Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

What. A. Win!

I still don't know how the heck that worked out.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

I’m so interested in seeing how you maneuver this off-season, hope you get some banner money


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bub13]

[desperately searches for 'like' button]

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by alexsimon99

Let's gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

That's the spirit!

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

I’m so interested in seeing how you maneuver this off-season, hope you get some banner money

As usual, that depends on Nick Valdes' mood swings and how much the government in a certain Asian country wants to meddle with his child labor practices in an open-pit zinc mine ...

Originally Posted by Bub13

[desperately searches for 'like' button]

I know the feeling.....

+++

While my snout wasn’t used to champagne, it got a taste of plenty of it after the Raccoons pulled a stunning upset and rallied from 0-2 down to take four in a row from the heavily favored Gold Sox to win the second title of the current bunch (after 2044) and the sixth in total (1992, 1993, 2026, 2028).

There was an alarming pattern here that we’d always win two close together and then enter decades of mediocrity, but that is something I will whine about at length at various points before and during the new season and now we had other things to do.

For example go through Nick Valdes’ angry mail. He was incensed we went almost $54k over the allotted budget in 2046. I called him to explain that there were an unplanned for $115k of repair works to the rotunda after he had crashed his golden Mercury into it last February. That had actually happened three years ago, but he didn’t remember, and was placated by the explanation. Everybody wins.

To my great surprise, Nick Valdes even opened his purse and buttered up the budget for 2047. A raise of $4.5M would give us a whole $51M to play with. This would tie us for fifth place in the league with the damn Elks (angrily shakes fist northwards), the top-endowed teams in the CL North, and both in the top three in the CL. Last year we ranked ninth in the league.

The remainder of the richest teams were the Gold Sox ($59M), Miners ($55M), Cyclones, and Bayhawks (both $52M).

The bottom five included the Warriors ($37M), Loggers ($36.5M), Aces ($36M), Indians ($35.5M), and Wolves ($31.5M).

As far as the CL North was concerned, the missing teams were the Crusaders, who ranked 10th with $45.5M, and the Titans, who had been slashed to 18th with $39.5M after years of spending big for little returns.

The average budget for a team in the league rose to $44.27M, rising a whopping $1.7M compared to 2046. The median team budget or 2047 was $43M, up $500k from last season.

+++

Before we’d get into what $51M would and wouldn’t buy, first the news that Victor Merino had eventually been diagnosed with a flexor-pronator strain in his elbow after his CLCS Game 5 exit, which would not be something that would bother him beyond November. And yet, we had won anyway…!

The goal was clear: don’t stop with two titles this time. Make it three! However, while we had some key personnel under long-term contracts (Maldo, Herrera) or still under team control (Wheats, Merino, and others), there were also some players that had taken part in our 2044 and 2046 title campaigns that were pending free agents. The question was what to do about it.

Seven players were due to reach free agency in total this year, including five pitchers. These reached from the frustratingly scintillating Ryan Person (with type B compensation attached) to unlikely Game 4 hero Aaron Hickey, back-end stalwart Nelson Moreno, and washouts Chuck Jones and Todd Lush. We enjoyed Chuck Jones as long as he lasted, but we would make no effort to prolong the experience here, and the same was true for Lush, who came from Boston, got on the nose, and disappeared in AAA without much noise. [the full, unaltered arbitration table will as usual be below]

The position players were perhaps among the best players in the league that didn’t reach 500 PA because of the crowded roster they were on: Derek Baskins and Pat Gurney (the latter of whom had not been here yet in ’44, so this was his first ring). They made a combined $4M in 2046, and the Raccoons had a vested interest in their continued presence on the roster, with Baskins especially given that Manny Fernandez (37 in February) was not getting any younger and had been through a rotten season, but for now we had to take this bit by bit.

Then there were eight arbitration cases, also including five pitchers. These included obvious keeps like Wheats and Okuda (even though the latter might become trade bait with the emergence of Bubba Wolinsky) and assorted southpaw relievers Mike Lynn, Aaron Curl, and Zack Kelly. The latter (0-5 with a 6.00 ERA in ’46) was a hot candidate for non-tendering.

On the position player front there was an obvious Keep in Matt Waters, and the same two ho-hums that seemed to creep in every year now in Arturo Carreno and Van Anderson. To be honest, second base was a mess, and Carreno would never solve it.

In fact, second base was probably the most sore spot on the team, with an assortment of ho-hum filler players (Martell, Castner…) taking turns there – not counting Gurney, but Gurney was a defensive problem up the middle and our attempts to hide him at third base in times of Maldonado absences had also not exactly been a riot. He lacked range here, arm there, and really needed to play first base perhaps, but where do you put Bryce Toohey, Home Run King? We were not exactly short on corner outfielders…

+++

October 19 – Rebels CL Jesse Beggs is forced into retirement by his torn labrum. The 29-year-old had a 6-year career with two Reliever of the Year titles and a World Series ring in 2045. He pitched to a 28-25 record, 2.92 ERA, and had 185 saves.

+++

Yeom Soung, a Raccoon for the first three of his 11 ABL seasons after coming over from Korea, retired at age 41 on his own volition. He was also a 2-time Reliever of the Year (including in his rookie season!), and 9-time All Star. He went 52-50 with a 2.71 ERA and 329 saves, whiffing 778 in 754.1 innings and would surely be considered on the Hall of Fame ballot in a few years.

[Westheim]

Alex Adame was a weird player. The Crusaders shortstop was 25 years old, had multiple Gold Gloves, and had led the league in stealing once. Since coming into the league at age 18 he had alternated good and bad seasons at the plate. He’d hit either around .250 (which with no power made for a 70-ish OPS+) or around .300 – the odd years were the good ones; he had batted .244/.292/.319 in ’46 (and had missed almost 50 games), but what always remained for these sorts of players was the defense.

A Gold Glove shortstop of juicy age would allow the Raccoons to shift Matt Waters to second base and dispense with all the depressing personnel that had filtered in and out at the position in recent years. Now, Al Martell was under contract for 2047, but he covered three positions and was batting lefty (Adame was a right-handed batter), so there were some synergies.

Adame was an upcoming free agent and without much doubt one of the best free agency options that would be available. Technically, Salem’s Bob Mancini was a better hitter, but if we went in that direction we could stick Pat Gurney at second base every day and call it a win. Mancini’s defense was gruesome, and was projected to get yet more gruesomer.

At the same time we had a lot of money in Jesus Maldonado, who enjoyed daily ice baths even as October closed out after getting welted 26 times in the regular season and several more times in the playoffs, and it really looked like third base was the best position for him for the foreseeable future. Offensively, ’46 had even been a down year for him (.817 OPS compared to .936, .861, .894 the three years prior), but I appreciated how he dragged the team (with Herrera) through the CLCS by his teeth, and then didn’t exactly shut up in the World Series either (although it “only” worked out to .300 with 5 RBI and no extra-base hits). At 32, he was definitely still a biter, had a shot at the Hall of Fame, and we’d still have a lot of him – since he was signed through 2052 to one of the richest deals in league history, we’d even still have a lot of him when he’d be old and gray…

So the Raccoons were in the market for a middle infielder for sure, even if Pat Gurney continued to play luxury bench dressing for a shot at more rings. We tried to work something out there – also with Derek Baskins. The only meaningful prospect close to the majors (say, next year), was outfielder Ken Mills, and all agreed that he could use regular at-bats in AAA to begin the year. “Prospect” was probably a stretch for Mills – he was going to be 26 in June.

But even when we had that routinely rich farm for most of the last decade – it had always been pitchers being the headliners. Matt Waters, a #5 prospect, aside, the most sustainable thing to come through the ranks in terms of position players recently had been, uh… Ruben Gonzalez? And he had two cups of coffee and one season on the short end of a platoon with Tony Morales for a career 92 OPS+. Then again, he had a World Series MVP button, however that had happened, and made sure everybody knew about it. He wasn’t the first Critter to plaster over middling hitting performances at a younger age with one of those (glances back over to Maldonado in the ice bath, Maldo staring upwards with his snout wide open and the tongue hanging out).

The rich farm was over by the way. We had harvested most of what was to harvest for the moment, although there were still some pitching options that were nothing to sneeze at. But for an early forecast at the farm rankings: we entered 2046 with seven ranked prospects, traded two of them, and one of them won Game 6 of the World Series to leave a mark – and so far our 2046 draft looked rather poor.

So yeah, give me more draft picks to fling away. The Raccoons would not pursue Ryan Person any further, not because of injury, but because of all the irritations before the injury, and a supplemental round pick seemed like nice compensation for damages. With Wheats, Merino, Wolinsky (grown through that farm system) as well as Okuda (Japanese import, but technically the fourth starter that knew no other ABL team from the inside) and Jackson (once acquired from the Indians) we still had a full rotation. Jackson was still under contract through 2048 for a rather cheap $1.5M a year – that had been the frontloaded contract that had paid him additional coins in 2043-44 when the Raccoons had even more rookies floating around and dosh left over.

Not everything in late October went smooth for the Raccoons, however. I tried to talk Wheats into a long-term extension, but he just wanted arbitration to get over with for the time being. He was under team control through 2048, but I’d keep nagging him in ’47 for sure.

Both our lefty imports during the season, Mike Lynn and Aaron Curl, were last-time-eligible for arbitration. I tried to get both of them to sign multi-year extensions, but had no luck. They looked hellbent on trying free agency next winter, or at least have more leverage then.

The one that DID want to sign a long-term deal was Matt Waters. The sneaky bugger, being eligible for arbitration for the first time, seriously drew up a 10-year contract with multiple options and incentives.

…which was something to actually consider. The total contract value of Waters’ proposal was “only” $17.16M – a decent amount to make in an ABL career, which you’d then supplement with shoe deals and instant pasta spots on cable. The last two years were team options and he’d never make more than $2M at any point over the contract. It could be a big steal for a long time! …or a watery grave for lots and lots of treasure chests of Nick Valdes’ dosh if he went the way of Arturo Carreno, who was his middle infield playmate when Waters first came up to the majors.

Then again, that was Nick Valdes’ dosh… and not my main concern.

+++

October 22 – The Condors acquire C/1B Timóteo Clemente (.263, 147 HR, 663 RBI) from the Warriors in exchange for two prospects.

+++

Okuda and Wheats were the first to sign deals out of the arbitration group. Both were only for 2047. Okuda would make $1.25M, Wheats $1.5M.

Waters signed his $17.16M retirement plan at the end of October.

All the other negotiations were still going on as of the end of awards season.

+++

2047 ABL AWARDS

Players of the Year: DAL OF Tylor Cecil (.361, 22 HR, 115 RBI) and VAN RF Jerry Outram (.333, 28 HR, 98 RBI)
Pitchers of the Year: DEN SP Gary Perrone (22-6, 2.51 ERA) and OCT SP Juan Ramos (18-7, 2.71 ERA)
Rookies of the Year: SAL C Jose Ortiz (.268, 14 HR, 70 RBI) and TIJ 3B/SS Alex Lopez (.300, 6 HR, 65 RBI)
Relievers of the Year: CIN CL Josh Livingston (7-5, 2.39 ERA, 40 SV) and IND SP Tommy Gardner (5-6, 2.11 ERA, 34 SV)
Platinum Sticks (FL): P SFW Mark Elzinga – C PIT Giampaolo Petroni – 1B CIN Alvin Zuazo – 2B DEN Ivan Villa – 3B SAL Ted Del Vecchio – SS PIT Ed Soberanes – LF SFW Mario Villa – CF DAL Tylor Cecil – RF SAC Nate Culp
Platinum Sticks (CL): P MIL Sergio Piedra – C SFB Sean Suggs – 1B POR Bryce Toohey – 2B SFB Sergio Quiroz – 3B POR Jesus Maldonado – SS OCT Ryan Cox – LF CHA Joe Besaw – CF VAN Jerry Outram – RF OCT Juan Benavides
Gold Gloves (FL): P SFW Rich Guzman – C RIC Kyle Duncan – 1B NAS Alejandro Ramos – 2B DEN Ivan Villa – 3B NAS Brad Critzer – SS LAP David Reid – LF TOP Dave Lee – CF DAL Tylor Cecil – RF RIC Chris Morris
Gold Gloves (CL): P BOS Ricky Contreras – C BOS Dan Whitley – 1B MIL Aaron Brayboy – 2B OCT Jonathan Ban – 3B BOS Doug Richardson – SS VAN Rick Price – LF MIL Bill Reeves – CF IND Nelson Galvan – RF CHA Archie Turley

Actually the first Platinum Stick for Maldo, who was certainly hurt in the competition in his earlier years for moving from position to position A LOT during the season.

Ruben Gonzalez finished third in the rookie category (behind Eddy Luna), while Wolinsky probably came up a little too late to get enough weight behind a candidacy, Game 6 or not.

The Gold Sox closed out the top 3 in Pitcher of the Year voting in the FL. No Critter scored enough points to get close enough.

[Westheim]

With awards done, the salary arbitration date and free agency deadline were zooming up and the Raccoons had yet to get deals done with Derek Baskins and Pat Gurney for extensions.

Not that we were idle apart from that. In early November we swung a deal for another left-handed reliever with the Rebels, acquiring Jake Bonnie, almost 32, who was on a pretty luxurious contract for a reliever with some control problems (making $1.74M a year through 2048), but in return we gave up next to nothing and we actually gained enough flexibility to make a change at the tall end of the bullpen, where Mike Lynn would now be the go-to guy in the ninth inning rather than Josh Rella, who had pitched a few great seasons, but had faltered way too often last year. Those converted infielders…!

+++

November 4 – The Raccoons trade for the Rebels’ MR Jake Bonnie (40-49, 3.68 ERA, 84 SV), parting with 29-year-old AAA 2B Ryohei Hiraoka.
November 12 – The Canadiens trade 1B Ricardo Bejarano (.244, 6 HR, 45 RBI) to the Knights for 3B Jose Morales (.243, 9 HR, 51 RBI).

+++

When news of a contract extension came, it was with Nelson Moreno, who had been in the shadow of the Baskins/Gurney negotiations before signing a 4-year, $5.96M deal (flat) in early November. The last year was a player option to allow him into free agency again at age 30, and I think deep down he really wanted to still be a starter, although his success as a starter had been, uh, “limited”, and he was much more valuable as a deadly setup piece. His ERA in the last four years (191 games, including a single start) was 2.23, while his career ERA was still bloated to 3.83 from those trying years in the rotation in the early 40s.

The clock ticked down, but three days from the arbitration hearings the Raccoons could finally make big announcements: yes, we resigned them all!!

The news included both the remaining arbitration cases that received offers and the two luxury bench pieces.

Pat Gurney signed a 3-yr, $5.55M extension – flat – with a player option for the third year, which was a non-negotiable item for him. Derek Baskins preferred a shorter deal altogether, signing a 2-yr, $4.2M contract. These great (if expensive) news were in addition to the 1-year extensions with Mike Lynn ($1.3M), Aaron Curl ($725k), and Arturo Carreno ($500k) that avoided arbitration with the players. The remaining arbitration cases – Zack Kelly and Van Anderson – would not be tendered an offer, same as free agents Aaron Hickey, Chuck Jones (welp), and Todd Lush.

Ryan Person was of course offered arbitration for the attached draft pick. Person refused arbitration, however, and became a free agent.

After free agency passed, the Raccoons made a few reassignments immediately for mainly pitchers that would not make the Opening Day roster anyway, including Jeremy Baker, Jeremy Chaney, Sean Marucci (the poor sod), and Kevin Hitchcock, all of whom were sent back to AAA right away. That left a pitching staff of exactly 12 people on the not-so-active roster, our 2048 rotation of Wheats, Merino, Jackson, Okuda, and Wolinsky, as well as seven relievers in Lynn, Moreno, Rella, Bonnie, Porter, Ibold, and Curl. That was some staff!

It was even a young staff – Jackson was 34, but apart from that only Bonnie (almost 32), Okuda (31), and Curl (31 by Opening Day) had hit the big three-oh, although Rella and Lynn would turn 30 in 2047.

The same could not be said for the position player corps. The Raccoons were committing to an aging core to squeeze out another ring or maybe even two. The only players realistically hopeful of making the Opening Day roster that would be under 30 in April were Ruben Gonzalez (25), Pat Gurney (then 29), Matt Waters (then 26), and Gene Pellicano (27, and a candidate for an upgrade). Everybody else was over 30, and while only Manny Fernandez had really reached the “for his age, he’s still moving well” stage (he would be 37 on Opening Day), two or three years from now we’d have a geriatric roster with big contracts still to be paid off. Everybody probably still remembers the 2020s, when the Raccoons also won two rings in three years with a roster that was expected to at least compete for another two years or so, but instead crashed right away and didn’t recover for half a decade. (Of course, Alex Adame, if the Raccoons went after him successfully, would fall into the youth category.)

Money for Adame was certainly there – the generous $4.5M budget extension was only barely touched at the beginning of the offseason. The departed free agents had made some $5M between them, and despite the extensions to Baskins and Gurney and Moreno, we were now still flush with about $3.8M to throw around (plus $1,242,000 in cash). That should buy a defensive shortstop!

Apart from that the bench was certainly still improvable. The second catcher, Gurney, Baskins/Manny (flavor of the day) were givens, but emotionally I was not exactly married to both Pellicano and Martell, although the latter offered nice infield coverage with good defense (which wasn’t something to be said lightly about Pat Gurney, who was *really* a first baseman moonlighting in all possible positions for us…) Martell’s versatility, covering even Maldo at third base, was really his lifeline, because should be indeed add Adame, Martell would work even better as a lefty hitter in that middle infield group. It’s no secret that I love my super utilities, but the only such player on the roster was really Maldo, and he hadn’t played the outfield all year. Toohey was an occasional guest in the corner outfield positions, and Gurney played those too, but was *really* a first baseman at heart. There was no “oh we’ll pop Derek Baskins at third while Maldo recovers from his ingrown claw and near-fatal sepsis”… the most ready makeshift infielders were probably Herrera and Mercado, but the former had better hunting grounds, and the latter had never appeared in the infield professionally.

Looks like it will remain interesting in Portland…!

[Westheim]

November 20 – The Cyclones acquire SP Mackenzie O’Toole (28-29, 4.40 ERA) and a #5 prospect SP Jameson Monk from the Loggers for OF/1B Celio Umbreiro (.223, 6 HR, 180 RBI).
November 21 – The Raccoons announce the addition of former Crusaders SS Alex Adame (.278, 27 HR, 339 RBI) on a 5-yr, $8.3M contract.
November 22 – Vancouver jumps on the chance to sign ex-SAL 2B/LF/RF/1B Bob Mancini (.284, 118 HR, 644 RBI). The 31-year-old will make $10.56M over four years.
November 23 – The Rebels acquire 31-yr old INF Cody St. Peter (.256, 87 HR, 428 RBI) from the Capitals, along with $1.25M in cash, for 33-yr old LF/RF Paul Moore (.263, 8 HR, 42 RBI).
November 23 – The Condors acquire SS/1B Angel Quintana (.231, 29 HR, 226 RBI) from the Aces for two prospects, including #42 1B Dave Baumgardner.
November 25 – In another deal, the Condors pick up INF/LF/CF Shintaro Watanabe (.251, 9 HR, 92 RBI) and a prospect from the Falcons for 1B Ron Gibbs (.263, 27 HR, 154 RBI).
November 28 – Pittsburgh snatches ex-LAP SP Joe Feltman (124-140, 4.18 ERA). The 35-year-old right-hander signs for two years and $5.6M.
November 28 – The Pacifics console themselves with former Bayhawks SP Noe Candeloro (64-79, 4.22 ERA, 1 SV), who signs for $4.26M and three years.
November 29 – The Wolves send reliever Cesar Suarez (5-13, 3.96 ERA, 1 SV) and cash to the Rebels for a prospect.
December 1 – Rule 5 Draft: 20 players are selected over two rounds. The Raccoons lose 27-year-old C Rich Rabe to the Titans.
December 2 – The Canadiens add a pair of free agents in ex-ATL 1B Chris Delagrange (.267, 282 HR, 1,147 RBI), who will win $8M’s worth of bread over two years, as well as former Cyclones reliever Pedro de Leon (30-17, 3.11 ERA, 54 SV), who signs for three years and $3.6M.
December 2 – For $9.68M over two years, the Gold Sox pick up former Crusaders catcher Fernando Alba (.317, 128 HR, 532 RBI).
December 2 – The Rebels acquire 1B Willie Hernandez (.269, 37 HR, 112 RBI), who won the FL home run title in his first full season at age 26, for two prospects to be sent to the Pacifics.
December 2 – Topeka and Nashville strike a deal that sends SP Jeremy Ray (19-18, 5.16 ERA) to the Buffaloes for two prospects to be received by the Blue Sox.
December 3 – The Condors keep adding aggressively, acquiring SP Blake Sansone (11-10, 4.11 ERA) from the Knights for two prospects, including #27 prospect 2B/RF/LF/3B Sam Turner.
December 3 – The Crusaders sign ex-SFB Carlos Cortes (.293, 208 HR, 1,025 RBI) to a 3-year deal. The 36-year-old will earn $8.52M over the length of the contract.
December 3 – First-year relievers are swapped, with the Scorpions getting 25-year-old MR Armando Colmenarez (1-1, 3.72 ERA, 3 SV) from the Indians for 24-year-old Bobby Nelson (0-0, 1.69 ERA).
December 4 – C Kyle Templeton (.220, 11 HR, 52 RBI) is traded from the Pacifics to the Crusaders for two prospects.
December 5 – Another catcher heads to Charlotte, which is where the Gold Sox trade C Pacio Torreo (.273, 100 HR, 529 RBI) along with cash for MR Jose Santamaria (7-8, 4.96 ERA, 3 SV) and a prospect.
December 6 – The Gold Sox keep spinning the wheel, dealing super utility Eric Miller (.242, 18 HR, 95 RBI) to the Buffaloes for MR Brian Johnson (23-18, 3.73 ERA, 40 SV) and a prospect.

+++

We got our shopping one early this year! Well, no guarantees that a crazy deal won’t be swung from here on out. There were some coins left over in the coffers after all and the last thing I wanted was Nick Valdes getting any of it back.

Other former Raccoons with new places of employment? Tony Romero signed with the damn Elks, regrettably, for $570k; Aaron Hickey takes his ring to Nashville for $2.64M over two years;

Really not much else going on. I am trying to trim some of the glut at second base, but none of the guys has any trade value to speak of.

But at least there’s a new Hall of Fame ballot out. It’s not very sizeable, but maybe we can recognize some of the faces…

[Westheim]

I am not gonna lie – nothing happened in Portland for the month after the winter meetings. There were some low-key talks with some teams about shipping out this or that surplus piece, but nobody would part with a prospect worth your or my breath for any of the candidates and no deal was made.

