[Westheim]

Raccoons (52-51) @ Thunder (49-54)

Both teams hardly got the bat on pitches through the first six innings, with the Coons trailing 2-1. A 2-out big one by Dadswell tied the game in the eighth, before Green had a long double to start the ninth. Armando Sanchez hit a home run to center for the first Coons lead in the game. West collected the save rather easily, 4-2 Coons! No Furball had more than one hit, accounting for the challenged offense.

There was noticeably more early offense in game 2, with the 4-2 score matched by the top 2nd. Logan Evans was again far from great, his stuff had become lost somewhere during this month. He didn’t get a K until the seventh, but at least he *made* it to the seventh, where the Raccoons still led, 5-3. Evans went eight before handing over to West, who again made short work of the Thunder in the ninth. 5-3 Coons. Osanai 3-5, HR, 2 RBI; Sanchez 2-3, 2B;

Osanai made it back-to-back in the category of first inning homers with a 2-piece in the third game, also tying Mark Dawson for the team lead (although Osanai’s had of course partly been with Vancouver). Dawson had nothing of that, and took Ray Shaw deep as well right in the next at bat. Dadswell was up next. HOME RUN, THREE IN A ROW!! Of course, the string ran out with Daniel Hall, who haplessly grounded out. This gave Christopher Powell a 4-0 lead – which was not enough. The Thunder threw everything at him at least able to *move* their left arm. They moved their left arms pretty well and the lead was down to 4-3 after two innings. Hall doubled in a run in the third, but left immediately with a calf strain – must have been overuse of his legs, which were not used anymore to running ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY BLOODY FEET. The Raccoons scored three in the inning, but the Thunder crawled right back in against Powell, 7-4 after three. Osanai went deep in the top 5th, but the run got away again in the bottom 5th, where Powell hardly was able to wobble through. He was pinch hit for in the sixth. Both teams threatened in the next innings, but couldn’t score and the Coons entered the bottom 9th still 8-5 ahead. West had been out two days in a row and we tried Wally Gaston against the lefties, but it didn’t work. He walked the bags full with two out, before a single to right scored two. Now West came out, but walked another batter for full bags again. With righty Carlos Vela coming out to pinch hit, I went back to the pen and got Gilberto Soto. He got Vela to foul out and the game was FINALLY over, 8-7 Coons. Osanai 2-4, BB, 2 HR, 3 RBI; Hall 1-2, 2B; Castillo (PH) 1-2;

Raccoons (55-51) @ Crusaders (44-64)

Hall was still aching and not in the lineup for the opener of the 4-game series. Sanchez and Lucero both played alongside Dawson in the outfield.

The top 1st in that opener saw Tetsu Osanai unload for the third game in a row, again for two runs, half of the Coons’ prey in the 4-run first. But the dumbo on the mound that day was Carlos Gonzalez, who managed to blow up that lead easily, also giving up four of the five runs against him with two out. The game went to extra innings, where the Crusaders walked off against White and Jones in the 10th, 6-5. Thompson 2-5, BB; Reed 2-3, BB; Sanchez 2-4, BB, 2B, 2 RBI;

Ricardo Gonzalez came off the DL to replace Kelly Weber on the roster.

Game 2 marked the fourth day in a row that Tetsu Osanai went yard in the first inning! That was already a quarter of all the Raccoons’ baserunners that day. They were out-hit 10-3 by the last-place Crusaders, who hit Kisho Saito at will. Agonizing 3-1 loss. Osanai 2-3, HR, RBI;

With Osanai popping out in the first inning to end that early power stretch of four games, the Raccoons didn’t score at all in the first and found themselves 1-0 down instead. Pitcher Vicente Ruíz had to have a leadoff double himself in the third to even get the team a chance to get back in. He scored with two down on a flyout – barely. Mark Dawson threw out the go-ahead run at the plate in the bottom 6th on another flyout. The Raccoons had not been able to mount any significant threat in the innings since tying it up at 1-1, a score still on the board in the top 9th. There, Mark Dawson singled just a tad over the glove of Sam Richmond into short left. They left him there, perfectly portraying their incompetence at the plate. Wally Gaston had a 1-out single himself in the top 10th – for crap. In the bottom 10th, he walked Dan Younger to start it. With one out, Younger advanced to third on another moronic moment by Dadswell, throwing a ball into the outfield when Younger tried to steal. Gaston wiggled through, but the Raccoons lost in the 12th, 2-1. Gaston had been their last baserunner. Thompson 2-5; Ruíz 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K and 2-3, 2B;

Oh, bloody hell!! How can you POSSIBLY drop three against a team THAT terrible!!?? I went through one or two rage-cry-rage cycles in the clubhouse after that defeat.

Game 4 saw 13-game winner Logan Evans, and terrible weather. It also saw the Coons put up five in the first two innings. Sometimes rage-cry-rage cycles seem to help. They put up five MORE in the third inning. That can’t… they’re messing with me. They got the lead to 11-0, before Evans gave three away in the fifth, which he barely managed to complete after a half-hour rain delay. The offense stopped altogether after the fourth inning, and the pitching collapsed completely in the eighth, where the Crusaders scored six runs to make it 11-9. The Raccoons left the bags full in the ninth when Lucero’s long flyer into the left corner was caught by Younger.

The writing was on the wall.

Grant West was defeated with two out in the bottom 9th, 11-11.

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That’s it. It’s over. I’ve had enough. I’ve banged my head on the desk enough with this game.