meanwhile, the Drive were untroubled by their surreal OBP.  They allowed exactly 0 runs, and really they only scored 0.5, mostly thanks to a Jonathan Schoop homer to go with his single single. Notice how this tiny thing — this half a run — changed the Drive’s reported record from 96 – 60 to 97 – 59.  They led the Astros in the AL West by 5.5 games yesterday.  Today they still lead the idle Astros by 5.5 games.  Amazing things are happening in the second decimal to the right of the decimal point. 

 

Speaking of the AL West: the third place Mariners (reported in the fake-news mainstream media as being in second place) are now only 4.5 games behind the Astros. The M’s have four paths to the division championship (if we pretend the Drive don’t exist):  they can go 6 – 0 while the Astros go no better than 1 – 6; or they can go 5 – 1 while the Astros lose all their games; or they can go 5 -1 while the Astros go no better than 1 – 6, and then win the play-in game; or they can go 6 – 0 while the Astros go no better than 2 – 5, and then win the play-in game.   There are even more ways the M’s can take the second wild-card spot.  I realize how pathetic this makes Mariners fandom look, but this is as exciting as it’s been in a long time. Well, there was that time — 2016? — when the M’s weren’t eliminated until the 5th inning of the last game of the season. We’re still a long way from that paltry glory, but it’s not over yet!

 

 

 

PESHASTIN: DNP,  2 – 0. (22 PA, .222, .364, .278;  no pitching).  The Pears played it safe, and spared Pear pitchers an off-day appearance. The hitters found some extra on-base percentage near where the the Drive were last seen, and kept it for themselves. This was enough to give them a nice 2 run lead lead in off-day action. Max Schrock was the Star of the Scrimmage, doubling and singling in 5 plate appearances

 

 

CANBERRA:  DNP, 0 – 0. (9 PA, .167, .444, .167;  10.3 ip, 9 er, 7.86 ERA). So much on-base percentage!  The Kangaroos’ isolated on-base rate was .277 yesterday which is … huh. Almost 600% bigger than Kaline’s? (which would have to lose 100% of theirs, and then add almost 500% of that amount to get to the Roos OBP?… I don’t know how to do do this. Maybe I will learn it before August 31, 2021.)

 

The ‘Roos’ isolated OBP is, for now, incalculably better than the Drive’s!!  Because 100% of the ‘Roos’ batters walked, and 50% of them got  hit by a pitch. Yes, there were only two ‘Roos batters, but are they their teammates’ keepers?  

 

What I really wanted to talk about for Canberra was how Canny they were. All that poor pitching barely made a dent in the team’s runs allowed — just 0.1 runs added.  How did they do that?  All 10.3 innings were replacing replacements.  Usually you don’t want to replace erasable replacement innings with equally bad indelible real ones.  But we are nearing the end of the month.  If Canberra isn’t likely to get all its replacement innings erased, then there’s no harm in letting a judiciously limited amnount of replacement- level pitching happen.  Get it off their chests.  Maybe they’ll pitch better next time.  

 

 

COTTAGE:  W (-1), L 1; (-2) – 4.  (7 PA, .000, .000, .000;   8.6 ip, 9 er , 9.42 ERA).  I know it was an off day, but still, something seems… amiss about this approach. Unpromising.

 

You usually want the pitchers to generate no-hitters, and the batters to score nine earned runs a game. Outstanding hitters get more walks than strikeouts, and maybe a HBP occasionally.  But it was the pitchers producing more walks (8) than strikeouts (7), with the HBP tossed in for good measure. 

 

OK, let’s be gracious here.  The pitchers here are both debutants.  Josiah Gray actually amassed more innings (5.3) than earned runs allowed (3).  It was mostly Matt Manning who was so disoriented out there: 3.3 ip, 6 er, 3 so, 5 bb.  

 

HAVILAND: DNP, 4 – 0.  (11 PA, .500, .545, .900;  no pitching.) The best day in the EFL was in Haviland, where the hitters really hit! Well, Amed Rosario really hit!  4 for 5 with a double and a homer.  The other three Dragons to reach the plate went 1 for 5 with a HBP.  But Rosario was so great he carried the team to a 1.445 daily OPS. 

 

 

PITTSBURGH:  L, 3 – 5. (13 PA, .167 .231, .250;  3 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  Some sleight of hand here, to be honest.  Cody Ponce — who is this guy? — pitched those 3 innings, and surrendered 4 runs.  All of them unearned, even though there were 2 home runs. 

 

Ponce, it turns out, plays for both Pittsburgh teams.  He had Jonathan India on second with one out when Colin Moran made an error at first base.  Instead of being a runner on third and two outs, it was a runner on 1st and 3rd with one out.  The next batter hit a fly ball to the OF, scoring India instead of just being the third out. Then Ponce gave up consecutive home runs to Joey Votto and Eugenio Suarez.  

