[Westheim]

Raccoons (8-4) vs. Titans (10-3) – April 21-23, 2008

While the Raccoons’ .307 batting average wouldn’t last, the Titans’ 6.7 R/G wouldn’t either. Probably. They had been on fire offensively, but equally important their starting pitchers had so far posted the lowest ERA in the league.

Projected matchups:
Javier Cruz (1-1, 8.00 ERA) vs. Jesus Elmore (1-1, 5.93 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (2-0, 2.45 ERA) vs. Ray Conner (1-0, 1.80 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (0-2, 5.73 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (2-1, 1.21 ERA)

Following former Coons farmhand, right-hander Jesus Elmore, it will be two well-known southpaws. More left-handers might follow on the weekend in Las Vegas.

Oh, and the weather forecast for the week is dreadful.

Game 1
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – 3B M. Austin – RF Brulhart – C Suda – CF Ja. Gusmán – LF P. Flores – 1B Ju. Gusmán – SS Heffer – P Elmore
POR: SS Barrón – CF Castro – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – P Cruz

The Titans came in with a 9-game winning streak and set an exclamation mark immediately, with Jesus Ramirez drawing a leadoff walk from Javier Cruz, who was not at all what we had imagined from our #3 starter early on in the season, and to underline that statement he instantly surrendered a 2-run homer to Mark Austin. While Cruz continued to suck himself out of favor, allowing another 2-piece to “Quasimodo” Suda in the third, the Raccoons had slowish Quebell, who had extended his hitting streak to 14 games, thrown out at home by Jim Brulhart in the second inning. While the Critters did get on the board with Pruitt’s RBI double in the bottom of the fourth, Elmore didn’t allow nearly as much to them as Cruz handed out for free. Jesus Ramirez would end his day with a solo home run with two outs in the sixth, then giving the Titans a 5-2 lead. Kichida was nicked for another run in the seventh, but the Raccoons actually had some juice left. In the bottom of the inning, Bowen and Nomura got on before Chavez and Barrón hit grounders for outs at second base, but Bowen scored. Castro then rapped a single to left, and Pruitt doubled to get us back to 6-4 with the tying runs in scoring position for the Duke. The Titans foolishly stayed with Elmore and paid for it dearly when the Duke hopped a 1-2 pitch over the second base bag into center, tying the score at six.

Ed Bryan was tasked with PH Rudy Garrison and the two lefties atop the order in the eighth, but Garrison reached with a single. Marcos Bruno inherited the runner at third with two outs, facing Brulhart, and allowed a hard grounder to short on the first pitch that Barrón played successfully into the third out – the last out on the day. Between innings, rain set in, and instantly got quite calamitous. The game went to delay and was ultimately suspended.

The next day, the skies were still gray and potentially just waiting to open up. The Coons went down silently in the bottom 8th, but Bruno was still in and pitched a perfect ninth, enabling a walkoff. The inning started with Santiago Trevino, who had come in for defense, but was the first of three batters to fly out. Bruno pitched another inning, and then Rockburn pitched three frames. The offense couldn’t pick up the sticks, however, facing another lockdown pen in the blue shirts. Nomura reached on an error by Dave Heffer in the 11th, but nothing came of that. Manuel Martinez was in his third inning when Luke Black reached on an error by Mark Austin to start the 13th inning. Ryan Miller hit for Rockburn, singled, but then Ricardo Martinez grounded a 3-1 pitch to short and HEFFER THREW IT AWAY!! Heffer’s throw went past double play partner Daniel Silva, and the Raccoons loaded the bases with no outs! And the best: before Craig Bowen could do anything stupid, Manuel Martinez’ next pitch was wild, got far away from Suda, and the Coons walked off! 7-6 Coons! Pruitt 2-6, 2 2B, 2 RBI; Black 2-6, 2 RBI; Miller (PH) 1-1; Bowen 2-5; Bruno 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K; Rockburn 3.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K, W (1-0);

… and there’s the first decision for our pen this year. Took some time, and it’s a win, yay!

Of course we shredded our pen quite badly for Jong-hoo’s start that followed right after this. Also, with Bowen having already caught five innings on the day, we gave Juan Rios the start in the middle game for his major league debut, which gives us Bowen to pinch-hit.