At least the Agitator complained about the demise of the dynasty when the Baybirds signed Ryan Person in late December. Yeah, that guy totally pitched us to a championship…

+++

December 13 – The Miners add 37-year-old ex-MIL SP Sergio Piedra (128-106, 3.57 ERA, 4 SV) on a 2-yr, $8.24M contract.
December 13 – The Wolves go out and pay $5.28M over two years to ex-OCT/NYC LF/RF Ethan Moore (.258, 121 HR, 606 RBI).
December 14 – Dallas snatches former Gold Sox SP Roberto Pruneda (202-148, 3.56 ERA). The 37-year-old will earn $11.4M in two years, making him the second-most-richly paid player on a per-annum basis in the league behind the Buffos’ Felix Marquez ($6.1M/year).
December 18 – The Thunder ink 26-yr old ex-NAS/ATL CF/RF Jim Price (.277, 35 HR, 355 RBI) to a 5-yr, $17.4M contract.
December 24 – The Gold Sox trade for the Warriors’ SP Jose Rodriguez (13-9, 5.03 ERA). The 25-year-old lefty costs them two prospects, including #30 SS Carmen Barriento.
December 26 – Vancouver signs Cyclones free agent SP Bill McMichael (73-54, 3.92 ERA) to a 6-year, $34.2M contract.
December 27 – Ex-Wolf INF/RF Ted Del Vecchio (.269, 103 HR, 680 RBI) joins the Bayhawks on their 3-yr, $9.6M offer.
December 30 – The Bayhawks further add former Raccoon SP Ryan Person (98-80, 3.62 ERA) for two years and $10.4M. The Raccoons receive a supplemental round draft pick as compensation.
January 1 – San Francisco continues to throw money around with a 3-yr, $8.16M deal for former Blue Sox CL Ricardo Ordas (97-111, 3.97 ERA, 174 SV).
January 4 – It’s a one team show: the Bayhawks sign ex-VAN MR Sebastien Parham (48-37, 3.80 ERA, 132 SV) for three years and $5.28M.
January 6 – The Crusaders acquire 1B Shuta Yamamoto (.245, 33 HR, 175 RBI) and a prospect from the Buffaloes for 3B/2B Vittorio Riario (.258, 13 HR, 135 RBI).

+++

2047 HALL OF FAME VOTING

Despite the rather short ballot, the Hall of Fame gained a new member in 2047, with catcher Danny Zarate elected as a member of the Condors. The Dominican backstop had an 18-year career in the major leagues, the first half of which was spent with the Condors before various stops in the Federal League. A true workhorse behind the plate, Zarate started up to 144 games in a season, and 130 or more for all but one season from age 24 to 36. He was an All Star eight times and won three Platinum Sticks as well as the 2029 World Series with the Condors. Despite not being a prolific power hitter (he topped 14 home runs only three times) or a high-average batter (hitting over .300 just once), Zarate upped his offensive threat with a keen eye that made him a persistent .270/.400/.400 hitter. Unusually, he was also a prolific base stealer, swiping as many as 33 in a season and 344 for his career, for which he hit .261/.389/.397 with 1,985 hits, 188 HR, and 964 RBI.

Zarate is now the last player in the Hall of Fame, alphabetically, robbing Milwaukee’s Robbie Wills of the distinction.

Full results:

TIJ C Danny Zarate – 1st – 75.4 – INDUCTED
LAP CF Justin Fowler – 2nd – 21.3
TOP SP David Elliott – 1st – 20.7
TIJ SP Jeff Little – 5th – 18.0
??? SP Michael Frank – 1st – 16.6
MIL SP Chris Sinkhorn – 9th – 10.4
??? CL Jermaine Campbell – 1st – 8.0
PIT C J.J. Henley – 7th – 7.7
DEN CF Abel Madsen – 1st – 6.8
RIC CL Seth Odum – 1st – 5.6
??? SP Francisco Colmenarez – 1st – 5.3
??? C Mike Burgess – 4th – 5.0
??? RF Oscar Mendoza – 1st – 4.4 – DROPPED

[Westheim]

Nope, the Raccoons still aren’t doing ******* anything! They’re just sitting on their roster, most of which won two titles and three pennants in the last three seasons, and think it’s gonna be enough this time!

The only additions so far in 2047 were two minor leaguers that were added in February. Apart from that, it’s a wasteland and the Agitator decries the sleepiness of the front office while the bedeviled Canadiens were gearing up (eh!) and the Indians had almost whooped the Critters last year to begin with (almost, by a dozen games), and, yes, general management was just incompetent at managing in general!

+++

January 15 – 27-year-old former Knights SS Jorge Gonzalez (.292, 12 HR, 288 RBI) receives a 5-year, $14.6M contract from the Pacifics.
January 21 – The Indians send SP Luis Anzaldo (17-19, 4.51 ERA) to the Warriors for a prospect.
January 22 – Atlanta acquires 1B/LF/RF Arnout van der Zanden (.276, 14 HR, 199 RBI) and a prospect from the Canadiens for SP David Farris (79-64, 3.46 ERA), who missed most of last season with injury.
January 30 – The Miners pick up ex-MIL 1B/RF/LF Aaron Brayboy (.301, 108 HR, 499 RBI) on a 5-yr, $23.72M deal.
February 4 – Vancouver signs 28-yr old ex-DEN MR Eddie Sotelo (21-12, 4.07 ERA, 35 SV), who missed all of 2046 with a torn labrum, to a 3-yr, $4.2M contract.
February 5 – The Thunder bring former Pacific LF/CF Jayden Lockwood (.301, 140 HR, 681 RBI) to Oklahoma City on a 5-yr, $8.4M deal.
February 15 – The Gold Sox ink 35-yr old right-handed SP Josh Vercher (122-137, 4.08 ERA) for two years and $5.84M. Vercher pitched with the Rebels in ’46.

+++

Otherwise, ex-Critter (twice!) Tony Hunter signed with the Miners for $388k; the same amount won the Loggers a Damon DeOrio;

The Loggers…!

[Westheim]

(anxiously watches as Dr. Padilla kneels next to the patient and listens for signs of life with his stethoscope) – And we can’t do anything anymore, Dr. Padilla? – No heartbeat, no nothing? – Oh, how cruel is the world! (sheds a tear)

(stubbornly refuses to let go of the broken-off backrest of his heavy black leather GM swivel chair) Leave me alone with it for a moment, Maud, I can’t let go yet…! – I have to say farewell! – Well, I’ve had it since 1998, and it’s always been good to me!

And that was about the most drama that befell the Raccoons in the last few weeks running up to the new season, another one in which they’d try to defend a World Series title, something they had managed only once in their existence, and that was even longer ago than the deceased chair had been in service.

Three with one core of players was also still the goal – to have a real, actual dynasty (although nobody really disputed the prowess of the early-90s team, nobody ever really had assigned dynasty status to the late-20s outfit that came apart just a bit too quickly). The Mannys, the Maldos, the Morenos, the Tooheys, the Baskinses, the Wheatleys, the Okudas, and the Jacksons – they all still had work to do.

In fact, the full list of players that had received both of our two recent rings (sometimes for only small contributions like Victor Merino in 2044, when he started just five games) and were still with the team was quite long: Wheatley, Okuda, Jackson, Merino, Rella, Moreno, Porter, Ibold, Gonzalez, Toohey, Maldo, Waters, Baskins, Pellicano, and – not least of all for sure – old man Manny; 15 players in total. None of the current minor leaguers had gotten a ring twice, although some had one (Carreno in ’44, Marucci and Hitchcock in ’46 f.e.)

+++

February 28 – The Gold Sox add more pitching with 34-year-old lefty SP Josh Brown (119-78, 3.34 ERA), who signs a 2-yr, $10.8M contract. Brown pitched for the Aces and Thunder in 2046 and was the CL ERA leader with a 2.69 mark.
March 10 – The Raccoons sign 24-year-old minor league free agent SP Carlton Harman (no stats) to a $325k contract.
March 31 – On the eve of the new season, the Cyclones sign ex-LAP SP Lachlan Clarke (70-56, 4.05 ERA) to a 2-yr, $5.92M contract.

+++

The right-handed Harman is a former top 20 prospect (although it’s been a while) that looks major league-serviceable if not for ill control. He’ll be stuck in AAA once the season begins (options are available) as additional depth. He absolutely wouldn’t sign a minor league deal and I didn’t want him on a minor league deal with a major league option, and what the heck, we still had about $2M of Nick Valdes’ dosh floating around.

Minus $2,595 for this sleek new black leather GM swivel chair I have thrown an eye on.

We were also after a Taiwanese free agent lefty reliever in the end, 27-yr old Joy-shan Kuo, but he kept asking for more money, and I learned from Cristiano Carmona that we had equally-talented minor leaguers already that were pitching for a pittance, so we eventually gave up on the guy at an asking price of $720k.

Other Raccoons with new employment? Sal Ayala took $414k from the Stars; Damian Salazar will be kept fed by the Wolves for $284k; the Pacifics signed Jon Craig for $384k;

[Westheim]

2047 PORTLAND RACCOONS – Opening Day Roster (first set in parenthesis shows 2046 stats, second set career stats; players with an * are off season acquisitions):

SP Jason Wheatley, 26, B:R, T:R (17-4, 3.16 ERA | 55-34, 3.36 ERA) – 2045 Pitcher of the Year! Wheats roared from #5 starter in April of 2045 to the highest honor the CL had to dole out to pitchers (at least regularly), doing it with a perfectly balanced approach, keeping things on the ground and walks to a minimum (2.3 BB/9 last season). He has five pitches, some very good, and the Opening Day Curse gave him a very slow start in 2046 anyway, although he finished with 13 straight winning decisions – his finger came apart two starts from the end of the regular season, so he missed the playoffs, but will get another go at Opening Day drama anyway.
SP Victor Merino, 25, B:L, T:L (15-9, 2.81 ERA | 30-16, 2.89 ERA) – this lefty groundballer came a bit out of nowhere after so-so cups of coffee the prior two seasons. More of a control pitcher, lacking the big stuff for high strikeout totals, but at least that mixes well with the Raccoons’ plus infield defense. Too bad he has a habit of hitting the DL when things get interesting, which happened in both 2045 and 2046, latterly in Game 5 of the CLCS.
SP Jake Jackson, 34, B:R, T:R (15-12, 3.35 ERA | 95-97, 3.71 ERA) – groundballer with three good pitches, including a 95mph fastball, who came back from a torn rotator cuff in 2045 with the lowest HR/9 rate in the league (6 bombs in 207 innings).
SP Sadaharu Okuda, 31, B:L, T:L (9-12, 4.20 ERA | 35-31, 3.88 ERA) – Japanese import signed on the cheap for 2044 and throwing three pitches, including a 92mph fastball and a neat curve. He can be really on and he can be really off, and sometimes be alternatingly one or the other from start to start. Very good control, but gave up 21 bombs for the second year in a row and failed to pitch 200 innings for the first time in the ABL.
SP Bubba Wolinsky, 24, B:L, T:L (7-4, 3.09 ERA | 7-4, 3.09 ERA) – the Coons’ #12 pick from 2041 swooped in when Ryan Person went down midway through the season and pitched extremely respectably, although the walks were quite up there. On the other paw, he allowed only two homers in 90 innings, then went on to win the title clincher in the World Series (barely). Can’t send this kid back to St. Pete…!

MR Aaron Curl, 31, B:L, T:L (7-1, 1.47 ERA, 1 SV | 29-18, 2.72 ERA, 18 SV) – acquired from the Bayhawks at the deadline, Curl replaced the disappeared-to-AAA lefty pitchers adequately and without causing complaints. Not much stuff, but he knows how to feed the balls to the defense.
MR Jake Bonnie *, 32, B:L, T:L (5-10, 4.56 ERA, 19 SV | 40-49, 3.68 ERA, 84 SV) – groundballer picked up from the Rebels that has been tried as a closer by three different teams over his 9-year career, and always with rather mixed results; the Raccoons see him more as a lefty specialist, though not as strictly as some other lefty specialists of the past (Chuck Jones most recently).
MR Bob Ibold, 26, B:L, T:R (6-1, 3.29 ERA, 2 SV | 10-2, 3.75 ERA, 3 SV) – very competent young right-hander that was cooked for dinner in his 2043 cup of coffee, but was only 22 then. 93mph heater, curve, and some natural sink to that fastball that keeps the infielders busy; could also be a spot starter with a crummy changeup to at least keep it interesting for the hitters (and he made three starts in AAA as recently as ‘45).
MR Preston Porter, 25, B:R, T:R (1-1, 2.71 ERA | 8-3, 2.68 ERA) – keeps it on the ground and has a very nice curve; also exceptional control – he walked *three* batters in 28.2 innings in the majors in ’44, and while that number went up to a more reasonable 2.1/9 in ’45 and 2.0/9 in ‘46, he is still nothing to be concerned about. Still working on upping those strikeout totals…
SU Nelson Moreno, 28, B:R, T:R (3-1, 1.81 ERA, 7 SV | 42-40, 3.83 ERA, 11 SV) – that starting thing never worked out for Nelson Moreno, but in his third full season as a setup reliever he continued to be sturdy and to quell threat after threat. An alternative to Mike Lynn in the ninth inning for sure.
SU Josh Rella, 30, B:R, T:R (7-5, 3.44 ERA, 29 SV | 20-14, 3.06 ERA, 174 SV) – after a 2043 campaign in which he tied for the most saves in the CL in ’43 and then went 7-for-7 in saves in our 8-0 postseason sweep the year after, Rella hit a rough patch with some blowouts in 2045 and continued on that path in 2046. Was often supplanted by Lynn and Moreno late in the season and also the playoffs. Proves that you CAN draft an infielder in the fourth round to become your closer for a while, but not forever.
CL Mike Lynn, 29, B:L, T:L (7-6, 2.22 ERA, 34 SV | 23-21, 2.84 ERA, 73 SV) – picked up in July from the Crusaders to shore up the bullpen, his steady outings and his consistent 11+ K/9 have won him the closer’s job for the 2047 season. We are patiently waiting for the baseball gods to poke holes into this decision. If anything is not A+ about him, it’s his control and his refusal to commit to a longer deal with us this offseason.

C Tony Morales, 32, B:L, T:R (.294, 15 HR, 64 RBI | .272, 101 HR, 536 RBI) – Morales appeared grandly rejuvenated in his return to Portland after being handed from team to team since leaving Portland as free agent after 2041. In fact, his .832 OPS was the best of his career in a season in which he appeared in at least half the games. Threat with the stick, but not on the basepaths, being one of the worst runners in the league, with 1,223 career games and zero stolen base attempts.
C/1B Ruben Gonzalez, 25, B:R, T:R (.256, 9 HR, 29 RBI | .232, 9 HR, 38 RBI) – pretty good defense and a fine throwing arm, and he hit for a .781 OPS and stole MVP honors in the World Series in his first full season in the majors. Amazing what you can get for $18k in the July IFA slave boy market …! Might take some more playing time from Tony Morales this year, depending on both’s form at any given time.

RF/LF/1B Bryce Toohey, 31, B:R, T:R (.264, 30 HR, 101 RBI | .271, 131 HR, 476 RBI) – steady defensive rightfielder that continued a power outburst the last two seasons at ages 27/28 before he was acquired from the Condors and won his first home run title in 2046. Moved to first base more or less permanently last year, too, although not for his own defensive shortcomings – we just had too many quality outfielders that needed cramming into the lineup.
SS/2B Matt Waters, 26, B:S, T:R (.246, 13 HR, 58 RBI | .246, 49 HR, 197 RBI) – good defensive shortstop that that can both hit 20 homers and steal 20 (and probably 30 bases) in a season, but will be moved to second base with the arrival of Alex Adame, which should be an even better defensive position for him. He is definitely a keeper, and was signed to a long-term extension already.
SS Alex Adame *, 25, B:R, T:R (.244, 2 HR, 47 RBI | .278, 27 HR, 339 RBI) – twice a Gold Glover at short, Alex Adame was signed as free agent at the tender age of 25, having made his debut with the Crusaders at 18. He has a habit of alternating weak offensive seasons with pretty impressive runs at the .300 mark – for bookkeeping purposes: 2047 would be a good offensive year for him…!
1B/3B/RF/LF/SS Jesus Maldonado, 33, B:R, T:R (.279, 22 HR, 97 RBI | .296, 143 HR, 783 RBI) – A World Series winner (twice!) and a World Series MVP (not in the same season, though), Maldo holds the biggest contract ever doled out by the team ($38.5M over 7 years, or roughly half the annual GDP of his home country of Venezuela). Year One of the big deal was mostly a success (he hit for a 130 OPS+ anyway), and he took the Platinum Stick at third base despite a late-season slump that ruined a shot at a fourth straight .300 season. The defensive versatility of his younger years has suffered as he hit the wrong side of 30, and while he can still fill holes in emergencies, he is best confined to the corners at this stage of his career.
1B/RF/LF/2B Pat Gurney, 29, B:L, T:R (.299, 13 HR, 44 RBI | .283, 83 HR, 388 RBI) – one of the best players in either league that does not have a starting spot in sight, Gurney is a surprisingly speedy corner guy that figures to get most of his playing time against right-handed pitching. Also has double-digit power when employed as a regular. Was tried some at third base during Maldonado absences last year, but the reviews were stark.
2B/3B/SS Al Martell, 31, B:L, T:R (.251, 5 HR, 39 RBI | .258, 55 HR, 395 RBI) – versatile infielder with solid defense and a lefty stick that was a Thunder regular at 21, then fell by the wayside by age 26. Picked up on the cheap two years ago and has since gotten regular playing time (300+ at-bats per year at least) mostly in a platoon at second and as injury replacement. Currently slotted in as pure backup infielder.

LF/CF Derek Baskins, 31, B:L, T:R (.284, 7 HR, 44 RBI | .297, 55 HR, 519 RBI) – strong defender, quick enough to steal a bunch of bases, and hit .300 quite a few times for the Buffos (in qualifying seasons) and Raccoons (not). Unexpectedly became the leadoff guy we were searching for on our infield when he hit .343/.385/.456 in 2045, but slid in ’46 and the leadoff spot somehow landed with Nelson Mercado, but he was still signed to a new 2-year deal rather than letting him escape via free agency. The problem with him? Injuries. He played only 334 games as a Coon in three seasons, after a very high attendance record (44 games missed in FIVE years) with the Buffos.
CF Armando Herrera, 33, B:R, T:R (.332, 1 HR, 48 RBI | .314, 26 HR, 638 RBI) – the Raccoons’ eye-wateringly expensive star acquisition won eight Gold Gloves in nine seasons with the Wolves, and while he kept that string going in 2045, he didn’t win the award last season. At least he challenged for the batting title (he won one in the FL) and along with Maldo dragged the team through the playoffs by his teeth. Signed for four more years so we might want to look into starting to give him semi-regular off days to conserve his body.
RF/CF/LF Nelson Mercado, 31, B:L, T:L (.282, 8 HR, 36 RBI | .266, 55 HR, 278 RBI) – started his first Portland season on the far end of the bench after being acquired from the Gold Sox, but by the middle of the year had taken over the otherwise deserted leadoff spot with a slash line of .282/.382/.389, drawing 60 walks in just 438 PA to bolster his on-base presence. He will have that job from day one in 2047. Is that a gray hair in your beard, Nelson?
LF/RF Manny Fernandez, 37, B:L, T:L (.232, 8 HR, 39 RBI | .282, 189 HR, 1,060 RBI) – former #5 pick and 2036 Player of the Year, and has won almost everything that there is to win in the ABL, Manny had a trying year in 2046, smitten with a terrible BABIP luck that never got better all year long. He did take the franchise RBI lead from Matt Nunley. The 2047 Manny is old, slow, and tired, and likes to sleep a lot between eating these days. Is unlikely to meet his vesting option for 2048, and who knows what happens with the then-15-year veteran after that. 2046 was the first time he failed to reach a 100 OPS+ in his career.
RF/LF/CF Gene Pellicano, 27, B:R, T:R (.283, 4 HR, 29 RBI | .280, 11 HR, 59 RBI) – good defensive outfielder that has mostly been used against left-handed pitching for his brief (162 games) career. He can hurt those, but he can’t do much with right-handers. Some speed and power, but not a permanent solution for an aspiring team.

On disabled list: Nobody.

Otherwise unavailable: Nobody.

Other roster movement:
SP Carlton Harman, 24, B:L, T:R (no stats) – optioned to AAA; righty groundballer with three pitches that was signed on a major league deal despite being a minor league free agent. Depth for the Alley Cats.
C Jimmy Dalton, 30, B:R, T:R (.250, 0 HR, 1 RBI | .225, 8 HR, 73 RBI) – waived and DFA’ed; signed as third-string catcher on the cheap last year, Dalton did some late-season injury subbing for Ruben Gonzalez, including in the CLCS.
2B John Castner, 26, B:R, T:R (.225, 0 HR, 17 RBI | .215, 0 HR, 18 RBI) – optioned to AAA; fine defensive second baseman that nevertheless can’t hit a lick – we have a whole basket of those, if you’re interested, but somehow Castner made it all the way into the World Series.
SS Josh Floyd, 25, B:R, T:R (.229, 1 HR, 14 RBI | .229, 1 HR, 14 RBI) – optioned to AAA; things to like about Josh Floyd include his sure paws and steady work at shortstop; unfortunately he hits like a defensive shortstop, but runs like a morbidly obese first baseman.
LF/RF/CF Ken Mills, 25, B:L, T:L (.239, 1 HR, 8 RBI | .239, 1 HR, 8 RBI) – optioned to AAA; kind of the best outfielder we’ve drafted in a while, but nevertheless performed in mediocre fashion in two cups of coffee last year. Can play all outfield spots decently well and has quite some speed, but didn’t get on base enough to show off the latter skill much.

Everybody not mentioned by now has already been waived, reassigned, or turned into schnitzel during the offseason.

OPENING DAY LINEUP:

Not much changes from our usual lineup from last year. Matt Waters changed positions and we have a different middle infielder hitting eighth, at least until he breaks out one of those .300 seasons.

Vs. RHP: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Morales – 2B Waters – LF Fernandez (Baskins) – SS Adame – P
(Vs. LHP: RF Pellicano (Mercado) – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – 2B Waters – SS Adame – LF Baskins (Fernandez) – P)

Derek Baskins might get more playing time than Manny Fernandez overall, but on Opening Day we’ll go with seniority – it’s not a beauty pageant, boys!

OFF SEASON CHANGES:

Three years, three pennants, two rings, and each time mid-90-something wins. The Raccoons have been fairly steady (in a good way) recently, and the offseason was clearly under that banner. We kept together what had worked well, and made punctual improvements were bitterly necessary (like the middle infield mess).

Of course, the Roman Empire stagnated before its downfall, too.

Our sort of lame offseason netted us +0.5 WAR according to BNN, 12th in the rankings.

Top 5: Canadiens (+9.1), Miners (+8.4), Condors (+5.1), Stars (+4.4), Gold Sox (+3.7)
Bottom 5: Indians (-4.8), Loggers (-5.2), Cyclones (-5.3), Pacifics (-7.5), Knights (-17.4 (sic!))

The missing division rivals hide in 10th (BOS, +0.6) and 15th (NYC, -1.2).

PREDICTION TIME:

Last year I thought of 95 wins and the division, missing by only one game, and didn’t dare to declare us chief contenders for the championship. And those Gold Sox still look dreadful, and I don’t know how we did it.

Of course the whole “this worked, and will keep working forever” was my idea, so I must remain convinced that the Raccoons will keep winning the division, and they will do so with mid-90s wins again. Maybe even 97 this time! We haven’t won more than 96 since 2028! Another title is *possible* because apparently the Gold Sox can fumble absolutely everything away despite winning unlimited games in the regular season.

PLAYER DEVELOPMENT:

After seven years of holding a top 3 spot in the prospect rankings, the Raccoons’ farm crashed from 3rd to 14th last season and sagged further to 16th this time around, although we actually increased our number of ranked prospects from seven to ten. However, last year we had four top 100 prospects, and that number is down to three.

Not all the ranked prospects from last year made it to the new list. #70 Bubba Wolinsky replaced Ryan Person and exceeded rookie limits, therefore losing eligibility, and #23 Tony Negrete and #196 Danny Bethea went to New York in the Mike Lynn trade (with Negrete losing eligibility on service time through various cups of coffee with Portland and the Crusaders over the years). In addition to that, last year’s #62 Rich Seymour is no longer ranked (but still with the organization).

