A weird day, but the Cheese have everything under control

For four years I had Kyle Schwarber and Josh Bell, two big sluggers who generally underachieved.  Yesterday I watched part of the Nationals-Cardinals game.  For the first time I saw Kyle and Josh play together, Kyle following Josh in the lineup, both just freshly liberated from the COVID list, wearing their Nationals’ uniforms for the first time in MLB regular season play.  It was a novel sight to everyone else, but to me they looked so familiar, so natural together, two big lunks. Familiar, but weird, like a dream.  I wish I still had Schwarber…

Haviland: W, 5 – 0.  (31 PA, .222, .323, .222;  8.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  Tyler Glasnow’s season ERA is now 0.46.  He’s allowed 1 run in 19.7 ip.  That might be a little weird, but it’s mostly amazing.  What is weird is the Dragons’ hitting Monday.  Five hitters combined to go 0 for 14.  Jose Iglesias, Ramon Laureano, and Jake Cronenworth combined to go 6 or 13, each with two singles.  

Old Detroit:  DNP, (-3) – 0.  (26 PA, .143, 308, .286;  no pitching) I shouldn’t complain.  I asked the Chief Dragon to let my team be in first for one day so I could take a picture.  He let the Wolverines have TWO days.   It was time to keep my promise and give first place back. 

MLB ran a story today with a very attractive headline:  ‘ “The Byron Buxton breakout is here.”  The author argues Buxton was supposed to be a superstar when he broke into the majors, but he struck out and got injured too much and never attained elite status.  But now all kinds of signs (lower k-rate, harder contact, leading the major with a sick 1.734 OPS) convinced the author that this year is going to be the breakout for Buxton.  Let it be so.

 

Flint Hill: DNP 2 – (-1). (31 PAL . 240, .387, .400;  8 IP, 1 er 1.13 ERA)  It’s like Christine, the movie where the car wouldn’t die!  Remember the Johnson three-headed monster that started the season wrapped around the top of the EFL skyscraper?   By yesterday it was blown all apart. The Oregon Johnsons occupied 2nd, 4th and 8th place.  Today the Johnsons are reassembling: 1st, 3rd, and 7th.  

Do you think I’m being unnecessarily alarmist?  Then you didn’t notice the similarities in the Kansas teams’ lines. Both had 31 PA and 6 hits. Both had two pitchers combining for 8 ip and practically no runs allowed.  True, Grayson Greiner homered,  and Austin Meadows doubled, and Yu Darvish allowed a run, all variations from Dragon stats. But tiny variations. 

 

DC: DNP, 0 – 1. (17 PA, .286, .353, .571;  4.7 ip, 1 er, 1.91 ERA)  Buxton and Joey Gallo were the two big free agent outfielders in our draft last month. There wasn’t that much telling them apart.  Buxton, rated 3.3 in the OF, went for 4 years, $9 million.  Right after that, Gallo, rated 3.6, went to DC for 4 years, $9.5 million.  I felt slightly better about Buxton, even though he OPSed only .492 in spring training.  But the equally-bearded Gallo, who is 29 days older than Buxton (albeit 3 inches taller and 60 pounds heavier) OPSed 1.222 in spring training.  So my inner hunch would have been hard to justify.  

Gallo went 0 for 2 yesterday, although he garnered the team’s only 2 walks.  He is now batting .233, .452, .333 on the season.  His OPS is less than half Buxton’s. That’s more than enough to explain why the Balk are in fourth and the W’s in second. But there’s no explaining why they diverged in the current directions rather than, say, the opposite ones. 

 

Canberra: W 1, L (-1); (-2) – (-15) !!!  ( 35 PA, .194, .286, .419;  13.3 ip, 0 er). I don’t recall anyone ever losing 15 runs allowed before on a DNP day.  Of course, I couldn’t recall the other 17 EFL no-hitters when Musgrove tossed his first one the other day, so it doesn’t mean much. But -15!  That is weird! 

Maybe a teensy bit less so when you see that Casey Mize pitched 7 scoreless innings, followed by Dane Dunning’s 4 scoreless innings, followed by 2.3  innings and zero earned runs from Emmanuel Clase and Caleb Smith combined.  All those scoreless innings, perhaps along with replacing some replacements, gave the ‘Roos enough bounce in their, umm, bounce to bound four places up the standings, from 9th to 5th.  

