[Westheim]

Raccoons (30-40) vs. Titans (43-24) – June 23-25, 2003

Is it me or are we playing the Titans every other week? Maybe it’s me and I get all the winning teams mixed up. The Titans were just one game ahead of the Loggers and had no time to waste in Portland. Their #4 offense and #1 pitching were already salivating over the opportunity to squelch the poor little Furballs.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (3-7, 4.03 ERA) vs. Joe Mann (4-3, 2.92 ERA)
Bob Joly (0-3, 4.52 ERA) vs. Steven Snyder (6-2, 2.20 ERA)
Ramón Meza (1-1, 3.45 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (8-4, 3.57 ERA)

Game 1
BOS: SS D. Silva – 1B Matsumoto – CF Garrison – RF Greenman – 3B V. Flores – LF Bryant – 2B H. Ramirez – C F. Diéguez – P Mann
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Moore – LF Reece – 1B Martin – 2B Palacios – SS Guerin – CF Torrez – C Ledesma – P Brown

The Titans were stunned to find Brown being able to find the zone. He struck out five facing the minimum through three innings, then struck out Silva to start the fourth. Matsumoto took a ball to center for the Titans’ first hit of the game. Garrison singled. Greenman grounded to Sharp and Sharp lost it in his pockets. The bases were loaded with one out in a scoreless game, and while Brown went to two strikes on both Vic Flores and Howard Bryant, the at-bats resulted in a sac fly and an RBI single. Ramirez struck out, but the Titans were up 2-0. Amazingly it was Joe Mann struggling with the zone, as he hardly threw a strike in the bottom 4th, loading them up with one out for Ledesma. Later in the box score, you could precisely identify this as the first spot where the Raccoons just rolled up, pretended to be dead, and let it all be. Ledesma rolled the ball back to Mann, who started a double play, home-and-first. Brown did what he could, whiffing ten, and in the eighth had his line ruined for good by shoddy defense and Manuel Martinez insisting on having everybody on the bases come in to score. The Coons scored a lonely run in the bottom 8th, Reece singling in Brady, while Joe Mann went all the way. 7-1 Titans. Martin 2-4; Brown 7.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 10 K, L (3-8);

I would love to come up with any excuse, but at the end of the day, these Titans are a good team with good players, and these Raccoons are a **** team with **** players.

Game 2
BOS: LF Elizondo – 1B Matsumoto – CF Garrison – RF G. Munoz – 3B Austin – C L. Lopez – 2B H. Ramirez – SS D. Silva – P Snyder
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – LF Reece – 1B Martin – SS Guerin – C Ledesma – 2B M. Ramirez – CF Lyon – P Joly

The middle game was … peculiar. The titans had two on in the first when Austin sent a huge fly to deep left which Old Neil somehow intercepted to keep the runners starved. The Coons also left two on, and in the top 2nd Joly and Ledesma pulled off a rare wild pitch / hit batter combo to load them up with two out and did NOT get hosed when Masaaki Matsumoto flew to deep right center. Brady made that play, raising the Titans’ LOB to five. In the bottom of the inning Guerin and Ramirez got on base, and then set off for a double steal. Lopez double-clutched and didn’t get Guerin at third, and Snyder balked immediately after that to award Guerin home and the Raccoons the first run of the game. Cal Lyon singled in Ramirez, then was caught stealing, and Joly almost took his own head off whiffing at a ball in chin height. Bottom 3rd, Snyder allowed a 2-out single to Reece, then issued three straight walks, getting only one strike in, but Ramirez flew out to center to leave them loaded. But now we were up 3-0, so we would probably cruise and – oh, wait, Joly was still pitching, drilling Elizondo for the second time in the game in the fourth inning! Guerin started a double play on Matsumoto’s grounder to quell that threat and in the fifth it was Reece stretching his legs again to strand two more Titans. Snyder had his third hit of the day off Joly in the sixth, but also was left on by Matsumoto. Six innings and 110 pitches by Joly had made everybody in attendance pretty dizzy and he retired with a 4-0 lead, attained with a solo home run by Brady. The bullpen took over – and blew the game right in the seventh. Moreno was banked on to retire a string of left-handers and plainly didn’t. Moreno was charged with four runs, the last two scoring on a 2-out, 1-2 grounder that Vic Flores hit off Marcos Bruno that leisurely rolled through between Martin and Ingall. The … the … I …

