[Westheim]

Raccoons (62-47) vs. Loggers (42-67) – August 11-14, 2014

Poor Loggers. Poor, poor Loggers. And poor, poor Loggers fans. They are really suffering. The team is bottom three in both runs scored and runs allowed, with the worst rotation. That worst rotation will now face the best rotation, but then again the Coons can’t score for the stripes on their tails. It has worked out splendidly against the Loggers in 2014, however, whom we’ve beaten nine out of ten times.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (10-7, 2.79 ERA) vs. Adam Euteneuer (2-15, 6.84 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (11-6, 3.09 ERA) vs. Bruce Morrison (5-13, 4.63 ERA)
Bill Conway (7-3, 2.27 ERA) vs. Michael Foreman (3-2, 4.06 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (6-5, 3.95 ERA) vs. Gabriel Caro (12-9, 4.37 ERA)

More right-handers! Foreman is a 23-year old rookie who already made a handful of starts in 2013, but then got clobbered for an ERA of almost 7 and went 0-4.

Game 1
MIL: RF Hodgers – C Leach – 1B Roncero – LF Knowling – SS O. Sandoval – CF Gilmor – 3B J. Thompson – 2B J.J. Rodriguez – P Euteneuer
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS Howell – P Santos

Victor Hodgers led off the game with a single to left, moved up on Foster Leach’s groundout, and when Alexander threw away the ball on his attempt to swipe third base, Hodgers came home easily for an unearned 1-0 Loggers lead. The Raccoons’ response was unexpectedly swift and painful for the well-drummed Euteneuer. Cookie got them going with a double, Sandy singled, and after Nunley popped out over home plate, Stan Murphy slugged a no-doubter to leftfield, a truly huge 3-run homer. Richards went on to reach, and with two outs, D-Alex made up for his earlier mishap and clocked a 2-shot off poor Euteneuer to give Santos a 5-1 lead, which the right-handed tended to well enough. Euteneuer made it to the fifth inning, but was then knocked out by Ron Richards’ solo homer that ran the score to 6-1. Matt Crisler came into the game in relief, but was soon in trouble. Bednarski walked, and when D-Alex sent a double play grounder to Jim Thompson, who tried to turn two, but threw wildly to second base and the Coons had two on with the error. Thompson then immediately looked bad again when Rob Howell hit an RBI double through him. Santos himself then batted in another run with a single to right, upping his batting average to over .100. The rout got worse for the Loggers, who gave up another 3-spot in the seventh when Jim Pennington filled the bases and then was really unlucky that Matt Nunley, who batted with two out, hit a terrible bloop to left that fell in between Zach Knowling and Oscar Sandoval and scored two, and Murphy hit another RBI single after that. Santos breezed through the middle innings with lots and lots of poor contact made early by the Loggers, and had an extremely rare chance at a complete game, facing the top of the order in the ninth, coming in on 86 pitches. Hodgers and Leach made quick outs before Silvestro Roncero reached on an infield single. Two pitches later, Zach Knowling popped out to third. 11-1 Raccoons! Carmona 2-4, BB, 2 2B; Murphy 2-5, HR, 4 RBI; Richards 2-5, HR, RBI; Alexander 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Margolis (PH) 1-1; Howell 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Santos 9.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, W (11-7) and 1-5, RBI;

This was Hector Santos’ second complete game in 104 major league starts.

Game 2
MIL: RF Hodgers – C Leach – 1B Roncero – CF Enriquez – LF Knowling – 3B D. Jones – SS Kingsley – 2B J. Thompson – P B. Morrison
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS Howell – P Toner

Offense was a bit harder to come by in the Tuesday game, with no run coming onto the board until the fourth, when Ron Richards jacked a 2-run homer off Morrison. That was only the third hit for the Raccoons in the game, but they still did well better than the Loggers, who had so far been a dozen up, a dozen down against Toner, and things didn’t get better for them in that second turn through their order. The Coons had Cookie on base with a 2-out walk in the fifth, he actually stole second base on a botched hit-and-run with Sandy, but Sambrano struck out a pitch later and Cookie was left on second base. The bases were loaded in the sixth after a Nunley single and a pair of walks, but they were left loaded once Rob Howell made the third out with a flyout to Knowling. The Loggers made three more groundouts in the top 7th, but Foster Leach’s grounder to right was only intercepted by Murphy with a diving play. Not content with humiliating the Loggers on the mound, Toner hit a double in the bottom 7th and scored, upping his lead to 3-0. He struck out Victor Enriquez to start the eighth inning, but then Knowling found the gap for a 1-out double, and the perfect game was blown. Toner, angry, struck out Dan Jones and Eric Kingsley, and once he returned to the dugout took a good bite out of the railing. The Loggers would get one more runner against Toner once Hodgers hit a 2-out triple in the top of the ninth, but Toner ended the game with a K to Leach. 3-0 Raccoons. Toner 9.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 11 K, W (12-6) and 1-3, 2B;

… and that’s his fourth shutout!

