[Westheim]

Raccoons (50-31) @ Loggers (41-39) – July 2-5, 2018

The Loggers were a tad over .500, which was no small thing for them given that they had no budget and no players, and they were actually better than average (a bit at least) in both runs scored and runs allowed with a +33 run differential, so they should have an even better record. Meanwhile, they didn’t really have any young stars to carry them. Chris LeMoine had 15 homers and Victor Hodgers was batting .358 (in 43 games), but that was largely it. The rest of the lineup was stuffed with role players, and they had found a spot to imploy old Coons farmhand G.G. Williams in the rotation, but they had to be doing SOMETHING right. They were 2-1 against Portland in 2018.

Projected matchups:
Ricky Mendoza (7-5, 4.52 ERA) vs. Jason McDonald (5-5, 4.92 ERA)
Damani Knight (2-3, 5.80 ERA) vs. G.G. Williams (3-4, 3.72 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (12-3, 2.75 ERA) vs. Michael Foreman (8-4, 2.20 ERA)
Ryan Nielson (2-4, 6.00 ERA) vs. Brian Cope (5-3, 3.51 ERA)

Williams is the left-hander here, and it’s also the spot where they keep rotating personnel through. Starter Troy McCaskill has been moved to close games for them, since they also have no money for a closer. Williams pitched in relief as late as Saturday, so this could be interesting.

I appreciate a road trip right now. If the starting pitching craps out again, we have one less inning to plug with our maliciously overworked bullpen…

This might well be the last start for Nielson. Knight will get another start on Sunday (unless he loses an arm or something). Whoever ends up with the worse ERA after that will definitely get dumped for Charlie Cooper or some other tramp we get to pick up. Yes, Maud, I know that’s not his name.

Also having an eye on Moya. Batting 2-for-23 is an uh-uh even when you can play good defense. Petracek might also not hit any ball, but at least he is a defensive cushion for virtually everybody in the lineup.

Game 1
POR: RF Carmona – CF Duarte – 2B Walter – 1B H. Mendoza – 3B Nunley – LF DeWeese – C Denny – SS Moya – P R. Mendoza
MIL: RF Hodgers – SS Burns – 3B Velez – C O. Castillo – 1B Betancourt – LF Cooper – CF Gore – 2B Krueger – P McDonald

The Coons scratched themselves a run in the top of the first when Duarte came home on Mendoza’s well-placed dying bloop to left, close to the line, where nobody could play it. Ricky Mendoza had a quick first, then had an atrocious second inning. Despite getting two outs, he then allowed a single to left to Andrew Cooper and in full counts walked both Brad Gore and Gene Krueger before finally striking out Jason McDonald. The Loggers didn’t tie the game until the third when Kyle Burns lined into the rightfield corner and Orlando Castillo singled him in with two outs.

The Coons had plenty of hits and runners, but struggled to drive them in. The fifth opened with Cookie walking, but the Loggers got both him and Alex Duarte on a strike-em-out-throw-em-out. Walter singled to right, Mendoza singled to center, bringing up Nunley, who’s grounder when it eluded David Betancourt was the Critters’ ninth base hit on the day. Victor Hodgers contained the ball in shallow right, but Walter was sent around third base, and Hodgers had a great arm – but not great enough for this one. Walter scored, barely safe, and the Coons took a 2-1 lead, DeWeese struck out, but made up for it in the bottom of the inning when he made a great play on a double-bound deep fly by Betancourt, hit off a 3-1 pitch with two out and two on base against the shaky Ricky Mendoza, who needed 90 pitches through five inning. He ended up completing the sixth on only nine pitches, end still held on to the 2-1 advantage. While the Raccoons managed only two more hits in regulation after Nunley’s RBI single and didn’t get another run, they also had to further exploit their ravaged bullpen. Chris Mathis somehow got five outs on 17 pitches before Thrasher took over and got a strikeout against Cooper to end the eighth. Both were out for the fourth time in six days. Thrasher also would have pitched to Brad Gore to start the ninth, but the Loggers pinch-hit for him with right-handed Jimmy Raupp, and Alex Ramirez was assigned the full inning. Raupp, batting .181 with five homers, led off with a flare to right that dropped well in front of Eddie Jackson (who had replaced DeWeese in a double switch, with Cookie in left). Krueger bunted the tying run to second, and Chris LeMoine batted on his day off but popped out foul. That brought up Hodgers, who got four wide ones to bring up Kyle Burns, batting .263 with five homers, but was a right-handed batter as opposed to the left-handed Hodgers. Burns singled to center, the decently-fast Raupp scored, and the fragile lead was blown once again by Ramirez. An Alberto Velez groundout later, the game went to extras.