-.-

Bottom 7th, and the Raccoons were not the only team with ****ed up pitching. Nate Harrison walked two in the inning and then got a front row seat in witnessing another chapter in the Neil Reece Renaissance as the 36-year old from Massapequa, which nobody ever had hurt of before his emergence, rammed a voluminous 3-run homer out of the park, just inside the left foul pole. Bruno responded to the 7-4 lead by putting the first two men on base in the top 8th, and the meltdown continued. Wilson conceded two runs and left with two out and runners on the corners. Nordahl came out right now to face righty Pat Elliott, and struck him out. For anybody with room in their scorebooks, it was now 7-6, and plenty of sweat, which only intensified when Nordahl was singled upon by leadoff man Diéguez in the ninth. He struck out Elizondo, then walked Matsumoto, then struck out Garrison. Logic dictated that Munoz would come through, the count got to 2-1, 2-2, ran full, and he walked him. A-ah, here comes Ma-ark Austin. With complete doubt in our mind, we remembered Nordahl’s outing. How could anything else than a strikeout happen? A ball, a strike, another one. Austin looked at a pitch low – and got rung up regardless. 7-6 Coons. Brady 2-3, BB, HR, 2B, RBI; Reece 2-4, HR, 3 RBI; Guerin 2-3, BB; Ingall (PH) 0-0, 2 BB; Joly 6.0 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 1 K; Nordahl 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K, SV (15);

I would call this one mildly exhausting, take the win and drink myself to sleep.

Game 3
BOS: SS D. Silva – 1B Matsumoto – CF Garrison – 2B Austin – 3B V. Flores – LF G. Munoz – RF Bryant – C F. DIéguez – P Chapa
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – LF Reece – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – SS Guerin – CF Torrez – C Fifield – P Meza

The Titans got a run before they ever got a hit, with Meza walking three and hitting another batter, and that was before Howard Bryant’s 3-run double did away with the no-hit bid. It would just continue like that. Meza threw nine straight balls to start the second inning, walking Chapa and Silva, and by the time that inning was over, the Titans had two hits and six runs. And it … it went on, in some way? The Coons scored two unearned runs when Fifield doubled with two out, and, well, the bullpen was overworked anyway, and Meza hit. His grounder hit Fifield to actually end the inning. Once Meza was gone from the game, circus was over, and the game became a snoozer through the middle innings. And it was 6-2, the Titans could hardly do much to endanger them taking this set. Or maybe they could. Guerin led off the bottom 7th with a line drive double to the left corner, and Torrez was walked intentionally in an odd spot. Sharp would eventually come up with two out, and hit his first home run of the year to cut the gap to one run, 6-5. Fifield in the top 8th failed to dig out either Hector Ramirez’ pinch-bunt, nor Daniel Silva’s poor grounder, both being safe with infield singles, but Huerta managed to pitch around it. Bottom 8th, Reece walked, Martin singled, Ingall bunted them into scoring position as the tying and go-ahead run. Guerin striking out in that spot had not been calculated for, and the Raccoons would not score, neither in the eighth, nor in the ninth when John Bennett’s appearance made the point moot and the game was over once Neil Reece hopelessly flailed. 6-5 Titans. Sharp 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Martin 2-4; Huerta 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Bitter series. Bitter defeat.

It’s a bitter life.

Raccoons (31-42) @ Falcons (34-37) – June 27-29, 2003

For their shoddy record, the Falcons still held down second place in the CL South, with eight teams in the Continental League having losing records overall. They weren’t scoring a lot of runs, 8th in the league, and their pitching was plagued by a rotation that was prone to implosions. Ha! I know one, too!

