Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[Westheim]

Raccoons (24-14) @ Titans (29-8) – May 17-20, 2004

There were a few things the Titans didn’t do well. Like, sleeping with the lights on, and making pizza. In pretty much everything else they led the league, including allowing ridiculously few runs, 109 runs total in 37 games. The Raccoons were likely to get distanced a bit more in the division in this matchups.

Projected matchups:
Felipe Garcia (2-3, 4.30 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (3-2, 2.45 ERA)
Nick Brown (5-1, 3.48 ERA) vs. Jason O’Halloran (4-2, 3.93 ERA)
Randy Farley (2-3, 3.04 ERA) vs. Bryce Hildred (7-1, 2.25 ERA)
Ralph Ford (2-2, 3.96 ERA) vs. Joe Mann (7-0, 1.66 ERA)

One year (1993?) we had Kisho Saito and Scott Wade start out a combined 25-1 or so. Hildred and Mann are on a good way.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – LF Reece – 2B Ingall – RF King – C Thomas – P F. Garcia
BOS: LF Elizondo – 1B Matsumoto – RF G. Munoz – C L. Lopez – 2B Austin – CF Garrison – 3B V. Flores – SS D. Silva – P Chapa

The first inning was enough to long for a 4-game forfeit and move on. Guerin singled, Torrez singled, Sharp grounded into a double play, and they didn’t score. In the bottom 1st, Elizondo walked, with Matsumoto singling, and then a wild pitch, a King error, and three more hits went on to plate four runs for the Titans in blitz fashion. Second inning, walk to Elizondo, walk to Munoz, another error by King on Luis Lopez’ single, and another run on the board. The Raccoons at least bested them in double plays hit into, three in three innings, and errors made, three in three innings. For the first time in league history, a division was claimed on May 17, as the Titans axed down Garcia for nine runs, another towering home run by Christian Greenman off Dan Nordahl, and reliever Nick Lee whiffing six over two innings. They euthanized the Raccoons in a wild rout. 11-4 Titans. Guerin 3-4, 2B; Torrez 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Moreno 2.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

How depressing.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – LF Reece – RF Brady – C Thomas – 2B M. Ramirez – P Brown
BOS: 3B V. Flores – 1B Matsumoto – RF Greenman – 2B Austin – CF Garrison – SS H. Ramirez – LF Bryant – C F. Diéguez – P O’Halloran

Old guard O’Halloran was surprisingly porous to start the second contest, with four hits off him in the first (which nevertheless amounted to only one run and three men stranded), and then a 2-out RBI triple by Eddie Torrez in the second inning, after which Torrez scored when Greenman dropped Sharp’s fly to right. That made it 3-0 as Brown started well and allowed only a single the first time through the order. In the top 5th the Coons got a prime chance when Torrez was already on base and Sharp’s grounder to short was lost in translation by Ramirez. Oh well, thought Martin, and hit into the double play instead, and O’Halloran overpowered Neil Reece for an inning-ending strikeout. After O’Halloran came to bat with two out and Ramirez on second base, singled, but Ramirez held, in the bottom 5th, that inning ended with Vic Flores popping out to right. Top 6th, Brown came up with two out and Brady on second base, and he doubled, driving in the run. The extra score was taken away from him swiftly however when Greenman homered in the bottom of the inning, making it 4-1. Sharp was picked off the bases in the seventh, which cost a run when Al Martin’s double was rendered moot by Reece again ending the frame in favor of O’Halloran. Bryant reached on an error by our Ramirez in the bottom 7th but was gunned down stealing by Thomas. The next inning a 2-out infield single by Matsumoto brought up the annoying Greenman again, and he whacked a ball to deep center – but Torrez made it there in time. Brown was hit for in the ninth, but Beairsto whiffed, and we managed to squeeze in another double play, but this time Marcos Bruno saved the day without much fuss. 4-1 Coons. Torrez 3-5, 3B, RBI; Brown 8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W (6-1) and 1-3, 2B, RBI;

