[Westheim]

As you may or may not know, December 24 starts Christmas festivities over here in Germany. Which means I have already eaten half an oxen plus change, feel horribly engorged, and won’t be able to see my toes again for weeks, if ever. Tomorrow will bring another orgy, starring heroically deceased ducks. I could burst open any minute. Bear with me.

Raccoons (81-61) @ Loggers (68-75) – September 13-16, 1993

Unfortunately for the Loggers, their strong run had not held up. By now they were seven under .500 and we would do everything we could to increase that. We had to. The Canadiens were only five games behind. Our magic number is 16.

Matt Higgins drilled a leadoff home run in game 1, setting the tone for a rocky outing for 13-10 Davis Sims, who surrendered five runs in the opening inning. With that 5-0 lead, Miguel Lopez was pretty much cruising, although the Loggers managed to spot him here and there with a Gates Golunski home run in the third and another run in the sixth. The Raccoons missed a chance to end the game early in the seventh, leaving the bases loaded in a 7-2 game when Vinson and Quinn struck out in succession. A pinch-hit 2-out, 2-run triple by Jessie McGuire knocked out Lopez in the bottom 7th. In the top 9th, Alejandro Lopez came up to bat, a double shy of the cycle. While he shot a grounder into right, Cristo Ramirez got to it quickly and Lopez had to hold at first base. The top 9th saw the Coons put up another 4-spot on the Loggers, and Lagarde pitched a 2-frame save that almost got out of hand at the end. 11-5 Raccoons. Higgins 2-4, BB, HR, RBI; O’Morrissey 2-5; A. Lopez 4-5, HR, 3B, 3 RBI; Reece 2-4, 2 RBI; Baldivía 2-5, RBI; Lagarde 2.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (5);

Matt Higgins stole his 40th bag of the season in this game. He has long broken Armando Sanchez’ franchise record of 33 stolen bases from 1987. He also far and away holds the franchise record for stolen bases overall with 152 bags, ahead of Daniel Hall’s 99. On the ABL leaderboard however, Higgins ranks merely 29th. He has not even half of career leader Xiao-wei Li’s 347 bags.

3B Jose Perez reached base leading off in the bottom 1st of game 2 on an uncaught third strike, then stole second about unopposed by a clumsy David Vinson. The team as a whole tumbled through shoddy first three innings, trailing 1-0 behind “Pooky”, before Daniel Hall set the score right in the top 4th with a huge 2-run homer. The next inning, two infield singles helped the Raccoons get man on for Neil Reece to drive home with a 2-run single. Hall again flew to deep left, but this time just short of the wall and into the glove of Emilio Román. “Pooky” would not get a win, though, since he left in the fifth inning with an uncomfortable feeling in the shoulder. The Raccoons were up 5-1 into the bottom 9th with Burnett still in from the previous innings, but he walked Jim Stein and surrendered a triple to Raúl Rodriguez, and Grant West came in with no outs and the tying run in the on-deck circle. West couldn’t prevent Rodriguez from scoring, but he ended the inning in time to ensure us of the win. 5-3 Raccoons! Higgins 2-4, BB, RBI; A. Lopez 3-5, 2B; Quinn (PH) 1-1;

The Canadiens lost 4-3 against the Crusaders after taking an 11-10 scorefest the day before, increasing our lead to six games.

Raimundo Beato has a mild shoulder inflammation. He will be fine, but he will not be available for at least one start, which means that De La Rosa will get another shot at the end of this road trip.

It was not Kisho Saito’s year. In the third game of the series, with the Coons no-hit so far by the ill-controlled Scott Murphy, Saito manufactured a run for the Loggers in the bottom 4th all on his own with an error, a balk, and a wild pitch. It was a sad sight to see. Hall ended Murphy’s no-hit bid in the fifth with a single, but the Raccoons still didn’t score. Saito remained without the least little bit of luck on the other side of the linescore, too. The Raccoons left two on in the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh, where he was pinch-hit for to no effect. Miller surrendered a run in the bottom 7th, and we left two more on in the eighth. It was one of those games. 2-0 Loggers. A. Lopez 2-4; Baldivía (PH) 1-1; Saito 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, L (10-14);

INF Marvin Ingall, who had broken his thumb in little heroic ways in his first game as a Raccoon, came off the DL to bolster the middle infield.

