[Westheim]

Raccoons (40-35) vs. Aces (34-42) – June 28-30, 2004

Aces games rarely ended up 2-1. They were fourth in runs scored, but tied for tenth in runs allowed in the Continental League, with neither their rotation, nor their bullpen being much help in keeping an even keel. There was a 2-1 in play however: the Raccoons were 2-1 against them this season.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (4-6, 4.76 ERA) vs. Manuel Alba (6-8, 3.88 ERA)
Edgar Amador (5-4, 3.93 ERA) vs. Antonio Sanchez (1-1, 2.42 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (4-7, 5.38 ERA) vs. Jim Pennington (4-6, 5.83 ERA)

Three more right-handers coming.

Game 1
LVA: SS Hitchcock – LF L. Jenkins – 2B O. Torres – 1B Nichols – CF Talamante – RF P. Flores – 3B Pollack – C L. Paredes – P Alba
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Ford

All Aces starters combined for three hits off Ralph Ford in their careers, but of course three had never faced him before, too, including Brian Nichols, Pedro Flores, and Melvin Pollack. The weather forecast was icky.

Nichols and Flores compensated for their inexperience with run-scoring hits right in the first inning, in which Ford looked very much like his tenure on the mound would not be of great length, and the Aces scored three runs. He would walk six in total over four innings, after which a continued performance was disallowed by him being guillotined and the weather forcing a delay anyway. At that point the Raccoons trailed 4-1, their run courtesy of Sheehan legging out a triple in the bottom 3rd and scoring on Ford’s groundout. What looked like a game that was not quite a loss yet, saw Brady also hit a single in that bottom 3rd, and after that no Raccoon ever reached base again – except for Alejandro Rojas, who reached on an error with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. Along the way, Lou Jenkins showed Bill Corkum the right field bleachers. 5-1 Aces. Sheehan 1-2, BB, 3B;

And it continues. And have I mentioned the Elks will be in town over the weekend? And that they will have a more-than-splendid chance to pass us in the standings?

Anybody other than Brownie willing to pitch a good game?? ANYBODY???

Game 2
LVA: RF Covington – 3B Warrain – 2B O. Torres – LF Messinger – 1B Nichols – CF Talamante – SS Pollack – C L. Paredes – P A. Sanchez
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – 1B Rojas – CF Torrez – C Ledesma – LF Reece – 2B Nomura – SS M. Ramirez – P Amador

The weather was better, the Critters were not. While Amador struck out the first two men he faced and allowed only one silly hit, a bloop double by Sanchez that hopped past Brady giggling, the Raccoons were sat down in order entirely their first time through the lineup. Then Brady led off the bottom 4th with a triple, and Sharp doubled to plate him, 1-0 Coons. Sanchez melted away here, walking the bases full before Ledesma’s grounder to third was not played conclusively by anybody for a bases-loaded infield single. Reece drew a walk, which ran the score to 3-0, before Sanchez recollected himself and retired the next three to keep three others stranded. Something seemed to be wrong with Sanchez, however, as he issued four more walks in the bottom 5th, but everybody who hacked at the ball missed it and made an out. Neil Reece was the only batter of seven to step into the box to put a ball in play, an RBI groundout. We moved away to 5-0. Amador was most dazzling through six innings, whiffing nine against two hits, but unraveled in the seventh, walking a pair. Martinez rescued him from his predicament. The Furballs added a run in the bottom 7th which was unearned after a grave error by Inaki-Luki Warrain. Moreno and Nordahl would pitch clean innings at the back of this game, and the Raccoons managed to cobble together a shutout. 6-0 Coons. Torrez 0-1, 3 BB; Ledesma 1-2, 2 BB, 2 RBI; Amador 6.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 9 K, W (6-4);

Is the evil spell broken now? I sure hope so!

