In the olden days (ie, up until this year), if you entered the last month of an EFL season fewer games behind first than there were games to play in September, you could not be officially eliminated from the pennant race until your last batter of the season was done playing. In theory, that batter’s MLB team could play forever, never making the 3rd out in the top of the 9th inning, and score 10,000 runs, and in which case your EFL player on that team could (in theory) could go 1111 for 1111, and lift your team’s record in September to almost 28 – 0. If your team ha 28 games to play but started September less than 28 games out, you were still in it until your last batter was done batting.
No one took much comfort in this, since we never saw anyone make more than a 3-game swing in a single day. The remotely possible limit, then, for a single day was probably a 6-game comeback: the leading team and the trailing team each making 3-game swings in opposite directions.
Now we play by weeks. So even though our 5-week Septober includes 30 games, a 28-game final-day swing in the standings isn’t even theoretically possible. The theoretical possibility now is only 6 games: your team going 6 – 0 on the week while the other team goes 0 – 6. We saw a nearly 3-game one-day swing last week, when the W’s suddenly surged to the front. Salem is still in position to reverse that swing, and has the luxury of 6 days to do it. DC only needs a 1.9 game swing. But neither of those teams is playing the Wolverines in Week 27, so they cannot impose the entire swing on Old Detroit all by themselves.
They need the Kangaroos’ help. And the Kangaroos have motivation: they snuck into Week 27 still within range of the Wolverines, with a 0.2 game cushion to spare.
Old Detroit: 4.6 (26.8 – 14.2), Salem: 1.4 (31.8 – 30.5). The Wolverines stumbled at the end of the month, only managing to grab 0.2 of a win on the day. Mitch White’s 3.7 ip, 3 er stinker was twirled in Toledo. But so was Josiah Gray’s brilliant 6 ip, 1 er. The offense’s offensive .128, .209, .179 slash line was all big league stuff. So it’s no wonder the W’s supposed juggernaut was clearly juggerable
Except the Seraphim didn’t put themselves into position to do much juggering. Their hitting yesterday was pretty good: .286, .375, .381. That was good enough to put the Seraphim back in front of the Wolverines for total season runs scored But it didn’t dig the Seraphs all the way out of the hole their pitchers excavated, putting 12 earned runs on the board in 12.7 innings pitched. So instead of getting the W’s back for their Sunday three-game swing, the Seraphs settled for an 0.6-game bump. You wouldn’t gobble up a fine steak in one bite. Why not savor reeling in the Wolverines over the next six games?
DC 3.5 (21.6 – 20.4), Canberra 2.5 (30.8 – 34.1). The Balk will have a lot to say about the Seraphim attempt to regain the lead. First, the Balk will play the Seraphs in the final week. Second, the Balk have a big head start in overtaking the Wolverines. Third … well, no, the Balk didn’t clobber the ball yesterday (they OPSed about .500), but they did pitch pretty well: 24 ip, 6 er, a 2.25 daily ERA which brought the team ERA down to 3.14. Good enough to win almost the entire game from the Kangaroos, and eliminate Canberra from the pennant race. If Canberra succeeds in dragging the W’s down by 5.8 games. In that scenario if DC fails to gain the 1.0 game they would need to pass the W’s and stay ahead of the Kangaroos, Salem would gain 5 games to win easily. If Salem fails to gain the 2.3 games they would need in that best-case Canberra scenario, then DC would gain at least 3.7 and win comfortably.
Canberra is still important. If the Kangaroos can beat the Wolverine by just 3.2 – 2.8, they will prevent the Wolverines from wining the pennant. But if the ‘Roos lose to the W’s by more than 5.1 – 0.9, the Wolverines will certainly win the pennant.
Peshastin 4.5 (30.2 -22.1), Haviland 1.5 (38.6 – 35.9). The Pears finished mauling the Dragons — Ok I dare you to come up with an image depicting this — by snagging 0.4 wins in the final game. Baseball Prospectus has already started incorporating stats from today’s games, so I can no longer give you totals for offense and defense. But I can say a big part of the Dragons’ small victory Wednesday was Aaron Judge’s 61st home run. That was a big hit for a man, but really only a small win for his team.
Pittsburgh Pirates 3.9 (32 – 24), Kaline 2.1 (34.8 – 35.9). The Drive kept up the near-.500 expected winning percentage pace, but it wasn’t enough as the Pirates beat the Reds again to keep their raw winning percentage at .640 and their adjusted winning at .654.
Flint Hill 4.2 (26.7 – 23), Bellingham 1.8 (23.1 – 30.1). The Cascades rallied to take .8 of a win on the last game of the week, scoring 1.5 runs and erasing 1.4 from their total runs scored. The Tornados couldn’t match that. They scored only 0.4 runs and allowed 3.7.
One positive(?) result is the Cascades are now only 2.4 games away from taking the first EFL pick next spring. If Peshastin and Bellingham both play like they did this week, the odds are not bad that we’ll have a last-week change in the deeps of our standings.
Portland 4.8 (31.0 – 20.9), Our Pittsburgh 1.2 (27.1 – 37.5) The Alleghenys continued their slump yesterday, getting outscored 2.6 – 5.3. Meanwhile Portland was cruising, scoring 6.5 and allowing only 1.1 runs to score. the Alleghenys and the cross-town Pirates are trending in opposite directions lately. The Alleghenys are still about 4 games ahead of the Pirates (63-93 v. 59 – 97), but if the Pirates do to them what they did to Kaline this week, the Alleghenys could face the ignominy of being beaten by the far less prestigious Pirates.