37th (+130) – A SP Alejandro Gutierrez, 17 – 2045 international free agent signed by Raccoons
41st (+7) – AA SP Victor Salcido, 21 – 2042 international free agent signed by Raccoons
57th (new) – AA CL Polibio O’Higgins, 20 – 2043 international free agent signed by Raccoons
108th (new) – A SP Brett Lillis jr., 21 – 2044 first-round pick by Raccoons
123rd (new) – AAA C Matt Hardy, 24 – 2044 second-round pick by Raccoons
130th (new) – AA 1B/LF/RF Alan Puckeridge, 19 – 2044 international free agent signed by Raccoons
148th (new) – AAA SP Carlton Harman, 24 – 2040 supplemental-round pick by Stars, signed as free agent by Raccoons
154th (new) – AA 3B Seth Lyon, 22 – 2042 first-round pick by Raccoons
173rd (new) – A C Dario Medina, 20 – 2043 international free agent signed by Raccoons
186th (-72) – AAA SP Jeremy Baker, 25 – 2043 first-round pick by Raccoons

Finally, the top 10 overall prospects this year are:

1st (0) – TIJ AA LF/RF Tim Duncan, 20
2nd (0) – WAS AAA SP Cory Ellis, 21
3rd (+28) – MIL A SP Angelo Munoz, 20
4th (new) – IND ML Bobby Anderson, 23
5th (+7) – TOP ML C Brett Banks, 25

6th (new) – LAP AA SP Jim Reynolds, 19
7th (+4) – SAC AAA SP Oscar Juarez, 24
8th (new) – TIJ AA 3B Reed Ottinger, 22
9th (0) – RIC AA SP James Powell, 19
10th (+28) – SFW AAA OF Danny Ramirez, 23

For the new additions to the top 10, Munoz was a selection from Nicaragua in the 2043 IFA period by the Loggers, costing a $386k signing bonus. Anderson’s time on the list would probably be short – the #3 pick in the 2046 draft made the Indians’ Opening Day roster. Similar for Banks, who was drafted in 2042, but debuted with the Buffaloes last season, winning a spot on the roster this April. Reynolds made the list after being a #12 pick in ’46 despite going down to a torn UCL in his first season as a pro and likely missing most or all of 2047. Juarez was a scouting discovery from the Dominican that is in his eighth season in the Scorpions organization. Ottinger was the #6 pick in the 2046 draft. Ramirez was a $284k signing in the 2040 IFA period.

DAL LF/CF Juan del Toro (#3), PIT 2B/3B Alex Vasquez (#4), DAL SP Adam Middleton (#6), and LVA C Ray DeFrank (#10) all made their major league debuts (with limited success throughout) and exceeded rookie limits.

Last year’s #5, SP Jameson Monk, was traded from the Loggers to the Cyclones – and also dropped out of the top 200 altogether. Thunder OF prospect Victor Magana fell from #8 to #29.

But most bitter is the story of the #7 prospect from last year. 22-year-old Denver SP Luis Copa tore multiple finger tendons in April and despite multiple surgeries never recovered, retiring from baseball in the winter.

Next: first pitch.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (0-0) @ Indians (0-0) – April 1-3, 2047

Back into it! The Raccoons opened on the road and in the team that had gotten closest to them in 2046, but without being very close at the end. The Indians had taken the season series, 10-8, in 2046, with scoring against them having been something the Raccoons had found overly challenging, and while their leadoff man Andrew Russ had been a constant terror on the bases. Their overall lineup had held them back in ’46, and right now the biggest addition seemed to be #3 pick and #4 prospect Bobby Anderson at third base, who was making the jump from double-A.

Projected matchups:
Jason Wheatley (0-0) vs. Bill Drury (0-0)
Victor Merino (0-0) vs. Bill Nichol (0-0)
Jake Jackson (0-0) vs. Jason Palladino (0-0)

Only righty starters on the Indians’ Opening Day roster!

Game 1
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Morales – 2B Waters – LF Fernandez – SS Adame – P Wheatley
IND: SS Russ – 2B Tindle – RF B. Quinteros – LF D. Rivera – CF N. Galvan – 1B Kurtz – 3B B. Anderson – C Nunez – P Drury

Wheats drove in the Coons’ first runs in 2047, which was hopefully not a sign of things to come and pitchers having to do everything themselves; he hit a 2-run single with two outs in the second inning, getting home Tony Morales and Manny Fernandez that way. The runs were unearned thanks to Bobby Anderson’s first career error that put Manny on base; Morales had hit the team’s first base hit of the season, a single. First stolen base would be Herrera, opening the top 3rd with a single and then taking second base. Maldo also singled, as did Toohey, driving home Herrera to make it 3-0 before the inning ended with three weak outs. Wheats allowed one hit and struck out two the first time through the Indians’ order, then only rung up Drury the second time through, but was still strangulating the Indians to the tune of a 1-hitter. He struck out Bill Quinteros and Danny Rivera, the only lefty hitters on the job for Indy, in the seventh, then came to bat with Morales, Manny, and new addition Alex Adame on the bases in the eighth, and also two outs. We found him pitching too well to take out willy-nilly, and he continued to humiliate the Indians and Drury in particular with another single through the left side, driving in another two runs. Mercado flew out to center to strand a pair, but Wheats rolled with the 1-hitter into the bottom 9th until Andrew Russ, the certified pest, hit a 1-out single. Wheats struck out Joe Tindle, but his pitch count got over 100 now. He’d have to get Quinteros or get some soap and a shower – but walked him. The Raccoons went to Jake Bonnie, who laid a total egg in his Coons debut, conceding three runs on a Rivera triple (on an 0-2 pitch) and a Nelson Galvan double. Mike Lynn was called on, walked Ron Kurtz, and then somehow got Bobby Anderson, the winning run by now, to pop out to Matt Waters… 5-3 Raccoons. Wheatley 8.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, W (1-0) and 2-4, 4 RBI;

Inauspicious beginnings for our restructured bullpen…

Wheats’ 4 RBI constitute 80% of his 2046 output.

Game 2
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Morales – 2B Waters – LF Baskins – SS Adame – P Merino
IND: SS Russ – RF A. Mendez – CF B. Quinteros – LF D. Rivera – 2B Tindle – 1B Kurtz – 3B B. Anderson – C Nunez – P Nichol

Bobby Anderson hit a triple to left in the bottom 2nd and scored on Nick Nunez’ groundout to give the Arrowheads a 1-0 lead in the game, with Portland yet to put a paw on base. That honor would be up to Merino, who singled to center after Nichol retired eight straight, which filled me with foreboding about the playoff hitting drought having stretched all across the winter into the new season. Russ walked, stole second, and scored on Angel Mendez’ single in the bottom 3rd to extend Indy’s lead, which exploded to 6-0 in the fifth inning. Pitcher’s single, infield single, infield single, and with one run already across, a Danny Rivera 3-run homer to put the game to bed and even the series. The Raccoons couldn’t score even when Maldo and Toohey opened the seventh with singles, with three poor outs following rapidly, and Nichol’s shutout wasn’t broken up until Armando Herrera doubled home Mercado in the eighth inning. The Indians responded by creating another Josh Rella meltdown in the bottom 8th. He hit Rivera, allowed a 2-out RBI single to Anderson, then a homer to Nunez. 9-1 Indians.

Game 3
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – LF Baskins – SS Adame – 2B Martell – P Jackson
IND: SS Russ – 2B Tindle – RF B. Quinteros – LF D. Rivera – CF N. Galvan – 1B Kurtz – 3B B. Anderson – C Nunez – P Palladino

The meltdowns continued in the bottom 1st, with Russ, the ******* pest reaching on an infield single against Jackson, stealing second, and somehow thus short-circuiting the Raccoons righty, who walked the bases full, then gave up a sac fly to Galvan and RBI singles to Kurtz and Anderson before getting out of the inning. Jackson never stopped pitching behind in the count, and never stopped bleeding hits and walks, including two Palladino singles in the eight base knocks and four free passes he doled out in just four abortive innings. SOMEHOW the Indians didn’t strafe him for more than those three early runs.

The Raccoons were still dry on the board when Manny Fernandez batted for Jackson with nobody out in the fifth and Adame and Martell on base in a feint threat. Manny was the tying run, but popped out foul in a full count before Mercado grounded to second for a fielder’s choice. Herrera clipped an RBI single past Anderson, 3-1, the first Raccoons position player to reach multiple RBI for the season (…), and Maldo found a spot in left-center to drop an RBI double into. Toohey completed the comeback with a 2-run double out of reach of Gold Glover Danny Rivera, a score-flipper that put the Raccoons on top, 4-3 before Ruben Gonzalez flew out. Manny remained in the game over Mercado, putting Bob Ibold in the #1 hole in the hope he'd pitch two innings, but his spot came up in the top 6th after a Baskins single, a walk drawn by Martell, and with two outs. Gurney hit for Ibold, was nicked to fill the bases, and then Herrera poked at Palladino’s 3-0 pitch and grounded out to short, giving me a mild stroke. Gurney now stayed at first, with Toohey to right, and the pitcher back in the #9 hole… An inning later, with the Coons having stranded a pair in the top 7th, and with Tindle at third base as the tying run and two outs, the pitcher moved into the #7 hole on a double switch that brought on Waters and Nelson Moreno, who got a grounder to Waters from Nelson Galvan to get out of the inning.

Top 9th, Herrera opened with a single off closer Tommy Gardner, then stole second base on a tardy Nunez. Maldo doubled home the insurance run in right-center and on a 1-2 pitch, while Toohey wasn’t pitched to with first base open. Instead, the Indians had Gardner give up a 3-run homer to Ruben Gonzalez to blow the doors off the game. Josh Rella remained a mess I the bottom 9th, putting runners on the corners, but the defense overcame him to keep the Indians from rallying, Herrera chasing own a Ron Kurtz drive to end the game. 8-3 Critters. Herrera 3-5, RBI; Maldonado 2-5, 2 2B, 2 RBI; Toohey 2-4, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Adame 2-4;

Bob Ibold, the sneaky bugger, grabbed the win to get his career record to 11-2.

An off day followed while we travelled to Las Vegas.

Raccoons (2-1) @ Aces (1-2) – April 5-7, 2047

The Aces had scored only eight runs in losing their opening set to the Condors, but had also only given up 11 runs. They had a lefty-leaning lineup, unless they’d switch it up against the Raccoons’ first two offerings in the series. The Coons had dominated Vegas in ’46, winning seven of nine games.

Projected matchups:
Sadaharu Okuda (0-0) vs. Willie Gonzales (0-0)
Bubba Wolinsky (0-0) vs. B.J. Brantley (0-0)
Jason Wheatley (1-0, 2.08 ERA) vs. Adrien Calabresi (0-1, 6.00 ERA)

We’d also face two left-handers, but at the end of the series. Southpaw Sunday!

Game 1
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Morales – 2B Waters – LF Fernandez – SS Adame – P Okuda
LVA: SS Montes de Oca – 2B Landstrom – C DeFrank – RF M. Roberts – 3B Luna – LF Garbutt – CF Watt – 1B Speth – P W. Gonzales

Ray DeFrank, a top 5 prospect *last* year, hit his first homer of the year, second of his career, off Okuda in the bottom 1st, sending the Raccoons into trail mode again, although we’d get the game tied up by the third inning when Adame reached base to begin the inning, was bunted to second, and scored on a Mercado single. Herrera also singled to center, putting runners on the corners for Maldonado, who had hit into a double play in the first, but now bettered himself for a sac fly to Mike Roberts, giving Portland a 2-1 lead. Toohey then wrapped one around the thin end of the leftfield foul pole for a 2-run homer, 4-1 – that also dethroned Wheats as the team’s RBI king, Toohey now sitting at five.

Okuda bunted into a double play in the fourth, then gave away a leadoff triple to Josh Landstrom in the bottom of that inning. DeFrank lined out softly to Adame for the first out, keeping the runner pinned, before Roberts flew out to right. Mercado fired home to strike down the hustling Landstrom, ending the inning with the Furballs still up 4-1. Manny tacked on a run in the sixth, doubling home Toohey with two outs, but DeFrank – also with two outs – singled home Angel Montes de Oca in the bottom of the inning, restoring the 3-run gap at 5-2. Top 7th, and also with two outs, the Raccoons loaded the bases on right-hander Pablo Paez as Maldo and Toohey singled and Morales drew a walk. Matt Waters ran a full count before laying off a wide pitch to draw the bases-loaded walk, while Manny, who was old and didn’t know how much time he had left, grounded out to first base on the first pitch by Paez, stranding three runners. At least Okuda remained solid and pitched seven *fine* innings in his first outing of the year, and Bob Ibold and Aaron Curl made no missteps in the last two innings as they collected two and four outs, respectively, from the mostly left-handed lineup. 6-2 Raccoons. Mercado 2-5, RBI; Toohey 3-4, HR, 2 RBI; Adame 2-3, BB; Okuda 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, W (1-0);

Game 2
POR: RF Pellicano – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – SS Adame – 2B Waters – LF Baskins – P Wolinsky
LVA: SS Montes de Oca – 2B Landstrom – C DeFrank – RF M. Roberts – LF Montana – 3B Luna – CF Cramer – 1B Speth – P Brantley

Brantley wasn’t known to walk many batters, but nevertheless walked Toohey and Gonzalez to begin the second inning of a scoreless game. Adame found the shortstop Montes for a fielder’s choice, but Matt Waters kept finding his stick with an RBI double to right, making the Coons 1-0 leaders in the game, and putting two in scoring position for Derek Baskins with one out. Baskins singled up the middle, as did Wolinsky (!), both getting home a run, before Gene Pellicano made his first hit of the year a 3-run homer that screamed outta leftfield with some real hurry on it – 6-0. The Coons hit three more singles to load the bases and leave them loaded, while Brantley somehow wasn’t yanked on the spot. Matt Watt would hit for him to begin the bottom 3rd, but did no harm to Wolinsky, who kept the Aces shut out on two base hits in the early innings.

Wolinsky’s counts got a little long in the fourth and fifth innings, but the Aces got nothing of value even when he walked two batters in the bottom 5th. The Raccoons enjoyed stranding runners here and there until the top 7th, when Paez was at it again and put Toohey and Adame on base with free passes before running into Matt Waters, who shot a ball down the right-center gap for a 2-run triple. Baskins scored him with a groundout, extending the lead to 9-0. Wolinsky completed seven innings with as many strikeouts before an elevated pitch count mandated removal. A Pellicano double and a Maldo triple (the only thing Pellicano needed for the cycle) put the Critters into double digits in the top 8th, and Matt Waters crashed a 2-run homer off Miguel Mauricio in the ninth. The sustained offense meant that Pellicano came back to the plate with Manny on first and one out and Mauricio still pitching. He flew out to Brent Cramer, though. Al Martell hit for Herrera and singled, and Maldo singled to right to drive in one more run before Tony Morales grounded out to end the top 9th. 13-0 Furballs! Pellicano 3-5, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Herrera 2-5; Martell (PH) 1-1; Maldonado 3-6, 3B, 2 RBI; Adame 2-5; Waters 3-5, HR, 3B, 2B, 5 RBI; Wolinsky 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K, W (1-0) and 1-4, RBI;

Matt Waters missed the cycle by the single even! Oh Matt, you and Pellicano couldn’t have somehow pooled together??

This was the 5,900th regular season win for the Raccoons, well pitched for by Wolinsky!

Game 3
POR: RF Pellicano – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – SS Adame – 2B Waters – LF Fernandez – P Wheatley
LVA: SS Montes de Oca – LF Watt – 2B Landstrom – RF Montana – 3B Luna – 1B B. Owen – CF Garbutt – C J. Jimenez – P Calabresi

In two-and-a-half eventful innings, Jason Wheatley offered two leadoff walks and nailed Juan Jimenez really good, struck out nobody, and relied on the charity of the defenders around him, before hitting an infield single in the top 3rd that saw him stand around on first base for a while as nothing interesting happened with Pellicano and Herrera batting. Landstrom singled with two outs in the bottom 3rd, the first Aces base knock, but Wheats rung up Bob Montana, his first K in the game. In the fourth, he offered his third leadoff walk of the game to Eddy Luna. That run came around to score on Cole Garbutt’s single, wiping away the 1-0 lead generated by Maldo’s solo jack in the top of the inning.

Then it rained hard enough for a 30-minute delay in the top of the fifth inning. Rain? In Vegas? (looks upwards, expecting frogs and locusts and anteaters to fall from the sky next) … in any case, Waters (brushed by pitch) and Manny (single) reached base to begin the top 5th and were bunted into scoring position by Wheats. Gene Pellicano obliged despite falling behind 0-2, and singled home the runners with a clean shot through the hole between Luna and Montes. Maldo and Toohey would hit singles with two outs, but Pellicano was thrown out at home plate by Garbutt, ending the top 5th and bringing back the foundering Wheatley. He hit Montes with his first pitch of the bottom 5th, but the runner was kind enough to get caught stealing. The 2045 Pitcher of the Year tumbled into the bottom 6th, where he was lifted after a 1-out walk to Luna. Curl would pitch him out of the inning and preserve the 3-1 lead.

Top 7th, another fat scoring chance developed: Mercado walked leading off the inning as pinch-hitter for Aaron Curl, and Herrera hit a 1-out single off Steve Huffman, who then threw a wild pitch that almost took off Maldo’s legs. Maldo hit a poor groundout on the next pitch in his grand scheme of NOT getting back at Huffman, but Bryce Toohey came to the rescue with a 2-out single into shallow right-center that brought in both runners and extended the lead to 5-1. Surprisingly, the Aces pulled the runs back off Nelson Moreno with a Jimenez homer, a Tim Speth double from the #9 hole, and then a Landstrom single off Jake Bonnie… The lefty, not having a good first week in the office, also put the tying runs on the corners in the bottom 8th before Ibold and (mostly) Pellicano came to the rescue in retiring Jimenez and stranding them. Maldonado and Baskins hit singles in the top 9th, but were stranded before the ball went to Mike Lynn for the bottom 9th. Speth grounded out to Waters, Montes whiffed, and Watt found Adame with a grounder to complete the sweep. 5-3 Raccoons. Pellicano 2-5, 2 RBI; Maldonado 3-5, HR, RBI; Toohey 2-4, 2 RBI; Baskins (PH) 1-1;

In other news

April 3 – Crisis in Denver: with a torn posterior cruciate ligament, OF Tim Turner (.444, 0 HR, 0 RBI) will miss the entire season.
April 5 – The Thunder acquire SP/MR J.J. Hendrix (0-0, 3.18 ERA) from the Rebels for OF/1B Cullen Tortora (0 AB, 0 HR, 1 RBI) and cash.
April 5 – With a partially torn labrum, 24-year-old SFW CF/LF Clay Krabbe (.333, 0 HR, 1 RBI) is expected to be out until July.
April 5 – After the Falcons took a 3-2 lead in the top of the 14th inning against Boston, the Titans rap off five straight base hits in the bottom of the inning to escape with a 4-3 walkoff win.
April 6 – PIT SP Chris Turner (1-0, 0.00 ERA) and two relievers hold the Scorpions to a 1B/3B Sebastian Copeland (.294, 0 HR, 0 RBI) single in a 1-0 squeezer.
April 7 – New York 1B/RF/LF Carlos Cortes (.478, 1 HR, 9 RBI) collects five hits in a split double-header against the Thunder, including the 2,000th of his career. The 36-year-old journeyman is in his 15th season, batting .293 with 209 homers and 1,034 RBI. In his younger years, he also stole 100 bases. He was the 2038 Player of the Year, leading the league in slugging and RBI that season. While he never won a home run title, he once led the FL in triples.

FL Player of the Week: SAL RF/LF Jose Platero (.455, 2 HR, 8 RBI)
CL Player of the Week: SFB 2B/SS Sergio Quiroz (.407, 5 HR, 7 RBI)

Complaints and stuff

That wasn’t all bad! They were still on holidays the first few days, but kicked it in gear after that. I don’t know if the Aces are as bad as they looked (24-5 in runs in that sweep), or whether we are as good as they made us look. But some know-it-all will surely soon say that they’re all a year older than last year and thus… (glares at Cristiano)

Bubba Wolinsky took the 5,900th regular season win for the franchise on Saturday, getting ample support with 13 runs but allowing zero himself. It’s the second-most runs the Raccoons have scored in a milestone; they once put up 16 to make “Tragic” Travis Garrett a winner for a day…

Here’s to hoping we’ll score 6 1/3 runs per game for the rest of the year, too!

First homestand opening on Monday, with the Condors, damn Elks, Crusaders, and Knights all taking turns to visit.

Fun Fact: Las Vegas averages a fifth of an inch of rain in a typical April.

This year’s rain fell in the fifth inning as Jason Wheatley was seriously soul-searching both his stuff and control, and still somehow escaped with a win, his 15th straight triumphant decision dating back to last year. He appears so clumsy at times, but he might just actually be that special …!

[Westheim]

Raccoons (5-1) vs. Condors (3-3) – April 8-10, 2047

The Condors came in with middling numbers in runs scored and runs allowed, roughly four each per game, and a -1 run differential (Raccoons: +18). So far it was hard to say where they would be going, but there was a certain lack of familiar names in that lineup, at least as far as batters under 35 were concerned (sorry, Timóteo Clemente, Sergio Barcia). Last year, the Raccoons had beaten the Condors, 7-2.

Projected matchups:
Victor Merino (0-1, 10.80 ERA) vs. Blake Sansone (0-0, 1.29 ERA)
Jake Jackson (0-0, 6.75 ERA) vs. Marc Hubbard (0-0, 2.57 ERA)
Sadaharu Okuda (1-0, 2.57 ERA) vs. Pedro Quinonez (0-1, 5.63 ERA)

Right, right, left for Tijuana.

Game 1
TIJ: 3B Quintana – 2B Barcia – RF Ito – 1B Witherspoon – SS Lujan – C Clemente – LF D. Gonzales – CF Reidinger – P Sansone
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – LF Toohey – 1B Gurney – 2B Waters – C Morales – SS Adame – P Merino

Merino looked like he was getting punched again, giving up a triple to Barcia (I should really stop taunting players on other teams as they come in), a walk to Rikuto Ito, and an RBI double to Sam Witherspoon in the first inning. Another run scored on T.J. Lujan’s groundout, putting the Raccoons immediately down 2-0 in their home opener. They at least tried to counter, unwrapping straight 1-out singles in the bottom 2nd. Waters and Morales singled, as did Alex Adame, driving in Waters. Even Merino chipped a soft single, loading the bases for Nelson Mercado, whom Sansone walked to tie the game. Herrera and Maldo both flew out to Marty Reidinger, the former at least with a sac fly scoring Adame for a 3-2 lead.

Pat Gurney hit a solo homer for his first actual base hit of the year in the bottom 3rd, and Adame reached base to open the fourth, stole second, and came around on a single by Mercado (who was caught stealing afterwards), while Merino never really stopped to pitch behind in the count, and gave up a 2-run homer to the old bones of Dan Schneller when the latter pinch-hit for Sansone in the fifth inning, narrowing the score to 5-4. Merino didn’t log an out in the sixth, offering a leadoff walk to Lujan and throwing away a Clemente bouncer before being yanked for Bob Ibold, who sat down the 7-8-9 without giving the skinny lead away. Preston Porter walked Rikuto Ito in the seventh, but Aaron Curl struck out Witherspoon to keep the Condors short. Lujan opened the eighth with a single off Nelson Moreno, then advanced on two groundouts. Reidinger hit a soft flop to shallow left that looked like it would stupidly drop between Adame and Toohey and take my soul away, but Toohey actually dashed in, called Adame off, and made the catch to strand the tying run at third base. Bottom of the inning, Tony Morales hit a third single for the day, then was run for by Derek Baskins, who was immediately forced out by Adame. The Coons ached the insurance run to second base somehow with a Mercado single, but Herrera flew out to Ito, and there would be no insurance for Mike Lynn in the ninth, facing plenty of righty hitters. He struck out Terry Black and Angel Quintana before Barcia eeked out a walk in a full count. Ito singled. Uh-oh. Justin Becker, pinch-hitting for Witherspoon, found Adame, though, and that ended the game. 5-4 Raccoons. Mercado 2-4, BB, 2 RBI; Morales 3-4; Adame 2-4, RBI;

The Condors engaged in a trade with the Thunder between games, picking up 1B Sterling Henderson (.364, 0 HR, 1 RBI) for T.J. Lujan (.125, 0 HR, 3 RBI).