Game 2
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – LF Garrison – C Suda – CF Ja. Gusmán – 1B R. Vargas – 3B M. Austin – RF P. Flores – SS D. Silva – P Conner
POR: 2B Barrón – 1B Quebell – CF Castro – RF Black – LF Pruitt – 3B R. Martinez – SS R. Miller – C Rios – P Umberger

Jong-hoo pitched well, and when another 2-run homer was hit in the first inning in Portland, it belonged to the home team; Tomas Castro bombed Ray Conner into an early deficit, then created a run in the third when he stole second base with two outs to get into scoring position, then scored on Black’s single to left to make it 3-0. While you were never out of the bushes with a 3-run lead, Umberger certainly made it appear like much more. The Titans just weren’t getting anything off him. Then the Raccoons swiftly doubled their lead in the bottom 7th with three consecutive 2-out RBI doubles by our 2-3-4 guys to get to 6-0. Umberger was still strong in the eighth, then was chased by rain. Donald Sims took over and spoiled the shutout party when he allowed a homer to Rudy Garrison in the ninth. 6-1 Raccoons. Quebell 2-3, BB, 2B, RBI; Castro 2-4, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Black 3-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Umberger 7.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K, W (3-0);

Doubtful whether Jong-hoo, who has yet to walk a major league batter, would have completed the shutout, as he was already at 102 pitches when the game went to delay, but his performance went a great way to conserve the pen that had been squeezed already.

Juan Rios drew a walk his first time at the plate, but did not get a hit.

Game 3
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – LF Garrison – RF Brulhart – C Suda – CF Ja. Gusmán – 1B R. Vargas – 3B M. Austin – SS D. Silva – P Chapa
POR: 2B Barrón – 1B Quebell – CF Castro – LF Black – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – RF Mays – SS R. Miller – P Watanabe

The Titans scored an unearned run after a Miller error in the first inning, but Watanabe also had his paws in loading the bases and Javier Gusmán sending Bob Mays all the way to the warning track with a drive to right, which was the sac fly that gave them the lead. Duke Smack’s sixth homer of the year gave the Coons a 2-1 advantage in the bottom of the inning, only for Watanabe to implode in the third inning. Jesus Ramirez’ leadoff triple opened the gates, Garrison singled, Brulhart homered, and a Suda double gave the Titans an oddly shaped cycle four batters into the inning. They batted through the lineup in taking a 6-2 lead. Watanabe was yanked after Chapa’s single. Not all was lost: Ricardo Martinez’ 2-piece in the bottom of the same inning left the Raccoons down by only two, but Kaz Kichida was pitching, and that was a mixed bag as well… In the end Kaz pitched 3.2 innings in relief, allowing a solo home run to Brulhart, but the Raccoons didn’t get many men on base at all in the meantime. Bob Mays doubled and scored on Barrón’s single in the eighth, and against Manuel Martinez we got Black on base in the ninth when Ricardo Martinez hit another drive to deep center – but this one was caught by Gusmán. 7-5 Titans. Barrón 3-5, RBI; Black 2-3, 2 BB, HR, 2 RBI; Martinez 3-4, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Kichida 3.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K;

Okay, we might have to watch our AAA guys for possible replacements sooner than we’d love to. Also, the Titans killed off Adrian Quebell’s 15-game hitting streak, keeping him 0-4 with a walk.

Raccoons (10-5) @ Aces (3-11) – April 25-27, 2008

After getting clobbered a bit by the high-octane Titans offense, we were hoping for some rest for the pitchers in this weekend set with the league’s worst offense. The Aces had scored 51 runs in 14 games, certainly not otherworldly good. They also had the worst ERA marks for starters and relievers, but weren’t actually allowing the most runs in the league.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (2-1, 0.77 ERA) vs. Jim Pennington (1-2, 4.12 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (3-0, 4.24 ERA) vs. Joe Hollow (0-0, 5.27 ERA)
Javier Cruz (1-1, 7.98 ERA) vs. Juan Valdevez (1-2, 5.14 ERA)

Hollow will be another left-handed pitcher to climb over. I don’t like our setup with three left-handers in the top 5, but there aren’t many ways to make it work…

Game 1
POR: SS Barrón – CF Castro – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – P Brown
LVA: 1B McDermott – LF Cameron – RF R. Garcia – C Durango – 2B Dahlke – 3B Warrain – SS F. Soto – CF Messinger – P Pennington

First innings remained explosive with the Raccoons involved. Here they loaded the bases with one out and plated all three runners with a Quebell double and Martinez’ groundout. Brown allowed a run in the bottom 2nd, but Castro’s homer in the third put us back up by three. Then Pruitt doubled, and Black doubled, 5-1, but Black kept shaking his leg at second base after getting up, and after some conversation with the trainer out there, he left the game, being replaced by Bob Mays. Even then, Mays scored on a Bowen sac fly to get to 6-1 and we figured that should be enough for Brown, who after every batter he dispatched glanced over to third base, where the rookie was playing and whether he was picking his nose or having a snack instead of paying attention.

