Week 2 Update: Drive Surge!

A headline of “Wolverines surge!” would tell you  something.  It would be something false this week, in which the Wolverines Sank! Going 1 – 5 on the week to fall three spots from 1st to 4th place. 

But the idea of Wolverines surging (or sinking) can be pictured in one’s mind.  It’s grammatical — the verb “to surge” is conjugated to go with a third person plural horde of Wolverines.  

 

 

 

A headline of “Seraphim Surge!” would be sort of true, in sharp contrast to “Wolverine Surge!”, since the Seraphim did rise 4 places in the standings this week, from 7th to 3rd place.  But “surge” exaggerated the Seraphiminal dynamics.  The Seraphim rose steadily all week,  fending off a solid Milwaukee Brewers team.  The Brewers outscored their opponents 28 – 23, but the Seraphim attained an .808 winning percentage for the week anyway because they outscored their foes 43 – 17, and seemed to win every day (even though they did lose 1.2 games, somewhere along in there, divided into inconspicuous chunks).   “Seraphim Arise!” would be the TRUE headline, but it wouldn’t be news, because Seraphim always arise.  

You don’t see many headlines blaring “Birds fly!”  or “Old dogs puke on your carpet a lot!” even though both have been true in and/or around our house lately.  While such things are important, they aren’t news.  Like angelic beings rising into the heavens.  What else is new.

No, today’s headline, the story of this week, is “Drive Surge!” even though it is redundant, ungrammatical, and evokes no images. Drive is a verb. So is surge, meaning almost exactly the same thing. “Run Walk!” has never been a headline, ever, anywhere. 

But I have no choice.  The Drive started the week in last place.  As of Monday evening they had edged up to 10th place. But as of Wednesday evening they suddenly popped up in 7th place — a three-spot leap between one update and the next, making 4 places in the standings in all. 

How did the Drive leave driving behind, and surge instead, for the last two days?  

1.  Max Fried pitched 7 sparkling shutout innings Tuesday against the Dodgers (while the Wolverines’ Walker Buehler struggled, surrendering 32 earned runs in 5 innings).   Fried cut the Drive team ERA from uncomfortably close to replacement to a respectable 4.98. 
2. Meanwhile the Drive’s MLB opponent, the Texas Rangers, lost two games in Seattle by a combined score of 2 – 12, slashing the Rangers’ raw winning percentage from .421 (23 rs / 27 ra) to .291 (25 rs, 39 ra), rocketing the Drive to a .586 winning percentage for the week.

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Now we must pause to honor the wounded.  

Actually, most of the league is kind of wounded. If we were playing in our old format — always against the league average — our standings would look like this:

TEAM              W     L     %.       GB

Old Detroit     9  –  3      .742     —

Salem              9 –   3     .741      0.02

DC                    8 –  3     .659    1.01

Haviland           7  – 5     .571     2.05

Canberra          5 – 7      .454    3.46

Bellingham       4 – 8      .361    4.58

Piitsburgh         4 – 8      .352   4.68 

Flint Hill             4 – 8      .348    4.74

Portland            4 – 8      .304    5.26

Kaline                 3 – 9      .284    5.50 

Peshastin.          2 – 10.    .208   646 

 

But of the wounded, Canberra is the most wounded.  The Kangaroos would be in fifth place, if we were judging them by their merits in the abstract.  But matched up against two MLB teams the ‘Roos have struggled, and currently rank 10th, 5 places lower than they deserve.   The Rosebuds have usurped the ‘Roos’ place in the standings, boosted 3 places from where they “deserve” to be.