Drama can always be found if you know where to look

First, an apology for a rather late update.  A glitch occurred in transferring data from Baseball Reference to our system. I couldn’t figure it out so I wrote to Dave seeking advice.  Dave apparently wasn’t sitting beside his computer waiting for my message, and when he wrote back (in a reasonable time) I was no longer sitting beside mine waiting for a message.  This delayed us by about two hours. 

Jamie lamented the lack of drama in the league standings.  I think drama can still be found…

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Old Detroit Wolverines	11	2	.824	—	81.3	37.5
Flint Hill Tornadoes	9	4	.722	1.3	55.6	34.5
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	8	3	.688	2.1	62.8	42.3
Haviland Dragons	9	5	.638	2.3	61.2	46.0
Peshastin Pears	9	5	.633	2.4	62.9	47.9
Canberra Kangaroos	5	3	.682	2.8	48.1	32.8
D.C. Balk	5	3	.637	3.1	36.9	27.9
Kaline Drive	8	6	.548	3.5	59.8	54.4
Bellingham Cascades	6	5	.530	3.9	47.9	45.1
Portland Rosebuds	7	7	.513	4	61.3	59.7
Cottage Cheese	5	8	.391	5.6	72.2	90.1

Old Detroit: W 1, L (-1); (-3) – (-5).   (33 PA, .192, .344, .231; 7 ip, 2 er, 2.57 ERA).  I expected the W’s to at best hold steady after yesterday’s lackluster offensive performance.  With Eloy and Ke’Bryan already out, Byron Buxton missed his 4th consecutive game due to a tweaked hamstring.  But the W’s actually improved their winning percentage! I think that’s dramatic. 

It’s also, on first glance, inexplicable: how could a team whose ERA is 2.76 shed five runs allowed by essentially matching its season ERA on day when it added no games played?  The answer: unnoticed by me, the W’s had fallen precisely 7 innings behind in innings pitched, and were carrying 7 replacement innings.  Walker Buehler and Oliver Perez pitched exactly 7 innings. Replace seven 7.50 ERA innings with seven 2.57  ERA innings  and you get (with rounding errors) 5 runs off your monthly runs allowed.  That’s a trick the W’s cannot play twice in a row, so we’ll actually need a good day to keep up the pace today. 

Flint Hill:  DNP, (-1) – 0.  (25 PA, .111, .360, .111;  14 ip, 4 er, 2.57 ERA).  Wow.  They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  The Tornados matched the Wolverine ERA (although with twice the number of innings), and mimicked the Oldie offensive strategy (lots of walks and HBP).  

Flinty Free Passes: 5 BB, 2 HBP.     Flinty hits: 2      Oldie Free Passes:  5 BB, 1 HBP.    Oldie hits: 5, including an actual double. 

Of course the question remains about who is imitating whom.  I suppose mutual imitation would be a doubly sincere form of flattery?  But if one imitates someone imitating oneself, does it become the sincerest form of creepy narcissism?

Anyway: I wanted to point out the difference between MLB’s published AL East standings…

Boston Red Sox	9	4	.692	1.7
Toronto Blue Jays	6	7	.462	4.7
Baltimore Orioles	6	8	.429	5.2
Tampa Bay Rays	6	8	.429	5.2
New York Yankees	5	8	.385	5.7

…  and the REAL AL East standings: 

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Old Detroit Wolverines	11	2	.824	—
Flint Hill Tornadoes	9	4	.722	1.3
Boston Red Sox	9	4	.692	1.7
Toronto Blue Jays	6	7	.462	4.7
Baltimore Orioles	6	8	.429	5.2
Tampa Bay Rays	6	8	.429	5.2
New York Yankees	5	8	.385	5.7

It’s always inspiring to see the Yankees in last place. This year it’s fun to see the Red Sox exceed expectations and do well.  But “doing well” is so much more dramatic when it means “making one’s team a factor in a blazing pennant race” than “running away with the division by having a larger margin over second place than second place has over last place.”  I, for one, welcome the Sox in what I am expecting (and hoping) to be a scintillating AL East race, including those sincerest of flatterers, the Tornados.

 

Pittsburgh:  W 1, L (-1); (-1) – (-3).  (11 PA, .143, .455, .143; 8 ip, 1 er, 1.13 ERA).  The Alleghenys, as can be expected, are just better at everything.  I was crowing about how well the W’s and the T’s did at opportunistically using free passes to construct a jury-rigged offense.  But the A’s did even better:  4 walks, only 1 hit. It was enough to secure a win, although that’s probably even more to the credit of Frankie Montas who twirled 6 scoreless innings.   