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (4-2, 3.53 ERA) vs. Manuel Hernandez (9-4, 4.07 ERA)
Ralph Ford (3-11, 6.61 ERA) vs. Brandon Edwards (2-3, 6.48 ERA)
Nick Brown (3-8, 3.80 ERA) vs. Terry Wilson (7-8, 3.59 ERA)

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – LF Reece – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – SS Guerin – CF Torrez – C Fifield – P Farley
CHA: SS Vieitas – LF R. Wilson – 2B H. Green – 1B Batlle – C F. Chavez – RF J. Lugo – CF Estrada – 3B Moore – P M. Hernandez

Farley was wonky, but Hernandez went down quickly. The Falcons drew first blood with a walk to Vieitas and Wilson doubling him home in the bottom 1st, but the Raccoons came back with two runs in the second and a 3-run homer by Eddie Torrez in the next inning to go up 5-1. The Falcons rallied in the bottom 4th, loading them up with two out and Jose Ramirez hitting for Hernandez, but he grounded out. The Coons tacked on a run in the top 5th, but Farley was shelled with back-to-back bombs by Hubert Green and Paco Batlle in the bottom of the inning, running the score to 6-3. Farley went seven without more accidents. He allowed five hits in total, but three of them for extra bases and scoring runs. Martinez and Moreno combined for a scoreless eighth, bringing out Nordahl for the ninth, facing the bottom of the order. Pedro Estrada and Herberto Vieitas hit singles, going to the corners with two outs. Ralph Wilson popped one to shallow center, but nobody was going to get that one as it dinked in for an RBI single. Oh for crying out – Hubert Green zinged a liner to short, Guerin leaping – and he caught it! Phew!! 6-4 Coons. Sharp 2-5, RBI; Palacios (PH) 1-1; Ingall 2-4, 2B; Guerin 2-3, BB; Torrez 1-3, HR, 4 RBI; Moore (PH) 1-1;

If Nordahl would have been unscored upon in the ninth, that would have been a 6-3 game, and the least runs conceded by the team in 10 games. Since June 4, we have allowed less than four runs only three times, and never less than two.

Yikes.

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – LF Moore – 1B Martin – SS Guerin – C Ledesma – 2B Palacios – CF Lyon – P Ford
CHA: CF J. Ramirez – 2B A. Ramirez – LF J. Lugo – 1B H. Green – RF Hudson – SS Vieitas – 3B McGreary – C Durango – P B. Edwards

Dubbed Ford’s Last Stand by the Agitator, this was a show-and-tell game for the left-hander. How long would the Raccoons, last place and hopeless or not, watch his act?

The Raccoons didn’t get a hit until Ledesma singled up the middle in the fourth, moving Guerin, who had walked, to second base. The second hit was Palacios’, went up the middle as well, and plated Guerin for the first run of the game. The Falcons had had two soft singles in the first three innings, and had two more of those in the fourth, but left runners on the corners when Ford struck out Herberto Vieitas. The top 6th saw the Coons have the bases loaded and no outs after a Moore double, Martin walking, and Concie reaching on an error. Edwards continued to unravel, plating Moore with a wild one, but then Ledesma hit at a 3-0 pitch and lined out to second, almost getting Concie doubled off, and the Raccoons wouldn’t score again in the inning. The Coons struggled at the plate, leaving two more runners on base in the eighth, while Ford was still pitching, but did not complete the eighth. Jose Ramirez flew out to medium depth leftfield, and the Ford issued his first walk of the day. Jose Lugo drove the ball to center, but right to Lyon. But that brought up Hubert Green and his 11 homers as the tying run, and we wanted a right-hander in the situation. Bruno faced him, but Green singled on the first pitch. Lefty Ralph Wilson pinch-hit now, prompting Benton Wilson to come in, resulting in a bases-loaded walk. Helplessly and out of ideas we grabbed Dan Nordahl, and the Falcons countered with another lefty in Paco Batlle. Dan fell behind 3-1 before Batlle got one to drive to deep right center. Was it – or could Lyon - …? Lyon sold out on a flying grab, caught it, made a sound impression on the warning track, but got away unhurt, and the Falcons didn’t score. In the ninth, Nordahl walked the leadoff man Toby McGreary, but eventually got out of that mess as well. 2-0 Coons. Ford 7.2 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K, W (4-11); Nordahl 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K, SV (17);

Woot, a shutout!! So, Ford was good, he’ll get another one. We will graciously ignore the four hits the little trash combers managed to accumulate themselves.