We also made up on the Crusaders! Half a game. They were rained out. (buries face in the hands)

Game 3
MIL: RF Hodgers – C Leach – 1B Roncero – CF Enriquez – LF Knowling – 3B D. Jones – SS O. Sandoval – 2B J.J. Rodriguez – P Foreman
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – RF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Merritt – C Alexander – SS Taylor – 2B Bergquist – P Conway

Hodgers continued to be a thorn in the Coons’ side. He had another leadoff single, then stole two bases, and Alexander juggled the ball twice in helpless fashion. Conway issued a walk and two more singles to concede two runs in the first inning. J.J. Rodriguez also stole a base solely off Alexander in the second inning, but he was stranded on third base. The Coons’ offense was suspiciously absent when not facing the abysmal and surely chronically depressed Adam Euteneuer, and they didn’t get onto the board until the sixth inning, when Cookie’s leadoff walk eventually led to a balk-supported RBI groundout by Richards. By then, the Critters had already lost Jon Merritt to injury, with his 38-year old body slowly decomposing, and Nunley was back on his day off. He got three grounders fed for three outs in the top 7th, then drew a leadoff walk in the bottom 7th, which ended on Taylor’s double play grounder. Merritt, before keeling over, had been rolled up in Alexander’s double play grounder, both to J.J. Rodriguez. Bottom 8th, Seeley hit for Bergquist against Foreman to lead off, and singled past Dan Jones. Bednarski grounded out batting for Manobu Sugano, but then came Cookie and sent a high line to center, well past the reach of Victor Enriquez! That’s in, to the wall, Seeley comes in to score, Cookie around second, and into third base standing up! Tied game, go-ahead run on third base, and Sandy brought him home with a sac fly! The elation suffered a bit in the ninth, because Angel Casas almost made a horrendous mess, putting on Knowling with a 1-out double and then drilling Oscar Sandoval with a 3-0 pitch (not much difference there…), but pinch-hitter Tim Pace popped out to Nunley to end the game, thankfully. 3-2 Critters! Carmona 2-3, BB, 3B, RBI; Merritt 1-1; Nunley 1-1, BB; Seeley (PH) 1-1; Conway 7.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K;

Those five hits in the post game rundown are everything the Coons managed. That was probably the slimmest 3-2 win you can pull out without actually getting two on with an error and a walk and then whacking one 345 feet right up the line.

Jon Merritt had some sort of elbow soreness and Ivan the Druid advised to shut him down for at least two weeks and wrap the ailing elbow with some king of purple leaves he was ordering with express shipment from Ecuador.

While Sandy was capable of backing up third base, he had only the odd inning of experience there. With Merritt to the DL, we called up 2009 supplemental round pick Brock Hudman, a 24-year old right-hander who was best described as a utility player, who could play about any position except catcher if there was really a need for it. He was batting .302/.339/.382 in AAA. Theoretically we could have recalled Walt Canning (despite hitting woes even in AAA) but he was dealing with a calf issue that would render him hampered for the rest of this week, and that was really not something I was looking forward to. Hudman was on the 40-man roster anyway, and he would also get his first start right away in the Thursday game so Matt Nunley could finally get another day off.

Game 4
MIL: SS O. Sandoval – RF Gilmor – 1B Roncero – CF Enriquez – LF Knowling – 3B D. Jones – C Pace – 2B J.J. Rodriguez – P Caro
POR: CF Carmona – SS Taylor – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – 3B Hudman – P Dickerson

Dickerson barely made it far enough in the game to witness Murphy hit into a double play with runners on the corners in the first inning to waste a chance there, and got one out in the second, but was left to stalk around the mound awkwardly after just 19 pitches with some sort of cramp or strain leading to his swift removal.

(claps hands in ironic excitement) Bullpen day!

