June is over. My school board email account disappeared overnight. On Saturday Melanie, Sam and I will be driving to the continental divide to take Sam to his latest job at the Big Sky Resort.
For the second straight June 30th, my life feels like it is crossing a continental divide, beginning to run in a new direction toward an unknown destination. I am wondering if June 30th should have its own name if it’s going to start annually reassembling my life in a new configuration. If one of my sons gets married next June 30th, or something like that, I’ll know.
It would be nice if my team’s position in the EFL felt a little more solid. I could use some stability here.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 57 | 24 | .708 | — | 467.0 | 299.4 |
| Peshastin Pears | 53 | 26 | .670 | 3.5 | 392.8 | 277.2 |
| D.C. Balk | 51 | 25 | .669 | 4 | 430.7 | 303.6 |
| Kaline Drive | 53 | 28 | .659 | 4 | 436.4 | 312.7 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 52 | 29 | .644 | 5.2 | 393.9 | 294.1 |
| Haviland Dragons | 50 | 31 | .615 | 7.6 | 404.1 | 327.8 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 46 | 30 | .607 | 8.8 | 385.8 | 315.3 |
| Cottage Cheese | 42 | 39 | .518 | 15.4 | 456.7 | 453.0 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 41 | 38 | .516 | 15.6 | 396.9 | 382.4 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 38 | 41 | .479 | 18.5 | 319.1 | 334.9 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 34 | 45 | .437 | 21.9 | 402.1 | 463.7 |
Old Detroit: W, 6 – 2. (48 PA, .293, .375, .341; 7.7 ip, 5 er, 5.84 ERA). The Wolverines had a good day yesterday even though Mike Minor tried to sabotage it with his second straight 5 ip, 5 er outing. It was only by clever management (for once) that disaster was avoided: I demoted… no, I right-assigned Minor to the minors after his last start! So Jonathan Loaisiga pitched 2 scoreless innings in a game the Yankees lost 11 – 8, and Andrew Kittredge got two outs without allowing any runs in a game the Rays lost 15 – 6, to drop the Oldie ERA a smidge. Clever management, yes, but also extreme luck that neither of my relievers was riddled in the their shooting-gallery games.
On the offensive side Josh Bell went 2 for 3 with 2 walks, JP Crawford with 3 for 6 with half the team’s extra bases in the form of a double, and Austin Riley went 3 for 6. The Wolverine power outage continues, but at least they got on base at a healthy rate.
Peshastin: W 1, L (-1), 5 – (-4). (44 PA, .350, .386, .725; 8 ip, 4 er, 4.50 ERA). Ozzie Albies had a career day Wednesday, going 5 for 6 with two homers. But it wasn’t the best day in MLB, nor even in the EFL. Juan Soto was Ozzie’s sidekick, going 3 for 5 with a walk and two stolen bases. Six other Pears got one hit, Haniger’s being a homer and Castro, Chisholm, and Mountcastle’s being doubles. This is how I caught the Pear’s red-handed with the W’s missing power.
The Pears gained 0.4 games on the Wolverines, and would have gained even more except Justus Sheffield struggled (4 ip, 4 er). Four relievers completed four more innings with 0 earned runs to tighten the race by 10% on the final day of June.
DC: W 2, L (-1); 12 – 1. (31 PA, .379, .419, .828; 17.3 ip, 9 er, 4.68 ERA). The Pears weren’t the only ones to shed a loss on the last day of June. The Balk did, too and they added a second win, but hitting even better and pitching about the same but almost twice as much. Bryce Harper led the way with a 3 for 5 day featuring two home runs. Xander Bogaerts and Asdrubal Cabreral added two hits each, and Pete Alonso and Joey Gallo each homered to lead the massive Balkan attack.
Joe Musgrove did not do well on the mound: 4 ip, 5 er. Marin Perez and Dylan Cease combined for 11.3 innings, each surrendering 2 earned runs. It was good enough for the Balk to gain 0.6 games on the W’s and edge past the Drive for third place.
