Red Letter Day

Big doin’s in the EFL Sunday.

Old Detroit: W, 8 – 4. (.255, .321, .588;  8.3 ip, 3 er)  The top of the third inning in Baltimore marked the high point in the Wolverines’ day. That’s when Manny Machado hit his third homer of the day (with 7 RBIs). His Oriole/Wolverine sidekick JJ Hardy already had a homer of his own.  If you can hit a homer an inning for the first three innings, surely a couple more over the last six shouldn’t be a problem.  But in the 5th, Machado grounded into a double play, and Hardy copied him in the sixth, and the rest of the day the Wolverines were a pedestrian 9 for 43 with five doubles, four walks and a hit batter.  Similarly, Madison Bumgarner’s beautiful 8 innings (1 earned run) were polluted by a nasty little sextuple chulk (0.3 ip, 2 er) from Will Harris. However, we have decided not to complain too much about this, in light of what happened to the Rosebuds.

Haviland:  W, 12 – 3. (.361, .425, .917; 11 ip, 3 er).   It’s been a while since the Dragons put on a dominant performance — so long that I had pretty much forgotten about it as a possibility.  Silly me.  The Dragons slugged six homers, including two by the recently beleaguered Miguel Sano, to post a team daily OPS well over 1.30o.  Starter Carlos Carrasco had a solid if unspectacular seven innings with 3 earned runs (3.86 ERA). But Matt Bush and Jean Nicasio both turned in 2 scoreless innings to transform the day into 11 innings, 3 earned runs (2.45 ERA).  That was enough for the Dragons to soar in the standings — I thought they’d end up in first, but it turns out the W’s prospered more than I expected.

Portland: W (-1), L 2;  5 – 14.  (.241, .323, .352; 13 ip, 20 er).  The Rosebuds’ day was about as bad as the Dragons’ was good.  The offense was unexciting, but not disastrous. Steve Pearce got caught up in the draft created by the Orioles’ offensive explosion and produced a nice 2 for 3 with a double — but that was the best any Rosebud did at the plate Sunday.  It would have been much better, but Mike Trout turned his defensive prowess against the Rosebuds by leaping and reaching over the center field fence to catch Leonys Martin’s grand slam homer. (If Trout couldn’t drive in 3 or 4 runs like he’d been doing, at least he could prevent 3 runs from scoring.)  Meanwhile Adam Conley coughed up 6 earned runs in 5 innings, and Jimmy Nelson joined him for 7 more earned runs in 4.3 more innings.  Then Jon Gray topped them all with an actual chulk: 3.7 ip, 8 er.  Poorly timed with a Machado’s homers and the Dragons’ fireball, the result was sudden dramatic deterioration in the Rosebuds’ position in the standings.  Take heed, all ye EFLers:  a negative win, double-loss day can happen to any of at any time.

Pittsburgh: “W, 1 – 5. (.226, .273, .355; 6.3 ip, 3 er)  While the Rosebuds were collapsing and the Dragons and Wolverines moving up, I was afraid the Alleghenys would seize the opportunity to insert themselves into the midst of the front-runners. After all, Mike Trout had been feasting on Mariner pitching the last two days, and the Alleghenys were rising rapidly.  But James Paxton struck out Trout all four times he came to the plate, and the rest of the A’s couldn’t fill the void.  So despite a solid day from the pitchers (8.3 ip, 3 er), the Alleghenys stood back and watched as the three leaders shuffled their positions.

Peshastin: L, (-1) – 7.  (.150, .209, .175; 1 ip, 1 er) The Pears came into Sunday much further back in the race than the A’s, so it was even more important that they find a way to take advantage of turmoil among the three leaders.  But instead the Pears had one of their worst days of the season.  They only got one ineffective inning of pitching (from Raisel Iglesias) and their hitters only managed to go 6 for 40 on the day (with 1 double and 3 walks).

Canberra: “L”, 8 – 5.  (.262, .340, .548;  4 ip, 2 er) I wouldn’t say the Kangaroos had an inspiring day, but they did tiptoe a little closer to the upper division of the EFL by being competent.  A little more than competent as hitters, since they assembled a nice .888 OPS without any contribution from Bryce Harper (who did not play). Billy Hamilton sparked the offense, going 3 for 4 with a walk and stealing 4 bases.  Chris Davis contributed a homer, two walks, and a HBP, and Jose Abreu added a single, double, and homer in 4 AB.

Flint Hill: “L”, 2 – 2. (.182, .259, .318;  8.7 ip, 1 er).    The Tornados regained 7th place with a some excellent pitching from Yordano Ventura (6.7 ip, 1 er), good enough to make up for some slightly sub-replacement hitting.  In the process they slipped back in front of the Cheese, who were too busy lamenting to focus on winning.

Cottage:  L, 0 – 3. (.196, .235, .326;  16.7 ip, 7 er). The Cheese hit slightly worse than the Tornados, and pitched significantly worse — although, in the case of the pitching, the Tornados were so good there was room to be significantly worse and still be not bad (3.78 ERA).  Dylan Bundy and Sean Manaea spun identical 6 ip, 2 er lines, leaving it to Archie Bradley to leave a little 4.7 ip, 3 er mess. The Head Cheese has published another of his annual laments, which has 16 views already, more than the last three league updates combined, I think, even though it is little more than a thinly disguised advertisement seeking trade offers. Not that I’m seething with jealousy or anything.

Kaline:  W, 10 – 5.  (.281, .465, .594; 27.7 ip, 10 er). The highlight of the day for Kaline was Ichiro’s 3,000th hit, a booming triple that narrowly missed leaving the yard.  The rest of the offense was even better, compiling a Dragon-class 1.153 team OPS.  Kris Bryant ( 2 for 3 with a homer and two walks), Chris Owings (2 for 3 with a triple and a HBP), and non-Chris (Jonathan) Villar (1 for three with a homer and two walks) led the way.  James Paxton dominated Trout and the rest of the Angels for 8.3 scoreless innings before he took a line drive off his pitching elbow. (I haven’t yet heard the prognosis on that elbow — I’m still hoping it will not lead to a DL stint.

DC: L, 3 – 7. (.225, .326, .325; 3 ip, 1 er).  Scott Schebler would probably tell you he’d be thrilled to be comparable someday to Mike Trout. Well — be thrilled, Scott!  Your batting line was exactly like Mike Trout’s:  0 for 4 with 4 strikeouts. The rest of the Balk lineup did slightly better than the rest of the Alleghenys, thanks to Phil Gosselin’s pinch-hit homer. However, the Balk couldn’t find a starter to start, so they could only patch together 2.7 reasonably good relief innings.