Constantino got the ball first and finished the inning. He was in line for the W quickly when Bednarski romped a 2-shot to left center in the bottom of the inning, but then started the third inning by drilling Gabriel Caro, the opposing pitcher. The Loggers put two on, but couldn’t break through, and they put two on again in the fourth, but then brought up Caro with two outs, and Caro struck out this time. The Coons then broke through Caro in the bottom of the inning, despite another double play hit into by D-Alex. Bednarski hit a 2-out single and scored on Bergquist’s double into the right center gap. Brock Hudman came up and hit an RBI single for his first major league hit, Constantino singled, and Carmona hit another single past Jones to plate Hudman; that made it 5-0 after four. But Constantino quickly ran out of steam in the fifth inning, walked Nick Gilmor and was replaced with Thrasher, who walked Roncero, but then reeled things in and retired the next four batters before the 5-0 game was handed off to Sergio Vega, who had suffered through an abysmal season debut (0.2 IP, 5 ER). He improved markedly … but how can you get worse from there? Vega, the folk hero of 2013, got the last out in the sixth, but only one more out in the seventh before he had filled the bases with walks. Entwistle wiggled out, conceding only one run on a sac fly. He was hit for in the bottom of the inning, and the pen continued to struggle as the Loggers brought up the tying run in the ninth inning. Sakellaris had put Clint Harris and Nick Gilmor on with singles, and Angel Casas came in with one out. Roncero grounded to short, but the Coons only got Gilmor, leaving runners on the corners, which turned into bases loaded once Enriquez walked. Knowling came up and he had put the hurt on the Coons in this series (him and Hodgers, and absolutely nobody else), but now struck out on three pitches to seal another 4-game sweep. 5-1 Furballs! Carmona 2-4, 2B, RBI; Alexander 2-3; Bednarski 2-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Constantino 3.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K, W (4-4) and 1-2; Thrasher 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

Dickerson had a mild hamstring strain. He is so far uncertain for his next start on Tuesday against the Miners. We MIGHT need a spot starter.

Raccoons (66-47) @ Gold Sox (52-61) – August 15-17, 2014

After facing a bottom three team in the Continental League in runs allowed, we’d now get a bottom three team in runs allowed from the Federal League. The Gold Sox were bleeding runs left and right, just barely less than five per game, 11th in the FL. The offense ranked ninth, wildly not enough to keep up with that kind of inept pitching. This is the third straight year we play them, and both teams claimed a 2-1 series in these two years, with the Gold Sox emerging on top in 2014.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (10-6, 2.94 ERA) vs. David Peterson (7-9, 4.35 ERA)
Hector Santos (11-7, 2.62 ERA) vs. C.J. Fishel (7-5, 3.62 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (12-6, 2.90 ERA) vs. Bryant Roberts (4-10, 4.29 ERA)

Fishel will be a left-handed starter to overcome. I plan on giving Hudman another start against him, exploiting third basemen’s opposite-handedness to the max.

With the Gold Sox is Joe Cowan, who batted nothing for the Coons, and is crashing it .292/.393/.462 for the Gold Sox.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS Taylor – P Brown
DEN: SS Oosterom – RF Hiscock – C E. Carter – 1B Tsung – CF R. Pena – LF Cowan – 2B Saunders – 3B Bleeker – P D. Peterson

Brown’s pitching was not very convincing early, but he opened the top 3rd with a single to right that soon saw the bases flocked with Cookie (single) and Sandy (walk), and nobody out. Nunley hit the first pitch to deep right, to the track, but just couldn’t get it past Bill Hiscock. Brown scored on the sac fly, but that was all, with Murphy hitting into a double play. Nick Brown could hardly get anybody out, despite SIX left-handed batters in the Gold Sox’ lineup. With Eugene Carter reaching on a single in the bottom 3rd he failed to remove either Roberto Pena (the ex-Crusader) or Joe Cowan in 2-strike counts, both hit 2-out singles, and the Gold Sox tied the game right back. Plus, **** just went wrong in the most stupid ways. Peterson hit a 1-out infield single in the fourth, bringing up Piet Oosterom, who was down 0-2 when Brown threw a wild pitch, then lost him to a full-count double into right center, plating the pitcher with the go-ahead run. The former ace only lasted five innings and almost got run over in the fifth, too. A walk by Pena, another single by the ****ing Cowan, and then a pitch right into Matt Saunders… The bases were loaded when Danny Bleeker struck out, and Peterson popped out to end the inning.