Pittsburgh: “W”, 3 – 4. (21 PA, .150, .190, .250; 1 ip, 0 er). The Alleghenys treaded lightly on the day yesterday.  Only five hitters, with Dansby Swanson and Luis Robert both doubling and Jorge Soler singling.  One pitcher mopping up one inning. So little action would have left the A’s right where they were the day before, if the Kangaroos hadn’t leapt ahead over them (and three other teams) in a single bound.  Kangaroos leaping over the Alleghenys in a single bound?!  That’s weird. 

Portland: DNP, (-2) – (-5).  (21 PA, .053, .143, .105;  6.6 ip, 1 er, 1.36 ERA).  A lot of teams had great pitching Monday, and here’s another from another part of the reassembling Johnson monster.  The hero in Portland was the legendary Adbert Alzolay (5.3 ip, 1 er).  Not legendary yet — although his name is suitable to the role — but if he keeps pitching like this he will be legendary before long. Also soon to be legendary: Luis Urias, who doubled in two trips yesterday, which just happened to the day when Nick Senzel fell off his star (4  AB, 0 hits).  The two eWies (ex-Wolverine infielders) are apparently going to function as a tag-team. 

Kaline: L, 8 – 8. (30 PA, .346, .433, .614; no pitching).  The Drive have traditionally been the most… umm… balanced team in the league: closest to the middle of the standings, closest to .500, etc.  Look at this case.  There’s no pitching, so the offense doesn’t know how many runs it needs to score. Nevertheless, 9 Drive hitters playing all over the continent, led unbeknownst to them by Yuli Gurriel’s 3 for 4 with a double,  score exactly 8 runs … and then stop. 

It goes as a loss because the Drive started the day at .632 winning percentage, so a tie brings the percentage down (to .600 now).  But to exhibit that kind of precision, blindfolded and isolated, shows the Wizard of Whidbey’s awesome (and weird) power. 

Peshastin:  W 3, L 3; 6 – (-13) !!  (38 PA, .375, .421, .656;  13.3 ip, 2 er, 1.35 ERA)  Freddy Peralta pitched 6.0 innings, faced 22 batters, allowed 4 baserunners, surrendered one homer and one earned run, striking out 10.  Huascar Ynoa pitched 6.0 innings, faced 22 batters, allowed 4 baserunners, surrendered one homer and one earned run, striking out 10. 

Look, I taught college for 35 years, and legal writing at Detroit College of Law for a year or two (I forget which!) before that (it was almost 40 years ago!).  I know plagiarism when I see it.  I caught my first plagiarist in 1983 or ’84 when I recognized the law student’s absolutely terrible writing.  He had copied his paper from one of the leading law encyclopedias!  I had already given him a D for such poor writing.  Once I found the source (it took me about 10 minutes in the law library, looking at actual books — this was in an earlier epoch of human history) and confirmed his plagiarism, I changed the score to 0 points.  

So I called Messers Peralta and Ynoa into my office.  “Look”, I said, “the odds of you independently coming up with these identical line scores are infinitesimal.  I am going to erase your “A” grades and replace them with “F”s.”

These gentlemen had the nerve to deny their clear dishonesty.  “But Professor Commissioner,” Huascar said, “I allowed three hits and one walk.  Freddy allowed two hits and two walks.”  

Come on, what do they take me for? I was sniffing out plagiarism when their parents were in middle school.   I let them appeal to the Dean, but those young men are going to be taught a lesson before this is over. I mean, if those were real pitching lines, the Pears would shed 13 runs allowed!  That’s never happened, as far as I can remember. And if it did, surely the Pears would bound over at least two other teams in the standings!  It’s all too weird to believe. 

Bellingham: L, 4 – 4. ( 26 PA, .1.82, .308, .273;  7 ip, 3 er, 3.86 ERA). Ronald Acuna had a day: a triple and three walks in 5 plate appearances for a single-day OPS of 2.133 — plus a stolen base.  That was literally most of the Cascade offense, just enough to manage a virtual tie when combined with solid pitching from Alex Cobb.   Finally we find someone in this league who has everything in order. 

Hold on. 

The Cascades are in 10th place.  They are 0.052 over .500, and in tenth place out of 11 teams.  Something VERY strange is going on here.  

Cottage: L, 3 – 9. (28 PA, .192, .250, .308;  no pitching).  Whew!  We still have one team under .500, single-handedly keeping the universe in balance, the laws of probability still in effect, the earth safely inside its own gravity well.   Hurray for the Cheese, where everything is orderly and nothing weird ever happens, like, say, a pitcher hitting the hardest ball of the season at 119 mph. 

We’re safe. For the Cheese to get over .500, they’d have to have a decent day at the plate and shed 13 to 15 runs allowed.  Fortunately, that’s never happened before.