 

The Pirates suffered, but what else is new?  Local Pirates fans also suffered, but what else is new about that, either?  But at least one local Pirates fan could also say, “hey, he got through the inning without any earned runs, so we’re good.”  

 

Good, except for the part about going from being practically tied with long-time rival Haviland, to being an entire game behind, all in one day. 

 

 

 

BELLINGHAM:  W, 6 – 4.  (18 PA, .556, .556, 833;  no pitching)  The Cascades produced monster batting numbers, but a thin lineup of only 4 players. All four got hits — even Austin Hedges doubled! — but Jonathan India was the star.  He homered, doubled (off Ponce in the inning-gone-bad from Pittsburgh’s point of view) and singled twice.  He also stole a base. I’ll bet that was after one of the singles.  It was a nice win, badly needed if Bellingham is going to stay ahead of the Runaway Rosebuds!

 

 

PORTLAND:  DNP, 1 – 0. (5 PA, 400 , .400, .600; no pitching)  I can’t remember an EFL team producing only one hitter on a day, and no pitching.  It’s probably happened, but I don’t remember it. But now the Rosebuds have done it.  And they chose their hitter well: CJ Cron!  Who doubled and singled in 5 plate appearances, as his batting line would indicate  I think that’s the only way you can get a .400, .400, .600 line for 5 plate appearances. So why am I spending all this time telling you something you already knew when you read 5 PA, .400, .400, .600?

 

Because the Rosebuds are amazing, that’s why. Look at this, the current EFL September standings:

 

Team	W	L	PCT
PR	18	6	0.756
KD	16	8	0.655
FH	16	8	0.652
OD	15	9	0.635
CK	14	10	0.575
DC	13	11	0.540
BC	12	12	0.480
PP	11	13	0.449
HD	11	13	0.440
PA	10	14	0.424
CC	9	14	0.405

 

 

Our last place team is two games ahead of everyone else in September.  In terms of monthly standings, PR finished  8th, 10th, 11th, 10th, and 7th in April through August.  At the end of the July they were 11 games under .500, 7.6 games behind the 10th place Cascades, and 27.3 games behind the league leaders.

 

At the end of August they had improved in some ways — only 8 games under .500 — but declined in others: 7.7 games behind the Cascades, and 29.9 games out of first. 

 

Now suddenly they are 4 games over .500, 1.1 games behind the Cascades (who would be in the cellar by now except  in the last week or so they have been running like terrified rabbits from the fearsome Rosebuds).  And they are only 27 games out of first — closer than they were on Aug 1! 

 

They’ve already gained essentially 3 games on first, and September isn’t even over. If they keep up that pace, they will catch the Wolverines in June, 2022.  I think that might be sooner than next August 31, 2021… but I’m not as sure as I’d usually be.  Check back with me yesterday. 

 

 

 

 

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Old Detroit Wolverines	107	49	.684	—
Flint Hill Tornadoes	101	55	.648	5.6
Tampa Bay Rays	97	59	.622	9.7
New York Yankees	89	67	.571	17.7
Boston Red Sox	88	68	.564	18.7
Toronto Blue Jays	87	69	.558	19.7
Baltimore Orioles	50	106	.321	56.7

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
D.C. Balk	96	59	.621	—
Canberra Kangaroos	86	69	.556	10.1
Atlanta Braves	83	72	.535	13.3
Philadelphia Phillies	81	75	.519	15.8
New York Mets	73	82	.471	23.3
Washington Nationals	65	92	.414	32.3
Miami Marlins	64	91	.413	32.3

 

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Chicago White Sox	89	68	.567	—
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	82	75	.521	7.2
Kansas City Royals	71	65	.522	7.5
Bellingham Cascades	81	76	.517	7.8
Cleveland Indians	77	79	.494	11.5
Detroit Tigers	75	81	.481	13.5
Minnesota Twins	69	87	.442	19.5

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Milwaukee Brewers	94	62	.603	—
St. Louis Cardinals	87	69	.558	7
Cottage Cheese	85	71	.546	8.8
Cincinnati Reds	82	75	.522	12.5
Chicago Cubs	67	89	.429	27
Pittsburgh Pirates	58	98	.372	36

 

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Kaline Drive	97	59	.619	—
Houston Astros	91	65	.583	5.5
Seattle Mariners	87	70	.554	10
Oakland A’s	85	72	.541	12
Haviland Dragons	82	74	.528	14.2
Los Angeles Angels	74	82	.474	22.5
Texas Rangers	57	99	.365	39.5

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
San Francisco Giants	102	54	.654	—
Los Angeles Dodgers	100	56	.641	2
Peshastin Pears	92	64	.590	9.9
Portland Rosebuds	80	76	.511	22.3
San Diego Padres	78	78	.500	24
Colorado Rockies	71	85	.455	31
Arizona Diamondbacks	50	106	.321	52