Game 2
TIJ: SS Quintana – 3B A. Lopez – 1B S. Henderson – RF Ito – CF Reidinger – LF J. Becker – C Clemente – 2B Barcia – P Hubbard
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – 2B Gurney – SS Waters – C Morales – LF Fernandez – P Jackson

Another first inning from hell was suffered by Jake Jackson, who gave up a Quintana double, a walk to Henderson, and then a 3-piece to Reidinger. The Condors tagged on two unearned runs in exploiting a Maldonado error in the second inning, but still got plenty of hits off Jackson to get there… Sergio Barcia finally knocked him from the game with a 2-piece in the third inning, putting the Condors up 7-0 against non-hitting Critters.

Here was the problem: the Coons’ pen was not really built to pitch four, five, six innings every night, but somehow this would be the third straight day of just that. When Jake Bonnie appears for two innings against a mostly right-handed lineup, you know things have gone south. The Raccoons never rallied. They scratched out a marker in the seventh inning, when Manny singled home Gurney, but when Mercado opened the eighth with a triple to center, he was stranded on third base. Herrera lined out, Maldo and Toohey whiffed against Hubbard, and that was that. Porter gave up a run in the ninth as we was ground to dust in the ridiculous bullpen effort. 8-1 Condors. Baskins (PH) 1-1;

Well, that was ****.

If Okuda also didn’t hold up, Wolinsky would become long relief fodder – an off day on Thursday allowed for that, with Wheats ready to restart the run through the rotation on Friday on regular rest if things got hardcore in the rubber game…

Game 3
TIJ: SS Quintana – 3B A. Lopez – 1B S. Henderson – RF Ito – CF Reidinger – C Clemente – LF Banuelas – 2B Barcia – P Quinonez
POR: RF Pellicano – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – SS Adame – LF Baskins – 2B Waters – P Okuda

An 8-pitch first inning was a refreshing change for a Raccoons starter (zero runs, by the way), and instead the Raccoons took the early lead with a 3-piece from Bryce Toohey, which scored Herrera (who forced out Pellicano) and Maldonado and made him the first Critter with multiple bombs and double-digit RBI on the season.

Then it rained for an hour. Poured, actually. And Okuda was getting cold.

When play resumed for the third inning, Okuda offered a leadoff walk to Barcia, then a huge homer to Quintana. Henderson also hit a long drive that was barely caught by Baskins. Dark days. Ruben Gonzalez countered with a 2-run homer of his own in the bottom 3rd, again scoring Maldonado, 5-2, but Okuda still looked flat in the fourth, getting dragged through by the defense, before striking out the 8-9-1 batters in the fifth. A second spring? Nah – he still left with runners on the corners in the sixth inning, leaving Henderson and Ito on the bases and Clemente at the plate to Bob Ibold, who actually entered in a double switch that replaced Toohey with Gurney because we were that desperate to not have Ibold bat in the bottom 6th. A strikeout to Clemente at least ended the inning before Ibold conceded a run with a leadoff walk to Jesus Banuelas and TWO wild pitches in the seventh… Curl and Rella were used for the eighth, which went well for two outs (one each) before Ito walked, Reidinger singled, and Clemente struck out again to strand runners – this time the tying runs – on the corners. The Coons also stranded a pair in the bottom 8th before signing it off to Nelson Moreno for the ninth. He retired the Condors in order to secure the save. 5-3 Critters. Pellicano 2-3, BB, 2B; Maldonado 2-4, 2B; Toohey 1-2, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Gonzalez 2-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI;

Raccoons (7-2) vs. Canadiens (5-4) – April 12-14, 2047

The damn Elks had been swept by the Falcons during the week, and the same issue that had plagued them last year appeared to rear its ugly head again already: they scored lots – third in the CL this early – and gave up more than that. They had yielded the second-most runs so far, with a -3 run differential, while their rotation had been battered for a 6.99 ERA in nine games. That was probably unsustainable even by the worst pitchers, but they needed still more pitching…! They had also taken a beating with their position players, with Angel Escobido, Julio Diaz, and Travis Malkus all already tucked away on the DL for the next few weeks. We had lost the season series in 2046, 10-8, so it was time to get back at them while they were down…!

Projected matchups:
Bubba Wolinsky (1-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Juan Ramos (0-0, 11.12 ERA)
Jason Wheatley (2-0, 1.93 ERA) vs. David Farris (2-0, 2.40 ERA)
Victor Merino (1-1, 9.00 ERA) vs. Bill McMichael (0-1, 6.39 ERA)

Southpaw Sunday, from both sides even; the other two were right-handers.

Game 1
VAN: CF F. Rojas – 2B Mancini – RF Outram – 1B Delagrange – 3B O. Aguirre – C T. Phillips – LF T. Romero – P J. Ramos – SS Price
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – C Morales – SS Adame – 2B Waters – LF Fernandez – P Wolinsky

Worst of all, Maud had baked apple pie, and I couldn’t eat any of it, because the dastardly damned Elks were batting the pitcher eighth, making me nauseous…! Get them, boys! Maldo got them with a solo homer in the first for a quick lead, and Wolinsky defended his flatline ERA dearly, getting the day started with a few zeroes on his part. Jerry Outram still doubled in the first, but you don’t measure pitchers by how they fare against Jerry Outram… Bottom 3rd, Manny drew a leadoff walk, was bunted to second, and scored on a Mercado double to make it 2-0, with 3-0 coming on Herrera’s RBI single through the left side. Maldo was hit by a pitch (…), but Toohey found a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning. Still up 3-0, Maldo found an easier way on base in the fifth inning, getting an intentional walk after Herrera stole second. Toohey flew out and Morales whiffed to strand the runners that time.

If there was something to complain about Bubba Wolinsky on this day, it was that he pitched a bit inefficient and needed almost 110 pitches for seven shutout innings of 4-hit ball. The Coons added a fourth run in the bottom 7th, which began with Pat Gurney doubling in place of Wolinsky; he went on to score on a Herrera sac fly. After that, Maldo whacked a 2-out double, but pulled up lame, just when I had snuck around to grab a piece of apple pie after all. I immediately fainted face-stripes-first into the piece of pie. Dr. Padilla dutifully collected Maldonado, who was run for by Al Martell, who was stranded on Toohey’s groundout to short.

Jake Bonnie got roughed up for a walk, two hits, and a run (driven in by Outram, but NOT rammed out by Outram) in the eighth inning. He also required rescue from Moreno, who K’ed Chris Delagrange to get out of the inning. Against strong righty opposition, Moreno remained in the game to begin the ninth with a 3-run lead, but Lynn was at the ready. Lynn was not needed, as Moreno retired the 5-6-7 in order to get the W home. 4-1 Coons. Herrera 2-3, 2 RBI; Maldonado 2-2, BB, 2B, RBI; Gurney (PH) 1-1, 2B; Wolinsky 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 6 K, W (2-0); Moreno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (2);

The good news was that Maldo got away with a sore calf and would be day-to-day until the middle of next week, best used sparingly.

Maldo, hit fewer doubles – hit more homers!

Game 2
VAN: CF F. Rojas – RF Outram – 2B Mancini – 1B Delagrange – SS Price – LF P. Colon – 3B O. Aguirre – P Farris – C T. Phillips
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – LF Baskins – 1B Toohey – C Morales – SS Adame – 2B Waters – 3B Martell – P Wheatley

Middle game, and another early lead thanks to Bryce Toohey, this time with a 2-out single that got Mercado home in the bottom 1st. Adame led off the bottom 2nd with a single, stole second, but then had to wait as Waters whiffed and Martell walked. Wheats flew out to Pedro Colon, being denied more RBIs, while Mercado got a ball through Oscar Aguirre for a 2-out RBI single. Herrera grounded out to short, while Wheats conceded a run on singles by Farris (argh!) and Tim Phillips, then two groundouts in the third inning – yes, Outram drove in another run, the 9,000th of his career against the Coons. Bob Mancini struck out to strand the tying run at third base, but Chris Delagrange homered to tie the game to begin the fourth. The damn Elks even took the lead when Wheatley walked Rick Price and Nelson Mercado chipped in an error in rightfield, getting the go-ahead run on Farris’ groundout to Waters…

Five innings took Wheatley 104 pitches, which was not very Pitcher of the Year-like, and he also left trailing in the game, his streak of winning decisions in mortal danger. The Coons did nothing for him in the bottom 5th, getting only Baskins on base with a Price error. Salvation arrived from the bench in the sixth – with Adame and Martell on second and first, respectively, Pat Gurney batted for Aaron Curl with two outs and found the gap between Pedro Colon and Felix Rojas for a score-flipping 2-run double…! The resulting 4-3 lead – Gurney was stranded by Mercado – survived Preston Porter’s seventh inning rather nicely, but was in mortal danger in the eighth, in which Jake Bonnie walked a pair and Josh Rella had PH Tony Romero at 1-2 before giving up a long drive to center that Armando Herrera somehow contained while racing backwards, stranding the runners, both of which would have surely scored to flip the score again. It was hard to enjoy pie with this kind of baseball on display!!

The bottom 8th saw Adame hit a 1-out single. He stole second, but Waters flew out inefficiently. Al Martell then hurt Pedro de Leon with a 2-run homer. That took a bat away from Maldonado, who would have batted for Rella if Martell had drawn a walk in the 3-1 count; instead, Manny batted and struck out. And then Mike Lynn tried to come apart entirely. Top 9th, leadoff singles for Phillips and Rojas, and the tying run was already at the plate in Outram, and oh dear. But Outram grounded out to Martell, keeping the runners trapped. Not so Mancini – he doubled past Mercado to plate them both and put himself at second base as the tying run. Delagrange walked. Price flew out, moving Mancini to third base. Ryan Meteyer with a fly to left – and Baskins held on to the win. 6-5 Critters. Adame 2-3; Martell 2-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Gurney (PH) 1-1, 2B, 2 RBI;

Aaron Curl got the W, while Wheats remains on 15 straight winning decisions.

Playing Maldo against the southpaw on Sunday was tempting, but Dr. Padilla opined it was too early and he sat.

Game 3
VAN: CF F. Rojas – 2B Mancini – RF Outram – 1B Delagrange – 3B O. Aguirre – C T. Phillips – LF T. Romero – P McMichael – SS Price
POR: LF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Gurney – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – RF Pellicano – SS Adame – 2B Waters – P Merino

Merino needed a good outing after opening the year with two stinkers, although this was a tough lineup to do it against. He had a scoreless first at least, retiring the 1-2-3 in order, before Bryce Toohey drove in a run in the first also in the final game of the set, this time with a single to score Herrera. It didn’t last, as Delagrange opened the top 2nd with a single to right, Merino lost Aguirre in a full count, and Tony Romero, twice a Coon, singled home the tying run before the Elks choked on their pitcher batting eighth and a K to Price. A leadoff walk to Aguirre in the fourth was scraped away in double play fashion against Phillips.

Alex Adame’s first Raccoons homer gave Merino a new lead, 2-1 in the fourth, while Merino was hit by McMichael to begin the bottom 5th. Mercado reached with a single on the infield, kinda building a chance out of nothing here… at least until Herrera hit into a double play and Gurney grounded out to Mancini. Merino hit Phillips to begin the top 7th, but certainly not in retaliation in a 2-1 game. Romero and McMichael made outs, while Price hit a single past Gurney to put runners on the corners for Felix Rojas – whom Merino rung up on his way to the showers, having completed seven innings of 1-run ball on 105 pitches.

The Coons doubled their output to 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning. Adame opened with a double to left, then was left waiting around until Mercado’s 2-out double in the right-center gap. That scored Adame, while Herrera brought home Mercado with a single to left. Gurney’s unhappy day continued with another groundout. Up 4-1, the Coons sent Ibold after the Elks, which didn’t go that great; he put Mancini and Outram on base to begin the eighth, then held his ground for two outs before Phillips singled in a run. When lefty-hitting Jose Garcia batted for Romero, the Raccoons went to Curl, who got a K. In the ninth, it was Lynn, who again gave up a single against the #9 hitter, now Price, with one out. Rojas grounded to Waters, but the Coons got only the lead runner on the play, bringing up the dangerous Mancini as the tying run (not to speak of Outram…). Mancini hit a dying quail for a single into shallow center, and Outram came up to swing the twig after all – and struck out swinging. 4-2 Raccoons. Mercado 2-4, 2B, RBI; Herrera 2-4, RBI; Adame 2-3, HR, 2B, RBI; Merino 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, W (2-1) and 1-1;

In other news

April 8 – The Pacifics drop to the Blue Sox, 3-2 in 16 innings, despite the efforts of LAP 3B/2B Brian Bowman (.400, 1 HR, 4 RBI), who puts out six base hits – a triple and five singles – in an attempt to generate offense. It’s the first time an ABL player has put up six base hits in a losing effort in over 20 years, Portland’s Terry Kopp being the previous victim in the category in 2025.
April 8 – VAN 2B/3B Travis Malkus (.333, 0 HR, 8 RBI) will have to sit out the rest of April with plantar fasciitis, while his teammate C Julio Diaz (.400, 0 HR, 6 RBI) would be out for a month with a broken foot.
April 8 – The Stars walk off against the Capitals, 4-3, in the truest sense of the word, as Washington pitching offers four walks, two of them intentional, to Dallas hitters in the bottom of the ninth inning. DAL 1B Sal Ayala (.000, 0 HR, 1 RBI) draws the fourth walk to end the game.
April 9 – WAS SS Chris O’Keefe (.241, 0 HR, 4 RBI) will be out for two weeks, having suffered an elbow contusion in a fall off his treadmill at home.
April 11 – Falcons LF/CF Joe Besaw (.286, 0 HR, 2 RBI) might miss most of the season with a ruptured finger tendon.
April 12 – PIT SP Corey Mathers (1-0, 4.50 ERA) 3-hits the Rebels in a 5-0 shutout.
April 14 – Miners CL Rico Sanchez (1-1, 1.35 ERA, 4 SV) gets his 400th career save in a 5-2 win over the Rebels. Sanchez, 63-81 with a 3.40 ERA for his career, has survived as a closer despite never putting up big strikeout numbers, with 6.1 K/9 for his career, and 676 K in 996.2 innings. He has never won a major award or led the league in any category, but after a 16-year career, he’s still there and saving games.

FL Player of the Week: SFW RF Matt Diskin (.346, 3 HR, 12 RBI), batting .500 (12-24) with 3 HR, 9 RBI
CL Player of the Week: NYC OF Aaron Foss (.351, 2 HR, 8 RBI), hitting .462 (12-26) with 2 HR, 6 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Consecutive 5-1 weeks to start the season are great, but I like a sweep of the damn Elks under any circumstances!

Unfortunately it seems like we won’t score 6.33 runs per game for the entire season, and we’re already down to 5.25 in the category, which interestingly is barely good enough for third in the league. Oh well, early days.

Merino had a good outing on Sunday (at least the last few innings of it), and if the Coons can now turn Jackson around, too, the bullpen can pitch less in volume and more in quality ways. That would be great!

The Crusaders and Knights will be in to complete the long homestand, which will immediately be followed by a 2-week road trip to all parts of the country.

Arturo Carreno is hitting .444 after a week’s worth of Alley Cats games. Too little, too late…

Fun Fact: Bubba Wolinsky is the only qualifying pitcher in either league with an ERA of flat zero.

Best after that, a Knights pair of Kurt Olson and Elijah Powell, with ERA’s of 0.60 and 0.66 respectively.

Maybe we can arrange a deathmatch on the weekend.

Yes, Maud, not on the good rug.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (10-2) vs. Crusaders (9-3) – April 16-18, 2047

After a common off day on Monday, the Raccoons would try to maintain their good start to the season against the only other team in the division that could claim a similar thing two weeks in. These were in fact the only winning teams in the North at this point. The Crusaders were tops in runs scored with 7.33 per game (well, that had to end at SOME point!), but were also giving up the fourth-most runs, with their rotation posting an ERA just over five at this early point in the season. Outfielder Phil Rogers was on the DL with a knee sprain, while the Raccoons’ Jesus Maldonado still had the balky calf and would not be in the lineup for the opener… Last year, the Coons had won the series against the New Yorkers, 12-6.

Projected matchups:
Jake Jackson (0-1, 10.29 ERA) vs. Carlos Malla (1-0, 8.31 ERA)
Sadaharu Okuda (2-0, 2.84 ERA) vs. Paul Paris (0-0, 4.91 ERA)
Bubba Wolinsky (2-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Yataro Tanabe (0-0, 8.68 ERA)

Two left-handers with astronomical ERA’s, and a righty with a more decent one, for this series.

Game 1
NYC: SS Nash – 1B Willie Ojeda – 2B Briones – RF Garris – C Urfer – 3B Mujica – LF Rico – CF Foss – P Malla
POR: LF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Gurney – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – RF Pellicano – SS Adame – 2B Waters – P Jackson

Both teams had two hits and no runs in the early innings, with Jackson being faced with two Crusaders on and nobody out in both the second and fourth innings. Josh Garris and Rick Urfer had hit singles the first time, while the latter instance came with a leadoff walk to Mario Briones and another Garris single. Both innings, Jackson would strike out a pair and get a groundout to bail out of the jam and keep the Crusaders off the board. The Critters had two on with two outs in the bottom 4th after a Toohey single and a Frank Mujica error on Ruben Gonzalez’ grounder, but Pellicano flew out to Aaron Foss to end the inning. Foss then opened the demise of Jackson in the fifth with a double off the wall in right; Jackson walked Randolph Nash, then served up another wallbanger double to Willie Ojeda, which gave New York the lead. Briones quickly singled to center to drive in two more, 3-0.

That was all off Jackson in seven innings, as he struck out nine Crusaders, but it just wasn’t enough with the Raccoons not putting anything together and still being shut out by Malla in the seventh inning (those 6+ ERA pitchers, huh?). Toohey and Adame would hit a pair of doubles to left in the bottom 7th to produce at least one run, but Waters left on Adame. Nevertheless, another chance built up in the bottom 8th, with a leadoff single by PH Derek Baskins, then a 1-out walk to Armando Herrera. Malla remained in against Pat Gurney, who flew out to Rich de Luna in right. Malla also got Toohey to 1-2 with two outs… but no further. Toohey mashed the 1-2 offering over the fence in left for a dramatic, score-flipping 3-run homer! Mike Lynn put the Crusaders to rest in the ninth. 4-3 Raccoons. Toohey 3-4, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Baskins (PH) 1-1; Jackson 7.0 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 9 K;

Preston Porter got the win in relief with a scoreless eighth.

Game 2
NYC: CF Rico – 1B Willie Ojeda – 2B Briones – RF C. Cortes – C Urfer – 3B Mujica – LF Garris – SS Nash – P Paris
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – SS Adame – C Morales – 2B Waters – LF Fernandez – P Okuda

New York scored first again when ex-Coon Carlos Cortes doubled home Danny Rico in the top of the first inning, but at least Bryce Toohey hit his score-flipping homer a little sooner than last time, cracking it with Herrera (single) and Maldo (walk) on base in the bottom 1st. This one went a mere 430 feet. Unfortunately, Cortes would soon match the feat in the third inning, hitting a 3-run homer to left that flipped the score right back to the purple poopers, 4-3. Ojeda and Briones had reached base ahead of him with a proper single and an infield single, respectively.

That remained the score through the middle innings, in which Okuda had to deal with the occasional runners, while the Raccoons went down mostly silently, amounting to only three base hits against Paris at the end of six innings. Alex Adame would hit a leadoff single in the seventh inning, even stole second base, and was still stranded by the 6-7-8 hitters, who were total blackouts in this game. Okuda pitched the eighth, but gave up a homer to Frank Mujica for an insurance run, 5-3. A Mercado walk in the bottom 8th led nowhere in particular, and when Julian Ponce, left-hander, appeared for the Crusaders in the bottom 9th, Toohey led off the inning and mathematically could not possibly rescue the game on his own. He popped out, as did Adame. Ruben Gonzalez hit for Tony Morales, but struck out. 5-3 Crusaders.

Change of pitchers for the rubber game: the Crusaders would go with right-hander Jim White (1-0, 3.63 ERA).

Game 3
NYC: LF de Luna – 1B Willie Ojeda – 2B Briones – RF C. Cortes – C Urfer – 3B Mujica – CF Rico – SS Nash – P J. White
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – SS Adame – LF Baskins – 2B Waters – C Morales – P Wolinsky

Bubba Wolinsky entered with his 14-inning scoreless streak to begin the season and ran with it. Despite scattering a single an inning more or less, he seemed to have the Crusaders perfectly well under control, striking out six in the first five innings and walking nobody. The same could almost be said for Jim White, who struck out nobody in the early going, but got persistent bad contact from the Coons, who had one measly base knock through five frames.

Wolinsky held up in the sixth, then bunted Tony Morales to second after the catcher had opened the bottom 6th with a single to center. White would walk Mercado, but all that did was to set up a 4-6-3 double play for Herrera to hit into, and the game remained scoreless. Would it be Toohey again? He hit a 1-out double to right in the bottom 7th, after which White lost Adame on another walk, bringing up Baskins. This was however nothing that another 4-6-3 couldn’t solve. I groaned mightily, put Honeypaws to the side, and reached for the first bottle of Capt’n Coma of the season.

In the end it was eight scoreless for Wolinsky with no reward – the Raccoons just couldn’t pull one out from beneath their tails either. The scoreboard was still a virgin when Nelson Moreno took the ball in the top of the ninth. Mario Briones and Carlos Cortes opened with singles spontaneously… but Briones was thrown out by Mercado trying to reach third base on Cortes’ hit to right. Josh Garris hit into a fielder’s choice, Mujica hit *another* single, and this time the lead runner did reach third base. For no gains though – Danny Rico was punched out by Moreno, and the Coons needed only that one measly run to walk off now. White was still going on a 3-hitter, but then botched the play on Mercado’s grounder to begin the bottom 9th, putting the winning run aboard with the error. Herrera was called on to bunt the runner to second, which worked, and now we hoped for the big guns. Only one of them came up, as Maldo’s single into shallow right-center was good enough for Mercado to dash home from second base. 1-0 Blighters. Toohey 1-2, 2B; Morales 1-2, BB; Wolinsky 8.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K;

22 scoreless innings for Bubba Wolinsky!

Raccoons (12-3) vs. Knights (13-3) – April 19-21, 2047

The Knights had started the year 1-3 and had since reeled off nothing but 12 straight wins, so that was something to compete against. They were second in runs scored in the CL, third in runs allowed, and their rotation was down to a 2.52 ERA. The only black spot was their pen, which was the worst in the league with an ERA over five. You had to get to those guys first, though… Last year we had taken the season series, 5-4.