The Alleghenys lead the Royals by 0.6 games in the AL Central.  That’s a fun race early in the season.  I suggest the A’s focus on winning their division and not so much on the EFL.  

Haviland:  L. 4 – 5.  (46 PA, .244, .326, .439;  no pitching)  The Dragons didn’t need to jury – rig an offense..  They did get 3 walks and 2 HBP, but in 46 plate appearances that’s not unusual.  They got their best contributions from middle infielders (Iglesias 2 for 4, Ahmed Rosario a homer) and catcher (Realmuto homer) rather than the traditional offensive positions, so we can credit them with their share of creativity.  

It’s a fun and exciting surprise to see the Mariners atop the AL West.  MLB pretends their lead is a half-game over the Angels, which is pretty intense. But the truth is five times intenser:  they have only a 0.1 game lead over the Dragons!  Exponentially more than 5 times, because the Angels are still there, too. 

Peshastin: L, 5 – 7.   (40 PA, .250, .325, .389;  1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  The Pears had a weak day at the plate — except for Mitch Haniger, who really is still a very good player!  Haniger homered repeatedly this week, but yesterday settled for three singles and a walk in 5 plate appearances.  The Pears problem is sparse pitching. They are carrying over 10 replacement innings. Even so, the Pears are right in the thick of a blazing EFL with 10 out of 11 teams above .500.    Which is way more entrancing than their MLB NL West race, where they are in second place but already 3.1 games behind the Dodgers, who might win 120 games this season.  

But, again, MLB shoots itself in the foot by not reporting EFL teams’ achievements.  The Dodgers are only 0.7 games ahead of the Wolverines in the race for MLB’s best record. Why not publicize this fascinating contest?

 

Canberra: DNP. (-2) – 0.   (29 PA, .273, .448, .455;  3 ip, 0 er, 0 ERA).  The Captain Kangaroo is coachable!  I gently pointed out on Thursday that it’s not generally a good idea to go 40 PA without a walk.  So yesterday the Cannies conned their competitors for 4 walks and 3 HBP.  7 free passes always help.  

DC:  DNP; (-1) – 0.  (23 PA. .143, .217, .333; 1.3 ip, 1 er, 6.92 ERA).  Not a great day in DC, but the Balk still find themselves not only embroiled in a 10-team EFL pennant race, but a super-tight NL East race where they trail first-place Canberra by only 0.4 games, and lead the Mets by a mere 0.1 game. To keep up they are going to have more innings, and someone besides Bryce Harper (1 for 3 with a double and a walk) and Matt Chapman (1 HR in 4 PA)  hit well for them. 

Kaline: W, 3 – 2.  (41 PA, .237, .293, .316; 13.7 ip, 4 er, 2.63 ERA). Lots of strong pitching and plenty of hitting (albeit of modest quality) won the win for Kaline.  Wilson Contreras led the offense with a homer and a single. JT Brubaker shone brightest among the pitchers with his 6 ip, 1 er effort. Kaline is also surprised to be looking up at the Mariners, although the Drive only trail by 1.3 games. 

Bellingham: DNP,  (-2) – 0.   (27 PA, .208, .296, .208; 8.7 ip 4 er, 4.14 ERA).  Solid if unspectacular pitching combined with weak hitting left the Cascades spinning their wheels and losing a little ground in the EFL , where they are nine deep in the standings and slipping back toward .500.  But in the AL Central they’re only 1.7 games back. 

Portland:  L, 6 – 12.  (38 PA, .265, .342, .0.529;  12.7 ip, 13 er, 9.21 ERA).  Oh, so that’s where all the runs allowed were coming from. Let’s see, Bryan Abreu triple chulked (0.7 ip, 2 er).  Logan Allen double chulked (2 ip, 4 er). Mike Foltynewicz gave up 5 er in 5 ip.  Those three accounted for most of the damage. Portland is now teetering on the precipice of falling back under .500 and ruining our historic league accomplishment where (practically) all the teams are above .500.  Their NL West division doesn’t offer them any consolation, not with those Dodgers running away.

Cottage: L, 4 – 5.  (34 PA, .265, .306, .324;  5.3 ip, 2 runs, 0 earned runs, 0.00 era).  We here at the Old Detroit Player Emporium take pride in offering top-quality goods. We know  James and Morejon are hurt, and Mitch Keller still mixes in total stinkers with his gems, and even Andrew Heaney has bad days. But notice how Heaney protected his EFL team!  He coughed up 2 runs, but he made sure none of them were earned. That’s the famous ex-Wolverine grit right there.