I announced yesterday “Mission Accomplished” in getting our standings in order. And it was true — everything that mattered had been done. Everyone here in the Commissioner’s Office agreed.
But some of the oiks in the league raised typically parochial complaints. They wanted all of their new players to actually get to play. Cottage complained first, then Flint Hill. The Commissioner’s Office is full of dutiful people. “No complaint is too small to be ignored” is their motto. They swung into action. Within six hours of the first complaint, they had checked and found that, indeed, some insignificant players were overlooked at the beginning of the month — people like Blake Snell, Mallex Smith, and Nomar Mazara for the Cheese and Darwin Barney, John Jaso and Seung Hwan Oh for the Tornados. I suppose one could imagine one of these guys making some difference… But I don’t know: consider these facts about how these players have performed in May, not counting Thursday’s games:
- John Jaso was batting 0.000 on balls in play.
- Oh’s May ERA was over 30% higher than the average ERA for the entire Tornado team.
- Barney had struck out in half his plate appearances.
- Nomar Mazara was leading his team in May GDPs.
- Blake Snell had spent the entire month in the minors.
- Mallex Smith’s strikeout-to-walk ration was 3-0.
Who would even want these guys? And besides, wouldn’t it be a lot better if Nomar was Smith so Mallex could be Mazara? Can’t these people do anything right?
But anyway, the Commissioner’s Office is full of compassionate people, so we went ahead and put these guys into the BP rosters so their stats could pollute their respective teams’ results. And we went ahead, without being asked, and double checked every other team, too. Everything seemed to be in order.
Well, there was one little teensy weensy oversight, but it hardly bears mentioning. It’s not even worth your time to bring it up. He hasn’t even played since April 28, and who knows if he’ll ever play again? His MLB team didn’t play Thursday, and who knows if they’ll ever play again? You’ve probably never heard of him. He’s on the Balk — and there might not be more than 10 people on the planet who have ever heard of them. Maybe 12. Not more than 15.
OK, I know some of you are curious. Whatever — it’s your life you’re wasting.
His name is Kenta Maeda.
See? I bet you’ve seen his picture today and didn’t recognize him. I’m pretty sure of it, in fact. What difference could he possibly make?
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 19 | 9 | .696 | — | 149.0 | 96.2 |
| Haviland Dragons | 19 | 9 | .693 | 0.1 | 127.8 | 83.2 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 19 | 9 | .673 | 0.7 | 173.3 | 117.3 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 17 | 12 | .572 | 3.4 | 159.0 | 130.0 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 15 | 13 | .548 | 4.2 | 121.2 | 109.3 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 14 | 14 | .486 | 5.9 | 114.7 | 119.5 |
| Peshastin Pears | 13 | 15 | .471 | 6.3 | 124.0 | 132.2 |
| Cottage Cheese | 11 | 16 | .407 | 8 | 101.6 | 123.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 11 | 17 | .378 | 8.9 | 121.6 | 158.9 |
| D.C. Balk | 7 | 21 | .246 | 12.6 | 101.4 | 177.9 |
Canberra: W (-1), L 2; 3 – 8. (.176, .263, .324; 0 ip, 0 er) It’s impressive to be in first place in this tough league. It’s even impressiver to still be in first place after a double-loss day, essentially losing a triple header. Bryce Harper had a perfect day: 1 for 1 with three walks. But even though his day was perfect, it wasn’t perfect enough. We can all think of better paths to perfection than taking 3 walks. Doesn’t this boggle the mind a little, the idea of multiple layers of perfection?
Haviland: “L”, 1 – 0. (.111, .273, .111; 9.7 ip, 0 er) Dragon pitchers did everything they could, especially Gausman with his 8 scoreless innings. But it would all have been wasted if it hadn’t been for Juan Uribe. Of the 6 Dragons who came to the plate, 4 wore 0-fer collars. Jimmy Rollins worked 3 walks in five plate appearances, and one of those times Juan Uribe drove him in — and that’s your entire Dragon offense for May 5.