Adam Cowen was thrown in for long relief (which he was suited for with high stamina), removing Walter for Hudman in a double switch to prevent Cowen from coming up with a man on and two outs in the 10th (which didn’t happen anyway), while the Loggers drew a 1-out walk off him in the bottom 10th, with Ian Coleman then stealing second base off a tardy Denny, but being caught stealing by the same Denny at third base, one pitch later. Naughty boy! The Loggers reached third base in the bottom 11th with 2-out singles by LeMoine and Hodgers, as well as a wild pitch, but Hudman snagged Burns’ liner to end the inning. Cowen’s turn to bat came up with two outs in the 12th, with Cookie parked on first base. Cowen ripped one to right for a single, unexpectedly, which gave Mendoza a chance against the miserable right-hander Luis Calderon (7.42 ERA), but he hit a miserable hobbler right back to the pitcher for the third out. Like Cowen in the top 12th, Calderon hit a 2-out single with a man on first in the bottom 12th, which brought up Raupp again. His liner up the leftfield line ended the game with a walkoff RBI single. 3-2 Loggers. Carmona 3-5, BB; Walter 2-5; H. Mendoza 3-6, RBI; Nunley 2-5, RBI; R. Mendoza 6.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K; Mathis 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

13 hits – all singles. Also: Alex Ramirez. Much cost. No use.

Moya went 1-for-5, and we decided to give more at-bats to Mathews instead, who has in an 0-for-14 hole since being anointed Player of the Week.

Game 2
POR: LF Carmona – CF Duarte – 1B H. Mendoza – RF Jackson – 3B Nunley – C Denny – SS Walter – 2B Mathews – P Knight
MIL: RF Hodgers – SS Burns – LF LeMoine – 3B Velez – CF Coleman – 1B Betancourt – C Almond – 2B Krueger – P G.G. Williams

Through three innings, a Cookie single in the third was the only base hit in the game. The Loggers didn’t get one until Coleman doubled to center with two outs in the fourth, but Damani struck out Betancourt to keep him pinned, and we had an oddly-shaped pitching duel early on. Things went pear-shaped for Knight quickly after that. Brian Almond led off the fifth with a double to right. He walked Krueger, and then G.G. Williams, rather than bunting, unleashed another double to right, giving the Loggers a 1-0 lead. With two in scoring position, the Loggers flunked out completely, with Hodgers grounding out to first, Burns striking out, and Leoine popping one to Mathews. Back-to-back base hits by Jackson and Nunley with two outs in the sixth tied us up again, but there was the problem of a) Damani Knight pitching, and b) Damani Knight not going to pitch forever, which seems contradictory, but we had at best four relievers available for this game, with Mathis, Ramirez, and Cowen gassed and only wearing their uniform because they had to. Mathis’ had tomato stains on it.

Knight threw 97 pitches through six innings of 1-run ball, which generally had to constitute a successful outing for him. He would not be of much use, but when Walter and Mathews hit leadoff singles in the top 7th, he was retained to bunt to get them into scoring position for the recently hottened Cookie. He hit a fly high to left, but not really all that deep. However, LeMoine had to go back two steps at the last second, and that took energy away from his throw, allowing the Coons to send Walter, who scored with the go-ahead run. Duarte hit the most terrible grounder up the middle, but it somehow eluded both Burns and Krueger for a really, really slow RBI single as Mathews scored from second base. Knight went out for the bottom 7th after another poor show by Hugo Mendoza, but allowed a leadoff single to the bedamned Williams, and then Hodgers doubled. Burns’ RBI groundout ended his day. A breathless Thrasher came in and narrowly managed to strand the tying run at third base, leaving the Coons up 3-2 after seven.

