[Westheim]

Raccoons (0-0) vs. Crusaders (0-0) – April 6-8, 2026

We were going to kick off the 50th ABL season with a weeklong homestand, with the Crusaders coming in first. The Raccoons hadn't won the season series from the Crusaders since 2021, splitting it last year, so here was the first stepping stone for a successful charge towards the front already…

Projected matchups:
Mark Roberts (0-0) vs. Chris Klein (0-0)
Rico Gutierrez (0-0) vs. Mike Rutkowski (0-0)
Lance Legleiter (0-0) vs. Carlos Marron (0-0)

Three right-handers to get the season going, with the Crusaders' only southpaw starter, Ben Jacobson, only slotted into the #4 spot in their rotation.

Game 1
NYC: 1B Espinosa – CF Douglas – 3B Schmit – RF Ellis – C J. Ramirez – LF R. Allen – SS McWhorter – 2B S. Valdez – P Klein
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Spencer – CF Mora – 1B Gonzalez – LF Kopp – RF Alfaro – C Tovias – 3B Nunley – P Roberts

The season's first run with Portland involved unfortunately was scored against Portland, with Lance Douglas singling, stealing, and scoring on Nate Ellis' single up the middle in the top of the first against Mr. Triple Crown. The Coons didn't lay down, though; Ramos opened his ROTY season (cough!) with a single over shortstop Tom McWhorter on an 0-2 pitch, moved to second on Mora's single, and both scored when Jon Gonzalez sunk a double in the gap between Douglas and Ellis. That wasn't all; Terry Kopp singled, moving Gonzalez to third base, and from there he scored on Alfaro's groundout, giving Roberts a 3-1 lead. It got even worse for New York, as they had to remove Klein in the second inning with shoulder woes. Matt Rosenthal ended up in the game and surrendered the Coons' first homer of the season, a solo piece by Abel Mora to rightfield in the third inning. For Roberts, this was plenty of Opening Day support. After the early run conceded to Douglas and Ellis, Roberts would not miss another beat and strangled the Crusaders to concede only two more base hits through the eighth inning, completing eight frames on 110 pitches. With that length of service he outlasted Matt Nunley, who was ejected after protesting strike three in the sixth inning and was replaced by Daniel Bullock. Since the Coons didn't add any runs despite a few chances in the middle and late innings, Ricky Ohl was in action for the first time in the ninth inning. He retired Douglas, Andy Schmit, and Ellis in order, whiffing the last two after Douglas started the inning by grounding out. 4-1 Coons! Ramos 2-4; Mora 3-4, HR, RBI; Kopp 2-3, BB; Roberts 8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, W (1-0);

Game 2
NYC: 1B Espinosa – CF Douglas – 3B Schmit – RF Ellis – C J. Ramirez – LF R. Allen – SS McWhorter – 2B S. Valdez – P Rutkowski
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Spencer – CF Mora – 1B Gonzalez – LF Kopp – RF Alfaro – C Tovias – 3B Nunley – P Gutierrez

The Raccoons had no base hits the first time through the order, but Terry Kopp drew a walk. Alfaro forced him out on a grounder, but stole second base before Tovias grounded out, the first bag taken by force by Portland this year; not Ramos, not Spencer, not Mora – Alfaro! But the top of the order produced the game's first run, with Ramos doubling to center with two outs in the bottom 3rd, then scoring easily on Spencer's single to left-center. Rico Gutierrez had spilled four base hits in the first three innings, but had yet to throw something on the board. But the Crusaders kept crowding him, put runners on the corners in the fourth, didn't score again, and had another two on base in the fifth, but still didn't get the crucial hit until the sixth inning, when Roger Allen took Gutierrez deep with a solo homer to at least tie the game at one run per team, despite New York outhitting the Coons, 9-3. There would be a tenth hit off Gutierrez, a leadoff double (…) by Rutkowski (…!!) in the seventh. Rico remained in to get outs from Juan Espinosa and PH Justin Godown before yielding to Jeff Mudge with Andy Schmit on the approach. The count ran full, Schmit struck out, and Rico was left with a no-decision in his first outing of the season.