Projected matchups:
Jason Wheatley (2-0, 2.37 ERA) vs. Brad Santry (2-1, 4.43 ERA)
Victor Merino (2-1, 5.82 ERA) vs. Bobby Freels (2-1, 3.22 ERA)
Jake Jackson (0-1, 7.07 ERA) vs. Elijah Powell (2-0, 1.25 ERA)

Nothing but right-handed pitching here. Some right-handed hitting we would not see in the series was Joe Crim, on the DL with an oblique strain.

…although nobody in particular appeared on Friday, where persistent rain led to an early postponement of the scheduled game into a Saturday double-header.

Game 1
ATL: SS A. Venegas – 3B Lorensen – RF Marz – 1B E. Hernandez – CF Alade – C Toki – LF van der Zanden – 2B Ramires – P Santry
POR: RF Mercado – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – SS Adame – 2B Gurney – C Gonzalez – LF Fernandez – P Wheatley

Wheats then picked this day to have a meltdown; after striking out the side in the first inning, he walked the bases full in the second, escaping only against Santry. The bags filled up again in the third with a leadoff walk to Anton Venegas, a Ryan Lorensen single, and another walk to Ernesto Hernandez. Jon Alade hit into a double play to keep Atlanta from scoring, but Wheats needed over 70 pitches through those three horrendous innings. The Coons had put Adame and Gurney in scoring position in the bottom 2nd with nobody out, then hadn’t scored on two strikeouts and a pop to short; they began the bottom 3rd by loading the bases with the 1-2-3 hitters. Toohey brought in the only run of the inning on a double play grounder to short (groans), with Adame also grounding out.

Wheats completed five innings, then was batted for when his spot led off the bottom 5th, technically in line for his 16th straight winning decision, but OH BOY… In the end, no W would be awarded to him. Despite Mercado’s solo homer in the bottom 5th that extended the lead to 2-0, Aaron Curl managed to blow the lead in the sixth, giving up a double to Alade and a homer to Manichiro Toki. Tied down at two, Bob Ibold and Josh Rella held the Knights where they were through the remainder of regulation, while we waited for another offensive blip from the Critters, who weren’t having many offensive blips this week that weren’t connected to Bryce Toohey, and Toohey would not come up in the bottom 9th against Jeff Turi either, which began with Adame instead, and Adame grounded out. It was then the catching corps that got on base – Tony Morales walked in place of Rella, while Ruben Gonzalez singled. Pellicano ran for Morales once at second base, representing the winning run, while we hoped for good things from Manny and/or Waters at the bottom of the pile. It started to rain again as Manny Fernandez fell to 1-2, then hit a long one – foul. He put the next 1-2 from Turi in play, and it dropped right in the same spot in which Maldo had dinked his walkoff single two days and much water from the skies earlier, with Pellicano easily scoring on the clean single. 3-2 Critters. Mercado 2-4, HR, RBI; Fernandez 2-4, RBI;

I have never seen a team that was playing .813 ball and was playing it like this gluey.

Game 2
ATL: SS A. Venegas – LF Hester – C Cass – CF Alade – 1B van der Zanden – 3B Lorensen – RF E. Hernandez – 2B Ramires – P Powell
POR: CF Mercado – 1B Gurney – 3B Maldonado – RF Toohey – LF Baskins – C Morales – SS Waters – 2B Martell – P Merino

With an RBI double to left-center, Bryce Toohey sent the Coons up 1-0 in the first again, driving in Mercado and his leadoff single. Baskins flew out, to strand him, but Merino at least faced the minimum the first time through; Ernesto Hernandez hit a leadoff single in the top 3rd, but was doubled off by Antonio Ramires. Things went south immediately afterwards, though, with Anton Venegas and Billy Hester landing hits to begin the fourth, and while Tyler Cass was out on a comebacker to Merino, Jon Alade brought in the tying run with a groundout before once-an-Elk Arnout van der Zanden fouled out to keep Hester on third. Alade then went on to throw out Maldonado trying to go second-to-third on a flyout by Baskins in the bottom 4th, sucking the air out of that inning…

Maldo made up for it the next time through, wrapping a solo homer around the left foul pole for his third longball of the year, and also a new 2-1 lead for the Critters. This, too, didn’t last, disappearing in unearned fashion in the top 7th when Al Martell threw away Alade’s grounder to put the leadoff man on second base. Merino allowed a single to PH John Marz, then struck out Ryan Lorensen. PH Chris Walker grounded to short, but the Coons could not turn two and the tying run scored, Walker remaining on first base, then second once Merino walked Ramires. The Knights didn’t hit for Powell, but Powell also singled through the left side… Walker went for home, but was thrown out by Derek Baskins to end the inning. PHEW.

Baskins and Morales opened the bottom 7th with singles, then reached scoring position when Matt Waters grounded out. Portland didn’t hit for Martell (but Merino looked like toast with Manny holding a twig on the dugout steps). Martell fell to two strikes before hitting a sorry duck snort that dinked in for an RBI single near the line in shallow left for the third Portland lead of the night. Manny drew a 4-pitch walk, loading the sacks for Mercado, who hit a sac fly to Alade, 4-2, before lefty Tony Rosas replaced Powell. The Raccoons responded with hitting Gene Pellicano for the 0-for-3 Gurney, but Pellicano popped out to second in a full count.

The tying runs then reached scoring position in the eighth of a tiresome game, with Moreno walking Venegas to begin the inning, while the next batter, Hester, reached when Pellicano flubbed his flyball in right. Moreno got a groundout from Cass to put the runners in scoring position, then struck out Alade. Then Marz tied the game with a double between Baskins and Mercado… Like I said, tiresome game. Tied again, the Coons’ 3-4 bombers both hit deep fly outs in the bottom 8th, but nobody reached base. Lynn held the Knights in the tie in the ninth, and now we hoped the bottom of the order, many under .200, could do something in the bottom 9th (again). Tony Morales sure knew when to get his few hits, hitting a leadoff single off Jeff Turi. Waters struck out, but Martell singled to center, sending the winning run to second base. Adame ran for Morales at that point, while Ruben Gonzalez would hit for Lynn, but popped out to short. Mercado with two outs? Single to center! Adame flying around the bases – and it’s a walkoff! 5-4 Raccoons! Mercado 2-4, 2 RBI; Maldonado 2-4, HR, 2B, RBI; Morales 2-4; Martell 2-4, RBI; Merino 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K;

Game 3
ATL: SS Venegas – LF Hester – RF Marz – 1B E. Hernandez – CF Alade – C Toki – 3B Lorensen – 2B Ramires – P Freels
POR: SS Adame – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – LF Baskins – C Gonzalez – RF Pellicano – 2B Waters – P Jackson

The weather had held out for the most part on Saturday, but by Sunday the skies were gray again and rain was in the forecast.

Adame opened the bottom 1st with a single, stole a base, but was left stranded by his followers, while Jackson put up two zeroes before getting chopped up with three hits for two runs again in the top 3rd. Lorensen, Ramires, and Venegas all hit him for singles, Venegas driving in the two runners from scoring position. The Coons put the tying runs on the corners with one out in the bottom of the inning when Waters and Adame singled. Their first run scored when Manichiro Toki booted Herrera’s roller in front of home plate for an error, after which Maldo hit into a fielder’s choice to remove Herrera. Two down, Toohey singled to center to tie the game, though! Baskins whacked another RBI single to left, and the Coons took a 3-2 lead before Gonzalez popped out again.

Jackson then made it through the middle innings without blowing the lead, although the outfielders got their jogs in for sure, chasing after fly ball after fly ball. The Raccoons had Adame on with a leadoff single again in the fifth, and he stole second, but was thrown out trying to also scoop third base. The inning after, we loaded them up with one out, Waters and his .179 stick coming up next. Waters cashed the runners, though – all of them! – with a gapper in right-center that eluded Alade and Marz long enough to become a bases-clearing triple! Jackson swung for himself and singled to right, bringing home Waters, 7-2. In intensifying rain, Jackson returned for the top 7th once stranded by Adame and Herrera, and abused the latter with long flies to center by Alade and Toki, which Herrera caught. That was the final out of the game – the umpires called a rain delay during the at-bat with Ryan Lorensen, and with the rain only getting worse, the game was called about an hour later. 7-2 Raccoons. Adame 3-4; Toohey 2-3, RBI; Pellicano 1-2; Waters 2-3, 3B, 3 RBI; Jackson 6.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (1-1) and 1-3, RBI;

In other news

April 16 – DEN SP Gary Perrone (3-0, 1.99 ERA) 1-hits the Wolves in a 4-0 shutout. Perrone strikes out five and only allows a single to rookie 2B/SS Wally Bowles (1-for-3, 0 HR, 0 RBI).
April 19 – A sprained ankle will put SFB 3B/1B Ramon Sifuentes (.267, 3 HR, 10 RBI) out of action for the next month.
April 19 – DAL SP Roberto Pruneda (3-0, 1.85 ERA) throws a 2-hit shutout against the Miners, taking the 4-0 win.
April 19 – The Gold Sox shut out the Blue Sox, 9-0, on a single base hit, a double by 1B Alejandro Ramos (.309, 3 HR, 11 RBI). Persistent rain means the Gold Sox piece the shutout together with five pitchers, starter Josh Brown (1-0, 3.71 ERA) being knocked before the end of five innings.
April 19 – The Thunder keep making April deals, acquiring MR Andy Pedraza (0-0, 0.00 ERA) from the Aces in exchange for C Kevin Weese (.381, 0 HR, 0 RBI).
April 20 – Denver OF Sandy Castillo (.203, 1 HR, 6 RBI) will miss four months with a torn back muscle.
April 20 – SAL SS/3B Josh Jackson (.245, 0 HR, 3 RBI) is done for the season after tearing an anterior cruciate ligament.

FL Player of the Week: DEN OF John Fink (.277, 2 HR, 8 RBI), batting .478 (11-23) with 2 HR, 6 RBI
CL Player of the Week: POR RF/LF/1B Bryce Toohey (.355, 4 HR, 20 RBI), swatting .450 (9-20) with 2 HR, 8 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Three straight 5-1 weeks…! Granted, this one hardly felt like one, even though three straight walkoff wins made for some excitement. I don’t like excitement. I like a 6-run first and cruising.

With 20 RBI in 18 games, I can’t help but fear that Bryce Toohey is due for a broken leg.

We’ll embark on a 2-week road trip from here, making guest appearances in San Fran and Indy next week. Nothing good has ever happened at the Bay, so maybe we’ll not get to that 5-1 mark next week after all…

Fun Fact: Every pitcher on staff has a win already this season, except for Jake Bonnie.

The trades I do!

[Westheim]

Raccoons (15-3) @ Bayhawks (9-9) – April 23-25, 2047

By Tuesday, the Stomping Stripes arrived at the Bay, where nothing good ever happens, to square off with the resident Hawks there. The Bayhawks had started weak, but had won their last four games (same for the Critters), and were second in runs scored in the league. Seventh in runs allowed, they had a +10 run differential (Portland: +27). They’re struggles were mostly in the rotation and had names. Apart from that, last year’s season series had been a 6-3 loss for the Coons, but at least San Fran was without one of their most dangerous bats, as Ramon Sifuentes had hit the DL the previous week (along with Dan Riley).

Projected matchups:
Sadaharu Okuda (2-1, 3.92 ERA) vs. Ryan Person (0-2, 8.00 ERA)
Bubba Wolinsky (2-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. Jesse Bulas (1-2, 3.20 ERA)
Jason Wheatley (2-0, 1.88 ERA) vs. Kevin Nolte (0-0, 6.00 ERA)

Weird sight: an all-right-handed pitching staff. Not even a lefty reliever in sight!

Game 1
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF A. Herrera – LF Fernandez – 2B Waters – C Gonzalez – P Okuda
SFB: 1B S. Diaz – 3B Del Vecchio – 2B Quiroz – C J. Hill – LF Crum – SS B. Nelson – CF A. Marquez – RF A.L. Herrera – P Person

Dismal Ted Del Vecchio returned to the CL and immediately resumed torturing the Raccoons, hitting a homer in his first attempt off Okuda, giving the Baybirds a 1-0 lead in the first. While Okuda didn’t pitch too badly overall, but had an unnerving tendency to put the leadoff man on base, which led to another run in the fourth inning, which Ken Crum opened with a single to left, swiftly scoring on Bob Nelson’s double, the Raccoons offense was once again entirely absent. The first time through, they had a single from Manny Fernandez, and the second time through, nothing at all. And that against a pitcher with an ERA of EIGHT.

Bob Nelson and Armando Luis Herrera whacked doubles off Okuda in the sixth to add a third run for the Bayhawks. The Luis-less Armando Herrera on the Critters singled to center in the seventh, an astounding second base hit off Ryan Person! Manny popped to Del Vecchio for the second out, while Waters snuck a single into right to put TWO Critters on base at once. Would wonders ever cease? Yes. Ruben Gonzalez grounded out harmlessly. Neither pitcher appeared after the stretch, but the Coons had the tying run at the plate again in the eighth. Ricardo Ordas gave away a single to Alex Adame, and Sebastien Parham walked Nelson Mercado to bring up the big boppers, but Maldonado was out on a pop to Sergio Quiroz, and Toohey grounded out to Bob Nelson. But it wouldn’t be the Raccoons if they didn’t tease a third time! Top 9th against Matt Simmons, Manny drew a walk with one out, followed by a Waters single to center. Derek Baskins batted for Gonzalez – straight into a double play. 3-0 Bayhawks. Waters 2-4;

Game 2
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF A. Herrera – LF Fernandez – 2B Waters – C Morales – P Wolinsky
SFB: 1B S. Diaz – 3B Del Vecchio – 2B Quiroz – C J. Hill – LF Crum – SS B. Nelson – CF A. Marquez – RF A.L. Herrera – P Bulas

Bubba Wolinsky entered with 22 scoreless innings to begin the year, but almost stumbled in the first, after a four-pitch walk to Steve Diaz and the inevitable Del Vecchio single. Two on, no outs, Quiroz found a double play before John Hill grounded out to Maldo to complete #23. Phew! Portland then scored (!), the run being unearned (…), in the top 2nd. Nelson fudged Herrera’s grounder leading off, Herrera stole second base, then came around to score on a Manny single. Next, the old man in the #27 shirt stole second base after a K to Waters, but was stranded by Morales (grounder) and Wolinsky (flew out to Crum). More amazingly, with nobody on and two outs the next time up in the top 4th, Morales buried a triple in right-center, which was rather cavernous in this park, and then scored when Wolinsky slapped a single into shallow center to go up 2-0. Alex Adame then doubled to left, but Wolinsky got a hard stop sign at third base. Mercado then grounded out to Quiroz, stranding two, just as the Critters had done the previous inning, when they had left Mercado and Maldo on the corners.

Wolinsky’s scoreless streak ended at 25, done in by another four-pitch walk, this one to Quiroz. Hill doubled to center, and Crum’s sac fly got a run home in the bottom 4th. Nelson flew out to Mercado to at least leave him with the 2-1 lead. Bryce Toohey almost doubled our output in the fifth, but narrowly missed his as-many-eth homer, having to settle for a wallbanger double. It came with nobody out and with Maldo (leadoff single) going to third base, setting up a prime scoring opportunity; but the Bayhawks were smart – they walked Herrera in a full count, thus setting up three on with nobody out and dooming any effort to score a run. Manny promptly grounded to Quiroz right away – but Nelson dropped the feed and they didn’t get an out on the play, with Maldo scoring, 3-1. But before you got any ideas about a big inning, Waters lined out to Quiroz, and when Morales grounded to second base, they got the 4-6-3 right on the second try…

Three singles got the Bayhawks a run, RBI to Alex Marquez, in the bottom 6th, narrowing the score to 3-2 again, before the Coons’ Maldo and Toohey went to the corners to lead off the top 7th, this time with a double and single, respectively, off righty Brad Barnes. Herrera singled cleanly to center to send the team up 4-2, Manny struck out, but Waters found the rightfield corner for an RBI double. Morales got a single past the diving Steve Diaz to plate a pair, and there was the big inning! Four runs in the seventh, before a Mike Profitt triple and Diaz’ RBI double chased Wolinsky in the bottom 7th without logging another out. Josh Rella replaced him and got three outs without allowing Diaz across, keeping the Baybirds at slam range through seven. Preston Porter, Aaron Curl, and Nelson Moreno would put the last two innings together without allowing a rally to the Baybirds. 7-3 Raccoons. Maldonado 4-5, 2B; Toohey 2-5, 2B; Morales 2-5, 2 RBI;

The relative beating (6 IP, 3 ER), still left Bubba (0.96 ERA) in the CL ERA lead, ahead of Boston’s Kyle Turay (1.14 ERA).

For the rubber game we planned to give Armando Herrera an age-related day off in center, but the Pacific had other ideas, sending in dense fog and drizzle on Thursday that refuse to clear and led to a postponement of the game. The Raccoons had to travel to Indy with a split – but Herrera got his day off anyway…

Raccoons (16-4) @ Indians (10-12) – April 26-28, 2047

The Raccoons had recorded two wins in three attempts against the Indians to begin the season. Indy has since sunk to the bottom of the division, despite putting up the seventh-most runs and conceding the fourth-fewest, with a +7 run differential. They seemed to have really weird luck (in a bad way), but they for sure had the best-performing rotation with a 2.60 ERA against their starters… Could be a challenge for a team that had a hard time scoring right now!

Projected matchups:
Jason Wheatley (2-0, 1.88 ERA) vs. John Roeder (2-1, 2.30 ERA)
Victor Merino (2-1, 4.50 ERA) vs. Justin Roberts (1-2, 2.14 ERA)
Jake Jackson (1-1, 5.66 ERA) vs. Bill Drury (1-4, 3.06 ERA)

Roeder would be the only lefty starter to come up against the Critters this week. Also, Drury was due a break, and I had a hunch…

Game 1
POR: SS Adame – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – RF Pellicano – LF Mercado – 2B Waters – C Gonzalez – P Wheatley
IND: SS Russ – 2B Tindle – RF B. Quinteros – LF D. Rivera – CF N. Galvan – 1B Kurtz – C Nunez – 3B A. Mendez – P Roeder

Roeder retired the first two before giving up a bomb to right to Maldonado and walking the pair after that. Nelson Mercado singled in another run, but Waters’ drive to center was caught by Nelson Galvan. The Indians’ resident pest, Andrew Russ, answered by reaching base with a drag bunt single in the bottom 1st, stole second, went for third, but was throw out there by Ruben Gonzalez. What a ******.

Both pitchers walked three batters before striking anybody out, in Wheats’ case in just two innings, leading to another pitch count that went well up well early. In Roeder’s case, it took him to the third inning, but with nobody out; after singles by Herrera and Maldonado, he walked Toohey to reach three – also three on base. Pellicano struck out, Mercado hit a sac fly, and Waters flew out to Danny Rivera … always the same with this team… Wheats, while pitching more efficiently after the wild first two frames, hit a single in the fourth that went nowhere, while Pellicano and Mercado went to the corners with 1-out hits in the top of the fifth. Waters grounded to Russ, but Mercado had gone early and took away the double play – only Waters was out at first, while Pellicano scored from third base. The .139 menace Ruben Gonzalez was not allowed to bat in a 4-0 game with first base open, the Indians preferring to face .400 slugger Jason Wheatley again, with Wheats wiggling the stick, salivating for more RBI’s. He ended the inning with a grounder… that actually went through the left side for a single! Mercado scored, while Gonzalez made the third out, erring around between second and third base with no clear purpose or plan, curtailing the inning with a 5-0 score.

All of that lead went to ******* hell in the bottom 5th in a spectacular meltdown. Angel Mendez singled and was bunted to second. Russ walked after fouling off six pitches, and both runners pulled off a double steal. Joe Tindle singled both in at 0-2. Bill Quinteros fouled off four pitches before singling, and Rivera singled quickly to score Tindle. Galvan reached on an Adame error, allowing Quinteros across and Rivera to third base, from where Wheats plated him with a wild pitch to Ron Kurtz before somehow finding a way out of the inning himself – but he was done for the day. The loss was staved off (never mind the shame), but was a scarcely-earned W in the cards? The Coons set up camp on the corners again in the sixth with Herrera and Maldonado on base and Toohey at the plate with one out – but Toohey got nothing from Roeder, who walked him (his sixth walk in the game), then was yanked for righty Bill Quinn. Pellicano ran a full count before squeezing out a walk, pushing home the go-ahead run again, 6-5, and putting Wheats up for a possible W after all. Mercado lined out to Tindle and Waters whiffed to end the inning with three runners left aboard, though… Preston Porter blew that lead rather unceremoniously in the bottom 6th, though, giving up a leadoff jack to Mendez, then fumbled Russ on base with his own error. Russ was at third before long, and Porter was yoinked after a walk to Tindle. Jake Bonnie K’ed Quinteros and got Herrera to catch Rivera’s fly to center to keep it even at six through six…

The next meltdown was Josh Rella’s in the bottom 7th. He was scorched for four hits, two walks, and three runs before Aaron Curl dug him out, and gave the game away for good, even though the tying run would be at the plate for Portland in both the eighth and ninth innings. Pellicano hit into a run-scoring fielder’s choice with Herrera and Toohey on the corners in the eighth, while Al Martell hit a pinch-hit single in the ninth but was thereafter pretty much ignored. 9-7 Indians. Herrera 3-5, 2B; Maldonado 3-5, HR, RBI; Toohey 1-2, 3 BB; Mercado 2-4, 2 RBI; Martell (PH) 1-1;

Despite this bitter loss, we were the only team with a winning record in the division that night. Even the Crusaders had sagged to 11-11.

Game 2
POR: SS Adame – CF Mercado – 1B Gurney – 3B Maldonado – RF Pellicano – LF Baskins – 2B Martell – C Morales – P Merino
IND: SS Russ – 1B Kurtz – CF B. Quinteros – LF D. Rivera – 2B Tindle – RF N. Galvan – 3B Lapinski – C Nunez – P Drury

The Coons shook things up a bit on Saturday, while the Indians moved Drury up into the middle game of the set. Merino retired Russ to begin the game, which was such a boon, then gave up a single to Kurtz, who, however, was doubled off first when Quinteros lined out to Gurney (Toohey wouldn’t have made that play…!), but walked Russ the second time through in the bottom 3rd. Russ stole another base (his 13th), but was stranded by the batters after him. At this point, the Raccoons had no base hits off Drury, having reached only with Baskins on a Kurtz error.

Danny Rivera opened the fourth with a single for Indy, upping his batting average to .412 (and probably .824 against Portland), but was caught stealing, while Derek Baskins took the no-hitter away with a 1-out single to right in the fifth. Drury lost Martell in a full count, and the Indians couldn’t turn two on Morales when he grounded to short. Merino batted with runners on the corners, but grounded out to Steve Lapinski, who then drew a leadoff walk immediately after, but was stranded all the same. Adame was on to begin the top 6th, but caught stealing (bites into clenched paw), while Mercado would have been out on a pop behind home plate, but Nick Nunez dropped that. Given a second life, Mercado singled. Gurney whiffed, Maldo was brushed, and Pellicano flew out to strand another pair…

Merino lasted six shutout innings, which took 104 pitches against the utterly annoying Indians, with Ibold adding a clean seventh. Top 8th, Hard-Luck Drury still on, the Coons had runners on the corners again after Adame and Gurney singles. Maldo batted with two outs, but struck out… The end then came with Russ and Kurtz singles off Nelson Moreno in the eighth, plus a Martell error and two more hits by Rivera and Tindle off Aaron Curl, plating a total of three runs for the ******** Arrowheads. Tommy Gardner didn’t fuss around for long with the Coons in the ninth. 3-0 Indians. Adame 2-4; Merino 6.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K;

(still bites into the clenched paw)

For Sunday, it was Bill Nichol (3-2, 2.56) – his dead body or Jackson’s!