Those Coons had the bases loaded with nobody out in the eighth. Jackson singled, Nunley doubled, and Denny got four wide ones so Williams could pitch to the left-hander Shane Walter. He hit a sac fly, Mathews grounded out, and that finally ended the day for Williams. Right-hander Julio San Pedro came out, and that was just the right spot for DeWeese to pinch-hit for Thrasher with two outs and runners in scoring position. Aaaand he struck out. Of course he did. The best idea we had to save a 4-2 game with six outs to collect was to send Schroeder for the eighth and preserve Chun for the ninth, which sounded bad on paper, but Matt Schroeder had an ERA of zip despite being abused constantly for 17.2 innings since coming up. He mowed down the Loggers on six pitches in the eighth. The Coons stole three bases in the top 9th, but didn’t score; Cookie opened with a single, stole second on a pitchout on Almond’s soft arm, and when Mendoza was walked intentionally, both took off for a double steal. Yet, Jackson hit a poor grounder to left that kept them on, and Nunley’s drive to center was caught by Andrew Cooper. Bottom 9th, the Loggers got free tying runs by Chun, who walked the first two batters he faced, Gore and Hodgers. Burns bunted them over, but LeMoine had earlier been pinch-hit for with Raupp (for odd reasons) and popped up for the second out that Nunley hauled in in foul ground. Alberto Velez hit a huge drive to center that sent Duarte racing back, back, back, back – had it. 4-2 Raccoons. Carmona 2-4, RBI; Jackson 2-4, BB; Nunley 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Knight 6.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, W (3-3);

I’m giving Damani a sticker here, because that second run was mainly the fault of the mangled bullpen, which led me to try and squeeze him through another inning. If the pen is more or less sound at this point, he doesn’t even bunt in the top 7th. The ball is now in Nielson’s court, but before we get to that, first it’s Jonny Time. Thrasher will be off limits for that game after throwing only 46 pitches in five days, but throwing those dispersed across four outings, however: everybody else should be available.

Game 3
POR: RF Carmona – CF Duarte – SS Walter – 1B H. Mendoza – 3B Nunley – LF DeWeese – 2B Mathews – C Denny – P Toner
MIL: 1B Betancourt – SS Burns – LF LeMoine – CF Coleman – C O. Castillo – RF Cooper – 3B I. Reed – 2B Krueger – P Foreman

Hugo Mendoza’s leadoff jack in the second inning gave the Coons a 1-0 lead that stood for a while, while they stranded runners at third base in the second (Mathews tripled), fourth (Walter doubled), and at second bsae in the fifth (Denny reached on a gruesome Cooper error). Jonny struck out seven through four, but had numerous full counts and walked two, a bit reminiscent of Nick Brown at a certain point in his career, running up 68 pitches through four. He still had a 1-hitter through six innings, ending the sixth with a K to LeMoine, his tenth on the day, but also was just shy of 100 pitches, so the pen got stirring in what was still a 1-0 game. We encountered a conundrum in the seventh when Mathews hit a 1-out single to right and Denny followed him in that direction, but hit a double past Cooper. That brought up Jonny with runners on second and third and one out, and we always say that he’s a good batter, and he was batting .220 with 7 RBI for the season, and the heck why not. He whiffed, Cookie flew out to Coleman, and nobody scored. Castillo hit a 1-out single in the bottom 7th, but Andrew Cooper popped one up, and Toner blistered Isiah Reed for a dozen strikeouts, but it was also the end of the line for him in this game, crossing over 110 pitches with no chance to finish the job. The ‘Tiger’ gave him a nice farewell with his second home run of the game, another solo shot with two outs in the eighth, which gave the pen at least a slight cushion. That cushion would be tested soon, with Mathis putting Gore and Betancourt on base with back-to-back 1-out singles. He struck out Kyle Burns, but that brought up LeMoine. Thrasher was still a no-go, and Jason Kaiser came out for this one, and AGAIN Raupp batted for him. Down 0-2, he grounded to short, where Walter took care of the final out. Alex Ramirez got the 2-0 lead in the ninth, and would face three left-handed bats in the first four men up. Oh come on, Alex! You’re ****ing getting paid closer’s money, so close this **** out!! Ironically, the right-handed batter, Castillo, was the only one that reached, hitting a 1-out single before Cooper popped out and Reed struck out. 2-0 Coons! H. Mendoza 3-4, 2 HR, 2 RBI; Mathews 2-4, 3B; Jackson (PH) 1-1; Toner 7.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 12 K, W (13-3);