Rutkowski was still vying for the win, but surrendered a double down the line to Elias Matias Tovias Diaz in the bottom of the seventh inning. Nunley ran a 3-1 count before getting drilled, pulling up the pitcher's spot, Tim Stalker came out to bat for Mudge, but flew out to Allen in left. Neither starter would get a decision, since Rutkowski was out soon after and the bullpens took turns ducking from blows. Kearney and Snyder pitched scorelessly for the Raccoons through the rest of regulation, and the Coons got nothing against Steve Casey to send the game to extras. The win ultimately went to Billy Brotman, despite a shoddy tenth inning from the southpaw, who surrendered a pinch-hit single to Armando Leal, walked Schmit, and almost surrendered a 3-piece to Jose Ramirez, whose drive was caught at the fence by Terry Kopp. The bottom 10th saw Nunley pop out in foul ground before the pitcher's spot was up again. Rafael Gomez was sent out against Casey now, and hit the first ever pitch he saw as a Critter for 445 feet to left-center to utterly walk off the Critters. 2-1 Coons! Spencer 2-4, RBI; Gomez (PH) 1-1, HR, RBI; Gutierrez 6.2 IP, 10 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K; Snyder 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Game 3
NYC: LF Espinosa – CF Douglas – 3B Schmit – RF Ellis – SS McWhorter – C Leal – 1B Godown – 2B Rinehart – P Marron
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Spencer – CF Mora – 1B Gonzalez – LF Kopp – RF Alfaro – C Tovias – 3B Nunley – P Legleiter

Scoring remained low in the series with no runs plated in the early innings of the Wednesday game. The Coons had runners on the corners in the bottom 3rd after Ramos singled, stole second, and moved to third on Spencer's single to rightfield, but they were stranded there with one out with Abel Mora popping out to shallow center and Gonzalez flying out to right rather easily. While the Crusaders had nothing much in terms of solid contact against Legleiter in the early going, and had only one base hit through four, the Coons had runners on the corners once more in the bottom 4th, and this time with nobody out. Carlos Marron, the former Buffalo, struck Terry Kopp, an old FL East foe on the Capitals, to get the inning underway, and Kopp hustled to third base on Alfaro's bloop single near the right foul line. That brought up the bottom of the order that was 1-for-16 in the early going this year, with dire need for improvement. Elias Tovias emptied the bags, but not in a way we were generally going to appreciate. While he got Kopp in alright, he also smacked the ball right at McWhorter for a trivial double play. That was the only run the Coons got in the inning, and McWhorter erased their lead right away with a leadoff jack in the fifth inning. With two outs in the inning, Jeff Rinehart and Carlos Marron lashed out singles to go to the corners, and it was Nunley with a sprawling catch on Espinosa's low liner to end the inning when Legleiter was just about to fall off the mound. But Portland as a whole became unglued in those middle innings. Lance Douglas drew a leadoff walk in the sixth, went to steal second and took third on Tovias' terrible throw that skipped through Ramos. Schmit's groundout brought him in with the go-ahead run.

Legleiter would not catch the loss for a game-tying sac fly by pinch-hitter Rafael Gomez in the bottom of the seventh inning. That one came with runners (Tovias, Nunley) on the corners once more and one out, with Ramos going down on strikes against Marron to end that inning with a 2-2 score. But the Raccoons couldn't get over that hump; the Crusaders could though. Jason Butler made his Coons debut in the late innings, issued a leadoff walk to McWhorter in the ninth, with Leal's single sending the go-ahead run to third base with nobody out. Justin Godown's sac fly gave the Crusaders the lead, while Billy Brotman had to be bothered to get out of the inning. Bottom 9th, Steve Casey holding a 3-2 lead against Kopp, Cookie (in after two double switches), and Tovias. A strikeout and two grounders to Jeff Rinehart ended the game. 3-2 Crusaders. Alfaro 1-2, BB; Legleiter 6.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K;

Early numbers on the offense are once more not pretty. Eight runs in the first three games against a team tabbed to have sub-par pitching. Oh, oh, oh, here come the concerns…

Raccoons (2-1) vs. Condors (1-3) – April 10-12, 2026

The Condors had dropped three out of four to the Aces to begin the season, which was a ho-hum sort of result given that the Aces were probably the favorites to win the South this season after coming out on top of the offseason arms race. They had already scored 21 runs though, second in the league. But they also had surrendered 22, last in the CL… The Raccoons had won the season series for two years in a row, both times with a 5-4 final tally.

