Judging by yesterday’s stats, either extremism isn’t a vice or we’re all vicious.
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Haviland Dragons | 12 | 5 | .689 | — | 89.1 | 59.9 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 9 | 6 | .597 | 1.7 | 90.8 | 74.6 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 9 | 7 | .575 | 2 | 76.2 | 65.5 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 9 | 8 | .555 | 2.3 | 73.3 | 65.7 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 7 | 8 | .477 | 3.5 | 55.8 | 58.4 |
| Cottage Cheese | 8 | 9 | .461 | 3.9 | 60.5 | 65.4 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 7 | 9 | .441 | 4.2 | 74.5 | 83.9 |
| Peshastin Pears | 7 | 10 | .419 | 4.6 | 68.5 | 80.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 6 | 11 | .382 | 5.2 | 73.5 | 93.5 |
| D.C. Balk | 3 | 13 | .190 | 8.2 | 50.3 | 103.9 |
Haviland: W, 5 – 5. (.263, .333, .342; 2 ip, 0 er) The Dragons have the league’s best run-prevention, permitting about 3.5 runs per game. Two scoreless innings don’t hurt — except they load 5 more replacement innings onto the Dragons’ record, bringing the total replacement innings to 9.1. Meanwhile, Haviland has the league’s second best offense (5.24 runs per game) despite 8 replacement at bats.
Old Detroit: W, 9 – 5. (.341, .372, .659; 7.7 ip, 4 er.) The W’s lead the league in offense, scoring just over 6 runs per game. But they have only the seventh best run-prevention system, allowing 4.97 runs per game. You could see why yesterday. Matt Moore had a tough inning — two quick outs, two quick singles, a balk and Jakoby Ellsbury stealing home. This helped ruin his start (6.7 ip, 4 er). Fortunately, Michael Broadway (1 shutout inning) came to his rescue, along with seven Wolverines who OPSed 1.000 or more yesterday, led by Christian Yelich’s 3 for 4 with 3 doubles (2.250) and trailed by middle infielders Kolten Wong (1 for 2) and JJ Hardy (2 for 4).
Canberra: L, 0 – 7. (.195, .209, .268; 8.7 ip, 6 er.) Bryce Harper only walked once in 5 plate appearances. Other sluggers like Jose Abreu, Chris Davis, and Adeiny Hechavarria pulled 0-fers. Martin Perez surrendered 5 earned runs in 5.7 innings to seal the ‘Roos fate. The deal is: when you have some players stinking things up with extremely bad work, you need to have other players at the other extreme. It brings balance to the Force or something.
Portland: W, 10 – 5. (.413, .417, .848; 5 ip, 5 er). Who cares if Jon Gray is liberal with the runs, handing them out one every inning? When your offense includes a hitter OPSing over 3.000 (Maikel Franco: 3 for 4 with two homers), one OPSing 2.600 (Mookie Betts: 4 for 5 with a double and two triples) and four more in four figures, your pitchers can hardly hurt you.
Flint Hill: “L”, 5 – 4. (.233, .333, .433; 19.7 ip, 8 er). Tornado pitchers ran the gamut from Collin McHugh’s 4 ip, 5 er to Jeff Samardzija’s 7.7 ip, 1 er. Their hitters also ran a gamut: from Wil Myers (3 for 3 with a double and a homer) to 5 0-fers (although 4 of those five got one walk).
Cottage: L, 2 – 4. (.097, .171, .097; 8 ip, 3 er). That’s a microscopic offense. It would have been nanoscopic if it weren’t for the offensive leadership of… the much maligned… Jay Bruce! OK, it was only a single in 3 trips to the place, but that qualified as peak offense for the Cheese yesterday. Yasiel Puig made countless highlight reels with an assist from deep right center nabbing Trevor Story trying to stretch a double into a triple — but any benefit to the Cheese will come in June after our first defensive ratings update.
Pittsburgh: L, 2 – 5. (.182, .270, .212; 0 ip, 0 er). During the offseason I expected the Alleghenys to have a ton of trouble keeping replacement innings off the board. Their pitching staff comprised two functional starters, a minor league prospect, and injuries. But they have no replacements — not even after a day with no pitching! (And not much hitting, either — other than Brett Lawrie’s double and walk in 4 PAs. )
Peshastin: W, 8 – 5. (.286, .318, .524; 5.3 ip, 2 er). Carlos Santana batted leadoff yesterday — and loved it: a double and a homer in 4 plate appearances. Why didn’t anyone think of batting him there during his 5-year tenure as a Wolverine? And of course slugger Zack Cozart blasted another homer (along with Javier Baez) to lead a potent Pear attack. Nick Tropeano struggled with the Mariners for an inning, then shut them down.
Kaline: W (-1), L 2; 4 – 12. (.194, .286, .452; 9.3 ip, 10 er.) Jarred Cosart (4.3 ip, 6 er) and Bud Norris (4 ip, 4 er) stank things up. Yoenis Cespedes’ strike thrown from left center only cleaned up one run’s worth of the mess they made. Chris Coghlan (a homer and an HBP in 5 PA) and Chris Owings (a triple and a walk in 4 PA) were the offensive highlights, but thats’ not going to cut it if you are disgorging runs at a double-digit rate.
D.C.: W, 8 – 4. (.375, .423, .750; 9.3 ip, 5 er) The Balk had a great day, securing their third win in resounding fashion. Josh Tomlin turned in 6.7 sharp innings, allowing only 1 run, to negate most of the damage done by Silvino Bracho’s little sextuple chulk (0.3 ip, 2 er). Corey Seager had a monster day: 2 for 3 with a homer and two walks. But the one that gets me is Welington Castillo, he of the Wolverine-derisive bobblehead compass: 2 for 5, both of the hits being home runs. He hit one of them while kneeling, as you can see in the picture accompanying this post. He is just playing with us now. His .832 OPS leads the Balk offense, edging out Adonis Garcia (.779).