Kaline: W, 10 – 2. (66 PA, .288, .424, .519; 11 ip, 3 er, 2.45 ERA). The Drive have every right to feel a little cheated after such a big win to find themselves having slipped another notch to 4th place. Tigers Jonathan Schoop (4 for 8 with a double) and Akil Baddoo ( 3 for 5 with a double) led the offense, with assists from homers by Willy Adames, Hunter Renfroe, and Phil Gosselin. 13 team walks also helped a bunch, with Willson Contreras contributing 3 of them and fellow catcher Omar Narvaez adding two more
Unlike the two teams just ahead of them, the Drive actually got good pitching. Kwang Hyun Kim and Max Fried each completed 5 innings and allowed a combined 3 earned runs to key the pitching efforts.
Flint Hill: “L”, 4 – 3. (42 PA, .222, .310, .306; 5.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA) The Tornados missed out on the offensive pyrotechnics plaguing most of baseball yesterday, but fortunately for the Flinties, they missed out both on offense AND pitching, so they still got a real win (disguised as a loss). Paul Goldschmidt resonated a bit with the league-wide vibe, going 3 for 5 with two doubles, but Anthony Kay pitched 4 shutout innings allowing only 1 walk and 1 hit. Nomar Mazara spent his last day as a Tornado hitting a double in four trips to the plate.
Flint Hill ended up the month on a down-note, dropping 0.3 games further behind first, for which the Wolverines are duly grateful.
Haviland: L, 4 – 8. (48 PA, .273, .333, .386; 4 ip, 3 er, 6.75 ERA). The Dragons also ended June with a step back in the standings, in their case amounting to 0.8 games. Nelson Cruz sealed his place atop the EFL June leaderboards for batting average (.380!) and OPS (1.221) (and second in OBP and SLG) by homering, doubling, and walking in 5 plate appearances. He is amazing.
On the pitching side, Domingo German struggled (3 ip, 3 er). The ensuing loss left the Dragons 2.4 games behind the 5th-place Tornados, who are only 1.7 games behind the second-place Pears. With the Kangaroos only 1.2 games behind the T’s, I think this day of continental divides is an appropriate time to definitively reclassify Haviland as on the fringes of the race rather than in the pack of close pursuers.
Canberra: W, 5 – 4. (30 PA, .269, .367, .385; 2 ip, 1 er, 4.50 ERA). The Kangaroos ended the month with a win, thanks in part to a solid-if-unspectacular offense and a lucky bit of pitching. For the first time in a while the K’s got enough plate appearances to have a chance to avoid more replacements, but with Javier Baez the only infielder they didn’t cover all the bases.
On the pitching side, super-relievers James Karinchak and Emmanuel Clase each provided an inning. Karinchak’s inning was a shutout, but Clase allowed 3 runs to score. However, Clase took advantage of a timely error to limit his earned runs to 1, making the win possible.
Alas, despite the win, the ‘Roos lost 0.3 games in the standings to the Wolverines, although they gained half a game on the Tornados.
Cottage: L, 11 – 20 !!! ( 36 PA, .333, .389, .700; 3.4 IP, 11 ER, 29.12 ERA). Trea Turner celebrated his birthday with his third career cycle before being removed in the 7th inning with the Nationals on the way to a huge win. Even with his day cut short, Turner had the best day of any hitter according to Baseball Reference. He added two stolen bases, which is remarkable considering he ended two of his four at-bats at 3rd base or further. This means, if you leave out the possibility of stealing home, Turner only had opportunity to steal at most 3 bases. He swiped two of them, for an exceedingly high percentage of possible stolen bases actually pilfered.
But he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Turner led the Cheese in lambasting opposing pitchers for 11 runs, showing off that .700 slugging percentage. But they didn’t heed the advice not to pick a fight you can’t win: the league responded by scoring 20 runs in a single game, which I believe is an EFL record for runs scored against an EFL team in a single game.
(Well, ok, yes, it was only 19.8 runs, but I still think it’s a record.)
This poking the other fellow in the eye approach to baseball did not pay off for the Cheese. They fell a whopping 1.2 games in the standings and landed practically in the Alleghenys’ lap.