Of course it was enough. Brownie, if anything, threw a few too many balls. He found himself in a full count five times in the game, but resolved all but one of those in his favor. The last of the five was the odd one out, and cost a second run in the bottom 7th, when Forest Messinger hit a single off him that also got Brown out of the game. Law Rockburn surrendered the run after Sean McDermott’s third hit of the day. But the Coons had scored twice in the meantime, including a Bowen homer, and led 8-2.

But sometimes a 6-run lead is really not a 6-run lead. One wonky inning can make it a new game. Tom Watkins allowed three singles without retiring anybody in the bottom 8th, and aside from Eduardo Durango’s leadoff single, they were soft bloops that happened to fall in. Inaki-Luki Warrain’s single could have been caught by somebody with more range than Pruitt. Marcos Bruno came in to face the bottom of the order, went to three balls on all of them, struck out Francisco Soto and Eugene Carter, but the lefty Messinger walked to push in a run. Ed Bryan got McDermott on a hard grounder to Quebell to end the inning still up by five. And still, somehow we managed to turn this into a save situation. Bryan put two men on in the ninth, Kaz allowed an RBI single to Warrain, and it didn’t end until Angel handed a golden sombrero to Soto. 8-4 Brownies. Barrón 2-5; Castro 2-5, HR, 2 RBI; Miller (PH) 1-1; Black 1-1, 2B, RBI; Brown 6.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 9 K, W (3-1) and 1-3, 2B;

While you shouldn’t need six guys to cobble together eight outs when you lead by seven runs, we will chalk this up in the W column and pretend it was all smooth sailing. In fact, the Raccoons took over the division lead with this win, their 2,498th in franchise history. That means that Cruz would be the one with a chance for the milestone. Uh, that’s gonna be interesting.

The Duke was diagnosed with a mild hip strain and was listed as DTD for a week. He can pinch-hit, but he can’t do a lot of running, so he will have to interrupt his so far torrid pace for a while.

Nick Brown reached 1,400 strikeouts (1,402 actually) with this game.

Game 2
POR: 2B Barrón – 3B R. Martinez – 1B Pruitt – LF Castro – C Bowen – RF Mays – SS R. Miller – CF Trevino – P Yates
LVA: 1B McDermott – 3B Warrain – C Durango – RF R. Garcia – CF Cameron – LF L. Taylor – 2B Dahlke – SS F. Soto – P Hollow

While Kel appeared to ace up and struck out six in three perfect innings, Santiago Trevino was in the thick of our offensive attempts. He singled home Mays in the second inning for the only early run of the game, and in the fifth was on base with a leadoff single. He was in motion with Yates batting, and when Yates singled, we had runners on the corners. From there, Joe Hollow continued to allow a few more hits, including a double to Martinez and a 2-run single to Castro as the Raccoons put up a 4-spot and took a 5-0 lead. Kel reached eight strikeouts when he sat down Soto, who had nothing but struck out so far in this series, and also struck out pitcher Dave Hughes, only for the ball to get away from Bowen. Hughes actually made it safely to first. Two singles loaded the bases, but Ricardo Garcia struck out, #10, to end the inning.

And yet, Kel would leave the game without retiring anybody in the seventh inning the entire season. Don Cameron and Logan Taylor drew full count walks, and then Tom Dahlke, not quite a masher, homered just inside the left pole to cut us back to 5-3 in a hurry. All efforts so far exploded in a ball of fire, as Rockburn put Artie Hill on base and was taken deep by McDermott to tie the score. Donald Sims allowed the go-ahead run to score in the same inning.

Top 8th, Castro singled, and Bowen doubled to put the go-ahead runs in scoring position with no outs for the ragged part of the order to do something about it, facing Dane Sanders, a left-hander. The Duke hit for Mays, prompting the Aces to bring right-hander Greg Sampson, who popped up Black (but at least he didn’t have to run). Miller popped out, Trevino popped out. Quebell entered the game at first with the outfield reshuffling, and made an error on the first chance he had in the bottom 8th. Min-tae Yu’s home run off Watkins buried the Raccoons for good. Ricardo Martinez’ homer in the ninth was meaningless. 8-6 Aces. Martinez 2-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Castro 2-4, 2 RBI; Bowen 2-4, 2B; Trevino 2-4, RBI;

You can’t lose games in ****ty ways like this one here and expect to make the playoffs. That was a ****TY PERFORMANCE ALL AROUND. I don’t know what the frack is wrong with our pitching!