The Loggers put up five left-handed batters against Jason Turner in game 4 of the series, which mirrored the first one quite awfully close. The Raccoons were 1-hit through five by Martin Garcia, and Jason Turner trailed 2-0. In the top 6th, Higgins reached on an error and Garcia then issued full count walks to Quinn and O’Morrissey, and there were no outs. Reece singled in Higgins, before Baldivía grounded into a double play, home and first, and Rodriguez, following Hall walking, grounded out. Top 8th, Quinn and O-Mo reached base leading off. Reece grounded out, and Baldivía came up with another killing double play. Top 9th, Hall led off with a walk and represented the tying run. He never progressed past second base, as the Raccoons managed to lose another pitcher’s duel. 2-1 Loggers. Kinnear (PH) 1-1; Turner 7.0 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, L (8-12);

Since the Canadiens also split the latter half of their series against the Crusaders, our lead was back down to five games now. Magic number: 12 (was 16).

Raccoons (83-63) @ Bayhawks (78-68) – September 17-19, 1993

The Bayhawks were about to be eliminated in the CL South, so no triple-rematch was going to take place and we would most likely face each other the last time this year.

Pat Parker hit his first big league home run in the top 2nd of the opener, a 3-shot with two out off Pedro Gonzales (9-12, 4.40 ERA). That masked for a second how ineffective Scott Wade was. Through three innings, Parker’s shot was the Coons’ only hit. Wade had surrendered six hits and a run. The Coons extended their lead in the fourth, and Wade managed to wobble through six with a 5-1 lead without blowing it. In the eighth, all hell broke loose. Lagarde surrendered a run and slow Didier Bourges was on first with two out, as West came in to end it quickly. He couldn’t, surrendered two infield singles, and then a 2-run double to Pedro Villa. The losing runs were in scoring positions, and slugger Pedro Perez came to bat. Perez fouled away a 1-2 pitch and Vinson was able to get just in front of the net. The lead was down to 5-4. O’Morrissey managed to drive in Parker for an insurance run in the top 9th, and West now had a 6-4 lead, but had already thrown 22 pitches. Juan Martinez was getting ready. West surrendered another two hits and a run, and Martinez came in facing Bourges with the tying run at second base. Martinez got a slow grounder from him and converted to first to end the game. 6-5 Raccoons. Parker 1-3, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Hall (PH) 1-1; Arnold (PH) 1-1;

The Bayhawks lost INF Roberto Rodriguez to a shoulder injury in this game and he would be out for the rest of the season.

The Canadiens blew a close game in Las Vegas late and lost, 3-2, so we were back to a 6-game lead.

Game 2 saw San Fran’s Pepe Martinez (8-15, 5.19 ERA) torn up in the second inning, where things started rather innocently with a bloop single by Neil Reece and a 1-out RBI double by Dan The Man. From there, the Raccoons made hard contact a few times, but also were lucky that 1B Ramón Ramirez dropped a ball. Alejandro Lopez’ 2-out, 3-run triple was the final bang in a 6-run inning in support of Miguel Lopez. The game was about over right there. The Raccoons had quite a few more scoring positions, left the bases loaded once, and sprinkled a few more runners left on in other innings, while the Bayhawks threatened exactly once against a solid Lopez, but didn’t score. He was toast after eight shutout innings, though, and Matthews blew the shutout in the bottom 9th. 6-1 Raccoons. Higgins 2-4, RBI; A. Lopez 2-5, 3B, 3 RBI; Kinnear (PH) 1-1, 2B; Parker 2-4, BB, RBI; M. Lopez 8.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 3 K, W (16-7);

With Beato having shoulder issues, De La Rosa was to start game 3. Also, we got Jorge Salazar back from the DL after his herniated disc had gotten better. He was penciled in as a late-inning replacement to ease him back into things here, then use him more regularly back at home. By now we had 18 batters on the roster, which was making lineup building no less challenging than with 13 batters. Moreno started at short, and Kinnear in left, feeling out the best combo for the final two weeks.