Projected matchups:
Kyle Anderson (0-0) vs. John Waker (0-0)
Dan Delgadillo (0-0) vs. Sean Rigg (0-0)
Mark Roberts (1-0, 1.13 ERA) vs. George Griffin (0-0, 6.23 ERA)

John Waker was a left-hander and had originally been drafted by the Coons way back in 2016. He had been used as a swingman by the Stars for most of his major league career, having made only 23 starts in his 266 major league appearances. The other two starters were right-handers, but included another swingman type in Sean Rigg, a 25-year-old sophomore who was tabbed for his first major league start after back woes had put Opening Day starter Jeff Little (0-0, 0.00 ERA) on the DL early on. Little was probably going to miss two starts.

Game 1
TIJ: 2B B. Rojas – LF O. Larios – 3B Sanks – C Sanford – 1B McGrath – RF M. Matias – CF Hatley – SS Langan – P Waker
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Spencer – CF Mora – 1B Gonzalez – LF Gomez – RF Alfaro – C O'Dell – 3B Nunley – P Anderson

This one was a right mess. Anderson allowed a run before he even pitched a third of an inning as a Coon, allowing a single to Bob Rojas, who stole second, then an RBI single to Omar Larios to start the game. The Condors were absolutely dying to run circles around Anderson; Rojas stole TWO bases his next time around after a 1-out single in the third, and in between Brett O'Dell had thrown out two runners, Larios in the first and Waker(!) in the third inning. Anderson also put every leadoff batter on base, and when Rojas was aboard in the third, surrendered a long homer to Larios to fall 3-0 behind. At that point, the Coons had no hits, and had Cookie in rightfield after Alfaro had left the game following being drilled. It could probably go better at this point, but for now it was going to go a whole lot worse yet, with Shane Sanks going back-to-back with Larios and digging Anderson's hole to four runs in depth.

Only in the fifth inning did the Coons break into the H column; Matt Nunley hit a single past Sanks into leftfield with nobody out and O'Dell aboard after a leadoff walk in the inning. We had seen enough of Anderson at that point, sending Terry Kopp to bat for him, but he flew out to Nick Hatley in deep center. Ramos hit an RBI single, Spencer popped out, and Mora singled up the middle, but Nunley had to hold at third base. The tying runs were thus on for Jon Gonzalez with two outs… and Jon had gone 0-for-13 since his 2-run double in the first inning on Monday. Oh happy day? He was due one! Indeed, Jon cracked a hard base hit through the right side, plating two runs with a single and cutting the gap to 4-3. That also made him the Coons' RBI leader easily with four… Gomez reached on a Paul Langan error to fill the bags, at which point hitting for Cookie looked appealing, but the Raccoons – in the fifth inning – were already out of outfielders. Cookie held still long enough to allow the Condors' battery to flip the score entirely by themselves. First Waker threw a wild pitch to tie, then the Coons moved ahead, 5-4, on a passed ball charged to Pat Sanford. Then Cookie grounded out.