Okay, we’re back even. Maybe Ford could steal one. He had been better than Farley recently. But even just a split would be like a win for us.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – 3B M. Ramirez – LF Beairsto – P Farley
BOS: LF Elizondo – 1B Matsumoto – RF G. Munoz – C L. Lopez – CF Garrison – 3B V. Flores – 2B H. Ramirez – SS D. Silva – P Hildred

Randy Farley led all of our starters with a .250 average against Hildred, which was reason for concern already, and then there was the question whether he would ever face him. After an Elizondo single to start the bottom 1st, Farley walked three batters, and the damage was limited to one run only for Martin actually starting to turn a double play. For the umpteenth time in the series, an error by an outfielder plated a run, tying the score in the top 2nd when Elizondo dropped Ramirez’ fly to plate Martin from third base. But while Hildred struck out Farley to end the inning with two Coons on base, the bottom of the inning saw Hildred double off Farley to break the tie, one of three doubles plus change in the inning. Like on Monday, a pre-dominantly left-handed Titans lineup tore a mediocre Raccoons starter wide open, as the score was 4-1 after two. But we weren’t dead quite yet. To start the fourth for the Coons, Martin singled, and Ledesma and Ingall also got on base. Then Ramirez singled to left, and the ball went through Elizondo’s wickets, as he pulled a King for his second error of the night. Two runs scored, and the go-ahead runs were in scoring position with no outs. Beairsto was put on intentionally, but then Farley drew Hildred a nose and chopped a single to right – tied game, bases loaded, no outs. A Guerin sac fly and a Torrez RBI double knocked out Hildred and had the Coons ahead 6-4. After all that frenzy the game calmed down a bit. No more scoring through six, which was also the end for Farley after 109 adventurous pitches. For the Titans, Roger Hahn pitched very well in long relief, but in the eighth had put Beairsto and Guerin on the corners with one out. Brady laid down a perfect bunt as both runners were in motion on the suicide squeeze, and Matsumoto’s only play was on Brady, 7-4. Bottom 9th, Bruno time. The most disgusting Daniel Silva doubled to right, and then Bruno walked part-time player David Brewer. Elizondo increased the amount of hate his own team’s fans felt by hitting into a double play that left Silva on third with two out. Bruno continued to make things interesting however, and hit Matsumoto with a 2-2 pitch. Gonzalo Munoz went to 2-2 as well, but then grounded out to Sheehan at second base. 7-4 Raccoons. Martin 2-5, 2B; Ingall 2-5; Ramirez 2-4, 3 RBI;

Whoah, whoah! Uprising in the making? The Coons take two of the first three in Boston? Will wonders ever cease?

Game 4
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – 3B M. Ramirez – LF Beairsto – P Ford
BOS: SS D. Silva – 1B Matsumoto – LF G. Munoz – RF Greenman – 2B Austin – CF Garrison – 3B V. Flores – C F. Diéguez – P Mann

Whenever the Coons had a scoring opportunity, Ford came up with two down and struck out. It was no shame to strike out against Joe Mann, and there was also probably a reason that Mann was undefeated in the latter part of May. Ford matched Mann’s pace of shutout ball through five, but he never retired the acidic pest that was Silva, who walked in the first, and then had the first two hits off Ford in his next two at-bats. The latter was a double with one out in the sixth, and this time he was brought around when Martin couldn’t come up with Masaaki Matsumoto’s bouncer to right. The Titans got a second run, again driven in by Matsumoto, in the eighth, and Mann handed his eight shutout innings over to deadly closer John Bennett, whose 3.10 ERA hinted at not all having gone smooth for him this year, but the Coons seemed to be a minor impediment for him, as he struck out Guerin and Brady, before Torrez got the hopes up with a single to left. Martin drove a ball to the warning track in left, but Munoz made the play. 2-0 Titans. Brady 2-4; Ford 8.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, L (2-3);

Well, we could have done so much worse here. A split in this series is actually better than expected. Remember that we have won all of 13 games the last THREE years combined against this team. Starting out 2-2 ain’t bad.

