[Westheim]

Raccoons (45-28) @ Thunder (36-39) – June 29-July 1, 2009

Isn’t it amazing, that despite their shoddy record, the Thunder were also second in their division, and only half a game further behind the leader than the Raccoons? The CL South was a mess of gigantic proportions, and the Raccoons were a bit unlucky to be stuck behind the Crusaders for a few years now. They were pretty good at scoring runs, fourth in the league, but their pitching and defense was quite horrible, with the third-most runs allowed. However, the Knights last weekend had been even more pronounced in this regard, and we hadn’t exactly trampled their hurlers, either. We’re 2-1 against them, but we’re a crusty 14-13 against the CL South overall.

Projected matchups:
Greg Grams (6-4, 3.93 ERA) vs. Brad Osborne (3-5, 6.35 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (6-3, 3.09 ERA) vs. Luis Martinez (1-5, 6.58 ERA)
Javier Cruz (6-6, 3.05 ERA) vs. Daniel Dickerson (9-3, 2.24 ERA)

All our starting pitchers have six wins going into this week. Let’s see who blinks first? Meanwhile, Dickerson had almost half of the Thunder rotations’ 20 wins. I hate to think about it, but a decade earlier, I could have gotten Dickerson in a trade from the Elks, I think, but I can’t remember what the price for that would have been.

Game 1
POR: 2B Nomura – LF Pruitt – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – SS Howell – CF Trevino – C De La Parra – P Grams
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B T. Cardenas – C Ledesma – RF Tom Reese – SS M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 2B Heathershaw – 3B J. Pena – P Osborne

The Thunder had runners on the corners in the second and third innings but resolved it with Osborne popping out to Pruitt first, and with Marcos Garza going down looking after that. The Coons had been retired in order by Osborne the first time through, however, and you could only scratch your head by now…

In fact, no Critter reached base until Quebell doubled to start the fifth inning of a scoreless game. Ricardo Martinez singled up the middle, just barely past Bradley Heathershaw, to raise his major league batting average to an inspiring .202, but was erased when Howell grounded hard to short. The Thunder couldn’t get two, though, and Quebell scored anyway for the first run of the game. Grams would single in Howell with two outs for a 2-0 lead. After that, Grams allowed a leadoff single to Osborne in the bottom of the inning and was immediately taken deep by Victorino Sanchez, then beaned the evading Tomas Cardenas in the very top of the helmet. The Thunder immediately broke out of their dugout, and the bullpen also cleared as everybody piled on top of another on the third base side of the mound. Both Cardenas, who swung at Grams’ dumb face but sadly missed, and the worst offender himself were ejected. Quebell escaped ejection despite sitting on Tom Reese’s face while tickling him for two minutes.

Sanchez singled in Juan Pena against Ted Reese in the bottom 7th, giving the Thunder the lead about half an hour after the National Guard restored order in the park. The Raccoons, intimated by flying bottles and lighters, didn’t go anything in the late innings and dropped to a sad .500 against the South. 3-2 Thunder. Bryan 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K; Sims 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Greg Grams was suspended for FIFTEEN games after that beaning. That’s a whole lot of games.

And with the way Grams was annoying me and with other arms ready in AAA … No, what I really want to say: be horrible at your day job, that’s one thing. Be a stupid prick, that’s another. Or in other words: if you want to be prick that badly, at least be a prick that it would be hard to just designate for assignment.

Interlude: trade

Or trade the prick. I put him up for grabs the same day, some teams bit, not even minding the suspension.

So, the Raccoons traded Greg Grams (6-4, 3.96 ERA) to the Condors for two A-level relievers. None of them is ranked, or even highly rated. One of them, 21-year old Dave Simpson, has four pitches, but various other problems, like bad command, and low stamina, and a rash in the groin area, and oh my god. Grams is gone, yay.

Hector Santos was so far holding his ground in AAA, but had a nagging oblique issue and besides, don’t rush the good stuff all the time. We called up Teasdale, since Watanabe had had a few bad starts now, and while Teasdale and Boda both had low-3 ERA’s, Teasdale had done it with much worse BABIP values despite walking more batters, however that worked out. Teasdale slides in behind Umberger for game 3, pushing Cruz to the next series.

Raccoons (45-28) @ Thunder (36-39) – June 29-July 1, 2009

Game 2
POR: 1B Sharp – 2B Correa – 3B R. Martinez – LF Alston – RF Ayers – SS Howell – CF Trevino – C De La Parra – P Umberger
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B Takizawa – C Ledesma – RF Tom Reese – SS M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 2B Heathershaw – 3B J. Pena – P L. Martinez

Victorino Sanchez singled to lead off the bottom 1st (and was yet to be retired in the series), but was thrown out stealing by De La Pasty. Once Takizawa singled, he advanced to second base on a balk, got to third when Reese singled, and then scored on a passed ball. Awesome team at work here!