Game 3
POR: SS Barrón – 1B Quebell – CF Castro – LF Pruitt – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – RF Mays – 2B Nomura – P Cruz
LVA: 1B McDermott – 3B Warrain – C Durango – RF R. Garcia – CF Cameron – LF L. Taylor – 2B Dahlke – SS F. Soto – P Valdevez

Francisco Soto tried to shake off a gruesome 0-8, 8 K record in this series, and doubled his first time up against Cruz, but was left on base as either pitcher faced only ten batters in the first three innings. Then the Aces sent 13 men to the plate in the fourth inning. Cruz was ravaged and raped, and eight runs were charged against him, the last two scoring against an equally **** Ed Bryan. The game was over right there. Soto singled in a pair in that disaster of an 8-run inning, then was beaned by Kichida – through sheer incompetence of course – in his next at-bat in the bottom 5th. Kichida also hit Warrain an inning later and allowed another run.

Down 9-0, I grunted when Adrian Quebell reached on an infield single to start the seventh inning. I didn’t grunt anymore when Quebell emptied a 3-run homer into the stands his next time – IN THE SAME INNING. Now it had been on the Raccoons to not let go and they put up their own 8-spot! Castro had singled, and Pruitt walked to load them up with no outs. Martinez and Bowen plated two apiece with doubles before Black popped out. Nomura singled, with a Trevino sac fly plating the fifth run. Barrón walked, finally prompting the shelving of Valdevez, and then came Quebell and peppered Sampson anyway to make it 9-8 for the home team. Castro struck out and the Coons went down in the eighth. Marcos Bruno chopped the Aces into tiny pieces for two innings, but they still had to get through Andrew Wills in the ninth, and that with the bottom of the order. Nelson Chavez led off in place of Bruno and grounded out, just like Nomura. Trevino singled up the middle to keep them alive, but Barrón flew out. 9-8 Aces. Quebell 3-4, HR, 3 RBI; Martinez 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Bruno 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K;

****ty game. Two ****ty games in a row.

$1.8M put into a complete and utter piece of ****. Great deal.

In other news

April 25 – The Cyclones’ Jack Berry (3-1, 4.22 ERA) strikes out 16 batters in a 5-2 win over the Wolves.
April 27 – CIN SP Nathan O’Herlihy (3-1, 2.76 ERA) strained an oblique while playing some hoops with his brothers and will miss two weeks.

Complaints and stuff

Yep, Berry is the guy that I dumped as AAA prospect because he would get shelled with home runs.

Meanwhile, our pitching is completely ****ed up. Outside of Brown, Umberger, Casas, and Bruno at least. What the heck is wrong with Yates, and that rebuilt back end of the bullpen sucks balls like you wouldn’t believe. We can’t lose games like on Saturday! That’s gonna kill us off sooner than you would imagine.

And then there’s Watanabe and Cruz. Those two are completely out of it. What do we have in AAA? Teasdale and Lopez have big walk issues, and so we’re down to Boda and Baldwin. The latter has the better K/BB and ERA (3.30). And it sure looks like he won’t have to wait much longer to get into the Bigs again.

My god, what’s wrong with Cruz!!??

And you know what’s funny? We still have allowed the least runs in the Continental League. The league has a 4.10 ERA, same as last year, but last year’s 4.10 league ERA was the highest in history for the CL. It was also the 13th straight year the FL had a higher ERA than the CL. This season? Total mayhem. The CL is a total slugfest so far, and the FL is toiling away at a 3.55 ERA three weeks in. That would be the lowest in FL history, and only once did the CL have a lower ERA, 3.46 in 1982. All is nuts ‘round here.

How are 1,402 K for Brownie interesting? He needs 15 K to match Scott Wade’s franchise mark for second place. We will need a contract extension with him to get him to the all-time franchise lead, which is held by Kisho Saito, who whiffed 2,322 of his 2,800 major league victims as a Raccoon.

I need a nickname for Jong-hoo Umberger. "Doesn't Suck As Hard" could be temporary, and the best I can come up with is “Sapphire” for his miraculous eyes.