Raccoons (26-16) @ Aces (18-24) – May 21-23, 2004

From the best pitching staff to the worst, the Aces had given up 199 runs so far to rank bottoms in the CL. They also plated runs frequently, 177 so far, but the abysmal pitching hindered them quite a bit. Their bullpen ranked worst in the CL as well, and had a higher ERA (by the fifth of a run) than their rotation.

Projected matchups:
Edgar Amador (5-0, 2.98 ERA) vs. Antonio Sanchez (0-1, 0.00 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (2-4, 5.66 ERA) vs. Anibal Sandoval (5-4, 3.34 ERA)
Nick Brown (6-1, 3.18 ERA) vs. Manuel Alba (5-4, 3.53 ERA)

That’s three right-handers, but I will give Al Martin a day off in the opener anyway, to have Amador pitch with the best defense behind him. That entails Sharpie at first, and Ramirez getting the third consecutive start at third.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – 1B Sharp – CF Torrez – RF Brady – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 3B M. Ramirez – 2B Sheehan – P Amador
LVA: RF Covington – 1B J. Vargas – 2B O. Torres – SS Nichols – LF Messinger – 3B Warrain – CF P. Flores – C L. Paredes – P A. Sanchez

Martin Covington doubled through Sharp and Ramirez’s capital error on Javier Vargas’ grounder plated the first run of the game in no time, with Martin on the bench probably wondering what he was doing there, while **** was stewing on the field, and the Aces took a 3-0 lead in a hurry. All were unearned. Amador had the Coons’ first hit, a leadoff double in the third, and that was followed by Concie’s first homer of the year to cut the deficit to 3-2, while this was pretty much confirmation that sick hexes were in effect over the ballpark. And just when we thought, all might end well, another error by Ramirez blew out a potential double play and soon led to a 3-run homer by Inaki-Luki Warrain, which pretty much wrote off Amador’s Undefeated label. Amador left in the fifth with a 6-2, two thirds unearned, deficit. The Coons scratched out a run in the sixth, almost had the score balloon further in the Aces’ favor on shoddy defense by Ledesma and Nordahl, who made an error, in the bottom 7th, but then Eddie Torrez led off the top 8th with a jack off the guy we couldn’t get, Nobu Matsui. But Matsui retired the next three, and in turn the bottom fell out of our own bullpen. 8-4 Aces. Guerin 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Martin (PH) 1-1;

Well, so much for my actual plans and managing talents. Like running Nordahl for Martin in the 12th inning and then having Bruno man first base. I may well be the biggest dork around me.

No. No, I’m not. I’m beyond doubts.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – LF Beairsto – 2B Ingall – C Thomas – P F. Garcia
LVA: RF Covington – 1B J. Vargas – 2B O. Torres – SS Nichols – LF Messinger – CF Talamante – 3B Hitchcock – C L. Paredes – P Sandoval

Danny Sharp’s 2-out, 2-run double in the first gave Garcia some early support as he tried to come back from a pair of ghastly outings. His first run through the Aces’ lineup was certainly a success, allowing no base runners and whiffing four batters. Covington hit a leadoff single in the fourth, but was left on base. On base was something the Raccoons were not past the first inning, and soon enough the game turned for the worse. A dreaded leadoff walk to Forest Messinger got the Aces going in the fifth. Hitchcock singled him in and Garcia faced the pitcher Sandoval with two out, but gave up a score-flipping home run. Not all was lost yet, though. Reece hit for Garcia in the seventh and took one to the ribs. Guerin singled, and Torrez drove them both in with a single after Brady had grounded out. That put Garcia, who had only allowed three hits for three runs, in line for the win again, but that win was endangered mightily. Sharp made an error in the seventh that created a commotion on the base paths for Corkum, who wound out of that. In the eighth, Pedro Flores’ pinch-hit double off Manuel Martinez spelled doom, but he never moved off second base. Marcos Bruno however was perfect in the ninth. 4-3 Coons. Brady 2-5; Sharp 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Ingall 2-4, 2B;

Martinez reported a tweak in his side after tossing the eighth, and was diagnosed with a mild oblique strain that will hinder him for the next week.

