I swear… er, solemnly affirm I did not intend to jinx the Kangaroos by making them the cover story yesterday. This is not Sports Illustrated.
I admit there are straws upon which someone might try to be build a case alleging I wanted to see Canberra crumble. But why would anyone think I’d be that upset about finishing behind the Kangaroos?The last time the ‘Roos finished ahead of the ‘Rines in the EFL standings (2020), Old Detroit won a championship the very next year (2021). I’d take that result anytime.
On the other hand, we don’t have a big enough sample size to know for sure that an Old Detroit championship always follows a Kangaroo triumph in that two-team race. I don’t want to KNOW this a natural law of the EFL. Without suspense this league wouldn’t be as much fun. And what if next time it didn’t work? What if the next Canberra victory in the Mock Pennant Race led to decades of Kangaroo dominance? So, no, the Wolverine are not volunteering to finish behind the Kangaroos.
But that doesn’t mean I’d manipulate the arc of justice to do dirt to the Kangaroos. True, they took a tumble yesterday, their pitching proferring 14.7 innings stained with 11 earned runs (Jake Odorizzi struggling through 5 innings with 6 earned runs before being “relieved” by Sammy Long’s 1 ip, 3 er). And it’s also true they only got 9 at-bats total from their hitters… but 2 of their hitters went 2 for 4, with Nathaniel Lowe’s two hits being a double and a homer that almost cost the Mariners their 4th straight loss.
Anyway, those things really happened. I did not will them to happen. And they weren’t the worst things that happened to any EFL team. That honor probably goes to the Pears, who suffered from all of the following in today’s update:
- Mackenzie Gore surrendered 2 runs in 1.3 innings before leaving the game with a sore elbow. That’s trouble.
- Trevor Rogers lasted 3.7 innings, but gave up 6 more earned ruins. The team ended up with a 14.40 ERA on the day.
- The Wolverines cut the Pears no slack, notching 8 scoreless innings and OPSing .911 as a team.
- The Commissioner noticed that last week the Pears were only credited with 4 games played. Although I am sure all the stats were updated, I apparently forgot to update the games played the last time I updated from week 16. So I went back to the archive edition, did that update, and then hand-copied the resulting raw rs/ra into the weekly status sheet, bringing the ‘Roos up to date…
- … and landing them firmly in last place.
So now, like the rest of us, the Pears have played exactly 100 games.
I suppose the Tornados might want someone to notice they also had a bad day. Sean Manaea squandered 3.3 innings pitched by surrendering 4 earned runs. And the offense was soft — a .681 team OPS. So even though the Drive hit worse (an even .600 team OPS), their 22.3 ip , 9 earned run pitching dump pushed Kaline to within 0.2 games of the Tornados.
…
But what if I can jinx a team by featuring them in an update?
You know, I think it’s the Balk’s turn as subject of an EFL feature story…