The sorry black-and-white photograph of Nick Brown allowed nine hits, walked two, and probably got off easy with just the two runs allowed, but in turn it also looked like he’d be stuck with the loss. The team did absolutely nothing offensively outside of a 2-out triple by Cookie in the seventh that was not converted into the tying run by Sambrano, who grounded out to short on the first pitch. The top 9th saw a leadoff single by D-Alex off Andrew Wills. He was now the tying run and Rob Howell ran for him. Taylor and Bergquist genuinely failed to do something productive. Cookie drew a 2-out walk, bringing up Sandy Sambrano again. Wills quickly got the upper hand on him, a strike, another one, then suddenly a fly hit to right center. Probably Hisco- no, he just can’t get there! Did he misjudge it? A more or less harmless high, soft fly to right center dinked in and raced to the wall! Howell in to score, Cookie in to score, Sandy to second – the Coons have the lead!!

Angel had been out two days in a row and was creating suspense even when rested, so the plan for the surprise bottom 9th was to split it between Sakellaris, who had pitched the eighth, and Thrasher, with two right-handers (Carter and Roy Fox) followed by four left-handers. Aaaaand… Sakellaris completely ****ed up. Carter singled to left, Fox doubled to left, and Thrasher had a tremendous pile of horse **** to clean up. The Gold Sox hit right-handed Manny Perez for Pena, who was down 1-2 before he singled to left to plate the tying run. Jose Valenzuela hit for Cowan, singled to center, and it was game over. 4-3 Gold Sox. Carmona 2-4, BB, 3B; Nunley 3-4, 2B, RBI; Sugano 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

(shrugs) What the heck would there be to say?

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – LF Sambrano – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – 2B Bergquist – C Margolis – 3B Hudman – SS Howell – P Santos
DEN: SS Oosterom – RF Hiscock – CF R. Pena – 1B Tsung – LF Cowan – 3B Bleeker – C Fox – 2B Saunders – P Fishel

… and another pitcher that struggled right out of the gate. Bill Hiscock homered in the first, after which Pena singled and Tsung got clocked by Santos. Somehow, he made it out of that mess with only a 1-0 deficit. Santos’ pitch count would suffer tremendously at the hands of seven left-handed batters (including Fishel). The Coons tied the score in the third when Sambrano singled home Howell, but in a week that had already seen a few injuries, Fishel piled on when he struck Danny Margolis right into the hand in the fourth inning. Margolis went down and out of the game, and D-Alex’ direly needed day off ended right there.

There were two on with one out in this fourth inning, with Hudman lining out to left. Howell singled to center, scoring Bergquist with the go-ahead run, but D-Alex managed to get himself run down between second and third on – I don’t know what he was doing there. He looked a bit like he had not expected to get into the game and had nipped away at some shrooms to tune out from the daily misery. For Santos, the suffering lasted only one more inning. Murphy drove in a run with two outs in the top 5th, but Santos was bopped by Hiscock again in the bottom 5th, a leadoff jack to get the Gold Sox back to 3-2. Another laborious inning later, Santos was over 100 pitches and was not going to be back for the sixth. Also: rain started to fall. Top 6th, D-Alex on a trip led off with a huge fly to deep right which hit off the base of the wall. Hiscock took his time, D-Alex turned second base, the throw in had him beat at third base, Bleeker tagged him out, but D-Alex kept running around third and across home plate and into the dugout grinning at the manager and calmly stating that he scored and that the Flower Zebras had now won. While there was much to object to in his statement, he was ultimately right in one thing. The team had indeed won, they just didn’t know it yet. The inning fizzled out when Nunley grounded out hitting for Santos, and between innings suddenly there was lightning across the sky and thunder cracking. The game went into rain delay without the Raccoons taking the field again, and with the storm raging for hours, the game was called eventually. 3-2 Flower Zebras. Sambrano 1-2, BB, RBI; Murphy 1-2, BB, RBI; Alexander 1-1, 2B; Howell 2-3, RBI;

Danny Margolis had his thumb broken by Fishel. He will be out for a month at least and we called up Pedro Torruellas, who was only a backup in AAA, but the primary now that Margolis had been called up had been Tom McNeela, batting a slick .199 at age 26. With Margolis I thought that we’d do with some kind of brace or cast with him, but Ivan apparently has decided that it would be best just paint the thumb green and sing to it.

Whatever works.

