Yordano Day

Something tells me that before this season is over Dave’s website is going to be crowded with pictures of Yordano Ventura.

 

Old Detroit: W, 6 – 3.  .405, .421, .784; 5.7 ip, 2 er.          Wolverine management thought yesterday would be good enough to leap the W’s back into first place.  The standings above show the W’s in first — but show the Dragons with a better W-L record and a higher winning percentage.  Ah, the glories of the EFL.  The standings conceal the fractions of wins and losses we have in our league; if you were to dig a couple of decimal places deeper you’d see that the W’s really are slightly more games above .500 than the D’s.  On the other hand,, I suspect the Standings History Chart will rank us by winning percentage and give the Dragons first place.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  We can have multiple opinions about such things in the EFL.

Haviland: DNP, 4 – (-1). .167, .167, .250; 2.3 ip, 0 er.  I suspect the Dragons got those 4 runs mostly because they reallocated Stephen Souza from the bench to OH yesterday after Jake Lamb got sent down. Another one of the glories of the EFL!

Dragons made the news yesterday in Chicago when a brawl broke out between the White Sox and the Royals.  Dragon hurler Jeff Samardzija, who wasn’t in the lineup, came off the bench and hurled himself into the fray, at one point knocking over (accidentally) a Royals coach and falling to the ground himself, by which process he narrowly escaped an Edinson Volquez haymaker.  Samardzija was ejected from a game he was never going to appear in. Same for Volquez.  Also, Dragon Kelvin Herrera came in to replace a certain Royals pitcher who was ejected.  Herrera can be thanked for restoring peace and calm by not hitting anyone nor fielding comebackers too fiercely. Herrera hasn’t always played that role this year.

Cottage: “L”, 2 – 2. .229, .289, .257; 8 ip, 1 er.  The Wolverines’ plan to win the EFL included the bad Clay Buchholz showing up as much as possible for the Cheese. But last night didn’t go according to plan: Buchholz surrendered only 1 earned run in 6 innings.  Andrew Miller hasn’t surrendered an earned run all season!

Portland: L, 1 – 4. .133, .161, .233;  7 ip, 2 er.  That pitching line was what Yordano Ventura accomplished before he and Adam Eaton exchanged pleasantries at the end of the 7th inning.  Eaton had hit a sharp grounder back to the box.  While he jogged up the first base line, he complained to Ventura that the pitch had come before he was ready.  Yordano responded with two words that mean “Your concern has been duly noted”, and then tossed the ball to first to record the out. Eaton never ran all the way to first. Instead, he headed out toward the mound for further clarification.  The umpires and all the players on both teams came out to join the conversation.

So — in four starts, Yordano has left two games with muscle cramps and two more games with brain cramps.  He’s complained at the plate to Mike Trout about how the stadium smells when Trout’s been cooking.  He’s complained from the mound, non-verbally, about Brett Lawrie’s sliding skills on the basepaths.  And he’s had a nice, brief conversation with Adam Eaton while throwing him out at first. He has been by far the most reliable source of material for EFL updates in the history of the league: 4 for 4 so far this year.

Peshastin:  W, 1 – (-1). .095, .208, .190;  26.7 ip, 5 er.   That 1 run scored was really only 0.5 runs, and the negative run allowed was really only -0.5 runs. Once again Devon Travis (1 for 3 with a double and two walks) was 90% of the Pear offense all by himself. The Pear pitching, on the other hand, included 6 shutout innings from Nick Tropeano, 1 earned run in 6.7 innings from Jake Odorizzi, and 2 earned runs in 7 innings each from Max Scherzer and Chris Sale.  In Sale’s case, he wasn’t allowed to pitch any more because he got himself ejected in the Royals/White Sox altercation.  I’m not sure how he was singled out for ejection — he certainly contributed quite a bit to the discussion, but I didn’t see him push or hit anyone.  I guess he just got caught up a little too much in the excitement of Yordano Day.

Canberra: W 9 – 6. .423, .559, .500; 1.7 ip, 0 er.  Yonder Alonso went 3 for 3 with a walk to lead a Kangaroo offense in which all 8 batters reached base safely at least once.  Jason Frasor — called upon to help clean up after the Eaton-Ventura mess — produced a scoreless inning. Edwin Jackson allowed two hits and a walk in 0.0 innings, but whoever relieved him didn’t allow any of those base runners to score.

Flint Hill: L, 2 – 4. .091, .130, 091; 13.3 ip, 5 er.  How you get 2 (really 1.9) runs out of a line like that I do not know.  Some stored-up at bats must have been released yesterday. Drew Hutchison led the pitching effort with 8 innings, 2 earned runs.

Pittsburgh: L,  2 – 5. .067, .125, .067; 3.3 ip, 0 er.  The Alleghenys definitely DID draw on some offense stored up in reserve.  That measly batting line  reflects the efforts of only 4 hitters and 15 at bats. The slim pitching line represents the work of just two relievers.

Kaline: W (-1), L 1;  (-3) – (-1).  .120, .207, .120; 1 ip, 0 er.   Still reeling from James Paxton’s being fromtaken yesterday.  Christian Colon was on hand for the Eaton/Ventura/Samardzija/Volquez/Cain bout in Chicago, but made no headlines. He also made only 1 hit in 5 trips to the plate — about one third of the entire Drive offense yesterday.