Game 3
LVA: RF Covington – 3B Warrain – 2B O. Torres – LF Messinger – 1B Nichols – CF Talamante – SS Hitchcock – C L. Paredes – P Pennington
POR: RF Brady – 2B Nomura – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Thomas – LF Beairsto – SS Sheehan – 3B M. Ramirez – P F. Garcia

While the Coons took advantage of a triple again, this time it being Nomura tripling in Brady and then scoring on Torrez’ sacrifice fly, Garcia was actively working against his team, drilling a batter, throwing away a pitcher’s bunt, and a wild pitch, too, and all of that condensed into TWO innings, and yet we were still up 2-1. While Pennington surrendered plenty of walks, Garcia gave up hard contact galore, although the outfielders – their lives at risk – sucked up most of it. Funnily it was Pennington surrendering a home run then, a solo shot to Beairsto, who made another case for a .200 batting average and now was actually getting close. That made it 3-1, Pennington walked two in the inning, but Garcia couldn’t get a bunt down and it fizzled out. Carlos Talamante then hit a double in the sixth that sent Brian Nichols around the field from first base after walking. Beairsto fired home, and the runner was out. Pennington in any case was more horrible than Garcia, and the Aces let him rack up eight walks before yanking him in the seventh, in which he walked two, with those runners scoring on a Nomura single and a Martin sac fly. Forest Messinger clobbered Dave Williams for a solo homer in the eighth to get the Aces back to 5-2, and they flared up down to their final out once more when Luis Paredes tripled off Marcos Bruno, but Bruno whiffed Jenkins to close this one out. 5-2 Coons. Sharp (PH) 1-1; Nomura 2-5, 3B, 2 RBI; Beairsto 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; Garcia 7.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (5-7) and 1-2;

Anybody still remember Jack Pennington? Yeah? Then we’ll move along swiftly.

Garcia’s line looks much better than it was. There were 12 fly outs registered by the brown-clad fielders.

Raccoons (42-36) vs. Canadiens (37-39) – July 1-4, 2004

The Canadiens were scoring the least runs in the CL, despite the fact that they possessed both power and speed, but their on-base percentage as a team was a meager .320. On the other hand they were also allowing the fewest runs, with both their rotation and their bullpen rating as excellent. They came in weakened, though, missing starters Cal Holbrook and Rod Taylor, outfielder Tony Velasquez, and their hot second baseman Jerry Dobson had just gone down with an undisclosed injury.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (11-2, 2.78 ERA) vs. Scott Spears (3-4, 4.33 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-8, 4.48 ERA) vs. Joe Hollow (6-5, 3.66 ERA)
Ralph Ford (4-7, 4.96 ERA) vs. Daniel Dickerson (3-6, 2.59 ERA)
Edgar Amador (6-4, 3.66 ERA) vs. George Norris (1-3, 4.43 ERA)

Hollow will be our only left-hander this week.

Game 1
VAN: CF Wheaton – 3B Suzuki – 2B J. Zamora – 1B A. Munoz – RF R. Green – LF Trinidad – C Rosa – SS Phillips – P Spears
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – LF King – C Ledesma – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Brown

Brown didn’t get a strike past anyone – surrendering a homer to Zamora – until Royce Green struck out to end the first. Brown was not any good this time around and needed over 80 pitches to get through five, walking three and striking out five. The Coons made up the early difference on a Martin double, Ledesma’s infield single and a wild pitch in the second, but overall Spears struck them out one after another. The Coons then broke out in the fifth, which was led off by Nomura with a single to center. Brown bunted him to second base, and Brady scored him with a bloop single to shallow center. Then Sharp hit one sharply to left for a single, and Torrez hit a wildly caroming triple off the centerfield wall to bring the score to 4-1 after five. Brown singled in a run in the sixth, but got only one out in the seventh before walking Freddy Rosa, and that was it for him. Martinez came in, got Phillips, but PH Ken Rodgers hit a double to center, yet the Coons had Torrez fire a rocket back in and Rosa was thrown out at home. Top 8th, Al Martin bungled Dave Wheaton’s grounder for an error, which loomed big soon after that when Zamora tattered a homer off Huerta to axe our lead in half to 5-3. The Coons missed a chance to increase the lead when Sheehan’s and Beairsto’s 2-out singles in the bottom 8th were rendered irrelevant by Brady whiffing. In the top 9th, Bruno stumbled, putting runners on the corners, before he recovered and ended the game with a K to Wheaton. 5-3 Raccoons. Torrez 2-4, 3B, 2 RBI; Martin 2-4, 2B; Beairsto (PH) 1-1; Brown 6.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, W (12-2) and 1-2, RBI;

Everybody in the starting lineup had a hit, and we had a dozen in total. This win also means that the Canadiens will not move into second place in this series, which is only good. They could have achieved a virtual tie by Sunday with a series sweep.

