So much for Justin Kelenic, who went 0 for 5 and tied with Kyle Schwarber (in Baseball Reference’s eyes — but see below) for the worst day at the plate.
With that little Kelenic craze over, destined to be long-forgotten by our next draft, we can concentrate on the day-to-day life of the EFL, marked as usual by both heroics and fallen finitude.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Peshastin Pears | 28 | 11 | .715 | — | 175.9 | 111.1 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 28 | 13 | .681 | 1 | 181.9 | 123.5 |
| Haviland Dragons | 28 | 13 | .673 | 1.3 | 195.6 | 138.7 |
| D.C. Balk | 23 | 10 | .694 | 2 | 176.4 | 117.2 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 27 | 14 | .652 | 2.2 | 224.4 | 160.5 |
| Kaline Drive | 26 | 15 | .634 | 2.9 | 192.0 | 146.8 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 20 | 19 | .503 | 8.3 | 200.4 | 199.1 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 17 | 16 | .503 | 8.3 | 176.5 | 176.1 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 19 | 19 | .500 | 8.4 | 190.5 | 187.0 |
| Cottage Cheese | 19 | 21 | .487 | 8.9 | 222.0 | 234.5 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 17 | 21 | .439 | 10.7 | 153.8 | 181.1 |
Peshastin Pears: W, 8 – 3. (38 PA, .333, .368,. 500; 6.7 ip, 2 er, 2.69 ERA). The Pears got a strong start from Justus Sheffield (6 ip, 2 er, 10th best in MLB according to Baseball Reference’s game score) and combined it with excellent hitting to IMPROVE their .709 winning percentage by 0.006. Pesty indeed! Five Pears produced multi-hit performances, let by Ozzie Albies with two doubles and a single in 5 trips to the plate. Mitch Haniger homered, continuing to lift both the Mariners and the Pears to big wins.
Flint Hill: L, 5 – 6. (39 PA, .242, .333, .303; 9.7 ip. 4 er, 3.71 ERA). Carlos Rodon was NOT on perfect-game form yesterday, that heady day now long behind him. Instead he ushered 4 earned runs around the bases in 5.7 innings (21st-best, per BR), leaving a mess that Anthony Kay cleaned up pretty well (4 scoreless innings). Austin Meadows and Nomar Mazara led the offense, each hitting a single and a double. But it wasn’t enough to stave off a loss, and a 0.6-game skid in the standings.
Haviland: W, 8 – 3: (51 PA, .304, .360, .413; 6 ip, 1 er, 1.50 ERA) Domingo German was MLB’s 4th best starter Saturday (according to BR) with his 6 ip, 1 er performance. The Dragon offense wasn’t at its prime, since it only produced two extra base hits (Harrison Bader’s homer and Joc Pederson’s triple) and a paltry 3 walks. But it was still a good win, identical to the Pears’, so it allowed Haviland to keep pace in the EFL race.
DC: W, 8 – 4. (26 PA .292, .346, .833; 24.3 ip, 10 er, 3.70 ERA). The Balk went MASSIVE Saturday. Look at all those good innings pitched! Well, ok, it was really two starting pitchers having outstanding days: Martin Perez (6 scoreless innings for a game score of 83, the best in the big leagues Saturday) and Ian Anderson (6 ip, 1 earned run, MLB’s 5th best start). A third pitcher struggled a little: Jose Berrios’ 7 ip, 4 er, 5.14 ERA, 14th best). And a fourth pitcher bombed at the hands of the Mariners: Tristan McKenzie lasted 4.3 ip, coughed up 5 earned runs (era over 10.00) and ranked 22nd in the big leagues.
But DC also went MASSIVE at the plate, especially in the homer department. With only 7 batters in the lineup, the Balks blasted 4 homers, one each by the usual suspects: Joey Gallo, Xander Bogaerts, Ryan McMahon and Pete Alonso. This barrage limited the damage in the standing to a single tenth of a game further behind the Pears.
Old Detroit: W, 6 – 0. (44 PA, .206, .364, .441; 13.3 ip, 3 er, 2.01 ERA). The Wolverines only batted .206, but they walked 9 times to produce a fine .365 OBP. The left side of the infield provided all the power: Carlos Correa went for 3 with a homer, a double, and a walk; Rafael Devers went 2 for 3 with a homer and a walk; and JP Crawford (currently DHing for the injury-wracked W’s) went 1 for 4 with a double and a walk. On the pitching side, Mike Minor went 7 innings with only 1 earned run (#2 per BR) , and Chris Paddack got through 4 innings with only 1 earned run (#12 per BR). But even with their best day of May (I think) the Oldies could only gain 0.2 games on the Pesties.
Kaline: W, 7 – 2. (50 PA, .300, .407, .460; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Baseball Reference listed Kelenic and Schwarber as the worst hitters of the day — but Jesse Winker went 0 for 6. Which has to be worse, don’t you think? Apparently Winker bamboozled the BR folks by somehow scoring a run. They didn’t notice, or didn’t care, that Winker scored only because he usurped a teammate’s place on the base paths.
But here’s the most impressive part: despite Winker’s incompetence and perfidy, the Drive still got a strong win. The rest of the team went .341, .453, .523, which would have been a Happy Edgar Martinez Day. Kaline kept up with Peshastin, still just 2.9 games out. The Drive are clearly a worthy member of the EFL Elite.