Game 3
POR: SS Adame – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – 2B Gurney – LF Baskins – RF Fernandez – C Morales – P Jackson
IND: SS Russ – 2B Tindle – RF B. Quinteros – LF D. Rivera – CF N. Galvan – 1B Kurtz – C Nunez – 3B A. Mendez – P Nichol

Russ, the ******* *********** pest, reached on another bunt single to begin the bottom 1st, then was subject to six serious pickoff attempts by Jake Jackson *while* Jackson also whiffed two in retiring the next three batters and keeping the pest on first base the entire ******* time. Bottom 2nd, Nelson Galvan led off with a double, but hurt himself on the slide into second base and was replaced by Steven Elkin, who was also stranded on base. The Coons then went up 1-0 in the top 3rd without the benefit of a base hit in their ledger (at all) when Nichol nicked Tony Morales with an 0-2 pitch, and the runner advanced on a bunt, Adame’s groundout, and finally a balk. WHATEVER WORKS.

Russ was on with an outfield single in the bottom 3rd, and Jackson walked Tindle in what looked like the beginning of the end, but Morales caught Russ trying to snatch third base, and it unraveled for Indy from there, although the Coons played just as awfully. Gurney and Baskins hit back-to-back singles with two down in the fourth, and Manny reached on a misplay by Mendez. Morales then grounded out easily to Tindle, and another three runners were stranded… Bottom 5th, Russ was on base again, this time with a 2-out walk issued by Jackson. Three pickoff attempts followed before Tindle grounded out to Adame.

Jackson scattered six hits (mostly to Russ… grumble grumble) through seven shutout innings in defending the Coons’ wicked 1-0 lead. We were still down to those two fourth-inning singles that had proved abortive against Nichol, and Jackson’s spot led off the eighth. Mercado batted for him, but it was still another lousy 1-2-3 inning for the Coons. While Nelson followed on Nelson in the #9 hole, Waters replaced Gurney for defense after that top 8th, starting a 4-6-3 double play on Quinteros after Moreno had nicked Tindle – Russ had been out on another bunt attempt. Hah! ******! Waters also got an intentional walk after Toohey had whacked a 1-out double in the top 9th, which got Nichol into the generally failing left-handed squadron that had found their way to the enlarged bottom of the order. Baskins found a double play on the first pitch… which gave us an excuse to take the bubble wrap off Mike Lynn for the first time this week. He struck out PH Daniel Hertenstein (for Rivera??) before another pinch-hitter, Nate Massey, reached on an infield single. Kurtz also singled, Massey went for third, and Manny fumbled the ball for an extra base, allowing the tying run to score. I almost died on the spot. Lynn worked his way out of the inning, giving everybody more of this gruesome brand of baseball on display.

The Raccoons stayed in the game despite Josh Rella nailing backup catcher Jason Rose good to begin the bottom 10th. The Indians didn’t get him around, extending the torture further. Lefty Bobby Nelson retired Adame to begin the 11th, but Herrera walked in a full count. Maldo grounded out, which left Toohey with the go-ahead run in scoring position and two outs. Toohey had driven in 20 runs in the first three weeks and ZERO this week, which might explain a thing or two about how it had gone. He made amends by crashing his fifth homer of the year, a no-doubter to left-center that broke the tie to bits. The Raccoons then went to Jake Bonnie for the bottom 11th. Hertenstein opened with a 3-2 single, but was doubled off by Massey’s grounder to Waters. Kurtz also found Waters for the final out. 3-1 Blighters. Toohey 2-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Jackson 7.0 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K;

Bonnie’s first Raccoons save, but the 85th of his career, most of them with the Wolves from 2041-44.

In other news

April 23 – Plantar fasciitis will keep CIN 3B Jesus Burgos (.313, 1 HR, 10 RBI) away from the field for at least a month.
April 24 – Stars and Cyclones don’t score for 12 innings, before Dallas puts out four runs in the top of the 13th. The Cyclones have no answer to that and take a 4-0 loss in 13 innings.
April 26 – VAN RF Jerry Outram (.306, 2 HR, 12 RBI) hits the DL with a quad strain. He might miss six weeks.
April 26 – SFW SP Mark Elzinga (2-3, 4.95 ERA) fires a 2-hit shutout against the Wolves, whiffing six in the 5-0 win.
April 26 – The Loggers acquire RF/1B/LF Ernesto Hernandez (.387, 1 HR, 13 RBI) from the Knights in exchange for 2B/SS Scott Davison (.182, 0 HR, 3 RBI).
April 28 – The Loggers beat the Crusaders, 8-0, scoring all their runs in the second inning.

FL Player of the Week: RIC LF/RF Pablo Gonzalez (.352, 3 HR, 16 RBI), hitting .462 (12-26) with 1 HR, 6 RBI
CL Player of the Week: VAN 1B Chris Delagrange (.193, 3 HR, 8 RBI), being revived at .523 (11-21) with 2 HR, 6 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Well, reality caught up with the Raccoons. Or should I say, no hitting finally met a few pitching meltdowns and we had our first losing week of the year at 2-3. Also, the Indians drive me insane, thankfully a third of the games against them is already ticked off for the year…

If Big Bryce ever breaks a leg, we can go ******* home…

To do list: get either catcher to hit, else call on Jimmy Dalton, that raker. Also, it would help if either Baskins or Manny could get their bat out of their own ******** to help with SOMETHING. Herrera, Waters, Gurney… the list is long, too long.

Wheats REALLY isn’t an April pitcher, huh? He had a bad April last year, and this year he spun a near-shutout on Opening Day, and since then hasn’t found out of the sixth inning. Friday was the first time somebody really took the war to him, but that pretty useless, but nice to talk about streak of 15 winning decisions survived – barely. Oh, he’ll warm up with the weather, which in Portland can’t take much longer than mid-July…!

Thursday’s rainout will be made up in a Monday double header in late August, which is a bad time to make up a game. There would be Thursday off days sandwiched around a 6-day trip to Charlotte and San Francisco at that point, though, so it could be worse.

We continue to tour the East next week, with four games in Boston and three more in Washington.

Fun Fact: Boston’s Kyle Turay took the CL ERA lead with eight innings without an earned run in a 1-0 loss to the damn Elks on Friday.

No problem. We’ll beat him up when we see him next week! – Right, Bubba? We’ll stick him six or so!

(Bubba Wolinsky looks unsure)

[Bub13]

So the Knights are off to a 16-9 start despite losing 17 WAR in the off-season? Did I read that right?

Superstud rookies moving in, or clearing out old baggage?

[Westheim]

Tough-as-nails rotation (still tops in ERA), all of whom were already there, combined with an offense that really has only two above-average producers in good old John Marz, who was already there, and Arnout van der Zanden, who was brought in from the Elks, but had only +0.2 WAR in 2046 (and the Knights sent David Farris in the deal, who had +1.1). The rest of their hitters are average at best - it's mostly pitching.

Major WAR losses for them were free agents Jim Price (3.4; half of which came with the Blue Sox actually), Chris Delagrange (3.2), Glenn Sprague (1.7), and Alex Banderas (1.2); there were numerous other free agents, perhaps totalling another 1.5-2.0 WAR, so about 11 WAR total.

They then traded Blake Sansone (3.1) to the Condors for prospects.

They didn't sign a free agent worth more than +0.4 WAR in 2046 (Ryan Lorensen).

[Westheim]

Raccoons (17-6) @ Titans (8-17) – April 29-May 2, 2047

The Titans were in last place in the division at the end of April, and has lost five in a row, but this was Boston and nothing good had ever happened – … well, you know, the Critters had dominated the season series against them for five years, and had whacked the Titans by a total tally of 41-13 in the last three years alone, so maybe that was currently not true. Boston was in the bottom four in both runs scored and runs allowed, with a -34 run differential (Coons: +25). They hit homers, the rotation was hallway decent, but overall… brrrr.

Projected matchups:
Sadaharu Okuda (2-2, 4.05 ERA) vs. Victor Mondragon (0-3, 3.63 ERA)
Bubba Wolinsky (3-0, 0.96 ERA) vs. Tommy Kubik (1-3, 6.82 ERA)
Jason Wheatley (2-0, 3.10 ERA) vs. Kyle Turay (2-1, 0.85 ERA)
Victor Merino (2-1, 3.60 ERA) vs. Brian Jackson (1-2, 2.96 ERA)

So, Wheats drew the league ERA leader, Wolinsky and Merino drew other left-handers, and Merino in particular drew a Jackson, while our Jackson was the only starter that would not get a go in this series, but would have to wait ‘til Washington.

Man, Tuesday looked like such a bad loss already…

Game 1
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF Herrera – LF Fernandez – 2B Waters – C Morales – P Okuda
BOS: LF C. Jimenez – 2B Galaz – 1B V. Chavez – RF Ritchey – CF T. Lopez – 3B T. Batista – C Brooks – SS Kohr – P Mondragon

The Raccoons scattered four hits the first time through without scoring, which included Toohey whiffing to strand Adame on third in the opening frame, then Herrera getting caught stealing by Justin Brooks; Tony Morales however had also already thrown out Chris Jimenez in the bottom 1st, so there was that. Okuda allowed only one hit to Tony Lopez in the first run through the Boston lineup, and nobody reached in the third or fourth innings for either side in what was becoming a pitching duel rather quickly. Traffic resumed in the fifth with Matt Waters’ leadoff single. Morales also found a single, putting runners on the corners, but Okuda struck out on three pitches. Adame got a run home with a groundout, but that was all the Coons got in the inning, a 1-0 lead. Mondragon had another 1-2-3 sixth, then found the second hit off Okuda, a single, in the bottom 6th, but was left on first base.

The Critters then lost Waters when Mondragon drilled him rather painfully in the unprotected back hindpaw. He tried to walk it off for a while, couldn’t, and eventually had to come out of the game when the umpires’ crew chief informed Dr. Padilla that the umps had dinner reservation and the show had to continue now. Martell replaced him. No run came about from either that inning or from Adame singling to begin the eighth, for he was caught stealing by Brooks, the little devil. Mercado was brushed by Mondragon, but stranded by Maldo and Toohey, while Okuda went on ticking like clockwork, holding the Titans to three hits in eight innings. Top 9th, Ben Arner began with a Herrera pop, then gave away a double to Derek Baskins, who hit for a listless Manny Fernandez. Then Al Martell took him deep to right…! Up 3-0 now, Okuda would be allowed to do his own bidding in the bottom 9th against the bottom of the order, retiring Chris Jimenez on a fly to center to begin the inning. Gerardo Galaz singled to left then, and went for home when Victor Chavez dropped a ball near the leftfield line for a double. Derek Baskins said no, though, and threw out Galaz at the plate. Two outs, 109 pitches, Okuda would get Joe Ritchey, batting .191 for all those millions, but nothing more – Mike Lynn was waiting in the pen to be called upon. Ritchey flew to center on the first pitch, no problem for Herrera – ballgame! 3-0 Raccoons! Adame 2-4, RBI; Baskins (PH) 1-1, 2B; Waters 2-2; Martell 1-1, HR, 2 RBI; Morales 2-4; Okuda 9.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K, W (3-2);

This 5-hit shutout was the third of Okuda’s career. He had never been closer to a no-hitter while shutting out the opposition than this.

We also got our first roster move, with Matt Waters’ hindpaw too badly bruised to play for at least a week and probably two. He went to the DL, and John Castner, hitting .302 in St. Pete, was recalled to take the open spot.

Game 2
POR: SS Adame – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – RF Pellicano – LF Mercado – C Gonzalez – 2B Castner – P Wolinsky
BOS: LF C. Jimenez – C Whitley – 1B V. Chavez – RF Ritchey – CF T. Lopez – 3B T. Batista – 2B Galaz – SS Kohr – P Kubik

Two singles and Herrera getting plinked in between loaded the bases with the first three Critters that showed up against “Kitten” Kubik on Tuesday, before Bryce Toohey stepped in the box and totally unexpectedly smashed a first pitch over the fence in leftfield for a homer. GRAAAAAAAAAAAND SLAAAAAAAAMMM!!!

Ruben Gonzalez added a solo shot with two outs in the inning, giving Wolinsky a 5-spot to work with, and the Coons made it 7-0 in the second, getting Adame, who stole second, on base before Herrera tripled him home and himself scored on Maldo’s sac fly to center. And then Wolinsky could not retire anybody in the bottom 2nd… Leadoff walk to Ritchey, then an RBI triple by Lopez, and things went south rather quickly from there. The Titans got a total of five hits rapped off him, and drove in four runs to make it an actual ballgame again; singles went through every hole. Besides Lopez, RBI knocks were delivered by Galaz, PH Jim Round, and Dan Whitley. The Coons responded in the top 3rd with Mercado walking against Dave Serio, who gave up a single to Gonzalez, while John Castner brought home Mercado from third base with a groundout, 8-4.

The fourth was uneventful, and Serio was still going in the fifth inning, but there put three on with nobody out as Toohey and Pellicano singled, and he offered a 4-pitch walk to Mercado. That brought up the bottom of the order, with Ruben Gonzalez doing bottom-of-the-order things now, grounding to Galaz for a double play. Toohey scored, however, 9-4. Castner was walked intentionally, getting Wolinsky to fly out. The Raccoons’ starter saved himself through six innings, not allowing any more runs and only two more base hits, although he had surely suffered fatal damage to his Pitcher of the Month claim with that second inning from hell, since this was the end of the month – even if the Raccoons whacked Turay tomorrow, that would be in the month of May. The Coons added two unearned runs against right-hander Tommy Griffith in the eighth, Pat Gurney on a pinch-hit double and Herrera with a sac fly getting RBI’s there, then another run in the ninth, also off Griffith, which was earned after a proper Toohey double and Mercado’s RBI single. Porter, Rella, and Bonnie provided scoreless relief for Portland. 12-4 Raccoons. Adame 2-5; Toohey 3-5, HR, 2B, 4 RBI; Gonzalez 3-5, HR, RBI; Gurney (PH) 1-1, 2B, RBI;

Game 3
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF Herrera – 2B Martell – LF Baskins – C Morales – P Wheatley
BOS: SS C. Jimenez – C Whitley – 1B V. Chavez – RF Ritchey – CF T. Lopez – 2B Galaz – 3B Kohr – LF Liceaga – P Turay

Wheats had a 1-2-3 first as May broke, which was good, since he needed to get through six every once in a while and hadn’t since Opening Day… The Coons had three on and nobody out in the top 2nd against Turay on account on three soft singles, then had Baskins pop out. Tony Morales doubled in two with a liner to right, thankfully, before a Wheats K and Adame pop stranded the remaining runners in scoring position. Boston got a run back in the third, Jimenez doubling home Danny Liceaga, but those were most of only three base hits Wheatley allowed (next to a walk) in five solid innings – and on only 59 pitches!

He walked Vic Chavez and allowed a single to Lopez in the sixth, but got Galaz to pop out to strand those, while I wondered where Tuesday’s offense had gone. Wheats then got to run the bases with a 1-out single to center in the seventh. Adame walked to shove him to second, then was out on Mercado’s grounder to Galaz. Two down, Maldo scored Wheats with a clean single to left, extending the lead to 3-1, before Toohey sent a shot that bounced only once into Jason Kohr’s stomach, but the third baseman had an easy force out at his base to end the inning before heading for an ice pack.

Wheats came back with not one, but TWO leadoff walks to Kohr and Liceaga in the bottom 7th, then went pop, groundout, bringing up Dan Whitley with runners on the corners. Whitley was a righty hitting .177 – Aaron Curl was ready for Chavez behind him. But Whitley was Wheatley’s business – and he ended his night with a strikeout! An unretired Al Martell then doubled to right in the eighth, tearing something in the process, and was replaced with Castner, who scored on Derek Baskins’ single to right-center. With a 3-run lead, Curl and Moreno combined for the bottom 8th in 1-2-3 fashion, while the team added a run in the ninth against lefty Emanuel Caceiro. Mercado singled, stole a base, and eventually scored on a wild pitch. The extra run kept Lynn in wraps for now, as right-handers began the bottom 9th and Moreno was still around. He got two flies to center, then struck out Liceaga to finish off the deal. 5-1 Raccoons. Martell 4-4, 2B; Wheatley 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, W (3-0) and 1-3; Moreno 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, SV (3);

Given he was hitting .522, Al Martell’s injury was probably fatal, but there was no comment from Dr. Padilla on Wednesday or on Thursday morning.

Game 4
POR: SS Adame – CF Herrera – 3B Maldonado – LF Toohey – RF Pellicano – C Gonzalez – 1B Gurney – 2B Castner – P Merino
BOS: LF C. Jimenez – C Whitley – 1B V. Chavez – RF Ritchey – CF T. Lopez – 3B T. Batista – 2B Galaz – SS Kohr – P B. Jackson

Herrera and Maldonado singles and a passed ball charged to Whitley gave the Raccoons a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, with another passed ball following with two outs in the second, when the Coons had Merino on second base and Adame on first. Unfortunately, Armando Herrera flew out to Joe Ritchey on a 3-1 pitch, leaving the pair in scoring position. Merino retired the first five Titans in order before walking Tony Batista, but recovered with an easy flyout by Galaz to Pellicano. He didn’t allow another runner until Vic Chavez walked in the fourth, and that runner also never moved off first base. Neither did the Raccoons advance into scoring position anymore against Jackson… Bottom 5th, Gerardo Galaz drew a walk from Merino, stole second base, but was stranded when both Kohr and Jackson grounded out. The Titans then got Chris Jimenez to third base with two outs in the bottom 6th; Merino had nailed him to begin the inning, and he had advanced on a grounder and a wild pitch. Joe Ritchey fell to 1-2 against Merino, but then put the Titans on the board with a monstrous home run to rightfield, which also took away the no-hitter…

Manny Fernandez hit a double to left when pinch-hitting for Merino in the seventh, but Adame and Herrera made poor outs to waste that effort, while the 3-4-5 went down in order (and meekly!) against Jackson in the eighth. The Raccoons’ pen held up between Porter, Bonnie (although he allowed a single to Chavez, the only batter he faced), and Ibold, so the tying run started the ninth at the plate against Ben Arner, right-hander with a 6.23 ERA, in the ninth inning. Mercado batted for Gonzalez, but flew out to left. Gurney lined out to Galaz. Tony Morales hit for Castner. He struck out. 2-1 Titans. Fernandez (PH) 1-1, 2B; Merino 6.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, L (2-2) and 1-1, BB;

Raccoons (20-7) @ Capitals (12-15) – May 3-5, 2047

The Raccoons had taken two out of three from the Caps each of the last three times these teams had met, the most recent edition of the series having been played just last year. The team was currently fifth in the FL East, and in the bottom three in both runs scored and runs allowed. Their -33 run differential didn’t suggest that they were close to a .500 team in reality. Their rotation was a problem especially, with a 5.33 ERA between the hurlers there, worst in the league. They didn’t reach base, they didn’t hit homers, but they had some speed on the team.

Projected matchups:
Jake Jackson (1-1, 4.23 ERA) vs. Sean Fowler (0-3, 10.55 ERA)
Sadaharu Okuda (3-2, 3.03 ERA) vs. Nick Young (3-2, 4.28 ERA)
Bubba Wolinsky (4-0, 1.85 ERA) vs. Sang-hoo Kim (2-1, 5.02 ERA)

Young was the only southpaw in their rotation. Kim, 27 years old and a rookie from South Korea, had started the season in the bullpen, but had moved into the rotation recently.

The Raccoons also arrived in Washington without Al Martell, who was diagnosed with a lat strain and was moved to the DL. He’d probably miss all of May and most of June with the injury, which would continue to test our depth in the middle infield area. Although, what we really needed now was cover for the left side of the infield. Despite hitting .186 in AAA, we brought back Ben Coen thusly, at least until we could sort out something else.

Alex Adame had been supposed to get a day off, too, but that was scratched. Toohey got a day off instead on Friday, and we’d play it by ear from there.

Game 1
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 1B Gurney – 3B Maldonado – CF Herrera – LF Baskins – C Gonzalez – 2B Castner – P Jackson
WAS: 2B J. Ramos – C Julian Diaz – 3B R. Jimenez – LF McGuigan – SS O’Keefe – 1B Cohoon – CF Burch – RF Nigro – P S. Fowler

While I wondered how a guy named Jarrod Cohoon was not a Raccoon, the Critters had Mercado thrown out at home plate to end the top 1st by Brian Nigro on Maldo’s single to right. Jake Jackson pitched two clean innings to begin his day, then singled to follow up a leadoff double to left-center by John Castner (his first hit since being called up after the Waters injury), putting runners on the corners with nobody out against the 23-year-old Fowler. Adame got a ball over the second base bag past the diving Chris O’Keefe for an RBI single, and Mercado also singled to load the bases with no outs. (sigh!) Pat Gurney hit a sac fly, while Maldo found the hole on the left side for an RBI single. That was already better than our long-standing average with three on and nobody out! …and *then* Herrera found a double play on the infield.

Jackson retired ten in a row to begin the game before Julian Diaz hit a double and was stranded in the fourth, then opened the next inning with a single before being forced out by Adame’s grounder to short. Adame stole second, but was left on by Mercado and Gurney. On to the sixth, which Maldo began with another single through the left side, then stole his first base of the year. Fowler then sawed off the next three Critters that approached him, stranding Maldo, too, in scoring position… While the Caps had nothing against Jackson – getting only a Nigro single in the middle innings – the Raccoons tried again in unearned fashion in the eighth. Maldo reached on a Cohoon error (maybe he shouldn’t be a Raccoon after all), while Herrera singled, and Baskins walked, all with one out. Ruben Gonzalez hit a mighty fly to deep center that was caught, but good enough for a sac fly and a 4-0 lead. Toohey then batted for Castner, but grounded out to end the inning. The Caps got the run back in the bottom of the inning; Jackson brushed the leadoff man, Kevin Burch, then gave up singles to Alex Pedraza, batting for Fowler, and Javier Ramos to allow that runner across, taking away a potential shutout. He was thus hit for in the ninth, and Mike Lynn got the ball in the bottom of the inning after not appearing at all in the Titans series. Cohoon hit a 2-out single in the inning, but a pop from Burch ended the game. 4-1 Raccoons. Adame 2-5, RBI; Mercado 2-5; Maldonado 3-4, RBI; Jackson 8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, W (2-1) and 2-3;

Game 2
POR: SS Adame – CF Herrera – RF Pellicano – 1B Toohey – C Gonzalez – LF Fernandez – 3B Coen – 2B Castner – P Okuda
WAS: 2B J. Ramos – C Julian Diaz – 3B R. Jimenez – SS O’Keefe – LF McGuigan – 1B Cohoon – RF Sanderfer – CF Nigro – P Young

While Okuda put up three scoreless to begin the day, the warning signs were there early. The Caps would have scored in the first if Javier Ramos hadn’t been caught trying to nip third base after a leadoff double, eventually scoring runners in scoring position when Jamie McGuigan lined out to Manny in left. Nigro would single home McGuigan in the bottom 4th, left-handedly beating Okuda with two outs and two strikes and first base open, tying up the game; the Raccoons had been futile the first time through, and had only scored in the top fourth when Ruben Gonzalez had been nailed and then scored after going to third base on Manny’s single and Coen’s groundout. Adame’s throwing error put Ramos on base to begin the bottom 5th, but Okuda now found the good stuff and struck out two of the next three, amongst a grounder, to escape the unearned threat.