Game 4
POR: LF Carmona – CF Duarte – 3B Nunley – 1B H. Mendoza – RF Jackson – 2B Mathews – C Margolis – SS Moya – P Nielson
MIL: 1B Betancourt – SS Burns – RF Gore – 3B Velez – C O. Castillo – CF Hodgers – LF Cooper – 2B Krueger – P Cope

Cookie opened with a single, advanced on Duarte’s grounder to first, and scored when Nunley narrowly missed a homer in center, hitting a ball off the fence. Mendoza singled, moving Nunley to third, but Jackson, who gave the horrendously cold DeWeese another day off, grounded to short to end the inning. In a light drizzle, Cookie hit a leadoff double in the third and scored on Duarte’s single this time, 2-0, but now it was Nunley to hit into the double play. Mendoza walked, Jackson doubled, but Mathews grounded out to second base, and the inning ended with another runner starved on third base. Well, boys. This is Nielson pitching. Stranding runners at third is a bad idea!

A Cooper error gave Margolis two bases on a single to left in the fourth inning. He moved up on Moya’s groundout, Nielson struck out, but Cookie came through with a single to right, 3-0. That was how it’s done! Nielson was actually decent the first time through and only walked a pair with two outs in the fourth for a tight spot. Cooper sent a soft fly to left center, where the wet grass helped Cookie immensely in making a sliding catch. The Coons added a run in the fifth when Mathews stayed out of the inning-ending double play, legging out the return throw after grounding to Krueger with Mendoza and Jackson on the corners. Mendoza scored, Margolis hit another single, but Moya unhelpfully popped out over the mound. After five shutout innings, the Loggers finally got to Nielson in the bottom 6th, which soon became a quagmire of futility. Kyle Burns led off with an infield single before Brad Gore grounded to right and off Mathews’ glove. Jackson hauled in the ball and tried to get Burns at third base, which was never going to happen in the first place, but his throw was WAY up the leftfield line and eluded Nunley, allowing Burns to score and Gore to go to second. A Castillo single to right sent Gore to third base, and when Nielson lost Cooper to a full-count walk, the bases were loaded and the go-ahead run came up in right-hander Gene Krueger, who was batting .149. Yeah, well, no. Chris Mathis came in, threw one pitch only, and Krueger grounded out to Mathews to keep this a 4-1 lead for the furry team. Cope ended up allowing 14 hits(!) in 6.1 innings, ending his day with a 2-run homer by Eddie Jackson to left center.

The Critters gave the ball to Cowen for the seventh, but he was whacked for three hits by four batters with a run already in. Chun came out again, which was not necessarily going to defuse the situation, and he allowed an RBI double to Velez and an RBI single to Castillo. Thrasher replaced the ineffective Chun to face Hodgers and Cooper, the left-handers, but the Loggers sent Raupp to hit for a left-hander once more. He grounded out, scoring Velez from third, but Cooper also grounded out, which at least maintained a 6-5 lead for the Coons after that complete bullpen cock-up.