Old Detroit: “W”, 2 – 3. (.160, .222, .440; 14 ip, 3 er.) Colin Rea — rhymes with “Hall-of-Fame” except for the “m” part — took his no-hitter into the seventh inning. He served up a homer to the lead-off hitter in the 8th, and retreated from the field with honor. The Padres coughed up 3 runs but still won the game for him, 5 – 3. You’d think the mighty Wolverine offense could be as loyal… I say “mighty” because the W’s are scoring 6.19 runs a game this season. The second-best EFL offense (Pittsburgh) is scoring 5.48 runs per game — that’s a 0.7 run-per game difference. The second-best offense in baseball, the Cubs, is only scoring 6.07 runs per game. But the “mighty” Wolverines can’t even get their suddenly brilliant rookie pitcher a win on a day he almost pitches a no-hitter. Pathetic.
Pittsburgh: W, 12 – 5. (.412, .417, .706, Happy Edgar Martinez Day!; 0 ip, 0 er) No, no, no00000. It’s happening again! The top three teams, all of whom have been red-hot, go stagnant… and the Allegheny gain an entire game on all three. And it’s all because of that stinking Jose Altuve (4 for 4 with a double and a homer). (Mickey Brantley was his helper: 4 for 5 with a double.) I’ve already done penance for that stupid, evil trade. Have mercy! Take the Wolverines if you must, but the Kangaroos and Dragons are innocent.
Portland: W (-1), (-7) – (-8). (.118, .381, .188; 10.3 ip, 6 er) Frankly, I’m not sure how this works. In the NL West, the Giants were the top MLB team yesterday at 15 – 14. They lost last night, barely, just by 17 – 7, and fell into a three-way tie: Giants 15-15, Dodgers and Rockies all at 14-14. Apparently the database picked … well, it’s clear now. The database, using Dave’s special “Dodgers win the ties” algorithm, picked the Dodgers as the leaders, erasing one of the Rosebuds games. Good old “Dodgers win ties” algorithm saves the day. Better a lost Rosebud game than a crashed database.
Flint Hill: W , 1 – 0. (.292, .280, .417; 5.3 ip, 2 er). Ok Ok, I admit it: Darwin Barney might be an important player to the Tornados. He’s gone 3 for 8 so far, is second on the team in May OPS at .875. Yesterday he went 2 for 4 to lead the minimal Tornado offense to a narrow win. My bad.
Peshastin: W (-1); (-2) – (-4). (.290, .313, .484; 0.3 ip, 0 er). The Pears play in the same NL West as the Rosebuds, so they suffered a similar fate. Trevor Story hit another homer. But he’s going to wash out any minute now… Blake Wood shutout all comers for 0.3 innings to preserve the win.
Cottage: W, 8 – 6. (.379, .438, .552, happy Edgar Martinez Day!; 0.3 ip, 0 er, happy Blake Wood Day!). Six Cheeses OPSed 1.000 or over. Actually, four of them OPSed exactly 1.000. Jorge Soler did it the cheap way: walking in his only plate appearance. Nomar Mazara — one of those players whining about not being in his team’s stats — hit into another double play to extend his team-leading May total to 3. That GDP erased much of the benefit of Mazara’s 1.000 OPS on the day.
Kaline: W, 4 – 3. (.227, .261, .455; 1 ip, 0 er) Yoenis Cespedes supplied the firepower with his 2 for 4 with a homer. Dellin Betances got the save. There must have been some good pitching stored up for the Drive so they could draw on it to hold opponents to 3 runs on a day when only Betances pitched.
D.C: L, 6 – 11. (.412, .444, .529 Happy Edgar Martinez Day!; 4 ip, 5 er). If the pitchers are going to pitch like that, with Alex Wilson serving up an infinite chulk (0 ip, 2 er), then heroic Edgar Martinez-class hitting is just going to be wasted. The Balk should have added a top-flight pitcher at the last draft. Maybe a Japanese import, major-league ready, who can step in and deliver great pitching right away. Oh, well, maybe next month.