So there were only four innings to collect by the pen to secure a completely unmerited W for Anderson! Jeff Mudge did away with the sixth before the Coons gave the bottom of the order to Surginer in the seventh. Kevin had been the only pen piece not to see action in the Crusaders series, struck out Mike Matias, allowed a single to Nick Hatley, but got out of the inning against Langan and Chad Highsmith. Top 8th, Kearney walked leadoff man Rojas for inconvenience before the emergence of right-handed pinch-hitter Manny Sanchez brought on a switch to Jonathan Snyder, who was bailed out by Nunley on two sharp grounders before Sanford still tied the score with a 2-out RBI single to center. Snyder afterwards went to the trainer's room, so there was that, while the Raccoons were left to look for a run, some run, any run. Cookie led off the bottom 8th against Markus Bates and hit a ball into the gap for a leadoff double, so maybe the Coons could scramble for a win after all. The Coons failed to score the runner though between their beleaguered bottom of the order, with Daniel Bullock now playing second base and batting ninth and popping out after an intentional walk to Nunley. Ramos grounded out to end the inning, after which Ricky Ohl was about to drown in the top of the ninth. Mike Chaplin walked, stole second, moved to third on Paul Langan's single, and then Langan stole second base. Ohl hissed, struck out Chris Grooms in the #9 hole, then had Rojas line out to Bullock to end the inning. Bottom 9th, right-hander Lorenzo Romero in the game for Tijuana. Spencer was nursing an oh-fer, but cracked a liner up the leftfield line for a double and now was the winning run in scoring position with nobody out, and both the bench and pen nearly empty. Abel Mora made it quick and as painless as possible at this point, dropping a single into shallow center to walk off the team. 6-5 Critters. Mora 2-4, BB, RBI;

Sooo, that is two key players ailing and in the trainer's room with Mena, and I heard Matt Nunley overate himself and is holding is stomach, so there is that… Do we have anybody left for the last two games? Mena? MENA??

Also, yes, Jon Gonzalez is 2-for-16 by now, but both hits were worth 2 RBI apiece… he's not far off the team batting average (.215) though…

Game 2
TIJ: 2B B. Rojas – LF O. Larios – 3B Sanks – C Sanford – 1B McGrath – CF Chaplin – RF M. Matias – SS Langan – P Rigg
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Spencer – CF Mora – 1B Gonzalez – LF Kopp – RF Gomez – C Tovias – 3B Nunley – P Delgadillo

Portland got their first quick start since Opening Day, placing Ramos and Spencer on base to get going in the first, both advancing on a double steal, and then scoring on Mora's sac fly and Gonzalez' 1-out double to center, giving Delgadillo a quick 2-0 lead. Soon enough, rain would break over the park and force an hour-long rain delay in the third inning that was surely not going to affect Delgadillo in any way… Both teams were also locked in a battle to the death to steal more bases than the opposition; Paul Langan scored on an RBI single by Rojas with two outs in the third, with Rojas then taking another base from the Coons after already stealing three on Friday. I don't know, maybe keep him off the ****ing bases!? On to the bottom of the inning where Abel Mora hit a leadoff single, stole his first base of the year, then scored on Gonzalez' single to left. Gonzalez was then picked off first base by Rigg, and both teams continued to dig their trenches even deeper… Rigg would shuffle the bases full after Rojas' throwing error put Kopp aboard, allowing singles to both Gomez and Tovias before Nunley flew to deep left. Omar Larios made the catch, but got nothing on a throw to home plate, where Kopp scored on the sac fly to get the score to 4-1. Delgadillo then lined out to Sanks to end the interesting inning.

Three hits scored a run (Ramos) to get to 5-1 in the bottom 4th, which led to Chad Highsmith batting for Rigg with nobody out in the fifth inning, and Matias (single to left) and Langan (E8) on base. Highsmith rammed another single to left, plating Matias and getting the tying run up in Rojas, who went down on strikes though. Larios smacked into a double play, getting Delgadillo through qualifying distance on 74 pitches and an additional hour in the wet. He was retained to bunt following Nunley's 1-out single in the bottom 5th, with Ramos hitting a 2-out single to get Nunley to third but no further. Jarod Spencer took care of that, cracking a double to left that extended the lead to 6-2 against reliever Bobby Thompson. Mora flew out to Larios, stranding a pair in scoring position. Delgadillo was done after a clean sixth, with his spot coming up with two outs and the bags stacked in the bottom 6th. Thompson had walked Kopp and Gomez through clumsiness, then Nunley on orders to bring up the pitcher's spot. Tim Stalker batted, but flew out to Mike Chaplin.