Brownie trails only Topeka’s Dan George in wins, and Washington’s Chris York in strikeouts.

Game 2
VAN: CF E. Garcia – LF Wheaton – 2B Phillips – 3B Suzuki – 1B J. Zamora – SS Rodgers – RF Jardine – C Hurtado – P Hollow
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – C Thomas – 1B Martin – LF Reece – CF King – 2B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Farley

Randy had lost his last four games, and while the Coons put their first two men on in the bottom 1st, Thomas quickly hit into a double play to kill the effort. Farley was booked for two runs with Hurtado’s 2-out single in the top 2nd, and the Raccoons got one of those runs right back, but couldn’t get their other runners in. Neither pitcher was very good, in short. Farley surrendered Jim Jardine’s first major league home run soon, and while Farley had a sniff at the sixth inning, he put three Canadiens on base while retiring nobody. The Elks took a 5-1 lead in the inning, and put another run on Nordahl in the seventh. The Raccoons were hitting into double plays, but they did at least that well, hitting into three in the first six innings. Brady had two on in the seventh, grounded out pathetically to first, which ended the inning. Corkum was tagged, Hollow was not, and the Raccoons were washed away in this one. 7-1 Canadiens. Sharp 2-3, BB;

The Raccoons, who had been third in runs scored in late May, dropped to 10th with this particular uninspired game. And Randy has lost five in a row…

Game 3
VAN: CF Wheaton – 3B Suzuki – 2B J. Zamora – 1B A. Munoz – RF R. Green – LF Trinidad – C Rosa – SS Phillips – P Dickerson
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Ford

First inning, the Canadiens put their first three men on, and the Raccoons their first two, before both teams hit into a double play. Only the Canadiens scored a run, and they got one handed over by Ledesma’s throwing error in the third to make it 2-0. Dickerson walked four before surrendering a hit, and then it was an infield single he couldn’t field himself, allowing Martin to reach in the fourth. Torrez was on after a walk, and there were no outs. Finally some life: the next three Coons, Ledesma, Beairsto, and Nomura, all had run-scoring hits to flip the score to 3-2, and another run would score on Ford’s groundout, 4-2. Sharpie led off the bottom 5th with a double, scored on Martin’s single, and the Raccoons would plate him as well when Nomura sacrificed him over home plate, 6-2. After a really crappy beginning, Ford got into the seventh, but not out of it. Freddy Rosa’s 2-out solo homer sent him showering, with Nordahl ending the inning. With Bruno out a couple of times the last few days, we planned with Martinez to get a save opportunity, but had to go to him in the eighth already when Moreno couldn’t get right-handers out. Martinez could, striking out Zamora, and he whiffed two more in the ninth. 6-3 Coons. Martin 3-4, RBI; Ledesma 2-3, BB, 2 2B, RBI; Beairsto 1-2, BB, RBI; Martinez 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, SV (1);

This is our first winning week since the last week of May …!!

The Elks however got bad news after this game, with 23-year old Jerry Dobson out for the season with a fractured knee.

Game 4
VAN: CF E. Garcia – LF Wheaton – 1B Suzuki – 3B Phillips – 2B J. Zamora – SS Rodgers – RF Trinidad – C Hurtado – P Norris
POR: RF Brady – 2B Nomura – 1B Rojas – CF Torrez – C Ledesma – LF Reece – 3B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Amador