De La Rosa got an early 2-0 lead, but things quickly turned for the worse in the second inning, where the Bayhawks scored five unearned runs after an error by Higgins on the first play of the inning. The bulk of the trouble was however caused by De La Rosa himself. Higgins made two more errors in the fourth inning for another unearned run with Daniel Miller pitching. That he also hit a home run in the fifth inning did little to help his game score on my card, which read a big fat X and “KILL”. The Raccoons meanwhile came close to tying up the game in the seventh after getting the score to 6-5 and putting two in scoring position, but Kinnear flew out to end the frame. The unlikeliest combo of strugglers managed to tie the game in the eighth then: a long-slumping Vinson doubled with one out, and Moreno doubled over excellent CF Dave Burton to score him and tie it up. Bob Arnold made the second out, bringing up Salazar with Moreno on third base. He grounded to the left of the mound and pitcher Alex Byrd’s throw to first was good, but Mauro Granados’ catch was anything but. Salazar was ruled safe, Moreno scored, and the Raccoons had stumbled into a lead. Byrd remained in the game and surrendered a line drive single to O-Mo, before Lopez doubled to deep left, right to where the inning had started with Vinson’s double to score both runners. Up 9-6, it wasn’t over yet. Jackie Lagarde led off his second inning of work with a home run off Rich Tracy’s bat. Lagarde sat down the next two, and Burnett retired the last man in the inning. Grant West finished the game without any more collapses. 9-7 Raccoons. A. Lopez 2-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Parker 1-1; Baldivía 2-5, 2 RBI; Moreno 2-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Miller 2.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K;

Matt Higgins had made six errors all year, and then suddenly three in one game. Nobody has any explanation for this at this point. He was removed mid-game in a double switch. It was one of the few linescores worth posting:

POR 2 0 0 – 0 1 0 – 2 4 0 – 9 13 4
SFB 0 5 0 – 1 0 0 – 0 1 0 – 7 .9 2

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than anything else. Thanks to the sweep, our lead is now six, and the magic number is down to eight. It could end next week. Or we could be tied at the end of next week.

In other news

September 13 – Vancouver’s Ronald Moore extends his hitting streak to 25 games with two hits in an 11-10 win of the Canadiens over the Crusaders.
September 14 – Ex-Coon TOP SP Antonio “Woody” Lopez (9-11, 3.61 ERA) will be out until next summer with a torn labrum.
September 15 – The Falcons’ Jose Galvez (13-14, 4.73 ERA) tosses a 3-hitter in a 2-0 win over the Aces.
September 19 – The Condors crash through the Loggers, 11-1, and thanks to the Bayhawks’ loss to Portland clinch the CL South. It will be the teams’ fifth playoff appearance and the first since 1990. They have not finished below second place in the division since 1984.
September 19 – Ronald Moore knocks three hits in the Canadiens’ extra-inning win, 8-7, over the Aces, to extend his hitting streak to 30 games, by far the longest streak this year, and t-7th all time. He has 17 games to go to tie Claudio Rojas’ mark of 47 games.

Complaints and stuff

Ken Burnett is arbitration eligible for the final time this fall. We have fielded an offer to him for a 3-year extension for $750k.

I have zero idea where I want to go with my outfield next year. Alejandro Lopez has posted great offensive numbers, and his defense is good, too. I have an eye on Las Vegas’ Royce Green, too. He is however still under team control and they would be entirely mad to give him up.

That Lopez ain’t bad, may be reflected in the fact that he was named CL Player of the Week for batting 13-29 with 3 HR and 10 RBI this week.