The last time the Coons allowed no runs in a game? May 22, 7-0 over the Indians at home. Brown, Huerta, Wilson, and Nordahl combining for three hits and nine strikeouts.

Game 3
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF Brady – LF Reece – 1B Ingall – 2B Palacios – CF Torrez – C Fifield – P Brown
CHA: CF J. Ramirez – 2B A. Ramirez – LF J. Lugo – 1B H. Green – RF Hudson – SS Vieitas – 3B McGreary – C Durango – P T. Wilson

Brown had a strange way of trying for a series sweep, not retiring any of the first four batters, with Jose Ramirez taking him deep right away. Down 2-0 with two in scoring position, he struck out Hudson and Vieitas before the Falcons picked it up again, plating two more runs before it was Terry Wilson’s time at bat. Brown walked him on four balls, and then Jose Ramirez doubled in two more runs. 6-0 on six hits and two walks. The next useless bandit to get caught and hung was Vega, who allowed two hits and three walks in the bottom 4th. How to wreck an already awful bullpen? Have them go six innings at least twice a week. Huerta got whacked as well two innings later, with the damage just mounting. When Huerta allowed two runs, the Falcons reached double digits, which was one way to follow up a shutout in style. 11-3 Falcons. Reece 2-4, RBI; Palacios 2-4, 2 RBI; Martinez 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Why don’t we just designate all the ****s for assignment, release everybody that isn’t claimed (read: everybody, because they are all just useless ****s), and start over with our .333 AAA team?

In other news

June 23 – It’s a new week, but MIL SS/2B Bartolo Hernandez (.328, 2 HR, 31 RBI) has his hitting streak still alive and well, running it to 32 games with a pair of singles in a 9-7 win over the Crusaders. He now ties Portland’s Neil Reece for the ninth-longest hitting streak in ABL history.
June 26 – WAS SP Mario Pagán (8-5, 2.93 ERA) goes to the DL with an oblique strain, figuring to miss a month at least.
June 27 – SAC OF Aaron Jenkins (.292, 5 HR, 35 RBI) has an RBI single off the Rebels’ Greg Grams, but the Scorpions fall to the Rebels, 3-2. It is the 2,500 career base hit for the 34-year old Jenkins, who has spent his entire major league career for the team that drafted him fourth overall in the 1987 draft. .299/.338/.452 with 161 HR and 1,156 RBI for his career, with 187 stolen bases on top of that, Jenkins is one of the elite sluggers in the game. He was an All Star four times and won a Gold Glove in 2001. The same year he also had a 6-hit game against the Wolves, and his 1,156 RBI rank him 14th all time, and fifth among active players.
June 27 – Hernandez’, who is batting .332 with 2 HR and 33 RBI, has his streak reach 35 games with two hits in a 2-0 win over the Knights, including an RBI double. He now ties Manuel Doval and Clement Clark for the fifth-longest hitting streak in ABL history. Claudio Rojas’ record is 12 games off.
June 29 – Bartolo Hernandez ends the week at 37 games of hitting, chipping in an RBI double in the Loggers’ 6-1 win over the Knights. Hernandez (.334, 2 HR, 36 RBI) now owns the fourth-longest hitting streak in ABL history. He looks up to 47- and 40-game hitting streaks by Claudio Rojas (1983 and 1980, respectively), and a 39-gamer by Roland Moore.

Complaints and stuff

Something that tends to get lost in the box score: Clyde Brady has been picked off first base three times the last three weeks. Listen, Clyde. Stuffing yourself full is okay, and snoozing around the park in an engorged state is okay, but when you’re counting for a run, you better get those paws going.

In AAA, Fernando Piquero’s ERA keeps going down bit by bit, while it is hard to make anything of Edgar Amador right now, who is 1-1 with a 5.75 ERA and a .402 BABIP. The 3.4 K/BB is certainly in his favor.

On Wednesday, we hit rock bottom. Surrendering six runs every day finally got us tied for most runs allowed in the Continental League, a state that is still valid as of Sunday. Took some time, but we’re there. The walks keep hurting us. The walks and the hit batters, and the wild pitches, and those moments when the team just retreats to a corner to hold still in order to not accidentally strain a whisker.

Because I feel like it: take a keen guess, which pitcher might have allowed the most walks in franchise history?