Our next bright idea was to pitch Jason Butler for length in a 6-2 game. That one went so well, the go-ahead run was up before the seventh inning was over. Chaplin homered, Butler allowed another two hits, another stolen base to Rojas, AND Matt Nunley made TWO errors to sabotage the outcome of the contest. Jeff Mudge would replace Butler with runners on the corners and two outs, and K'ed Shane Sanks to bail out of this mess of messes, but gave up a run in the eighth anyway thanks to a leadoff double by Sanford and productive outs by both Kevin McGrath and Mike Chaplin. No insurance run came forth against right-hander Tim Edmonds in the bottom 8th, and Ricky Ohl was left to his own devices in the ninth, where Langan grounded out to get things going, but Manny Sanchez' pinch-hit single put the lead in jeopardy with the noxious top of the order coming up again. Ohl got Rojas to pop out to short, and Larios never made contact, swinging and missing on the 1-2 pitch to put this one in the books. 6-5 Furballs. Ramos 3-4, BB; Spencer 3-5, 2B, RBI; Mora 3-4, 2 RBI; Gonzalez 2-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Nunley 1-2, BB, RBI; Delgadillo 6.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, W (1-0) and 1-2;

By Sunday we got the news that Omar Alfaro had suffered a broken paw on that wayward pitch by John Waker in the Friday night game, which would put him out of action for six weeks.

Aaaand there goes the outfield… Greg Borg was recalled from St. Petersburg to fill the roster spot.

Game 3
TIJ: 2B B. Rojas – 1B McGrath – SS Sanks – 3B M. Matias – C Sanford – RF O. Larios – LF Hatley – CF Chaplin – P Griffin
POR: SS Ramos – LF Spencer – CF Mora – 1B Gonzalez – RF Kopp – 2B Stalker – C Tovias – 3B Bullock – P Roberts

Offense was hard to come by early on with both pitchers doing their utmost to foil the opposition. The Coons squeezed out a run in the second inning on Gonzalez' leadoff double and Tovias' 2-out single up the middle, while Roberts was not seriously touched until Chaplin's leadoff jack in the fifth. There was even an inning, the fourth, in which every single batter that showed up at the plate struck out. That was largely it in the first five innings; on to the seventh already, where a soft single by PH Robby Boggs, who stole second (can anybody hear throw out a runner!!??), and an infield single by PH Manny Sanchez put runners on the corners with one out. Now things got interesting! Chad Highsmith batted for Griffin as the Condors went into Offense Now mode, but Roberts eviscerated the left-handed batter for his eighth strikeout in the game. That still left Bob Rojas to contend with, and he had been nothing but a battleaxe in the Coons' skulls for the entire series. But he was also a left-hander, and Roberts was only on 93 pitches and a PITCHER OF THE YEAR was supposed to get out of this spot without bleeding multiple runs. Or any run. Roberts fell behind 2-0, Rojas rammed a liner to centerfield … but Mora was there! Catch made, inning over, exhale.

None of this got Roberts in line for a W. He lasted eight innings, though, and again on 110 pitches, with his spot up at the beginning of the eighth inning. Markus Bates, a righty, was on the mound as leftover from the seventh where he had retired Stalker, Tovias, and Bullock in order. So here came a left-handed pinch-hitter, Cookie Carmona! The 0-1 was put in play, soft line to right, and dropping well in front of Matias for a leadoff single! The Coons used Ramos to bunt, which worked, then hoped for offense between Spencer and Mora, which didn't. Spencer grounded out to Bates, and Mora whiffed altogether, leaving Roberts unrewarded for his troubles as this remained a 1-1 game. Kevin Surginer got involved at this point and got rid of the Condors in order and with K's to Hatley and Grooms in the ninth inning, allowing for a 1-run walkoff in the bottom 9th. Wouldn't be the first one! Between Gonzalez, Kopp, and Stalker, the Coons had only eight base hits so far in '26, and no homers, but maybe Tony Harrell (4.50 ERA) could be overcome by numbers. Gonzalez cracked the first pitch up the middle for a leadoff single, the Coons' tenth hit in the game. Terry Kopp wouldn't be able to drop a good bunt if his fur depended on it, so he was told to swing away and collected his third K on the day. At this point Rafael Gomez hit for Stalker, but lined out to Rojas, and Tovias lined out to Sanks to send another game to extra innings. Top 10th, Surginer retired nobody, allowing singles to Harrell (…) and Rojas, then walked McGrath. Bases loaded, no outs, Jeff Mudge was thrown into the mess, conceded the go-ahead run on a Sanks grounder, then two more on Matias' triple. Sanford went deep, and not it was even getting ugly. REALLY ugly. Brotman was the third pitcher in the inning, but we were yet waiting for one to not get ripped open. Langan singled, then stole second. Hatley popped out, but Grooms drew a walk, and then Tony Harrell, the ****ing scum face, had his second base hit in the inning, a 2-out single up the middle, chasing home Langan. Rojas struck out, ending a 6-run farce. 7-1 Condors. Ramos 2-3; Spencer 2-5; Gonzalez 3-4, 2 2B; Tovias 2-4, RBI; Carmona (PH) 1-1; Roberts 8.0 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K;

