[Westheim]

With Ralph Nixon to the 15-day DL we called up Jayson Bowling as replacement on the majors roster. Steve Walker moved to second base and Edgardo Gonzalez, who was on a pretty good streak, played short and batted second. Workman moved to #3 in the lineup, followed by Hall and Borjón who split #4 and #5 between them depending on the opposing pitcher. Green was #6 currently, then Dawson or Sánz in right, and the catcher’s spot.

Raccoons (20-10) vs. Warriors (15-17)

The Warriors had taken on Kevin Hatfield, former Raccoons reliever turned starter, but we would probably miss him in the series. The Warriors rotation was pretty consistent at posting ERA’s between 4.20 and 4.50. Also with the Warriors was by now Ed Sullivan, now 37 and with greatly diminished defensive capabilities (which had never been amazing, anyway). His bat was also silent so far at .126 …

Unexpectedly, Christopher Powell was trashed by the Warriors from the start, surrendering three leadoff doubles and a 2-run homer in the first inning. That pretty much threw the game out of the window, right? Not quite. The Raccoons scored one in the bottom 1st, then loaded the bases in the bottom 2nd. Gonzalez walked to make it 4-2 Warriors, and Workman singled to right to tie the game again. Borjón doubled as well in the inning and it was 5-4 Raccoons. But Powell continued to have tremendous problems with the six lefties in the Warriors lineup and was taken out in the fourth, with the Warriors up 7-5. But even though Powell’s good numbers were trashed now, he would not take the loss. Workman homered in the bottom 4th and Sanchez in the fifth to tie the game again at 7-7. The scoring stopped there, the pen did a good job of holding up. The Raccoons got Pedro Sánz to third in the bottom 9th but Andres Ramirez (whom I shunned in the 1977 draft to pick Daniel Hall) retired PH Mark Dawson and Edgardo Gonzalez to send the game to extra innings. Hall and Ramirez matched up in the bottom 10th, where Hall singled with two out, but there was nobody on and Cameron Green flew out to end the inning. The 11th was uneventful. Grant West pitched a third inning of relief in the 12th and then led off the bottom of the inning at the plate (since my pen was depleted with the exception of Paul Cooper, who was a 1-inning guy), but popped out. Gonzalez grounded out, which didn’t look good, until Matt Workman drilled a ball over the centerfield wall to walk off the Raccoons, 8-7!! West 3.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K; Walker 3-5; Workman 4-7, 2 HR, 4 RBI; Hall 4-6, RBI;

One word on Andres Ramirez: he has become an absolute killer in the 8th/9th inning, also doing long extra inning stints, and covering insane mileage. Since making the majors, he has pitched 351.2 innings in just over four seasons (he made it there quickly in late ’77) with a 2.53 ERA. How many home runs has he surrendered? Five. And that’s five total, in 350+ innings, and four of them came in 1977-1978. It’s hard to compare pitchers and position players, but so far he may have had the better career. But Hall is scratching at the .300 mark this season, and if his power picks up a bit…

My pen was banged up now, although Tony Lopez could come in to pitch if Logan Evans didn’t make it through seven in game 2. Lopez had not been available in the first game. However, no closer type was ready. Gaston and West were unavailable after long outings, and Cunningham told me he was about 75% ready. That almost shoved a closing situation in Cooper’s direction, which was not thrilling. But first you have to get into a closing situation.

Unfortunately, Logan Evans was nowhere near throwing strikes. The Raccoons found themselves down 3-1 after two innings and Evans was pretty wild and regularly went to 3-ball counts. Three more Warriors runs scored in the fifth, which Evans did not survive, but it was Lopez who walked two and then threw a wild pitch to score the last run. The Raccoons lost 6-2, both RBI’s credited to Enrique Sanchez, but in fact those were sac flies with the bags full, both times.

That made 13 runs scored against my 1-2 punch in which neither of them covered even five innings. Now sending out Jorge Romero, which could not end well: 5.0 IP, 10 H, 3 BB, 4 K, 5 R … suddenly starting pitching had completely melted away and thus the team was doomed. They lost 6-2.

Everything was falling to pieces.

Raccoons (21-12) @ Titans (15-20)

We hardly had time to lick our wounds before going to the east coast. The Titans (and Crusaders after that) were bottom of the division, but after that last series I was confident that the collapse had already begun.

For a start, the Raccoons scored first on back-to-back doubles by Hall and Borjón in the top 2nd. In the third, Titans catcher Marc Leach had a leadoff double, but was thrown out on his way to third. He might have scored on the subsequent error by Matt Workman which allowed pitcher Bruce Wright to reach base. Wright got to third, but was stranded there. The Titans still tied it in the fourth against a struggling Carlos Moran. The Raccoons helped him big with a 6-run top 5th: after loading the bags through Walker, Gonzalez, and Workman, the next three (Hall, Borjón, and Green) all had RBI singles, followed by a base clearing double from Mark Dawson’s bat. And all of a sudden Carlos Moran was unhittable! After that sudden infusion of run support, he mowed through the Titans and was never threatened again, finishing with a complete game 7-hitter, 1 BB, 5 K, in a 7-1 Raccoons win.

Daniel Hall’s solo jack in the top 2nd was out-weighed by Juan Valentín’s 3-run blast in the bottom 3rd, as Ackerman and the rest of the Raccoons fell 3-1 to the Titans in game 2.

Mark Dawson was so frustrated, he over-ate himself after the game and spent the night vomiting in his hotel bathroom. He was out for two days and Sánz played.

The good news about game 3: Christopher Powell had an excellent day at the plate, cracking two hits and scoring a run. What? Oh, you’re right, I’m supposed to report his pitching. He went 7.2 innings and was pulled after giving a solo home run to Brian Adams. I probably should have pulled him after seven, because it created a tight 4-3 lead at the end, with both Gaston and West wasting a walk in their innings. Cameron Green made an error to start the ninth, which further raised tension, but West finished with his 10th save (his first opportunity in some time). The Raccoons scored more than seven hits (11) for the first time in four days. Green, Sanchez, Powell all were 2-3 at the plate, Borjón hit his 6th homer (t-2nd in CL).

In other news:
May 12 – LAP starter David Burke tosses a 2-hitter in a 10-0 rout of the Indianapolis Indians.
May 15 – Falcons 1B Irwin Webster (.331, 0 HR, 16 RBI) is out for a few weeks with back soreness.
May 15 – Thunder and Bayhawks matched up in Oklahoma City – for 19 innings. The Thunder ran out of pitching and the Bayhawks ripped 10 runs in the top 19th for a (late) 18-8 blowout. The Bayhawks had led 5-0 after the first, but had lost the lead in the fifth. The teams then traded single runs in the 9th, 11th, and 16th innings. The pitcher charged with ten runs in the 19th? Former Raccoon Stanton Coleman.
May 16 – SAC LF Larry Marshall (.315, 3 HR, 22 RBI) crashes hard into the wall stealing a hit from DEN RF Shoichi Fujino in the fifth inning of a scoreless game. His shoulder came apart, the game didn’t, as the Scorpions won 2-0. Marshall will still be out for a month.

For pitching, this was a horrible week. Raccoons starters racked up a 6.25 ERA! (gasps)

We are still t-5th in runs scored, but now 2nd in runs against. Powell’s second outing was much better, and maybe that was just a really bad week, where they all (sans Moran) hiccupped together. Or maybe everything will collapse from here.

The draft pool was also revealed today, which I will go to now. At New York, against Atlanta, at San Francisco, against Tijuana and Las Vegas next.