DeWeese pinch-hit against San Pedro for the second time in the series and this time got hit with one out in the eighth. Cookie walked, Duarte popped out, but Nunley grounded hard through Velez at third base. While Ian Coleman was on the ball really quick and held Nunley to a single, DeWeese scored, 7-5, before Mendoza sent a hard ball through the other corner infielder, Betancourt, to plate Cookie, 8-5. Jackson was a triple shy of the cycle, but Velez contained his grounder and got the third out. After a quick inning by Schroeder, the Coons got Mathews on with a leadoff double in the ninth. Margolis was walked intentionally as the Loggers drooled to get the .094 batter Moya up. He didn’t hit, though. He had to give his stick to Shane Walter and then was sent straight to grab his **** and pack his suitcase. Walter and Denny, also pinch-hitting, both flew out to left, and Cookie grounded out to Krueger. There were only two guys left in the pen, Ramirez and Kaiser, and with no add-on runs, Ramirez came out with the 3-run lead. He ended the game quickly. 8-5 Raccoons! Carmona 3-5, BB, 2B, RBI; Nunley 2-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Jackson 3-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Mathews 2-5, 2 2B, RBI; Margolis 2-4, BB;

Moya was banished back to AAA. There was the thing that his defense was superior to Hudman’s, but at least Hudman hit a ball occasionally. Actually, Moya was waived and designated for assignment in an attempt to get a team to bite on him and pay his meal money for the rest of the year, but at least he’d get off the 40-man roster. We brought up Danny Ochoa as an extra bat on the bench for the next few days, as he was batting .290/.395/.478 with eight home runs in AAA, but this was only a placeholder move while I was dealing on the side with other things.

Raccoons (53-32) @ Titans (41-46) – July 6-8, 2018

The Titans were 11th in runs scored and eighth in runs allowed, which was also the rank their starting pitchers held in terms of ERA. Their pen was actually pretty good, ranking fourth in the CL. Nothing of that had helped them so far against Portland in the 2018 season, losing seven of nine games to the Raccoons.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (7-3, 2.51 ERA) vs. Jose Fuentes (5-7, 4.86 ERA)
Ricky Mendoza (7-5, 4.33 ERA) vs. Zach Boyer (4-10, 4.32 ERA)
Damani Knight (3-3, 5.40 ERA) vs. Rick Ling (6-6, 3.78 ERA)

Damani Knight goes up against the southpaw for the second straight series.

Game 1
POR: RF Carmona – CF Duarte – SS Walter – 1B H. Mendoza – LF DeWeese – 2B Mathews – C Denny – 3B Petracek – P Santos
BOS: CF Mata – C Galan – 1B S. Butler – LF Almanza – 3B Lawson – SS M. Rivera – RF X. Williams – 2B F. Reyes – P J. Fuentes

The Coons had a chance for a big spot right in the first inning when Cookie singled and Fuentes walked the bags full, but had to settle for two on a pair of run-scoring groundouts by Mendoza and DeWeese. The big spot was instead put up by the Titans. Alex Mata hit a single to right on the third pitch, and Santos’ next four pitches were all put into play. Armando Galan popped out, but Steve Butler and Chris Almanza singled, cutting the lead to 2-1, and then David Lawson popped a pitch some 400 feet to left with a huge swing, putting the Titans 4-2 ahead, with seven pitches thrown by Santos, who got blasted for another pair of runs in the second inning. Alex Mata tripled, scored on Galan’s single to center, and Almanza’s double put runners on second and third with two outs, at which point Santos decided it was time for a wild pitch. Santos was yanked after Xavier Williams’ 1-out single in the third, and Cowen took over in what looked like a loss anyway to take his 11.25 ERA for a walk. He walked Frank Reyes, a 23-year old Dominican rookie, but Fuentes then bunted into a double play, closing the curtains on Santos’ misfigured line of 2.1 innings pitched and six runs allowed on nine hits. The Titans found the double play to ruin their fourth as well, Almanza ending the inning with a grounder to Walter with runners on the corners, although to be fair to Cowen, the lead runner had reached on Walter’s error. For the Furballs, Cookie had twice made the final out in the second and fourth, stranding a total of three runners, before they got runners to the corners in the fifth entirely on the Titans defense. Mendoza reached on an error by Reyes, and DeWeese reached on an uncaught third strike (which was a better way to reach for him than actually trying to get a base knock!). Mathews walked, loading them up for Denny with two outs, but Denny struck out, at which point I put this one into the loss column for good. Cowen ended up being abused for 3.2 scoreless innings, and the Coons weren’t getting close to threatening until the eighth inning, where Denny hit a fluke triple on which not one, but two Titans outfielders presumably fell down and the third one got abducted by aliens mid-play. Petracek hit a sac fly, 6-3, but well, eh. Jackson hit a 2-out double, Cookie singled, and suddenly the tying run was up as the Titans rapidly emptied their pen. Brett Dill came out to face Duarte, who was hitless and replaced with Nunley, who bounced out to Reyes, but Jason Kaiser was charged with two runs in the bottom of the inning after retiring basically nobody and Chun again was no big help, and this one indeed ended up in the loss column. 8-3 Titans. Carmona 3-5; Denny 2-4, 3B; Jackson (PH) 1-1; Cowen 3.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K;

