EFL Answer Man: The Mysterious Cranky Letter

Mr. EFL Answer Man was just beginning to think he’d been forgotten, when this note came in Sunday morning, presumably about Saturday’s games.  (It was misaddressed to “Dear Mr. Baseball Know-It-All”, so it seems that Mr. EFL Answer Man was justified in his fears: the correspondent had forgotten his name.  Fortunately the mail deliverer somehow figured out where to deliver the letter.)  Anyway, here is the text of the note:

Editor’s note: From time to time, Mr. EFL Answer Man receives crank letters.  Fortunately, the letters seldom contain outright threats.  More often they contain complaints, or they come anonymously wrapped around pavers and covered in shattered glass.  Now and then they are both anonymous and grumbly, like this one.  I always have the darnedest time figuring out whom they are from — and with the league now grown to 10 teams, it’s nearly impossible.

But this time — aha! The author has given us clues!

1.  His team pitched well.

2.  His batters hit poorly.

3.  Given the nature of his complaint, his team probably lost — although we need to remember that he may just be one of those difficult owners who gets petulant at anything less than utter dominance.

4.  The word “that” appears twice in the sentence, both times needlessly.  He is clearly not a former student of mine, and may not even be a man of letters.

Maybe you can help identify the author by poring over Saturday’s game stats with me.

EFL Standings for 2016

Old Detroit:  W, 3 – 3. (.191, .296, 298;  10.3 ip, 11 er.) A promising candidate at first glance, with that abysmal hitting.  But a 9.58 ERA is not “pitching well” for any team in the EFL.  Fortunately for the Woeverines, the bulk of the pitching damage was John Lamb’s nasty quadruple chulk (2 ip, 9 er), his second of the month.  His first one was on July 2, just before our roster deadline — thank heavens — just in time to be sent 100% to the bench. So the Woeverines barely escaped with a win (3.4 to 2.6), but it was only because all the ‘forgetting how to pitch” was done by one pitcher already in quarantine.  Still, a win is a win, and not even the Woeverines  feel entitled to always win big. And anyway, I would recognize the Woeverine management’s handwriting.

Haviland:  “W”, 5 – 5.  (.286, .333, .405;  9.3 ip, 5 er) The Dragons barely lost yesterday (something like 4.5 – 4.9) but the problem wasn’t sky-high pitching wasted with rock-bottom hitting. It was mediocrity on both sides of the ball.  So – so hitting and so-so pitching should always leave you close to .500. And anyway, messages from Haviland always look a little burnt around the edges, at least the cranky ones.

Portland:  5 – 2. (.222, .364, .267;  17 ip, 5 er).  Hmm — replacement-ish hitting and pretty good pitching… but the Rosebuds won! They wrung a full 5 runs out of a .630 OPS!   (That high score was accomplished by exceptionally clairvoyant allocations.) And anyway, the correspondence I get from Portland is always along the lines of “Chris Sale is a Rosebud now” or “you left all of last month’s draftees on this month’s free agent list” or some other equivalent of “your fly has been open since Monday.”  (I discovered right after church this morning that my fly WAS open.  No one bothered to tell me, not even God, whose house I was in. Where was the Top Rosebud when I needed him?)

Pittsburgh: L, 6 – 6. (.300, .364, .400;  1 ip, 0 er).  The hitting here is pretty good — not the performance, certainly, of hitters having forgotten how to hit.  And while the pitching achieved a 0.00 ERA, it was only one innings and only one pitcher. The note refers to “pitchers” in the plural.  The Pinnacle Allegheny does not fit our suspect profile. And anyway, I’ve never seen him “cheesed” in the 31 years I’ve known him…even when I’ve known him to have real reasons to be upset.

Canberra:  W, 9 – 4.  (.343, .452, .571;  1.7 ip, 0 er.) Outstanding hitting, scarce pitching. Doesn’t fit the picture portrayed by “Cheesed Off.”  I cannot believe the Captain Kangaroo would write an grouchy letter when his team has just had the best day of any team in the EFL, gaining 0.4 games in the standings.

Peshastin:  8 – 6.  (.281, .378, .624;  1.3 ip. 0 er).  Practically the same as the Kangaroos, only slightly less so.  Also a guy whose moments of cheesedness are few and not highly visible when they do occur — at least according to what I’ve observed in the nearly 43 years I’ve known him.

Flint Hill:  W, 2 – 1. (.188, .278, .281;  8 ip, 0 er.)  Bingo!  Great pitching?  Absolutely!  Iwakuma held the hot Astros scoreless for 7 innings, crucial in the M’s 1 – 0 win, and Brad Hand got through another inning without allowing an earned run. Crummy hitting? Positively!  All the way down to Woeverine levels — and it would be even lower if it weren’t for Leonys Martin’s big day (walk, double and triple in four trips to the plate).   But… the Tornados won!  That’s not been all that common lately.  Why would they spoil their celebrations with a bitter not to the EFL Answer man?  Hmm…

Cottage: L, 0 – 3. (.122, .229, .141;  12 ip, 4 er.)  With hitting even worse than the Wolverine/Tornado level, one might suspect the note came from the Cottage.  But… that 3.00 ERA is nice, but it is it anything to write home (or to the EFL home office) about?  And when one is already The Cheese, the essence of Cheese in the EFL, how could one be any further cheesed? To be cheesed, one must start by being less than completely cheese.  Can the Pope be catholicized?  Let’s bookmark this suspect, along with the Tornados, and move on.

Kaline:  L, 3 – 5. (.129, .156, .129; 1.7 ip, 0 er).  Again — truly execrable hitting. Very little pitching, although what there was did a nice job.  And anyway — can Whidbey Island be beautified? Paradisized? Of course not.  So how would the Wizard ever manage to be crabby long enough to write (and send) a 22-word letter — including two useless “that’s”?

DC:  L, 2 – 6.  (.154 .267, .231;  6.3 ip 4 er.).  I don’t think that pitching was good enough to be credited with having pitched “well,” but the hitting was sure bad enough to fit the letter.  But here’s the thing: the Chief Balk is a sensible man. He knows he needs a decent sample size to draw conclusions.  He’s only seen a half season.  That’s way too early to start claiming that pitchers are always going to do well when hitters do poorly.  And anyway we have yet to receive in the EFL offices any cranky, grumpy, or even slightly out-of-sorts message from the Balk.

Hmmm… I wonder if the letter emanated directly from the collective spirit of the EFL, where we are a bit prone to grouchiness about some relatively minor sufferings.

By the way, here was the EFL Answer Man’s response:

Dear C.O:

I dunno. I was trying to figure out how the league’s “leading” offense, carefully dispersed all over the continent, can all forget simultaneously how to hit.

Sincerely yours,