Still tied at one, the Raccoons went to the corners in the top 6th with Manny’s 1-out double and a Coen single after that. Castner popped out, Okuda whiffed, then got four more outs before putting Paul Moore on base as the go-ahead run in the bottom 7th. Josh Rella conceded the run on a 2-out single by Diaz, and the Raccoons were now trailing against the decent pen of the Caps. An error by former Critter Ricky Jimenez put Gonzalez on first base to begin the top 8th, lefty Vic Flores got out Manny, but Coen singled off righty Jaiden Garriques. Baskins hit for Castner, slapping a single to left that filled the bags in the 2-1 game. Maldo then was sent to bat for Rella with a juicy selection on all the dishes – but found O’Keefe for the 6-4-3 double play… ending the inning. Instead, the Caps sunk Bob Ibold with two runs in the bottom 8th after O’Keefe drew a leadoff walk, McGuigan tripled to right, and Guillermo Leon got that run home with a sac fly. Leif Squires turned the Critters away in the ninth. 4-1 Capitals. Pellicano 3-5, 3B; Fernandez 2-3, BB, 2B; Coen 2-4, RBI; Baskins (PH) 1-1;

Still waiting for our vaunted offense to maybe show up at some point.

Game 3
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF Baskins – LF Fernandez – C Morales – 2B Castner – P Wolinsky
WAS: 2B J. Ramos – RF Sanderfer – SS O’Keefe – LF McGuigan – 1B Cohoon – C A. Pedraza – 3B G. Leon – CF Nigro – P Kim

Alex Sanderfer’s home run put the Caps up 1-0 in the first inning, but that was pretty much all they got off Wolinsky in the early going, while the Raccoons got absolutely nothing off Sang-hoon Kim the first time through the lineup. Maldonado’s 2-out single in the fourth gave them their first runner at all, with Toohey flicking another single after him. Derek Baskins then whacked a 3-piece over the wall in left, flipping the score to 3-1 Portland. Manny reached on an error after that, but was left on by Morales’ fly to right, yet Castner opened the fifth with a single. He stole second before Wolinsky grounded out to short, keeping him there, so we could have used a bunt just as well… Adame however, after limping through most of the week with rather bad luck, singled to left, where McGuigan flubbed the pickup, allowing Castner to score while Adame jogged into second base. Mercado put them on the corners with a scratch single before Maldo again grounded to short – except that now O’Keefe fumbled the ball and instead of another inning-axing double play, the Raccoons had all paws safe on the error, and another run across. Toohey flew out to left, which should have been the fourth or fifth out of the inning, before Baskins dropped in an RBI single in right-center to score Mercado. Manny rolled an RBI single through the left side, which made it 7-1 on Kim, four of the runs earned, as he departed unhappily. Morales then smacked an RBI double to right off Garriques, who ended the 5-spot with a K to Castner, then hit a single off Wolinsky in an otherwise uneventful bottom 5th.

Wolinsky then got stuck in the sixth, which was not great news in an 8-1 game, especially after getting out the first two batters. Then five straight Caps reached, starting with Cohoon, who singled. Pedraza doubled him in, Leon was nicked, Nigro had an RBI single, and Moore walked in a full count to bring the curtain down for Wolinsky. With the bases loaded, Nelson Moreno appeared unseasonably early and kept the score at 8-3 with a gentle Ramos fly to Manny in left. Manny and Morales singled off Eric Snare in the seventh, but with two outs, and Castner was no help. Snare went once through the order rather fast before stumbling over the same set of batters in the ninth inning. Baskins and Manny singled, and he struck Morales in the bum with his 49th pitch of the outing. Three on, no outs once more, but Castner was up, so Snare remained in the game, getting a pop to short before Vic Flores came out for Gurney, who had pinch-hit the previous time through and then replaced Toohey at first base. He hit into a double play. (sigh!) Bottom 9th, then. Jake Bonnie came on, walked two, and was excused. Ibold got a grounder to Maldo for a play at second from Ramos, then Sanderfer to line out to Adame. Then O’Keefe cracked an RBI double to right… Ibold remained on, though, and got a pop from McGuigan to end the game. 8-4 Critters. Mercado 2-4, BB, 2B; Baskins 3-5, HR, 4 RBI; Fernandez 3-5, RBI; Morales 2-4, 2B, RBI;

In other news

April 29 – TOP INF/LF/RF Vittorio Riario (.250, 4 HR, 15 RBI) whacks three home runs in an 8-5 win over the Rebels, all of them solo shots.
April 29 – The Loggers walk off against the Canadiens, 8-7 in 10 innings, when VAN CL Sam Gibson (2-1, 3.09 ERA, 5 SV), with runners on the corners in the bottom 10th, throws away a pickoff attempt on rookie OF/3B Ricky Lamotta (.000, 0 HR, 1 RBI) on first base, allowing OF/1B Celio Umbreiro (.190, 0 HR, 6 RBI) to score from third base with the winning run.
April 30 – PERFECT GAME: Topeka’s young left-hander Jose Arias (4-0, 1.67 ERA) goes 27 up, 27 down in a 6-0 win over the Rebels, which is not only the first ever no-hitter for the Buffaloes, the only team entering the night still looking for their first, but only the fourth perfect game in league history after CIN Juan Garcia (against the Buffos), WAS Eric Williams, and IND Chris Sinkhorn (both of those also against the Rebs).
April 30 – A strained hip muscle will put IND OF Nelson Galvan (.238, 0 HR, 8 RBI) on the DL through August.
May 1 – Pacifics outfielder Matt Kinder (.268, 4 HR, 14 RBI) hits three doubles and two singles in seven attempts in a 5-4 loss to the Wolves that takes 15 innings to complete.
May 3 – DEN SP John Kennedy (3-3, 3.00 ERA) is expected to miss at least one start after falling down the stairs at home.
May 4 – Back soreness will keep SFW LF/RF Mario Villa (.358, 2 HR, 20 RBI) out of games for two weeks.
May 5 – The Warriors’ RF/LF/1B Dario Martinez (.192, 1 HR, 2 RBI) ends a 17-inning, 3-2 win over the Canadiens when he hits a home run off VAN MR Matt Fries (1-1, 3.00 ERA).
May 5 – Topeka INF/LF/RF Felix Marquez (.375, 2 HR, 13 RBI) is suffering from back spasms and will miss one week at least.

FL Player of the Week: TOP SP Jose Arias (5-0, 1.40 ERA), going 2-0 with a zero ERA in 16.1 innings, and oh yes, a perfecto!
CL Player of the Week: TIJ 1B Sterling Henderson (.301, 6 HR, 19 RBI), batting .423 (11-26) with 2 HR, 9 RBI

FL Hitter of the Month: SAL 1B Bill Jenkins (.306, 7 HR, 28 RBI)
CL Hitter of the Month: IND OF Danny Rivera (.415, 3 HR, 30 RBI)
FL Pitcher of the Month: DEN SP Gary Perrone (5-0, 2.08 ERA)
CL Pitcher of the Month: ATL Kurt Olson (4-0, 1.29 ERA)
FL Rookie of the Month: TOP C Brett Banks (.357, 3 HR, 15 RBI)
CL Rookie of the Month: MIL 1B/LF/RF Erik Bush (.347, 3 HR, 15 RBI)

Complaints and stuff

One month in, the Raccoons are out there in pretty decent shape. Yes, we’re only fifth in runs scored in the CL, but we’ve by far allowed the fewest runs in the entire league (94, compared to 109 on the next-best Buffos). The budding crisis in the middle infield (John Castner barely qualifies as warm body) aside, things could be worse, even though some guys can’t buy a break.

For example, Ruben Gonzalez has a .116 BABIP after a month, which is keeping him in business in Portland. It literally can’t go on like that. Gurney in particular is also getting screwed by bad luck. Manny and Baskins were in the same basket until a few days ago, trending up noticeably this week, leaving only Herrera and Morales as other Raccoons with significantly deflated BABIPs (.270 or worse).

Castner might be exchanged for Carreno next week. Carreno is hitting .417 in nine games in AAA, but he was still on the minor league DL for a tweaked hammy when Matt Waters and Al Martell went down to injury in Boston, and has just come off now. Problem is, even if he was hitting, he could not stay up with Waters back in mid-May, since we are too thin on the left side without Martell, at least for my taste, and Carreno throws like a girl.

Monday will be off, and we’ll then play the Stars at home before having to fly cross-country again for nothing more than a 3-game set with the Crusaders. After that, a weeklong homestand with the Loggers and Falcons will follow.

Fun Fact: Vittorio Riario’s 3-homer game against the Rebs came on the 31st anniversary of Ray Gilbert doing the same number on the Loggers in 2016.

Ray ******* Gilbert!! (bites into desk)

…who won the Player of the Year award that year??

…who singlehandedly killed the Raccoons on the final weekend of 2012??

…who made my life a living hell as a career .307/.379/.482 hitter with 308 homers and 1,295 RBI in his prime in damn Elk City and New York??

Ray ******* Gilbert!! Uu-aaahhhh!!! (flails wildly with all four paws)

[Westheim]

Raccoons (22-8) vs. Stars (17-14) – May 7-9, 2047

After playing the Stars for four straight years with a 6-6 total tally, the Raccoons had not played them at all in their three consecutive pennant seasons that had preceded this one, so this was hopefully not a bad omen, but our first interleague home set of the year was a Tuesday-through-Thursday meeting with Dallas in early May. They were five games out in the FL West, second in runs scored and fourth in runs allowed, and with a +32 run differential didn’t look too shabby out there. The results had yet to materialize into wins for them. They were tops in on-base percentage and stolen bases, so this could become one of those unnerving series…

Projected matchups:
Jason Wheatley (3-0, 2.75 ERA) vs. Roberto Pruneda (3-1, 2.77 ERA)
Victor Merino (2-2, 3.50 ERA) vs. Orlando Leos (2-2, 4.46 ERA)
Jake Jackson (2-1, 3.53 ERA) vs. Arthur Pickett (4-2, 3.69 ERA)

Only right-handers coming up here. Their lineup, however, was mostly left-handers.

Game 1
DAL: RF O. Gonzalez – 3B J. Rivas – CF Cecil – 1B Jam. King – LF del Toro – SS Villacorta – 2B Sedillo – C Castaneda – P Pruneda
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – 2B Gurney – CF Herrera – LF Baskins – C Morales – Wheatley

It went wrong right away for Wheatley, who had Omar Gonzalez reach with a single to begin the game. The runner stole second, but Wheats lost Tylor Cecil on balls anyway. Jamie King hit an RBI single, Juan del Toro hit an infield single, and Leo Villacorta almost hit a slam to right, but the ball fell into Mercado’s glove two feet from the fence – still a sac fly and a 2-0 deficit though, even before Mario Sedillo grounded out. The Raccoons countered with three straight singles to begin their half of the first, which gave Maldonado an RBI before Toohey struck out and Gurney hit into a double play. But for all intents and purposes, Wheatley’s seasons-crossing winning streak ended in a 3-run second inning. Throwing errors by Gurney and Mercado were added to hard hits and the Stars just scored off him at will. While the Stars lost Pruneda to injury by the third inning, that was not something I would have dared to let me give hope at this stage of resilient non-offense on this .733 team…

Bottom 4th, reliever Tony Martinez found himself surrounded by runners after a Maldo single and walks offered to Toohey and Herrera. Derek Baskins hit into an inning-ending double play. Gene Pellicano drew a walk in Wheatley’s place in the bottom 5th, then was doubled up by Adame. They were absolutely disgusting to watch, and that was before Jake Bonnie had another outhouse appearance, getting mangled for four runs in the sixth inning when he just didn’t retire the ******* batters. Three hits, three walks, all for two outs. This obviously drove the nails into Wheats’ coffin, now down 9-1, although Preston Porter struck out Sedillo to strand the last two runners. Maldo hit a single in the bottom 6th. Toohey hit into a double play. It was the third straight inning with a Raccoons double play, and the fourth in the game. I rolled into a ball with Honeypaws in my clutch on the brown couch, closed my wet black googly eyes, and nodded off while the tears were still running down the stripes. I missed a run that fell out of Aaron Curl, and absolutely no response from the dead offense. 10-1 Stars. Mercado 2-4, 3B; Maldonado 3-4, RBI;

The head that was supposed to roll after the game, though, was Bonnie’s. His ERA was up to 6.30, he had walked 11 batters in 10 innings, and it was getting worse. Bonnie informed us in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t be going to ******* St. Petersburg, and Cristiano confirmed that then, well, he didn’t have to. The sucker had the right to refuse the assignment.

Sucker.

Game 2
DAL: SS J. Rivas – 2B Sedillo – RF Cecil – LF O. Gonzalez – CF del Toro – C Rollin – 3B Villacorta – 1B van Eijk – P O. Leos
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – 2B Gurney – CF Herrera – LF Fernandez – C R. Gonzalez – P Merino

Gonzalez’ single, del Toro’s RBI double, and a sneaky 2-out single by Govaart van Eijk gave the Stars another 2-0 lead, this time in the second inning and off southpaw Merino. The bottom of the inning saw Villacorta fumble a Herrera grounder to create an opening. With one out, Manny added a single to left, Ruben Gonzalez walked, and the bags were full for, well… Merino… hitting .444 on the season, though! And now a comebacker to Leos for a casual out at home. Alex Adame came through, though, sending a liner up the leftfield line for a game-tying double with two outs. And then Mercado popped out.

No further scoring occurred through the middle of the fifth, Merino scattering two hits and the Coons throwing away a these-days-rare Manny double in the fourth. Adame was back on with a leadoff single in the bottom 5th, and stole second base for the second time on the day. Mercado’s grounder moved him to third, after which the Stars bypassed the tough out Maldonado to get the K-prone Toohey up, who didn’t whiff, but popped out to short at 1-0. Gurney grounded out… Merino slid into the same spot – runners on the corners with one out – in the top 6th, but the Stars knew how to cash their people. Run-scoring groundout, RBI single, and they were up 4-2.

Merino gave his all, seven and two thirds on 111 pitches, but remained behind as the Raccoons continued to imitate Haurel and Lardy at every opportunity they got and kept poking their own eyes out. Leos pitched eight innings on five hits and the two Adame-sponsored runs, then left for righty Dale Mrazek, with Bob Ibold having gotten the four missing outs without allowing a runner after following Merino. Mrazek opened the bottom 9th with a walk to Manny, which brought up the tying run in .148 hitter Ruben Gonzalez. .148 with three homers, but still. He batted, he fell to two strikes, he hit into a double play. For crying out loud… Derek Baskins singled in place of Ibold, prolonging my pain, but Adame grounded out to short. 4-2 Stars. Adame 2-4, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Fernandez 2-3, BB, 2B; Baskins (PH) 1-1;

We should bat Manny ahead of Maldo again, like in the olden days…

Game 3
DAL: RF O. Gonzalez – 3B J. Rivas – CF Cecil – 1B Jam. King – LF del Toro – SS Villacorta – 2B Sedillo – C Castaneda – P Pickett
POR: SS Adame – RF Fernandez – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF Herrera – LF Baskins – C Morales – 2B Castner – P Jackson

For a change, the Coons scored first, and in the first. Manny singled (had somebody oiled those old bones?), Toohey walked, and Herrera was hit in the thigh to fill the bases before Baskins came up with two outs and slapped a ball past Sedillo for a 2-run single. Morales left on a pair with a fly to Gonzalez. Both teams got a leadoff single in the second, but Jamie King was left on while Castner was bunted to second by Jackson, was joined by Manny after a 2-out walk, and then came around hustling on Maldo’s single to center, 3-0. Toohey then found the gap between del Toro and star Tylor Cecil, who had yet to get warm with 2047, hitting 80 points under his recent production (which was still .282), for a 2-run triple, and scored on a Herrera single as Pickett was picked apart. Cecil also popped out in a big spot in the top 3rd, in which the Stars slapped Jackson for four runs – all unearned after Baskins had dropped Pickett’s fly. Jackson hit Omar Gonzalez, and then the hits started to fall in… or rather, fly out, like Jamie King’s 3-piece to dead center. The guy was 32, and had been with the Knights for a bit years ago. He was still a terror…

Manny threw out Rafael Castaneda at the plate to prevent more damage by the fourth inning, but King drove in Gonzalez with a 2-out single in the fifth to narrow the lead to a depressing 6-5 before the bottom 5th and righty Ryan Porter (not related to Preston Porter) came around. Herrera hit a single to left to begin the frame, then scored after a running start on a Baskins double in left-center, 7-5. Morales walked, Castner flew out, and Gurney walked in place of Jackson. Adame came up with three on and one out, and thought, hey, how about a double play!? … I almost snapped when the 6-4-3 was completed.

Manny socked his first homer of the season to chase their Porter to begin the bottom 6th, while Josh Rella logged five outs in relief of Jackson for a Sal Ayala single in the seventh. Curl replaced him in a double switch with two outs and Cecil next, Toohey going out for Ben Coen to bat ninth (and playing third, Maldo shifting to the other corner). After Cecil was down 0-2, Tony Morales got his stupid paw into his swing and the batter was ordered to first base, bringing up King and his swing as the potentially tying thing. He popped out to Baskins, very high, but not very deep, ending the inning. Curl was charged a run in the eighth, though, allowing a leadoff single to del Toro that Moreno could not contain as he replaced the lefty. Sedillo drove in the run, 8-6, but Gonzalez struck out in a full count to end the inning. Mike Lynn then assumed responsibility in the ninth. Jose Rivas struck out. Cecil grounded out to Castner. King singled – but del Toro hit a comebacker for an easy final out. 8-6 Raccoons. Fernandez 2-4, BB, HR, RBI; Herrera 2-3, RBI; Baskins 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI;

Raccoons (23-10) @ Crusaders (18-16) – May 10-12, 2047

The Crusaders had passed the Loggers for second place in the division with a 5-game winning streak. They were up to second in runs scored, but eighth in runs allowed in the CL. Regular Mario Briones had left their last game with an injury and was questionable as the series began, and starter Carlos Malla was on the DL. The teams had already met three times this season, with Portland up 2-1.

Projected matchups:
Sadaharu Okuda (3-3, 3.00 ERA) vs. Jim White (3-1, 3.44 ERA)
Bubba Wolinsky (5-0, 2.27 ERA) vs. Jeff Johnson (3-2, 3.71 ERA)
Jason Wheatley (3-1, 3.29 ERA) vs. Matthew Owen (1-0, 1.29 ERA)

No southpaw to see here, either.

The Raccoons made a roster move, replacing .190 hitter John Castner with Arturo Carreno, who was hitting .347 in AAA by Thursday.

Game 1
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF Herrera – LF Fernandez – C Morales – 2B Carreno – P Okuda
NYC: SS Nash – C Urfer – 2B Bouldin – 1B C. Cortes – RF Rogers – 3B Mujica – LF Garris – CF Foss – P J. White

Through three innings the Raccoons had zero runners and two errors, one of them leading to the game’s only run when Manny dropped the fly by Randolph Nash that opened the bottom 1st, and the Crusaders got that freebie around to take the early lead. Ex-Coon Carlos Cortes drove him in. White retired the first ten before Mercado singled in the fourth, only to get doubled up by Maldonado. Bottom 4th, error number three was a Morales throwing error for two bases that turned Jim White’s bunt into a huge opportunity, putting Aaron Foss and White in scoring position with one out. Nash’s groundout got home Foss for another gift run. Rick Urfer grounded out to end the inning.

When the Raccoons finally woke up, Carreno singled home Manny in the fifth, and they got Adame and Mercado into scoring position with nobody out to begin the sixth. Both hit singles, with an ambitious throw by Phil Rogers, as Adame went first-to-third, allowing Mercado to zoom up to second base instead. Maldo tied the game with a sac fly to left, which, y’know, BETTER THAN NOTHING. Speaking of nothing, Toohey and Herrera chickened out and stranded the go-ahead run… Toohey also batted with two outs and Mercado and Maldo aboard in the eighth, then grounded out to short… The game was still tied at this point for six innings of earned-shutout ball by Okuda, and one inning from Ibold, who had then sought out Dr. Padilla, and nothing good could come from that either…

Josh Rella kept the game tied with a 1-2-3 eighth, and while Herrera opened the ninth with a single off Julian Ponce, Manny and Morales were no great help. Pellicano pinch-hit for Rella with two outs, and hit a streak of a liner over Cortes’ glove into the rightfield corner. That was the lead, on a pinch-hit RBI triple! Gurney grounded out to strand him, after which Lynn appeared for what we thought a few lefty hitters, but Rich de Luna batted for Josh Garris to begin the bottom 9th and singled. He was out on Foss’ grounder, in a force play at second base. Always annoying Ken Wiersma grounded poorly, but Gurney flubbed the play for the FOURTH error on the day, this one potentially fatal even…! Nash grounded out to Maldo, with the winning runs now in scoring position. Willie Ojeda pinch-hit in the #2 spot – at least a lefty, albeit hitting .375… He fell to 1-2, but then his bloop fell into leftfield. Foss in to score, Wiersma coming behind him – and thrown out by Manny Fernandez, which sent the game to extra innings instead…!

Manny did more heroics that made him look like it was 2037 again – after a boring 10th, he put Preston Porter in line for the W when he homered to right-center off Jeff Frank to open the 11th inning. That was it for offense for the Critters, who then had to go to Bonnie as long man. Bonnie hadn’t pitched since melting down in the Dallas opener, and looked pissed as hell as he trotted in from the pen. He faced the 6-7-8 batters. He nailed Frank Mujica, walked Foss, and almost lost the game on a Wiersma drive that Herrera tracked down, the tying run in Mujica flushing down to third base. Nash with two outs – a soft pop to shallow center, and now Herrera had to dash in at breakneck speed, reaching, and catching the bloody thing on the run! 4-3 Blighters! Mercado 3-5; Pellicano (PH) 1-1, 3B, RBI; Okuda 6.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K;

Big Manny homer for a big win!

Briones hit the DL on Saturday with an oblique strain. – Dr. Padilla, shall I even ask about Ibold? – No? – Thought so.

Game 2
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – CF Herrera – LF Fernandez – C Gonzalez – 2B Carreno – P Wolinsky
NYC: LF de Luna – C Urfer – 1B C. Cortes – RF Rogers – 3B Mujica – SS Gates – 2B Nash – CF Foss – P J. Johnson

Both teams eeked out a run in the second, Herrera getting nailed and scoring after a Manny single and Gonzalez groundout, while Bubba Wolinsky gave up three singles altogether in the inning. The Coons reclaimed the lead in the top 3rd when Mercado homered to left with Adame on base, although the Crusaders countered with the tying runs on base in the bottom of the inning. Urfer singled, Cortes walked, and then Rogers and Mujica both struck out against Wolinsky to strand them. The next trophy on the Coons’ starter’s belt was a 2-out RBI single to score Manny Fernandez in the fourth inning, going up 4-1. Not that it all was smooth sailing for the Raccoons here; the Crusaders had Urfer and Cortes on base with two 2-out singles in the bottom 5th. Wolinsky moved both into scoring position with a wild pitch, then was saved by Adame’s diving grab on Rogers’ low liner that ended the inning.

The score was 5-1 after the sixth began with Manny and Gonzalez doubles. In true Raccoons fashion, the second doubler was stranded after four lengthy plate appearances (Mercado walked). Hits by Toohey and Herrera then put a pair in scoring position in the seventh for the blazing Manny Fernandez, who now of course grounded out poorly, as did Gonzalez. Nobody scored. At least Wolinsky kept his hole closed through seven…

The pen then did their best to make it close. Moreno allowed 1-out singles to Cortes and Rogers in the eighth, which Aaron Curl cleaned up. Porter got the ninth, still up 5-1, yielding a single to Nash rather quickly. Foss whacked a double in the gap, with Nash going around – and being thrown out by Mercado! Foss went to third base, but Josh Garris struck out as Porter tried to finish the game himself. He did so when he handled Rich de Luna’s grounder for the final out. 5-1 Raccoons. Adame 2-4, BB, 2B; Mercado 2-5, HR, 2 RBI; Herrera 2-3, BB, 2B; Fernandez 2-4, BB, 2B; Wolinsky 7.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, W (6-0) and 1-3, RBI;

The pen remained one Critter short on Sunday, with Ibold still in injury limbo even as the day dawned on another appearance by “Five Innings” Wheatley.