De La Pregnant could probably hear we sharpening the knives, and with one dork already gone overboard this week, he doubled to score Trevino in his first at-bat, in the top 2nd. Umberger legged out another infield single and Sharp walked to load them up for Correa with two outs, but the result was an uninspiring groundout to Pena. On the other hand, Sanchez was finally retired in the bottom 2nd, grounding out to Sharp to leave two runners on base in a 1-1 game. While the Coons flew out to Sanchez in deep left twice in the top 3rd, Haruyoshi Takizawa actually managed to leave the yard to give the Thunder a 2-1 lead in the bottom 3rd.

Jose Gonzalez homered in the fourth, and Umberger scored Sanchez with a wild pitch and two outs in the fifth. In another nightmare of a game against a pushover pitcher, the Raccoons were completely unable to mount any offense. After being held to four hits on Monday, the Raccoons got held to four hits again by the next 6+ ERA pitcher, who casually pitched a complete game. Another run fell out of Ed Bryan in the seventh, and Juan Pena hit a 2-piece against Matt Cash in the eighth. 7-1 Thunder.

We have scored 47 runs in the last 15 games, going 8-7. Our pitching is awesome. Our offense sucks. What more than Ron Alston do you need!?

For starters, Luke Black returned. He had batted squid in 9 AB in St. Pete. Manuel Gutierrez was waived and designated for assignment.

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Correa – 1B Quebell – LF Alston – RF Black – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – CF Trevino – P Teasdale
OCT: LF V. Sanchez – 1B Takizawa – RF Tom Reese – SS M. Garza – CF J. Gonzalez – 2B Heathershaw – C J. Martinez – 3B Arreola – P Dickerson

Dickerson pitched only one inning before leaving with an injury and reliever Dennis Boland took over, but only for an inning. Rodney White hit for him in the bottom 2nd in a promising spot with two outs, but bounced the ball back to Teasdale. Sanchez homered off Teasdale to start the third inning. The Coons of course hadn’t done anything so far.

Correa walked and Quebell singled to start the fourth inning, putting runners on the corners for Ron Alston. With a 1-0 deficit that was as good as you could hope for, yet Alston fouled out, Black struck out, and Sharp hit one into pitcher Alex Lindsey’s pocket. Nobody scored. Alright, try again. Top 5th: Esquivel singled, Trevino walked, Teasdale bunted them over for runners on second and third with one out for Yoshi, who struck out. With Correa batting, I had his ugly face in the crosshairs of the rifle I had smuggled into the park. His grounder went through Heathershaw’s wickets and into rightfield, plating both runners. If you really can’t be any good, at least be dumb-**** lucky.

Luck ended dutifully in due time. Sanchez snipped another single with two outs in the fifth before Takizawa and Tom Reese whacked back-to-back homers to give the Thunder another 4-2 lead. With the Blighters stuck at four hits once more, the Thunder doubled their output in the seventh inning. One run was charged to Teasdale before Donald Sims came in and was taken deep for three runs by Garza. Nomura had a single to start the eighth, Correa had another double play, and so on, and so on. 8-2 Thunder. Sharp 2-4; Esquivel 2-4; Cash 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

14-16 against the South. Daniel Dickerson had an oblique strain and would miss three weeks, and the Raccoons would have October off.

Raccoons (45-31) @ Titans (36-42) – July 2-5, 2009

Between themselves, these two teams combined for a 9-game losing streak, some of which was about to end, and some of which was just going to get worse. Hardly believable, there were still three teams with less runs scored than the Raccoons had in the CL, and one of them were the Titans. They were sixth in runs allowed. We are 4-3 against them in ’09.

Projected matchups:
Javier Cruz (6-6, 3.05 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (5-5, 3.43 ERA)
Nick Brown (6-3, 1.71 ERA) vs. Ron Carter (2-10, 3.62 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (6-5, 2.98 ERA) vs. Jesus Elmore (5-3, 4.06 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (6-4, 3.26 ERA) vs. Ray Conner (3-9, 3.92 ERA)

The team will face left-handers bookmarking the right-handers in this set, which doesn’t mean squid, since they can’t out-do two runs a game anyway.

Game 1
POR: 2B Correa – SS Howell – 1B Quebell – RF Black – LF Ayers – 3B R. Martinez – CF Trevino – C De La Parra – P Cruz
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – RF Britton – C Suda – LF G. Rios – CF J. Gusmán – 1B Higashi – 3B M. Austin – SS Sato – P Chapa

The Blighters got their daily run allotment in early when the bottom of the order score two runs in the second inning. Martinez and Trevino hit back-to-back doubles and De La Purse singled home Trevino. A fielding mishap by Gusmán in the third inning actually handed the Coons a third run, which was further than most of their fans could be bothered to count even on a sunny day.