In other news

April 6 – The Crusaders will be without Opening Day starter Chris Klein (0-1, 16.20 ERA) for two to three months due to the 31-year-old suffering from shoulder inflammation.
April 8 – Ex-WAS RF/LF Jason Stone (.271, 120 HR, 505 RBI) signs a 1-yr, $1.2M contract with the Pacifics.
April 9 – SFW SP Juan Muniz (1-0, 0.00 ERA) spins a 2-hit shutout against the Pacifics, whiffing seven. The Warriors win 1-0, the lone run scoring in the eighth inning on an error by LAP LF/1B Firmino Cambra (.353, 0 HR, 4 RBI).
April 11 – 23-year-old LAP SP Dave Christiansen (1-1, 4.26 ERA) flashes a 3-hit shutout against the Blue Sox, whiffing 10 batters in a 9-0 rout.

Complaints and stuff

Scott Wade was brought in to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day, which was all nice and well. On Tuesday, the ceremonial first pitch belonged to Smokey Stoner (actually born Meredith F. Kuszinski), who had by chance been sold the 500,000th season ticket ever issued by the Raccoons during this offseason. He was not some random nobody in Portland, in fact his local popularity was significant. He had once ran for mayor (and had been narrowly defeated), having run on a platform built significantly on the basis of him having been a co-founder of the city's first communal weed garden, having campaigned for free apples and other… "produce" for school children, and for producing certain merchandise, primarily mugs and hemp fiber t-shirts imprinted with the iconic image of a certain plant leaf and the slogan underneath "Mary J loves you!".

He wore that… while throwing the first pitch. Well over the head of Elias Tovias, I want to add, which made him giggle all the way back to the home dugout. And somehow, by the end of the game, at least a dozen kids in the park were wearing those shirts, too. Let's just say, the Agitator had a field day even with the team at 2-0.

No, we certainly didn't arrange for this. It falls in the category of "random **** that happens only to perpetually cursed franchises".

That already looks a lot like the same ****ty offense we had last year. And the year before that. And all the way back to about 1998. Last in runs scored, near the bottom in OBP, and the pen was been a cardboard box full of cats lit on fire so far. Well, the top three in the order so far have been very productive. The power guys below however… Gonzalez turned it on on the weekend after being dead from the waist up against the Crusaders, but Kopp has given us nothing, Gomez was worth that one walkoff and nothing besides that, and Omar Alfaro is already on the DL. AND the Titans are already in the lead.

Goodness gracious.

Greg Borg (before being recalled) and Alvin Smith went unclaimed and were assigned to St. Petersburg by Thursday.

Next week, road trip, but we'll stay on this side of the mountains, visiting the Bay and the Elks.

Bah, Elks.

Fun Fact: No CL North team is under .500 after one week in the new season, which will probably not last for long.

The most wins a last-place team in the CL North has ever accumulated were the 2004 Canadiens that ended up 76-86. They ended up 41 games out in a year when the Titans won a whopping 117 games. In fact, ONLY the Titans ended up over .500 due to their pronounced stomping on their division rivals that year. The Loggers went an even 81-81 for second place. The Crusaders' 79-83 season saw them come third, and the Indians and Coons ended up tied for fourth with 78 wins apiece.