Game 3
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – LF Fernandez – 3B Maldonado – CF Baskins – 1B Gurney – C Morales – 2B Carreno – P Wheatley
NYC: SS Gates – 1B Willie Ojeda – 3B Mujica – CF Rogers – C Urfer – LF Foss – RF de Luna – 2B Nash – P M. Owen

Two singles, a hit batter, a passed ball, and somehow only one run – the Raccoons battery had a first inning to forget, as Wheats continued to pitch like he was ripe for Shady Acres. Carreno tied the game for him in the second, singling home Pat Gurney, who had also singled, while Tony Morales had walked in between. The Coons had Wheats swing away with two on and one out, resulting in a K, but Adame grounded out anyway… Two more were stranded when Manny doubled and Maldo walked in the third, and Wheats and Adame occupied the corners with two outs in the fifth, hitting a double to right and a single to center, respectively. Mercado was in the strand-‘em! spot, but walked in a full count as Owen seemed to be fading, which sent up Manny with three aboard. Manny was suddenly batting .307, and … grounded out to Nash. With Baskins stranded in the fifth, that made for nine batters left on in a 1-1 game…

Wheats did superficially well, but mostly because his middle infielders didn’t skip a beat (not that keeping it on the ground was not a good strategy!); the offensive game continued in the sixth with another 2-out rising, now with Adame and Mercado occupying the corners. Manny was up again, got into a 2-2 count, then hit a fly to left. Foss froze, then raced back, reached, too late – the ball was past him! 2-run double, and the Raccoons FINALLY GOT A ******* RUNNER HOME!! That was the end of Owen, ex-Coon Tony Negrete getting Maldo to fly out to center to end the inning.

Wheats kept chugging along with a 2-hitter, walking Rick Urfer in the seventh, but getting out of it with a K to Foss and de Luna’s groundout to Adame. He batted for himself in the fruitless top 8th, still up 3-1, then retired Nash and Garris on three pitches before Prince Gates dropped a single into right. *screech!* That stopped the train really quickly, with the tying run back at the plate, and it would be the left-handed Ojeda. The Raccoons went to Lynn right away here, aiming for a 4-out save. Ojeda popped out to Mercado in rightfield on an 0-2 pitch to end the inning for a start. There was no tack-on offense in the ninth, but there were Mujica and Rogers groundouts to begin the Crusaders’ half of it. Urfer ran a full count, then looked at strike three. 3-1 Critters! Adame 2-5; Fernandez 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Wheatley 7.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, W (4-1) and 1-4; Lynn 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, SV (9);

In other news

May 9 – ATL SP Brian Buttress (6-1, 2.67 ERA) 3-hits the Buffaloes in a 1-0 shutout. The only run comes on a homer by Atlanta INF/RF Joe Crim (.277, 2 HR, 7 RBI).
May 9 – A 13-12 win for the Condors is the final tally of their game hosting the Capitals, which takes 15 innings to complete.
May 10 – SFB C Sean Suggs (.275, 2 HR, 10 RBI) could be out for a month with a knee sprain.
May 12 – Los Angeles scores 11 runs in the fourth inning as they drown the Stars, 18-3. Nick Crocker (.289, 1 HR, 7 RBI) puts up the best numbers for the Pacifics, going out with four hits and four RBI.

FL Player of the Week: TOP C Brett Banks (.393, 4 HR, 22 RBI), whacking .560 (14-25) with 1 HR, 5 RBI
CL Player of the Week: POR LF/RF Manny Fernandez (.308, 2 HR, 10 RBI), batting .429 (9-21) with 2 HR, 4 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Welcome to the Manny Fernandez Revival! Bugger’s been hitting 15-for-his-last-31 (or since May began) with two homers and five driven in! At this rate, he might actually earn his 2048 paycheck. Only 91 more appearances (in 126 team games) required for Old Chubbycheeks!

Defense was a bit of a topic this week. We allowed 25 runs, nine of them unearned. The misery stretched across four games, and in the first and last Crusaders games, all New York runs were unearned. It was a bit of a ********.

I don’t feel like talking more about the offense. I am already nauseous.

Home week coming up, hosting the Loggers and Falcons.

Fun Fact: Manny Fernandez was Player of the Week six times before his breakout this week.

The most recent time was almost exactly five years ago in May of 2042. He followed that one up with a Batter of the Month badge, one of two in his career!

[Westheim]

This Monday was another off day, but it came with bad news. Dr. Padilla reported that Bob Ibold was down with shoulder inflammation and would probably have to rest for two months, putting him out until the All Star Game at least. Thankfully, we pretended we had right-handed depth in AAA. Closer Kevin Hitchcock was brought up to fill the void.

In turn, Matt Waters came off the DL by Tuesday, replacing Arturo Carreno on the roster.

Raccoons (26-10) vs. Loggers (19-17) – May 14-16, 2047

We had not yet met the Loggers this season, but we had three straight winning seasons against them, albeit only by a skinny 10-8 last year. The Loggers came in as the second-place team. They had conceded the third-fewest runs, but scoring was a real struggle for them – they were second from the bottom in runs scored, with only 3.7 runs per game. The run differential was not promising at -11 (Coons: +41).

Projected matchups:
Victor Merino (2-3, 3.71 ERA) vs. Carlos Vasquez (2-3, 5.40 ERA)
Jake Jackson (3-1, 3.32 ERA) vs. Walt Wright (3-0, 1.63 ERA)
Sadaharu Okuda (3-3, 2.63 ERA) vs. Victor Padilla (4-3, 3.72 ERA)

One right, two left, maybe – you never knew with these Monday off days.

Game 1
MIL: CF B. Allen – 3B Barrington – C Payne – SS R. Espinoza – 1B E. Hernandez – LF Reeves – RF Umbreiro – 2B S. Pena – P C. Vasquez
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – LF Fernandez – CF A. Herrera – 2B Waters – C Morales – P Merino

Adame and Mercado opened the bottom 1st with singles, but that was nothing that Maldo and Toohey couldn’t solve with a strikeout and a double play. Manny however continued to outdo his best years with another outfield assist and a 7-2 double play that killed the Loggers in the top 2nd, when they had Ernesto Hernandez and Bill Reeves in scoring position and Celio Umbreiro flew out to left with one gone. Manny made it three gone, then singled to open the bottom 2nd, only to get reliably left on base. Runners were on the corners with nobody out in the bottom of the next inning; Adame walked, stole second, and Mercado reached on an error by Sergio Pena. Maldo hit a sac fly to get the Critters on the board, but that was it; Toohey flew out to right, Manny grounded out to Pena.

Through five innings, Merino struck out nobody, which didn’t exactly qualify as dominant outing. He gave up six hits, one of them a game-tying homer by Reeves in the fifth. Merino walked Ricky Payne in the sixth, which put on the go-ahead run that of course scored, even though in form of Ricky Rodriguez, who replaced Payne when the latter was injured running the bases. Ricky Espinoza (lots of Rickies!) singled the lead runner to third, and Hernandez hit a sac fly to put the Loggers in front, 2-1. The Raccoons responded with three on, nobody out in the bottom 6th: Toohey walked, the rest of the bases filling up with singles by Manny and Armando Herrera. And like the worst ******* clockwork in the world, Matt Waters struck out, and Tony Morales hit into a double play. The Loggers instead tacked another run onto Merino in the seventh, Jack Barrington’s 2-out RBI double chasing home Pena and knocking Merino out at the same time. Moreno got Rodriguez out to end the inning, entering in a double switch that put Baskins into center over Herrera and leading off the bottom 7th, in which the Raccoons engaged further in not scoring. Jake Bonnie walked three and allowed a run in the ninth, but it wasn’t like THAT cost us the ballgame… 4-1 Loggers. Mercado 2-3; Fernandez 2-4; Herrera 2-3;

Game 2
MIL: RF Umbreiro – 3B Barrington – 1B E. Hernandez – SS R. Espinoza – C Payne – LF Reeves – CF Lamotta – 2B S. Pena – P W. Wright
POR: SS Adame – CF A. Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – RF Pellicano – LF Fernandez – C Gonzalez – 2B Waters – P Jackson

When the Raccoons started the bottom 1st like a fire engine with an Adame triple, Herrera getting brushed in the pants around the knee (maybe, video was inconclusive) and Maldo’s RBI double, I envisioned a big inning. We got two pathetic groundouts from Toohey and Pellicano that kept the runners pinned, and Manny lined out to a leaping Pena. The Loggers then got knocks from Espinoza, Payne, and Pena to score two runs in the top 2nd, and took the lead again. Back to the corners went the Coons – Ruben Gonzalez doubled to left, Waters singled to center, and that brought up Jackson, who struck out. Adame tied the game with a sac fly, Herrera grounded out… Alex Adame would tie the game AGAIN in the fourth, after Espinoza had taken Jackson deep in the top half. The Coons began their half of the frame with walks drawn by the 7-8 hitters before Jackson blocked a bunt sharply to Barrington for a demoralizing 5-3 double play. Adame still singled home Waters from second, tying the game at three, but then was stranded there, and had no more magic in the sixth when he batted again with two outs, then with Manny and Jackson in scoring position, but grounded out to short…

The game remained locked at three for another inning after that, following which Jackson departed, frustrated, with a no-decision. The Coons defense overcame Josh Rella putting two runners aboard in the top 8th, while in the bottom 8th Ruben Gonzalez overcame Manny’s leadoff single that chased Wright with a 6-4-3 double play. Lynn retired the side in order in the ninth before being hit for with Mercado, the #9 spot leading off the bottom 9th against righty Miguel Herrera. He singled to center, as did Armando Herrera after Adame flew out to left. Maldo was unretired in the game, ran a full count, then flew out to Reeves. Toohey was in a really deep black hole right now… and 0-4 in the game. And for a stunner, Baskins batted for him against the righty. Baskins also struck out, so what the **** do we know about baseball? Nothing. Oh, one thing: we had extras on our paws.

Miguel Herrera opened the 10th with a single against Preston Porter when the Loggers were out of bench players, but Porter retired the 1-2-3 after that to keep the game tied. Then came the Brownshirts again, as if FOUR double play *and* TEN Furballs stranded was not enough for one night of baseball… Pellicano opened the inning with a double to left. I slapped by front paws together – this was gonna be good! Manny grounded out, shifting the runner to third base. Gonzalez was walked intentionally despite batting .159… Waters popped out to third base. Pat Gurney was in the #9 hole now and batted with two outs with a chance to make it a dozen stranded – but failed even at that when he hit a walkoff single over Brent Allen at second base. 4-3 Blighters. Adame 2-4, 3B, 2 RBI; Maldonado 2-3, 2 BB, 2B, RBI; Pellicano 2-5, 2B; Fernandez 2-5; Mercado (PH) 1-1; Gurney 1-1, RBI;

A tube of glue that plays .700 baseball – wonderful!

Game 3
MIL: CF B. Allen – RF Umbreiro – C Payne – SS R. Espinoza – 1B E. Hernandez – LF Reeves – 3B Velasquez – 2B S. Pena – P V. Padilla
POR: SS Adame – CF A. Herrera – 3B Maldonado – 1B Toohey – RF Pellicano – LF Baskins – C Gonzalez – 2B Waters – P Okuda

Scoring remained hard to come by on Thursday. Okuda began wonky, putting the leadoff man on base in the first two innings, but eventually settled into something vaguely resembling a groove as he put up zeroes. The Raccoons remained experts at being annoying, f.e. when Okuda bunted into a double play in the bottom 3rd. Baskins hit into another double play in the fifth, erasing a Pellicano leadoff single ahead of a walk drawn by Gonzalez. Waters struck out. Disgusting.

The next base hit in the game was again Pellicano, breaking the tie in the seventh with a 2-out solo homer to left. Finally, scoring! Okuda still had that 2-hitter and began the eighth inning at the very least, at least until Brent Allen singled with one out. Nelson Moreno replaced him at that point, struck out Umbreiro, and got Payne to ground out, keeping the Loggers at bay. The bottom 8th was just more sadness, but Mike Lynn struck out the side in the ninth to somehow scratch out another win for this team… 1-0 Blighters. Pellicano 2-3, HR, RBI; Okuda 7.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 2 K, W (4-3);

(gives Pellicano a thick smooch on the lips)

What do you mean, now you’ll never hit a home run again!?

(Pellicano blinks a few times, then scurries)

Raccoons (28-11) vs. Falcons (19-22) – May 17-19, 2047

The Strugglers next hosted the Falcons, who were in fourth place in the South. They were a bit the opposite of the Loggers – not that they scored mightily (eighth in the CL), no, but they were fourth in runs allowed and had a +12 run differential despite their record, three games under .500. Their rotation was tough as nails, just what the doctor ordered for the Raccoons, but had now shed two members in Jerry Felix and Evan Henshaw (the latter for the season), while a whole host of position players considerable as threats were on the DL: Archie Turley, Miguel Martinez, Joe Besaw, and Alex Zacarias were all out. Last year, this series had been a 5-4 W for Charlotte.

Projected matchups:
Bubba Wolinsky (6-0, 2.12 ERA) vs. Marty Madera (0-1, 0.66 ERA)
Jason Wheatley (4-1, 2.77 ERA) vs. Oscar Flores (4-2, 4.03 ERA)
Victor Merino (2-4, 3.75 ERA) vs. Matt Schwartz (0-2, 5.28 ERA)

Only right-handers, of which Madera had started the season in the bullpen.

Game 1
CHA: 3B Thibault – 2B Sandoval – SS Aparicio – RF Allegood – LF Marroguin – C Kilmer – CF Caballero – 1B Chin – P Madera
POR: SS Adame – RF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – CF Herrera – 1B Gurney – 2B Waters – C Morales – P Wolinsky

Tony Aparicio hit a triple, but Wolinsky allowed nothing else the first time through and thus stranded him on third base in the opening inning, which then saw back-to-back jacks by Mercado and Maldo for a 2-0 Coons lead. We then had three singles in the bottom 2nd, which amounted to no runs thanks to an intermediate double play hit into by Tony Morales. Manny singled with one out in the third, then had to hurry hard when Herrera hit a howler into the corner in leftfield. It became a triple – it surely would have been one without a runner ahead of Herrera – when Jordan Marroguin took his sweet time to make a play and Manny could be waved around to score, 3-0. Marroguin did track down a deep Gurney fly, but it was enough to get the runner home from third, 4-0.

Wolinsky’s shutout went bust on two doubles in the fifth inning. Longtime Critter Jeff Kilmer hit the first one, and the second one was whacked by Madera with two outs, into the gap in left-center. He seemed to tear some thing or other on the run, because he faced only one more batter before leaving the game with an injury, Mercado grounding out as he ended his day. The reliever sent, Chris Crowell, then was taken deep to left by Maldo for Maldo’s second solo homer in the game. Herrera doubled to left in the inning – then held his thigh with what looked like a hamstring thing. I frowned audibly, which sent Maud to get more sugar cookies for the bowl on the table. Baskins would replace him and scored on Gurney’s single. Through five, we were up 6-1.

Wolinsky pitched through seven without accident, then allowed two 1-out singles to Robby Gomez and Bobby Thibault in the eighth to accelerate his own removal. Preston Porter was of little assistance, allowing two RBI singles to Esteban Sandoval and Tony Aparicio before getting a double play from Mike Allegood. The Raccoons didn’t tack on anything, so were up by three runs in the ninth inning. We wouldn’t use Mike Lynn three days in a row this early in the season, so we went to Josh Rella, who had saved 174 games before coming apart in recent times. He struck out two before allowing a single to Oscar Caballero, a gapper for an RBI double to Xiao-peng Chin, and then finally got Gurney to grab a grounder by pinch-hitter Ron Gibbs… 6-4 Coons. Adame 2-5; Maldonado 2-4, 2 HR, 2 RBI; Herrera 2-3, 3B, 2B, RBI; Baskins 1-1; Wolinsky 7.1 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, W (7-0) and 1-3;

In good news, Armando Herrera had pulled a hammy, but only mildly. He’d miss a week, roundabout.

…which was also the worst injury duration, because now we were either a paw short for a week or we’d lose him for an additional week on the 15-day DL…

The former poison was chosen at this occasion…

Game 2
CHA: 1B Marroquin – 2B Sandoval – SS Aparicio – CF Marroguin – RF Allegood – 3B Thibault – C Kokoszka – LF Caballero – P O. Flores
POR: SS Adame – CF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – RF Toohey – 1B Gurney – 2B Waters – C Gonzalez – P Wheatley

Maldo hit another solo homer in the first, this time without any further window dressing, with Wheats getting jumped on for three hits and two runs by the bottom of the order in the second inning to flip the score. Ruben Gonzalez doubled home Gurney to tie the game again in the bottom 2nd, while an Omar Marroquin (yes, this was confusing) error gave the Coons the lead again in the bottom 3rd. Fumbling a grounder by Manny Fernandez, Marroquin allowed Mercado to score from third base. Toohey batted with Maldo and Manny on the corners and one out, and for the first time in a week had a mighty stroke and hit an 0-2 to deep left… but off the fence for an RBI double rather than a 3-piece. Pat Gurney got multiple RBI’s with a single to left, though, running the score to 6-2, then was stranded.

The Falcons pulled a run back in the fifth, but it was unearned… but then again it was on Wheats’ fumbling Marroquin’s grounder after a pinch-hit double by Chin from the #9 spot. That put runners on the corners and set up Sandoval for a sac fly to get to 6-3. Wheats made up the mistake in the bottom of the inning: after Toohey and Gurney opened with singles and Waters hit into a double play (…), and after an intentional walk to Gonzalez, Wheats singled up the middle to extend the lead to 7-3 again. Adame singled to load the bases, while Mercado struck out to leave them that way, and before the Falcons scratched Wheats for another three singles and a run in the sixth… Nevertheless, Wheats tacked on another inning, going out at the stretch, with his spot up in the bottom 7th. Baskins tripled in his spot, but nobody else reached base in the inning and Baskins was stranded…

Then the Coons tried to blow another lead by Wheats. Aaron Curl pitched in the eighth, allowing three singles, two of which didn’t even reach the mound. He was yanked, and Nelson Moreno gave up an RBI single to Jeff Kilmer, who drove in Allegood. Thibault was also sent, but thrown out by Manny at the plate. PH Ron Gibbs then flew out to center. Natanael Abrao issued 2-out walks to Manny and Toohey in the bottom 8th, but Gurney grounded out to leave them on base… We then went back to Mike Lynn for the ninth with a 2-run lead. Sandoval and Aparicio grounded out before Jordan Marroguin drew a walk. Mike Allegood also got ahead, 3-1, but then swung and flew out to Mercado to end the game. 7-5 Raccoons. Maldonado 3-4, HR, RBI; Toohey 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Gurney 3-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Gonzalez 1-2, 2 BB, RBI; Baskins (PH) 1-1;

Game 3
CHA: CF Marroquin – 3B Thibault – SS Aparicio – LF Marroguin – C Kilmer – 2B Shay – RF Caballero – 1B Gibbs – P Schwartz
POR: SS Adame – CF Mercado – 3B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – 1B Toohey – 2B Gurney – RF Pellicano – C Morales – P Merino

Merino’s first pitch beaned Omar Marroquin out of the game, to be replaced by Allegood, which wasn’t at all good. He balked the runner to second base, then gave up an RBI single to Bobby Thibault on his second pitch of the game. It only got worse from here. Aparicio singled, and two walks followed. Adam Shay hit a sac fly, with the bags refilled when Merino nailed Oscar Caballero. Ron Gibbs drove in a fourth run before Schwartz grounded out, after having gotten a 4-0 lead before ever picking up a baseball. The Raccoons took a while to get going, as usual, with Mercado singling home Pellicano in the third inning for their first run. Maldo flew out as the tying run, completing three innings, and the tying run was back at the plate in Gurney after Manny and Toohey reached base to start the fourth. Gurney hit a sac fly, 4-2, and a Pellicano single put Critters on the corners. Morales struck out, as did Ben Coen, when he batted for Merino…

It still got worse in the fifth with Kevin Hitchcock pitching. Aparicio led off with a single, while Marroguin flew out to left, where Manny took a tumble hustling in, but still made the catch mid-tumble. He was slow to get up and couldn’t shake off whatever bothered him, eventually leaving the game for Derek Baskins, which also meant that the Raccoons were down to two bench players by the fifth… Hitchcock pitched three innings, allowing an unearned run in the seventh for an Allegood single and TWO errors by Morales and Adame… That unearned run soon was the margin between the teams; the bottom 7th had Schwartz yield a single to Adame, then a homer to right to Mercado, 5-4. Well, at least until Robby Gomez hit a leadoff double off Bonnie in the ninth and came in to score on a sac fly by Thibault. To be fair, Bonnie had struck out the side in the eighth… Bottom 9th, Ruben Gonzalez grounded out in place of Bonnie (emptying the bench in the process) before Adame hit a 1-out single to left off ex-Coon Antonio Prieto. Mercado struck out, but Maldo dropped an RBI single into left-center, and there was that silly unearned run again. Baskins grounded out to cement the loss. 6-5 Falcons. Adame 2-5; Mercado 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Fernandez 1-2; Pellicano 2-3, BB, 2B; Hitchcock 3.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K;

In other news

May 13 – The Titans beat the Indians, 12-1, with 11 of their runs scoring in the third inning alone.
May 14 – Cincy’s SP Sal Chavez (3-0, 2.45 ERA) 1-hits the Buffaloes in a 6-0 shutout. TOP C Brett Banks (.389, 4 HR, 22 RBI) doubles in the seventh inning to turn away the no-hitter specter.
May 15 – SAC LF/RF/1B Nate Culp (.267, 7 HR, 22 RBI) would miss a week at least with a sore knee.
May 16 – The Condors pick up 35-yr old SP Josh Henneberry (3-3, 3.48 ERA) from the Aces for 25-yr old 1B Sam Witherspoon (.174, 1 HR, 3 RBI).
May 18 – Thunder INF/CF Nick DeMarco (.491, 1 HR, 10 RBI) goes 6-for-6 in a rare start against the Loggers, who get romped by Oklahoma, 16-6. DeMarco hits four doubles and two singles and drives in two runs.

FL Player of the Week: SFW 2B Hugo Acosta (.349, 0 HR, 16 RBI), hitting .640 (16-25) with 3 RBI
CL Player of the Week: NYC 3B/2B/RF/LF Frank Mujica (.302, 6 HR, 24 RBI), whacking .444 (12-27) with 3 HR, 11 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Here come the injuries…! No news on Manny so far, but it won’t take much time on the DL to take his vesting option for ’48 apart. I hope we won’t have to play with a 3-man bench… (looks at Dr. Padilla)

May I remind everybody that yes, this is a .700 team, but also one that is only ninth in runs scored. I don’t even know HOW. We’re second in batting average, fifth in OBP and homers… we just can’t get anybody across…!!

Of course, allowing under 3.4 runs per game helps with many, many things…

Monday will be off again, and then it’s a weeklong road trip to the Thunder and Condors.

Due to acute tiredness and an urgent need to go zzz *right* *now*, the Fun Fact has to be postponed to next week…