(THIS WAS WRITTEN ON MONDAY, JUNE 27, AND POSTED THAT DAY — BUT WITHOUT LABELING IT A LEAGUE UPDATE, SO YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T SEE IT. I AM RE-POSTING IT ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON)
When we left off yesterday (ie, Sunday) we were covering these stories:
The Balk can’t break away, the Seraphim rise very close to the top, the Wolverines seem to recover their footing (but don’t, really), the Dragons get some justice just as they go through a rough patch, the Tornados have something happen to them, the Kangaroos definitely join the party, the Drive undergo an intervention at the hands of the Wizard’s life-long favorite team, the Cascades are about to cross an important line, the Rosebuds are the new most victimized team, the Pears have something happen to them, the Alleghenys demonstrate they are a good team looking for a break or two.
We covered the top three teams yesterday. The Balk are still balked from running away with things, possibly as a result of their name, but concretely as a result of Bryce Harper’s broken thumb — although they had a great W 2, L(-1) day. The Seraphim are still very close to the top, although they’d be closer if the Cubs would play their normal incompetent baseball (instead of beating St. Louis yesterday, 6 -5). The Wolverines are in worse shape than they looked yesterday morning, slipping 1.4 games further behind Sunday, thanks to mediocre pitching from half (ie, 2) their healthy starters — and despite a monster day from Byron Buxton (3 for 3 with a double and a triple), and Ke’Bryan Hayes’ miraculous recovery.
Now we are ready to pick up where we left off:
Dragons: Haviland’s long stretch of having the best raw winning percentage is over. Those standings look like this now:
Seraphim: .6828; Wolverines: .6699; Balk: .6653; Dragons: .6646.
(What a great race!!)
Sunday morning the Chiefest of Calamaties could console himself with the knowledge that he no longer led the league in record-suppression from our head-to-head format. Portland (0.056) was bearing a slightly heavier burden than Haviland (0.052). This achievement persists today, but is perhaps outweighed by the fact that the Dragons would not take over first base even if we all had to rely strictly on our raw winning percentages. This depressing fact — that the Dragons might not really be the best team — may have been counteracted yesterday by the four homers hit in Haviland: Jonah Heim, Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber… and especially (one would think) Daniel Vogelbach’s pinch-hit, game-tying homer.
Tornados: OK, I admit, “the Tornados have something happen to them” was my way of handling the fact that I didn’t have a headline about any earthshaking or storm-brewing events. But that problem has been solved, thanks to the Dodgers’ continued .700+ winning percentage, the Dragons’ struggles this week, and a third factor which I will get to in a minute. They actually hit better Sunday than they had earlier in the week, led by 1.000+ OPS days by CJ Cron, Brandon Drury, Josh Lowe, and Nomar Mazara. But still, they wake up this morning with an eyelash lead over the…
Kangaroos: Kangaroos, who have made it crystal clear they intend to join the pennant race — and are capable of doing so! WEEK 13 looked like it would be plenty unlucky for Canberra, having to face the Yankees. But so far the Yankees have been shockingly mediocre ((outscored 14 – 15) while the Kangaroos have dominated. Their non-replacement pitchers have been dominant (2.33 ERA), so even with 8.7 replacement innings, the team’s ERA is a solid 3.47 ERA for the week. Put that together with a powerful offense OPSing 1.271 as a team and you have a team playing as well as the Seraphim. Note especially:
- Isaac Paredes, who is 6 for 8 on the week with a 2.667 OPS without hitting a homer, and
- Julio Rodriguez, who is 2 for 14 with two homers… and probably facing a suspension. *
This leaves the K’s a tenth of a game behind the Tornados, and only 9.1 games out of first place, despite the Balk’s two – win surge.
*SPECIAL NOTE: Mariners announcer Aaron Goldsmith accused Angel pitcher Andrew Wantz of being “nothing more than a hitman” yesterday for throwing behind Julio Rodriguez in the first and hitting Jesse Winker in the second, after Mike Trout was buzzed by a high inside baseball the night before. Normally I am skeptical of these heated accusations, but in this case… well, I noticed something.
Here are the players ejected after the brawl:
Mariners: Scott Servais, Jesse Winker, Julio Rodríguez, J.P. Crawford
Angels: Phil Nevin, Raisel Iglesias, Ryan Tepera, Andrew Wantz
Wantz was the starting pitcher, announced yesterday morning as an opener before scheduled starter Jose Suarez. Tepera and Iglesias are relievers. Winker, Rodriguez, and Crawford were the #s 4, 2, and 1 hitters in the Mariners lineup. This supports Goldsmith’s accusation that Wantz was a hitman.
That — and the fact that Winker didn’t head toward the Angel dugout until after goaded by someone on the Angels bench — makes it all look suspiciously planned by the Angels as a team. It also raises the suspicion that the Angels might have warned their starting players not to get ejected, to let the easily-replaceable relievers do the fighting, and see if they could get Rodriguez and Winker enraged and ejected? A message that clearly did not reach the Mariners’ players.
Kaline: Yesterday I intended to highlight how the Detroit Tigers’ unexpected dominance over their opponents this week was having the unintended side effect of undermining the Drive’s sizable subsidy from our head-to-head format. That bonus was down to 0.080 after Saturday’s games. Unfortunately, the Tigers lost 11 – 7 to the Diamondbacks on Sunday, so the subsidy is back up to 0.090 as of this morning.
The Drive are not just coasting on the backs of their MLB opponents. Drive hitters posted a .368, .442, .737 batting line Sunday. That had as much to do with their W2, L (-1) day as anything the Tigers were doing.
…
OK, the grandsons are up, there’s stuff in the works for our day here in Seattle. I’ll finish this serial update tomorrow by which time the Cascades’ 0.1-game lead over the Rosebuds may have evaporated. Stay tuned!