Scorching cynicism aside, the team kept piling it on poor old Jorge Chapa, who seemingly couldn’t get anybody out in the fourth inning. Trevino and De La Pie reached, Cruz bunted them over, and Correa and Howell plated them with singles. When Quebell lifted a pop to leftfield, Gerardo Rios had it, then fell over his own feet and dropped the ball for an error. We’d get two more runs in on a Black double and Ayers groundout. Chapa was by then gone, and the team held an 8-0 lead with Cruz yet to allow a hit. Takahashi Higashi ended the bid with a 1-out single in the fifth inning, but nothing came out of that when Mark Austin hit into a 4-6-3. Cruz kept going with the shutout at least for another two innings until Gerardo Rios powered an uncatchable shot out of rightfield to perhaps start a rally from 8-1 down. The Titans put another two men on, but Kuni Sato struck out to end the inning. Cruz went eight before handing the 8-1 lead to Ed Bryan in the ninth, who put the first two batters on base, and allowed a run on his way out of the game. 8-2 Raccoons. Correa 2-4, BB, RBI; Black 2-4, 2 2B, RBI; Trevino 2-4, 2B, RBI; De La Parra 2-4, RBI; Cruz 8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, W (7-6);

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Correa – 1B Quebell – LF Alston – RF Black – 3B Sharp – CF Trevino – C De La Parra – P Brown
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – RF Hudson – C Suda – CF J. Gusmán – 1B Higashi – 3B M. Austin – LF Britton – SS Sato – P Carter

Two runs scored off Brownie in the bottom 2nd when the Titans got their first two men on and moved them around. Kuni Sato’s 2-out single with first base open was another sting in my side. While the Raccoons continued to behave badly against all pitchers not named Jorge Chapa and Black left two men in scoring position in the third inning, while Brown was singled to death in a 3-run fourth inning, shooting his ERA over two. He actually went into the sixth, and with two outs put one man on, two men on, John Hudson hit an RBI single, and ugh… Sharp saved him two runners with a launching grab on the rocket that “Quasimodo” Suda fired off a Rockburn pitch, ending the inning. Ron Carter, who never got any love, got lots of love in this game, with three more runs beaten out of Ted Reese by the Titans in the last innings. The Raccoons plainly sucked on offense. 9-1 Titans. Quebell 1-2, 2 BB; Trevino 2-4;

Just like that, Nick Brown (2.11 ERA) dropped from first to third in the ABL ERA rankings, behind SFB Tyler Sullivan (1.83) and LAP Brad Smith (2.07).

Have I mentioned that the Crusaders haven’t lost a game this week? I feel my summer depression coming, and it’s coming quickly this year.

But I know what to do. I was at the drug store on Saturday morning, loading up on Kleenex, Aspirin, and those green chocolate bars. You know, the ones with something all members of this team sorely lack: nuts.

Game 3
POR: 2B Nomura – SS Correa – 1B Quebell – LF Alston – RF Black – 3B Sharp – CF Trevino – C Esquivel – P Baldwin
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – RF Hudson – LF G. Rios – CF J. Gusmán – 1B Higashi – 3B M. Austin – C J. Silva – SS Sato – P Elmore

Baldwin did a good job for a while before suffering death by singles and two runs in the fourth inning. And with this offense, two runs was game over. Through five innings, the brown team managed one hit, one walk, and Nomura getting plunked. Ah, well. Nomura also led off the sixth inning, hit a ball over Gerardo Rios’ head, Rios fell down after losing balance, and Nomura scurried around the bases for an inside-the-park home run. Correa got on, Quebell hit into two, Alston reached on an error, and then that old man in the #5 spot hit his first home run in … how many moons exactly?