Update on the Super Shortstop race, courtesy of Fangraphs:
| # | Name | Tm | PA | HR | R | RBI | SB | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | xwOBA | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR | |
| 1 | F Tatis Jr. | SDP | 266 | 26 | 61 | 56 | 16 | 0.318 | 0.3 | 0.387 | 0.705 | 0.445 | 0.42 | 187 | 5 | 33.6 | -2.7 | 4 | |
| 2 | X Bogaerts | DC | 320 | 13 | 49 | 48 | 5 | 0.37 | 0.33 | 0.391 | 0.551 | 0.4 | 0.374 | 151 | 1.9 | 22 | 3.4 | 3.7 | |
| 3 | Carlos Correa | OD | 334 | 15 | 58 | 49 | 0 | 0.321 | 0.296 | 0.395 | 0.521 | 0.393 | 0.377 | 155 | -2.7 | 19.6 | 5 | 3.6 | |
| 4 | Trea Turner | CC | 341 | 14 | 50 | 38 | 18 | 0.364 | 0.318 | 0.367 | 0.513 | 0.378 | 0.355 | 138 | 2 | 18.1 | 6.1 | 3.6 | |
| 5 | Bo Bichette | FH | 348 | 15 | 66 | 53 | 12 | 0.33 | 0.285 | 0.333 | 0.483 | 0.351 | 0.354 | 120 | 3.6 | 12.4 | 0 | 2.5 | |
| 8 | Tim Anderson | FH | 286 | 6 | 43 | 28 | 14 | 0.369 | 0.293 | 0.329 | 0.407 | 0.32 | 0.319 | 104 | 3.2 | 4.5 | 2.5 | 1.7 | |
| 9 | J.P. Crawford | OD | 320 | 5 | 38 | 30 | 3 | 0.335 | 0.285 | 0.344 | 0.402 | 0.327 | 0.307 | 111 | -1.3 | 3 | 2.8 | 1.7 | |
| 11 | Willy Adames | KD | 291 | 12 | 36 | 43 | 3 | 0.307 | 0.239 | 0.309 | 0.447 | 0.327 | 0.329 | 108 | -1 | 1.9 | 4.1 | 1.6 | |
| 12 | Javier Baez | CK | 285 | 18 | 38 | 49 | 9 | 0.298 | 0.227 | 0.275 | 0.47 | 0.315 | 0.297 | 100 | 2.6 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 1.6 | |
| 15 | Jazz Chisholm | PP | 237 | 9 | 31 | 28 | 10 | 0.348 | 0.256 | 0.321 | 0.447 | 0.332 | 0.308 | 115 | 1.2 | 5.5 | -0.2 | 1.3 | |
| 16 | Jorge Polanco | PR | 299 | 9 | 44 | 31 | 6 | 0.271 | 0.251 | 0.321 | 0.423 | 0.323 | 0.353 | 104 | 1.9 | 3.3 | -1.2 | 1.2 | |
| 17 | Amed Rosario | HD | 272 | 5 | 39 | 23 | 7 | 0.326 | 0.27 | 0.324 | 0.389 | 0.313 | 0.323 | 95 | 0.6 | -1.2 | 2.8 | 1.1 | |
| 18 | Luis Urias | PR | 285 | 10 | 38 | 39 | 3 | 0.293 | 0.247 | 0.338 | 0.433 | 0.334 | 0.311 | 111 | 2 | 5.8 | -4.2 | 1.1 | |
| 21 | D Swanson | PA | 319 | 13 | 33 | 34 | 4 | 0.284 | 0.231 | 0.289 | 0.431 | 0.306 | 0.328 | 91 | 0.1 | -3.4 | 1.7 | 0.9 | |
| 23 | Gavin Lux | OD | 266 | 6 | 34 | 32 | 2 | 0.281 | 0.229 | 0.308 | 0.356 | 0.293 | 0.328 | 89 | 3.4 | -0.4 | 0.1 | 0.8 | |
| 24 | Corey Seager | PR | 169 | 4 | 20 | 22 | 1 | 0.307 | 0.265 | 0.361 | 0.422 | 0.343 | 0.381 | 122 | -1.7 | 2.8 | -0.9 | 0.7 | |
| 32 | Jose Iglesias | HD | 260 | 6 | 31 | 24 | 2 | 0.305 | 0.271 | 0.296 | 0.386 | 0.297 | 0.293 | 88 | -0.3 | -4.1 | 0 | 0.5 | |
| 35 | A Simmons | MIN | 226 | 3 | 25 | 16 | 0 | 0.288 | 0.245 | 0.316 | 0.328 | 0.29 | 0.282 | 81 | -1.7 | -6.9 | 2.7 | 0.4 |
Pittsburgh: L, 7 – 10. (31 PA, .357, .387, .500; 6.6 ip, 7 er, 9.55 ERA). Another lesser case of what you reap is what you sow. The Alleghenys hit well, especially in batting average. And their foes gave it right back to them, good and hard. Only one Allegheny homered (Andrew Vaughn) but Allegheny pitchers served up 4 home runs, three by Vladimir Gutierrez on his way to a 4.3 ip, 6 er day. Without that performance, the Allghenys could have had a nice win. As it was, they lost, and slid back to 9th place, 0.8 games further from the lead.