C’mon boys, take this series. We don’t want to lose to the Aces after splitting with the Titans! Good news is, we have the best guy available for the job ready to go.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – LF Reece – 3B Sharp – C Ledesma – 2B Sheehan – P Brown
LVA: CF Talamante – 3B Warrain – SS Nichols – 1B J. Vargas – RF P. Flores – 2B Hitchcock – LF Covington – C Washington – P Alba

There were four guys in our lineup with .333 or better history against Alba, two of those with 40+ AB (Brady and Martin). Ironically it was Brown who lacked his best stuff, and the Raccoons didn’t make good contact, except for the second inning in which Sharp doubled to center and was brought around to score on a Ledesma single. But in the bottom 3rd Brown already had a maddening inning with a leadoff single by the pitcher, and with two out he drilled Nichols, which led to a Javier Vargas RBI single and a tied game. While Brown got better in the middle innings, the rest of the team did not. They had two men in scoring position with one out in the fourth, but Ledesma grounded out to first to keep the runners pinned, Sheehan wasn’t pitched to, and Brown rolled out. In the sixth, Reece hit a leadoff single, and Sharp couldn’t get a bunt onto the ground, and things went downhill from there. Brown hit a leadoff single in the seventh, and finally something sparked. Guerin singled, and after Brady struck out Torrez lined a double into the corner, scoring both runners (Guerin close to pushing Brown over the plate). Bottom 7th, suddenly trouble after a 2-out walk to Rusty Washington. Lou Jenkins hit for Alba and was drilled by Brown, who appeared to lose it, then recovered to strike out Carlos Talamante to end the frame. Brown was removed after a walk in the eighth with somebody else thrown into the 3-1 game, and that one was Ricardo Huerta, who had seen the lightest use this week. His second pitch to Javier Vargas netted a grounder to Sharp, who started the inning-ending double play. The Coons got Brady on to start the ninth, but Torrez hit into a double play right away. Bottom 9th, Marcos Bruno at work, facing Flores first. Flores hit a single up the middle, before Forest Messinger popped out to center, and Martin Covington grounded to Bruno, who only got the lead runner, though. Rusty Washington got hold of an 0-2 pitch and fired a racing grounder to the left side, but Sharp made a wonderful play and got the out at second base to seal a winning week for the Furballs! 3-1 Coons!! Torrez 2-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Reece 2-4; Brown 7.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 8 K, W (7-1) and 1-3;

In other news

May 18 – IND MR Jeff Hodge (1-0, 3.00 ERA in 8 G) will miss a full year, having to undergo Tommy John surgery to repair a torn UCL.
May 19 – The Capitals send 29-year old MR Arturo Ramirez (0-1, 1.14 ERA, 1 SV) to the Falcons in exchange for four prospects, with the most interesting transfer being a 20-year old reliever in A ball, Gabriel Caro.
May 20 – The Loggers’ ambitions to get back into the CL North race receive a severe dash when SP Martin Garcia (5-2, 2.67 ERA) sprains an ankle. He might be out until the All Star Game.
May 22 – TOP 1B/3B Jerry Henry (.357, 4 HR, 12 RBI) has the day of his life, as the utility man HITS FOR THE CYCLE in a 12-3 win of the Buffaloes over the Pacifics. In addition to the four hits he also drives in seven runs and scores three times himself! The 33rd cycle in ABL history is the first one for the Buffaloes franchise, who previously had not had a no-hitter, either. This only leaves the Scorpions, Capitals, and Canadiens as teams without either a no-hitter or a cycle. A cycle was hit by a Jerry on a May 22 once before, in 1999, when Jerry Fletcher did the honors for the Loggers.
May 23 – VAN SP Cal Holbrook (3-3, 3.27 ERA) is out for the season with bone chips in his elbow.

Complaints and stuff

The Coons started the week third in the power rankings, and we ended them in fourth.