That 3-2 lead was threatened with a leadoff walk that Baldwin handed to Kuni Sato in the bottom 7th. The Titans had Elmore still in there, and had him swing away, and straight into a double play. Then Jesus Ramirez floated a single over Nomura, it went under Black’s glove for an error and Ramirez got to second base. Alright, you win some, you always lose more, and Rockburn pitched to John Hudson, the only right-hander in the upper half of the order. The Titans sent lefty Mark Berry to counter, but the .219 batter (and .056 when PH’ing) grounded out. The Titans also left Gusmán on second base against Sims in the eighth, the Raccoons left three afloat between the last two innings, but Angel Casas didn’t allow anything to reach base in the bottom 9th. 3-2 Critters. Nomura 2-3, HR, RBI; Baldwin 6.2 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, W (7-5);

Game 4
POR: 2B Correa – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – LF Alston – RF Black – SS Howell – C De La Parra – CF Trevino – P Umberger
BOS: 2B J. Ramirez – RF Britton – C Suda – LF G. Rios – CF J. Gusmán – 1B Higashi – 3B M. Austin – SS Sato – P Conner

Alston plated the first run of the game with a sac fly in the first inning. The 1-0 lead was in mortal danger once Ricardo Martinez fired Conner’s poor grounder over the first base dugout and Umberger walked two men to load the bases with one out in the bottom 3rd, but Suda hit into a double play quite readily. Suda would also be up with the next batter in scoring position. Quebell mishandled a Ramirez grounder with two outs in the fifth, Britton drew another walk, and Suda batted with two outs and two on, but grounded out to Martinez.

Umberger lacked control and stuff, striking out one batter in six innings, the Raccoons as a whole lacked glove, but the Titans lacked contact. Through six innings, they had eight runners on three singles, and no runs. That 1-0 from Alston’s sacrifice still stood, but Sato hit a leadoff single in the bottom 7th. A bunt and a groundout later, he was on third base for Britton, a left-hander. We walked him intentionally to get to Suda, which was a mad gamble that resulted in a drive into the right center gap that Trevino just barely got his paws on.

By the way, we’re not skipping any Raccoons offensive highlights. There weren’t any.

Bottom 8th, Bruno replaced Umberger, who was on 100 pitches. After Rios popped out on the first pitch, Bruno walked Gusmán and Higashi singled. I saw the 1-0 lead sinking fast, but Austin hit one to Correa for a double play. Still no signs of life in the bats for the road team, and Angel took over in the ninth, struck out Sato, and got two more quick outs. 1-0 Critters. Umberger 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 1 K, W (7-4);

We just one a game in which we were held to two hits. The Crusaders crushed opposing teams all week.

In other news

July 1 – For TOP SP Tony Hamlyn (2-10, 3.50 ERA), the pain of being on a horrible team will stop for six weeks. He exchanged it for the pains of a fractured finger and a spot on the DL.
July 2 – The Warriors acquire SP Brad Osborne (3-5, 5.92 ERA) from the Thunder for INF Bob Butler (.281, 2 HR, 25 RBI) and a minor leaguer (ex-Coons eighth rounder 1B Tony Hernandez).
July 3 – PIT SP Miguel Rodriguez (11-4, 2.56 ERA) goes eight and two thirds in a 2-hitter with 15 strikeouts as he whacks the Capitals, 2-0.
July 4 – A stretched elbow ligament will put DAL CL Alfredo Becerra (2-4, 2.97 ERA, 16 SV) on the disabled list for the next 12 months.
July 4 – The Gold Sox pick up 25-year old OF Jaime Garcia (.239, 1 HR, 12 RBI) from the Loggers in exchange for 1B Hugues Cambria (.262, 2 HR, 13 RBI) and a non-prospect.

Complaints and stuff

Runs scored this week by POR: 18
Runs scored this week by NYC: 49

Any more questions about plans for October? A month ago we were 1st/4th/4th in the team slash in the CL. We’re down to 4th/6th/5th, and we’re down to 9th in runs scored. That’s not a playoff team. That’s the late-80s Raccoons that had a few tremendous players in the lineup and still couldn’t score their asses’ worth of runs. First place in all pitching categories except for bullpen ERA, home runs, and strikeouts doesn’t cure EIGHTEEN RUNS IN SEVEN GAMES. EIGHTEEN!!

Sorry for the yelling. I ran out of tears earlier around Wednesday.

The upside of booting Grams and moving Teasdale into the rotation is that it pushes Brownie back a day and he will make his last start on Wednesday before the All Star game, which works out more or less perfectly (or as good as we can arrange right now).

Grams is a dick, though.

The upside of the move for the scums is that they are on minor league deals and we were able to get our budget into the green zone. Don’t expect any fancy moves, though. Last July we picked up Ron Alston. We’re still choking on that money.

On June 30, the Loggers cleaned their front office once again, evicting both the manager and GM. The Loggers are quite a sad thing to look at in the North…

This is the first season of international free agent signings for the ABL in the summer. You know, those no-good 16-year old boys of coca farmers all over Central America. The signing threshold is $360k for all teams, which is more than the Raccoons even have available in their budget. We are after a 16-year old coca farmer junior from Panama who thinks he’s a pitcher. International free agent signings were inactive before because I messed up a setting for when the next IFA period should be in, which was always a year ahead of the current date… Because I suck, that’s why.