Plenty of guys were sore at the tail end of the long streak of games. Walter and Nunley had already gotten another off day apiece, and Cookie needed another day off by Saturday, remarking on the morning off the middle game that he could feel every joint in his body. Given that his body was made of glass coated with the stuff that these brittle ceramic knifes are made off, he got to sit in the dugout.

Game 2
POR: SS Walter – CF Duarte – 3B Nunley – RF H. Mendoza – 2B Mathews – C Denny – LF DeWeese – 1B Petracek – P R. Mendoza
BOS: CF Mata – C Galan – 1B S. Butler – LF Almanza – RF Blake – 3B Lawson – SS M. Rivera – 2B F. Reyes – P Boyer

The Coons got two runs in the first with Mathews drawing a bases-loaded walk before Denny’s incredibly slow grounder escaped between Steve Butler and Frank Reyes for an RBI single. DeWeese flew out to shallow left, Petracek struck out to end the inning. Unfortunately the Titans were right on top of our replacement level pitching, with Mata hitting a leadoff single in the first. That one dissolved on a double play, but in the second Almanza led off with a single and Jonathan Blake doubled. Runner in scoring position, no outs, the Titans were held to a run on Rivera’s sac fly after Lawson struck out. Reyes was walked intentionally to get Boyer to ground out, maintaining a 2-1 lead. Nunley hit a leadoff double in the third, beating Almanza’s range in left, and scored in unearned fashion when Mendoza reached on an error and Mathews hit into a run-scoring double play. Denny walked, but DeWeese fouled out, but Petracek hit a leadoff jack to right center in the fourth for a 4-1 lead. Meanwhile, Ricky Mendoza was happily issuing leadoff walks. He gave out one in the fourth, which didn’t come around to score, but also another one to Reyes in the fifth, and that one did come around after Boyer’s bunt and Mata’s single to center. Galan and Butler grounded out, the Coons stranded a pair when Hugo Mendoza struck out feebly in the top 6th, but Mendoza pitched a quick bottom 6th, maintaining a 4-2 lead despite being wonky and had needed only 71 pitches, somehow, and still didn’t get out of the seventh. Reyes ripped a 1-out homer, getting the Titans back to 4-3, and then Xavier Williams singled to center in the #9 hole. Kaiser was called from the pen, but the Titans had their ways of countering that, and Tim Robinson’s pinch-hit double off the rightfield fence allowed Williams to score from first base, narrowly ahead of Mendoza’s throw. Kaiser allowed a double to Blake in the eighth, and when Mathis replaced him right away he walked Lawson. A passed ball was charged to Denny on a pitch to Rivera, who would pop out to shallow left, but to make a wholesale cluster**** complete, the scrappy rookie Reyes, who had to be scouted on the fly midweek because he had not been on anybody’s radar, beat Mathis with a single to left that plated the winning runs. 6-4 Titans. Walter 2-5, 2B; H. Mendoza 2-5; Denny 2-3, BB, 2B, RBI; Petracek 2-4, HR, RBI;

Well, I don’t know. Maybe we just used up our wins and clutch hits and whatever.

Intermission: waiver claim

Danny Ochoa had gone 0-for-2 and was reassigned to St. Petersburg after the middle game of the series, as the Raccoons executed a waiver claim in which they picked up 34-year old INF/LF Tom Dahlke off waivers by the Indians. Batting .234 with four homers on the year, Dahlke had never been a guy to produce a lot of offense and maybe it was for the better that we didn’t get him from the Aces roughly a decade ago. His best season had been 2015 with the Wolves, batting .265/.333/.441 with 16 homers, and that was already a sad point. His career numbers were a .232/.308/.384 slash with 149 HR and 640 RBI. He bats right-handed and is definitely an offensive upgrade over Moya, while remaining a versatile defender with good value at second, third, and short. He has never played first base, and he hasn’t started in the outfield since 2014.