Bellingham: L, 3 – 9. (28 PA, .130, .286, .304; 3 ip, 5 er, 15.00 ERA). All the patient work the Cascades have done in the last week got undone with a single bad game. The Cascades briefly showed a .500 winning percentage (although we knew it was shade under based on the W/L record ) and showed a .500 W/L record (albeit with a .499 winning percentage) but now they are down to 3 games under and a .479 record. They may have had the best draft last night, so maybe it can all be made back up before too long.
But on the last day of June, they only got 3 hits, including Acuna’s latest homer and a double by DJ LeMahieu. And Michael Wacha nearly chulked over 3 innings pitched.
Portland: DNP, 6 – (-5). (37 PA, .355, .432, .774 !!!; 17.3 ip, 8 er, 4.16 ERA. This was a stunning score for an off day, adding 11 to the rs/ra differential, , improving winning percentage by .011, and moving 0.4 games toward first place.
Luis Urias had the third best day in EFL and all of baseball with his 4 for 5 with two homers, a double, and a HBP. Tyler O’Neill was his sidekick, going 3 for 4 with two doubles and a stolen base.
Five Portly pitchers combined for an acceptable ERA although only one — Dylan Bundy — got through his allotted innings without surrendering at least two earned runs.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 57 | 24 | .708 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 52 | 29 | .644 | 5.2 |
| Boston Red Sox | 50 | 31 | .617 | 7.4 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 47 | 34 | .580 | 10.4 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 41 | 37 | .526 | 14.9 |
| New York Yankees | 41 | 39 | .513 | 15.9 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 27 | 54 | .333 | 30.4 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 51 | 25 | .669 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 46 | 30 | .607 | 4.8 |
| New York Mets | 41 | 35 | .539 | 9.9 |
| Washington Nationals | 40 | 38 | .513 | 11.9 |
| Atlanta Braves | 38 | 41 | .481 | 14.4 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 37 | 41 | .474 | 14.9 |
| Miami Marlins | 34 | 45 | .430 | 18.4 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 47 | 32 | .595 | — |
| Cleveland Indians | 42 | 35 | .545 | 4 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 41 | 38 | .516 | 6.2 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 38 | 41 | .479 | 9.2 |
| Detroit Tigers | 36 | 45 | .444 | 12 |
| Minnesota Twins | 33 | 45 | .423 | 13.5 |
| Kansas City Royals | 33 | 46 | .418 | 14 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 48 | 33 | .593 | — |
| Chicago Cubs | 42 | 39 | .519 | 6 |
| Cottage Cheese | 42 | 39 | .518 | 6 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 40 | 41 | .494 | 8 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 39 | 40 | .494 | 8 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 29 | 50 | .367 | 18 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Kaline Drive | 53 | 28 | .659 | — |
| Haviland Dragons | 50 | 31 | .615 | 3.5 |
| Houston Astros | 48 | 33 | .593 | 5.4 |
| Oakland A’s | 48 | 34 | .585 | 5.9 |
| Seattle Mariners | 42 | 39 | .519 | 11.4 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 39 | 41 | .488 | 13.9 |
| Texas Rangers | 31 | 49 | .388 | 21.9 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 53 | 26 | .670 | — |
| San Francisco Giants | 50 | 29 | .633 | 2.9 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 49 | 31 | .613 | 4.4 |
| San Diego Padres | 49 | 33 | .598 | 5.4 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 34 | 45 | .437 | 18.4 |
| Colorado Rockies | 34 | 47 | .420 | 19.9 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 22 | 60 | .268 | 32.4 |