Portland: L, 6 – 10. (34 PA, .208, .412, .333; 7.3 IP, 7 er 8.63 ERA). The Rosebuds rode their 9 free passes (7 walks, 2 hbp) to an outstanding OBP, and scored 6 runs despite a Wolverine-class .208 batting average. That would have been plenty for a win most days — but not Saturday when Dylan Bundy turned in the second worst starting pitcher performance of the day, according to BR: 4 ip, 7 earned runs. Even with 3.3 strong scoreless innings of relief, the 7th place Rosebuds couldn’t repair Bundy’s bungle, and slipped 0.9 games in the standings, now 8.3 games back of first, and 5.4 games behind the 6th place Drive.
Canberra: “W”, 6 – 9. (49 PA, .256, .347. .512; 6 ip, 10 er, 15.00 ERA). Here’s another team with plenty of offense… except not enough on THIS day considering the meltdown on the mound. Every Kangaroo except Mitch Garver reached base safely. Kyle Tucker, Vlad Jr., and Austin Nola all homered, and the Cannies got the 6 runs you need to be confident of a win.
BUT they didn’t come close to winning, thanks to generous pitching. Dane Dunning surrendered 4 earned runs in 4 innings, his 9.00 ERA ranking 24th among the 30 MLB Saturday starters. But Joey Lucchesi was worse: 4 earned runs in only 1.7 innings, a nasty chulk in relief. And then came Camilo Doval: 0.3 ip, 2 er, for a fat 54.00 ERA, good for 132nd place overall among 136 MLB pitchers.
Even so, the ‘Roos are still above .500, and still only 0.1 game behind the Rosebuds for leadership of the EFL’s grounded tier.
Pittsburgh: L, 6 – 9. (36 PA, .276, .389, .345; 8 ip, 7 er, 7.88 ERA). The tales among the grounded tier are not of complete incompetence. Like the other teams in this vicinity, the Alleghenys did one thing well (hit, in this case) but did another thing poorly. The hitters walked 16.7% of the time, combined with a solid batting average to produce a very nice .OBP. But the only power was a Garrett Hampson triple. Then Tyler Anderson stumbled on the mound (5 ip, 4 er, 19th best in MLB out of 30 starters) and then Braxton Garrett did a little worse in relief (3 ip, 3 er — 131st in MLB, just one spot ahead of Doval).
Cottage: “L”, 8 – 6. (37 PA, .353, .405, .559 — Happy Edgar Martinez Day!; 2 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). The Cheese played well enough to win, but the EFL database didn’t award them one because it has taken offense at the number of replacement innings the Cheese are consuming. Yandy Diaz and Randy Arozarena led the hitting, each going 3 for 5. Alex Verdugo chipped in a 2 for 4 day with a homer.
Bellingham: W, 5 – 5. (38 PA, ..289, .386, .342; 12.4 ip, 8 er, 5.81 ERA). The Cascades took a similar path to the Cheese yesterday. Fine hitting, except with little power (just two double, one each by Rhys Hoskins and Tim Anderson). Spotty pitching, (Jake McGee triple chulking in 2/3 of an inning; Brett Anderson surrendering 4 earned runs in 3.7 starting innings to rank 26th in MLB) ameliorated by a fine 7 ip, 2 er start by Tyler Mahle (8th best in MLB).
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 28 | 13 | .681 | — |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 27 | 14 | .652 | 1.2 |
| Boston Red Sox | 25 | 16 | .610 | 2.9 |
| New York Yankees | 22 | 17 | .564 | 4.9 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 21 | 17 | .553 | 5.4 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 22 | 19 | .537 | 5.9 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 16 | 23 | .410 | 10.9 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 23 | 10 | .694 | — |
| New York Mets | 18 | 15 | .545 | 4.9 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 21 | 19 | .525 | 5.4 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 17 | 16 | .503 | 6.3 |
| Atlanta Braves | 19 | 20 | .487 | 6.9 |
| Miami Marlins | 17 | 22 | .436 | 8.9 |
| Washington Nationals | 15 | 20 | .429 | 8.9 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 23 | 15 | .605 | — |
| Cleveland Indians | 21 | 16 | .568 | 1.5 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 19 | 19 | .500 | 4 |
| Kansas City Royals | 18 | 21 | .462 | 5.5 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 17 | 21 | .439 | 6.3 |
| Detroit Tigers | 14 | 25 | .359 | 9.5 |
| Minnesota Twins | 13 | 24 | .351 | 9.5 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 23 | 17 | .575 | — |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 20 | 20 | .500 | 3 |
| Cottage Cheese | 19 | 21 | .487 | 3.5 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 18 | 19 | .486 | 3.5 |
| Chicago Cubs | 18 | 20 | .474 | 4 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 17 | 22 | .436 | 5.5 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Haviland Dragons | 28 | 13 | .673 | — |
| Kaline Drive | 26 | 15 | .634 | 1.6 |
| Oakland A’s | 24 | 17 | .585 | 3.6 |
| Houston Astros | 23 | 17 | .575 | 4.1 |
| Seattle Mariners | 20 | 20 | .500 | 7.1 |
| Texas Rangers | 18 | 23 | .439 | 9.6 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 16 | 22 | .421 | 10.1 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 28 | 11 | .715 | — |
| San Francisco Giants | 23 | 16 | .590 | 4.9 |
| San Diego Padres | 23 | 17 | .575 | 5.4 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 22 | 17 | .564 | 5.9 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 20 | 19 | .503 | 8.3 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 18 | 22 | .450 | 10.4 |
| Colorado Rockies | 15 | 25 | .375 | 13.4 |