Not much does.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – 1B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – SS Taylor – 2B Bergquist – C Torruellas – P Toner
DEN: SS Oosterom – RF Hiscock – CF R. Pena – 1B Tsung – C E. Carter – LF Cowan – 3B Bleeker – 2B Saunders – P B. Roberts

Scoring started with a second-inning leadoff jack by Ron Richards, his 21st of the season, and he also scored in the fourth inning after hitting a single followed by Taylor’s double and Bergquist’s RBI groundout. Toner’s regular perfect game bid ended early in the second inning, but at least he held the Sox at bay, although he was also fighting an elevated pitch count early, needing 39 pitches the first time through the lineup, but he made it through five innings (coincidentally also exactly 18 batters once Bryant Roberts bunted into a double play) on 71 pitches, and that was 30 or more less than Brown and Santos had done the last two days.

Richards led off the top 6th with a double, putting him a triple short of the cycle. The bases filled quickly with nobody out, Taylor singling and Bergquist walking against Roberts. Torruellas had a history of power in the minors, but when he swung at a 3-1 pitch against a clearly melting Roberts I let out a squeal. Not too deep to right, Hiscock had – Hiscock dropped it! Oh, one run in, and now it rolls away, two runs in on the error! Toner K’ed, but Cookie hit a sac fly to center, 5-0, and chasing Roberts. Eddie DeBlock came in and surrendered an RBI triple to Sandy Sambrano, who immediately popped up after sliding into third base and began to stretch his leg, grimacing. Nooooo, not Sandy!! Didn’t help anything to cry over it, he came out of the game. Hudman was thrown at first base, with Murphy supposed to get his first day off in 15 days.

With the team slowly withering away as far as the bodies were concerned, at least Toner held on for seven shutout innings, but made it to 110 pitches in the course of the seventh. Sergio Vega got into the 6-0 game in the eighth as we hoped for something other than walks (six walks against four outs logged), and if in doubt, Sugano and Trasher were ready to replace him quickly. Again, Vega failed blatantly. Jose Valenzuela hit a leadoff single, Oosterom grounded out, but then he walked Hiscock. Sugano was leaving the pen before Hiscock even made it to first base, and Sugano finished off the Gold Sox in 19 pitches. 6-0 Critters. Carmona 3-4, RBI; Sambrano 2-4, 3B, RBI; Richards 3-5, HR, 2B, RBI; Taylor 3-4; Toner 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 K, W (13-6); Sugano 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

We’ll be without Sandy next week after he’s been diagnosed with a quad strain. I saw Ivan stitch facial features onto a puppet, about one foot big and fashioned from what looked like an old dark brown sack … and I was really too afraid to ask.

In other news

August 16 – The Cyclones and Condors engage in a 25-run game with only 26 hits between the two teams. The Cyclones prevail 14-11 in a game that also sees 16 walks, but no errors.
August 17 – OCT INF Emilio Farias (.362, 1 HR, 43 RBI) has been dealing with chronic back soreness for a while and will be shut down for a few weeks to have him available for the stretch drive and the playoffs. He Thunder expect him back in about three weeks.

Complaints and stuff

Well, that was a rough week in terms of health! No fatalities, but we did take a bit of a beating with four injuries, although two are minor, and the other two were to non-regulars.

Jonathan Toner was the CL Player of the Week, going 2-0 with 21 K over 16 shutout innings. (Doesn’t look tired to me.)

Who are the Raccoons pitchers that have thrown four shutouts in a single season? Jonathan Toner and Jason Turner (1989). That’s it. A number of Raccoons hurlers have had three shutouts in a season: Kisho Saito (twice, 1988 and 1992), Nick Brown (2009), Jose Rivera (1999), Randy Farley (1998), Scott Wade (1995), Kinji Kan (1983), Logan Evans (1981).

Technically, Toner is not a rookie anymore. Turner and Farley turned in their top shutout seasons as rookies. Kisho Saito also had a 3 SHO season as an Elk.

Cookie Carmona reached 150 hits on Thursday. The Raccoons have had a 200 hits player five times in their existence, and it’s really not who you’d think it was. Four times the feat was achieved by first basemen in the 80s, three times by Tetsu Osanai (including the record of 229 hits in 1989), and once by Matt Workman. The only other 200 hits instance was in 2007, when Tomas Castro managed to not shed an arm and a leg for an entire season and collected 202 hits.

I just hate how OOTP can’t sort out rain-shortened games and Santos gets credited for a complete game in the most rugged mess he pitched in on Saturday. Can this be THIS hard??