That much is well. We don’t need him in the outfield. We need him to shore up the infield when things go wild and for pinch-hitting services.

Raccoons (53-32) @ Titans (41-46) – July 6-8, 2018

Game 3
POR: LF Carmona – CF Duarte – 1B H. Mendoza – RF Jackson – 3B Nunley – 2B Walter – C Margolis – SS Dahlke – P Knight
BOS: CF Mata – C Galan – 1B S. Butler – LF Almanza – RF Blake – SS M. Rivera – 3B Sambrano – 2B F. Reyes – P Ling

If any one thing worked really well for the Coons right now it was Cookie singling, stealing, scoring. That’s how they got a run in the first, with Mendoza hitting a soft single to center to get him home from third base actually, because Galan’s throw on the steal went to centerfield. Knight got the first five Titans out before hitting Rivera. Sandy Sambrano was batting merely .162 but worked a walk while Rivera stole second base, only his eighth on the year, no comparison to the days of old for him. That brought up the snappy Reyes with two outs and two on base, and this kid came out of nowhere to bat .400 in his first 30 at-bats. He flew out to center to end the inning. Damani drew a leadoff walk on four pitches off Ling in the third, which had the unfortunate side effect of blocking Cookie’s path after he followed up with a single to right. Anyway, he wouldn’t have scored on the single to right that Eddie Jackson hit after Duarte and Mendoza had flailed out, but Knight – somehow – did, 2-0, before Nunley lined out hard to the shortstop. Rick Ling singled off Knight to start the bottom 3rd, but never got off first base thanks to two splendid defensive plays by Cookie, who hustled in on Mata’s soft fly to shallow left, and Nunley, who spoiled a Galan liner. Four scoreless served to dip Knight’s ERA under five, and he maintained a 1-hit shutout through five!

His spot came up with three on (Walter and Margolis singled, Dahlke was smacked) and nobody out in the sixth inning, but of course he wasn’t going to be hit for now. Ling ran a full count on him before getting a pop to shallow center – and nobody got there to play it! The ball fell between Mata and Rivera, and the Raccoons were up 3-0 on the RBI single! And that was all they got. Cookie and Duarte struck out, and Mendoza flew out to left on a 3-1 pitch. Any joy is always punished swiftly in baseball, and so Alex Mata hit a leadoff single off Knight in the bottom 6th, and Damani went on to drill Armando Galan. A single by Almanza scored a run before Blake grounded out and Rivera flew out to center, stranding the tying runs in scoring position. The tying runs were right back on base in the bottom 7th after a leadoff walk to Sandy and Reyes singling off the glove off the lunging Nunley. Knight was yanked, Mathis came on and struck out PH Tim Robinson (whatever happened to banish him to the bench for Galan?) and when Thrasher came in to face Mata, the Titans hit a lefty for a lefty in Williams, and Sandy was caught stealing third base by the rocket-armed Margolis. Williams struck out, ending the inning. Thrasher then actually batted in the top 8th because he hadn’t cleared the left-handed batters as anticipated. He came up with nobody on following a double play that Dahlke had hit into, and was struck out by Brett Dill, but returned that favor to Galan in the bottom 8th and blitzed through Butler and Almanza. With Blake and Rivera also left-handed, he would also start the ninth! Before that could happen, Sandy’s throwing error put Cookie on second base to start the top of the inning. Duarte grounded out to move him to third, and Mendoza was walked intentionally. With the right-hander Dill still in, DeWeese now hit for Jackson, which had the potential to become a really, really, really bad mistake, but DeWeese hit a sac fly, and that was fine right now. Nunley livened up an 0-for-4 with a 2-out RBI double to deep right, then scored on Walter’s single to center. Dill didn’t get out of the inning; Kanichiro Miura came on and struck out Margolis to get things over with. Thrasher didn’t get through the bottom 9th after a leadoff single by Blake and worked himself up in two long at-bats with Rivera and Sambrano, the latter remaining on first base after a fielder’s choice. Cowen came on with two outs to see to Reyes, whose grounder to short ended the game. 6-1 Coons. Carmona 2-5; H. Mendoza 2-4, BB, RBI; Jackson 2-4, RBI; Walter 2-5, RBI; Margolis 2-5; Knight 6.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, W (4-3) and 1-2, BB, RBI; Thrasher 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