On Sharp’s off day, Miguel Ramirez put the Raccoons on top with a 2-run homer in the bottom 2nd for the first scoring of the game. He came up again in the third inning with one out and the bases choked full of Coons, and drove in one more with a groundout. It killed the inning at the same time, though, since Sheehan was walked intentionally and Amador struck out. But Ramirez came up once more in the fourth to make up for it. Neil Reece had just hit a bases-loaded infield single with one out, running the score to 4-0, and now Ramirez hit a fly into the gap that nobody caught up with and it emptied the bases, 7-0! Now for the bad news: the Fat Cat was already out of the game with back pain. While Huerta was brought in for two, hopefully three innings, the Raccoons had two on with two out in the bottom 5th with Ledesma batting. Ledesma struck out against Jose Torres, but it came even worse for the Elks. Hurtado missed the ball, which went to the backstop, and Ledesma made it safely to first to load them up for Reece, who hit another single to plate two runs. Huerta pitched 2.2 innings, allowing two runs in the sixth, but the Coons were still in cruise control at 9-2. The Raccoons then stranded a total of seven runners between the sixth and eighth without scoring, but at least they had pretended to be clutch team pretty well earlier. Unfortunately, Corkum was socked for two runs as well in the ninth inning, but we still got away with a convincing series win. 9-4 Furballs. Nomura 3-5; Sharp (PH) 1-1; Torrez 3-6; Ledesma 2-4, 2 BB; Reece 4-5, 3 RBI; Ramirez 2-4, BB, HR, 6 RBI; Martin (PH) 1-1; Amador 4.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K and 1-2; Williams 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

In other news

June 30 – NYC SS/3B Gary Rice (.301, 1 HR, 35 RBI) will miss the month of July on the DL with shoulder tendinitis.
July 1 – IND SP Bob King (3-5, 5.01 ERA), who is just 20 years old, is out for the season with shoulder inflammation.
July 3 – The Indians acquire MR Tommy Woolbridge (3-3, 3.35 ERA) from the Scorpions for a prospect and a minor leaguer. The Scorpions also trade for #46 prospect 1B Bernalldino Pixeiro by sending 34-yr old INF Haruki Nakayama (.301, 3 HR, 18 RBI) to the Buffaloes. Meanwhile the Indians deal with the Gold Sox, with 35-yr old MR Enrico Gonzalez (2-3, 3.92 ERA, 1 SV) along with cash going to the mountains in exchange for three low-key minor leaguers.
July 4 – Fireworks in Sioux Falls: fittingly on the Fourth of July, Raúl Vázquez (.306, 11 HR, 44 RBI) slams his 400th major league home run in a 7-1 win of the Warriors over the Wolves, a 2-run homer off Lawrence Bentley. No other ABL player has reached 400, ever, and only 16 other players even made it to 200. The next-closest active player is Cincy’s Dan Morris at 277, sixth all time.

Complaints and stuff

The Fat Cat might miss two weeks and will go to the DL. He has a back strain. Must come from that Oregon-sized waist of his.

The real joy will be in finding a replacement. The best guy at AAA, ERA-wise, is Kenichi Watanabe, at 4.58; our AAA team sucks that hard. They are playing .320 ball. No bullpen in the world can help those guys. This includes Piquero, Meza, Beach, and – worst of all – 33-yr old scrap heap pickup Dan Barnes, who a long time ago was fairly decent for the Indians, among others.

Concie started a rehab assignment on Saturday, and should be here by the middle of the week. Marv is about one week behind, and that should really tighten up our offense. Not that Nomura has been terrible, but I prefer our old middle infield combo, thx. Nomura and Rojas will be demoted when the two stalwarts come back.

Still looking for an upgrade with Beairsto, although Reece is drifting dead in the water, too… Those four hits on Sunday equaled his output the last month, I fear, and he needs 59 to 2,000. Plus King. No wonder we’re not scoring runs. We scored SEVENTY-FOUR RUNS IN ALL OF JUNE.

You know whose’ on masher Raúl Vázquez’ Warriors team? Mike Crowe. Once upon a time the Coons third baseman of the future (someone’s gotta have copyright on that future crap, right?), he was dumped after 2000 and shipped off to Atlanta, where he appeared in 35 games for the Knights before ending up in AAA. At 33, he has made it back into a regular role with the Warriors, but his .676 OPS is just a tad over his career mark.

Chris Roberson had a 5-hit game this week for the Buffaloes. He spent most of last year in Bakersfield in AAA for them, but this season he is starting most of the time, but he’s batting a measly .240-something. He was traded to them with Juan Diaz (ARGH!!) and Jack Berry, a home-run-super-prone pitching prospect, for Ledesma and Dale Moore. We already ridded ourselves of Moore, and I’m trying to remove Ledesma as well, but nobody wants a piece of that sucker. He won’t even be a free agent this fall, and he will get even more than his $1.06M in arbitration. The sucker HAS to go!

Nick Brown was NOT Pitcher of the Month, but Boston’s Jorge Chapa. I need to buy explosives now, if you would excuse me…