Did the Wolverines open a crack through which the Balk can slip into first place? Will the Seraphim and Kangaroos get up off the mat and spoil their opponents’ championship dreams? Will the Dragons allow the young Tornados to regain a shred of Johnson family dignity? Will the Wizard do the same for the young Rosebuds? Will the Alleghenys finally retake their rightful place as the first team of the Steel City? Are the Cascades about to snatch defeat (ie, victory) from the jaws of victory (ie, defeat)? Will the Pears’ current surge of competitive irrational exuberance cost them 3 places in the 41-team draft order (probably 2 places in the actual 30 – team draft order).
- Did the Wolverines leave a crack open? Not much of one. True, Old Detroit’s team ERA for the week went up by almost 50%, while their team offense trended downward from 5.6 to 5.25 rc/g. But when the resulting ERA is only 0.75, your predicted raw winning percentage drops only a bit, from .991 to .977. That’s surprisingly tiny if you look at it from the perspective of a 0.000 winning percentage. But from the perspective of a 1.000 winning percentage, it’s a roughly 150% decline. That makes a 0.03 game difference in the standings. Every little bit helps if you are trying to catch the W’s, but 1 earned run in 3.7 innings pitched and one day of .535 OPS hitting isn’t like leaving the flood gates open. More significant: the Balk had an Edgar Martinez Day (.342, .419, 553) at a crucial time, and pitched to a 2.79 ERA over 19.3 innings. That is how DC achieved nearly all of their 0.6-game gain in the standings. Bryson Stott (3 for 3 with a single, a homer and a walk, 3.333 OPS) was the outstanding hero of the day. George Kirby (4 ip, 4 er) was the goat; had he called in sick, the Balk would be only 1.7 games out today, doubling their single-day gain.
- Will the Seraphim and Kangaroos get off the mat? Can we even describe the Seraphim as being on the mat? They did lose a win and gained two losses (all as rounded off to while integers) because they wimped out at the plate: .195, .250, .317 for a sub-replacement 2.5 runs scored. Salem had scored 6.93 runs per game for the first 3 games of the week. Now that rate is down to 5.85. Their raw winning percentage yesterday was .625; now it’s .571. It’s lower, and they lost an unaffordable 1.6 games in the standings, but they aren’t dead in the race yet. Their adjusted winning percentage, while embarrassingly low for a pennant contender (.348), looms over the poor Kangaroos and their .011 adjusted weekly winning percentage. Kangaroo players and management have been feeling low since they were manhandled by the Pirates three weeks ago. Judging by their team 3.3 rc/g game this week, and 4.75 ra/g, they are still not over it. If Salem’s on a mat, it’s on a top bunk. Canberra is on the bottom bunk, and struggling to go out with a Pujolsian bang.
- Will the Dragons save the Tornados’ dignity? Haviland is, if anything, speeding up as the season ends. Yesterday they combined to go .280, .315, .500 at the plate and 8 innings with 0 earned runs allowed from the mound. (Kyle Schwarber led the offense: 2 for 3 with 2 homers and 3 walks; Jesus Luzardo led the pitchers with 6 shutout innings.) The Dragons struggled badly at the plate (.185, .267, .185) — humiliating, I’d guess, for a team used to scoring about 4.6 runs a game. But they got 6 scoreless innings apiece from Hunter Greene and Joe Musgrove, so they won 0.3 games Monday. Maybe not all the way bhack from, but no longer pinned, either.
- Will the Drive save the Rosebuds’ dignity? What a tough environment in that Johnson family! The patriarchs, even those of retirement age, utterly dominant. It’s true here, too — the Wizard doles out wins to the Rosebuds 0.2 at a time, keeping 0.8 for himself. The Wizard did it again yesterday, behind Albert Pujols’ 703rd career homer, and the Wiz’s refusal to cut the Rosebuds any slack in light of their miserable .079, .167, .105 batting line. I just don’t get it: how can those old guys be so tough on the kids? Can’t they let the young ‘uns win a little? How do they sleep at night?
- (Psst. Ron. Mark and Jamie have 3 championships between them — as many as their elders have between them.)
- (Yeah? So what’s your point?)
- Will the Alleghenys resume their rightful place in the hearts of Pittsburgh fans? The Pirates won yesterday 3 – 2 in MLB play. But in the EFL that translated to only 0.1 win. What accounts for this harrowing result? The Alleghenys. They congratulated the Pirates on their achievement, and then went out and batted .308, 400, .407 and pitched 12.3 innings of 1.46 ERA baseball. Adding the result 5.2 – 2.5 score to the rest of the week’s work brings the A’s to 34.3 – 15.4 , for an .833 raw winning percentage. The resulting 3.7 wins (compared to the Pirates’ 0.3) sends the message: “You upstarts have a long way to go to match the Allegheny legacy.”
- (We’ve heard that one before. Are the Johnsons from Pittsburgh?)
- Are the Cascades about to snatch defeat (ie, victory) from the jaws of victory (ie, defeat)? Bellingham didn’t do enough to win: .194, .265, .387 at the plate; 2 ip, 1 er from the rubber. It’s been pretty much like this all week. The C’s only have a .212 raw winning percentage. They are sinking through the MLB standings like a runaway nuclear power core. They are now .0003 behind the Reds and Pirates — I mean, AHEAD of the Reds and Pirates for next spring’s draft. And they now sit 1.1 games behind/in front of the Pears….
- Will the Pears’ current surge of competitive irrational exuberance get them where they want to be? The Pears .586 daily OPS doesn’t seem all that impressive, but in this neighborhood it can work to get wins, if the pitching is ok. But it wasn’t all that OK in Peshastin yesterday: 7 ip, 5 er, for a worse-than-replacement 6.43 ERA. It’s hard to tell if the Pears are happy or sad about this. Peshastin management is off on the road somewhere, and isn’t checking in regularly… but there is this: the Pears’ margin of defictory — of coming in last in the EFL and winning the first EFL draft pick — is still 1.1 games, only slightly thinner than yesterday’s 1.2. Catching the A’s for the second overall pick is going to be hard, and the first one (on track to be Washington’s) is probably out of reach. But the Pears are not out of the orchard yet: not only is Bellingham just 1.1 back, it has at its back the Reds and Pirates, also 1.1 back. So we await the next two days’ outcome to see if the Pears have any chance to snag Julio Rodriguez next spring.