In other news

July 2 – At 33 years old, LAP SP Brad “Topper” Smith (9-4, 2.95 ERA) tops the Wolves in a 9-8 wrangler, narrowly clinching his 200th major league victory. His 107 career losses pale in comparison. He has a 3.06 ERA and has 2,701 career strikeouts. The career Pacific led the Federal League in strikeouts each of the last three years, led it in ERA three times, and in wins once. He is a 5-time Pitcher of the Year, and was also the 2012 FLCS MVP.
July 2 – The Crusaders and Indians play for 19 innings after reaching a 3-3 tie in the seventh. The game ends on a bases-loaded, walkoff walk issued by New York’s Tom Nelson to IND INF Domingo Ortega (.164, 1 HR, 9 RBI), giving Indy a 4-3 win.
July 4 – The are only six scoreless half-innings, three for each team, in the Rebels’ 8-7 win over the Miners. The Rebels score in each of the last six innings, including single runs in each of the last four, while the Miners try to rally again and again, and scored single runs in each of the last three innings.
July 5 – The Rebels acquire LF/CF/2B Jeff Rinehart (.230, 2 HR, 24 RBI) from the Canadiens, sending 2B/SS Matt Otis (.265, 0 HR, 20 RBI) and a third-rate prospect to Vancouver.
July 6 – The Thunder send SP Jorge Gine (5-7, 3.73 ERA) to the Condors in exchange for four prospects, including #90 INF/CF Jeff Becker.
July 7 – The Cyclones lead the Buffaloes pitching staff around the park firmly secured with nose rings and bull staffs, clobbering them for 20 runs, including ten of those in the fifth inning, for a 20-7 rout. CIN C Tony Avila has two hits, including a home run, and drives in five.

Complaints and stuff

And thus we arrive at the All Star break. Nope, still no pitching reinforcements. Also, Charlie Something got slaughtered in his last few outings in AAA, so there’s that.

The Raccoons will send SIX players to the All Star Game! Four of those are pitchers, which is probably fair, given that three of them are relievers. Jonny Toner, Chris Mathis, Ron Thrasher, and Alex Ramirez have all been selected. They are complemented by two outfielders, Hugo Mendoza and Cookie Carmona.

Can you believe this is not only the first All Star appearance for Mathis and Thrasher, but also for COOKIE?? He has never gotten any love in the selection process. Okay, he was flatout hurt a few times. But still. This is the sixth time he was on the Opening Day roster, and the .313 batting average he has now is his career-worst.

Mendoza (4th selection) and Ramirez (3rd selection) are multi-All Stars, but go as Coons for the first time. Finally, there’s Jonny, who is selected for the fifth year in a row. Side note: I know I once did a complete list of all Raccoons selected to the All Star Game, but blimey I can’t find it anymore… I don’t think anybody has more than Brownie, who was selected eight times in his career…

… and can we give a round of love to Matt Schroeder, who came out of the pitch black darkness and now has 20.2 scoreless innings in his major league career?

D-Alex signed a 2-year extension worth $6.12M with the Bayhawks this week. He has really steadied himself batting around .280 with 15 homers now. If not for his completely terrible 2015 season with us, we might have tried to hold on to him.

The Raccoons signed their first international player as early as Tuesday, inking Australian shortstop Charles Newton for $15,000. During the remainder of the week, we also added Dominican right-hander Rogelio Bonilla for $11,000, Dominican outfielder Wilson Rodriguez for $81,000, and Mexican shortstop Hugo Ochoa for $41,000. Remember, this is the second string of players. No huge hopes here. We remain on the heels of another pitcher.