When will they ever learn?

EFL Standings for 2017

Cottage: W, 5  – 5.  (.268, .326, .488; 7 ip, 4 er) It was a win Friday, but only just barely.  The Cheese lost 0.010 on their winning percentage, which they can afford… for now.   But that was all Trout (3 for 4 with a homer and a walk) and Travis D’Arnaud having his career night (2 homers and a walk in 3 AB).  Even with Trout, that’s a slender reed… And what if Danny Duffy tanks?

Peshastin:  L,  2 – 6.   (.211, .225, .421;  20 ip, 9 er). Look, you two, do I need to come up there and show you how to dominate? You don’t go sideways or backwards, for one thing.

Kaline:  W, 11 – 3. (385, .429, .897;  14 ip, 7 er)   See what I mean? You goof around and now there’s another team thinking it can just climb right into the race. Notice how Kaline allocated Chase Anderson at 33%, and he was the one who served up 4 runs in 6 ip? They limited his damage nicely, leaving the Drive hitters to batter the opposition badly. Seven Drives OPSed 1.000 or better Friday, including supposedly light-hitting Orlando Arcia (2 for 4 with a double and a homer).  Kaline saw this in Arcia clearer than the rest of us.

Flint Hill: W 2, L (-1);  8 – 2. (.333, .407, .542;  8.3 ip, 3 er).  And once the hoi polloi see you’re weak, they all think maybe they have what it takes to join the party at the top. The Tornados parleyed a light lineup (only 27 PA) and a solid day of pitching into a 2 win, (-1) loss day, and leapfrogged into 4th place over their  kinsmen, the Dragons.

Haviland:  L, 2 – 6. (.214, .267,.357; 7 ip, 5 er). Miguel Sano had a great day: 2 for 4 with a homer and a double.  But that was pretty much it for Dragon highlights,

Pittsburgh:  W 1, L (-1), 2 – (-6). (.310, 412, .483; 6.7 ip, 1 er).  The Alleghenys snuck in a win and lost a loss, without their boss even noticing until I pointed it out.  Look at their numbers: quietly excellent, the kind that would win a championship if you produced them every day, without a lot of noise and drama. A team that does this crushes you politely. You can’t really hate them for it.  Lance Lynn practically embodies the Alleghenys quiet approach:  6 ip, 1 er, but no Cy Young #1 Ace hype.

Old Detroit: W, 7 – 2. (.333, .417, .476;  6 ip, 1 er)  One of our best days of the year leaves us in 7th place, with a one-game cushion between us and 8th.  Did you notice how much the Old Detroit stat lines look like the Alleghenys?  It has been my ambition for at least a decade for the Wolverines to resemble the Alleghenys as much as possible.  Friday was a great day.  Christian Yelich (4 for 5 with a double) and Manny Machado (3 for 5 with a double, a homer and a walk) exhibited a little too much flair, but both are coming out of slumps so I had to cut them a little slack.

Canberra: L, 4 – 5.  (.238 .298, .405;  7 ip, 2 er).  Johnny Barbato pitched two scoreless innings of relief — for the Kalgoorlie Koalas, the Kangaroos’ farm team, since he’d been busted to the minors for revealing his Yankee pedigree by allowing himself to be publicly traded from NY to the Pirates.  I mean, what’s worse: ingesting a little obscure PED, or actually working for the Yankees?  But the cost to the Kangaroos for banishing Barbato was a couple more replacement relief innings to turn a narrow win into a narrow loss. Grace is a good idea sometimes.

D.C.:  W, 8 – 5.  (.262, .367, .548;  13 ip, 6 er).  Didn’t I tell you the other day that the Balk were dangerous?  Well — Friday six Balk OPSed over 1.000, led by the suddenly stupendous Scott Schebler (2 for 3 with a homer and a walk, OPS of 2.417).  And just like that, the falling Rosebuds got trampled on the way down by the Balk.

Portland: W (-1), L 2;  5 –  22.  (.286, .375, .536; 2 ip, 12 er).  Almost every day of the season I examine the evidence left by baseball games, trying to find the story amid the mess, and communicate it to you.  Every now and then I come upon a scene so disturbing I can barely stand to poke through the gristly remains do my job. .

Here are the Rosebud hitting numbers: pretty nice. Enviable, even, at least from a Wolverine perspective, although a little on the slight side and taking on replacements at C and 2b while suffocating a little from too many plate appearances at OH. But still, 5 runs plus is a good day these days for any team.

But here’s the heaping, steaming pile of viscera from what used to be two Rosebud pitchers.  Here’s what’s left of Jayson Aquino, just today released into his afterlife by the ‘Buds. As his final Rosebuddian act, Aquino surrendered 3 earned runs in 1/3 of an inning.  His colleague Adam Conley’s remains are over here. Conley was dismembered for 9 runs in 1.7 ip.

I tried to warn them, I really did. I said it would be easy to slide all the way from 7th into 10th place. I specifically mentioned the Rosebuds. Just two days later, what happens?  The Rosebuds crashed three places all in one day — and didn’t fall any further mostly because there’s no further to fall.  When will people learn to listen?

Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2017