The air is getting thinner for Beairsto, though. He shows zero at the plate. His defense is better than Reece’s, but even Reece occasionally has a pair of singles… Beairsto has nothing. .160 might be mildly tolerable when you hit 20 dingers. But not if you are on a pace for three.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (28-17) @ Falcons (24-20) – May 25-27, 2004

We continue to be on the road in this wicked month that sees us play only eight home games, chopped up into three series. The last one will come after we have faced off against the CL South-leading Falcons, who led the Continental League in scoring with 220 runs, exactly five per game. Their rotation had issues, though, with a 4.34 ERA banning them to the second division, although they had a tough-as-nails bullpen, which ranked 2nd with a 2.16 ERA.

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (3-3, 3.38 ERA) vs. Tommy Wilson (1-7, 6.33 ERA)
Ralph Ford (2-3, 3.66 ERA) vs. Miguel Diaz (5-4, 4.60 ERA)
Edgar Amador (5-1, 3.05 ERA) vs. Jorge Silva (4-3, 3.22 ERA)

The three starters they throw at us are all right-handed. We might get a left-hander at the weekend, but right now Chris Beairsto does not deserve to play over Neil Reece…

We will play three straight interdivision series before the next off day, next Thursday. Skipping Garcia this Thursday is not a good move since everybody would have to pitch on short rest, but we can skip him next week, when only Nick Brown will have to pitch on short rest. Right now, Nick Brown on short rest is infinitely better than Felipe Garcia on normal rest.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – P Farley
CHA: CF Hudson – SS Vieitas – C F. Chavez – RF Burke – 3B H. Green – LF Estrada – 1B Heffer – 2B McGreary – P T. Wilson

The Falcons gave Farley a tremendous whacking in the opener, holding him to 2.2 innings while stuffing him for seven runs. The moniker Mr. Singles was officially changed into Mr. Doubles, because that was what he gave up five of, making it just a tad too easy to get soiled. A 7-1 game through three inning, the Coons’ lone run unearned, saw the Raccoons wholly unable to touch the pitcher with a 6+ ERA, as was the usual custom around these unhappy lands. When the Coons actually did load the bases in the fourth inning, Beairsto hit for Dave Williams with two outs, and fouled to first for the third out. The whacking in the other half of the line score continued, with three runs coming off Huerta in the fourth inning as the Falcons reached double digits like on some Sunday afternoon walk. Since they didn’t score the rest of the way against Moreno and Nordahl, one figures they didn’t bother, or didn’t want to empty their run allotment for this series entirely. Tommy Wilson fell one out short of a complete game when the Falcons pulled him after Ingall and King had hits with two down in the ninth. Guerin walked against Jeff Paul, but Brady fouled out. 10-2 Falcons. Martin 2-4; Ingall 2-3, BB; Nordahl 3.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K;

Well, the bottom line is, they hit eight doubles and Farley sucked balls, but I fear there might be more of this coming in the next two days, since especially Amador has been wonky recently.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – P Ford
CHA: CF Hudson – 2B Heffer – RF J. Lugo – 1B H. Green – SS Vieitas – C Durango – LF Burke – 3B McGreary – P M. Diaz

The first time through the order, the Coons had the advantage due a 2-run triple by Pablo Ledesma in the second inning. For the Falcons, the pitcher hit the ball the hardest, as Diaz had a double in the third, but was left on base. Still 2-0 through four, the Coons doubled to 4-0 in the fifth with some 2-out terror. Brady tripled with nobody on, followed by a Torrez RBI double and a Martin RBI single before Sharp struck out. Clouds hovered over Ford in the bottom of the inning. Toby McGreary rolled a single past Sharp with one out. Diaz sacrificed him to second base, and then Ford drilled John Hudson. Dave Heffer, the old Warrior, walked, and the bags were loaded until Jose Lugo lined to left where Neil Reece made a running catch. It was the fourth consecutive inning in which the Falcons left somebody in scoring position, a string that continued when Herberto Vieitas was left on third base in the sixth once Jake Burke’s drive to deep center was caught by Torrez. Runners on the corners in the bottom 7th, the Falcons finally scored on a 2-out bloop single by Jose Lugo. Ford was yanked immediately to have Bill Corkum face Hubert Green and got him to ground out to Guerin to save Ford’s tail and us a 4-1 lead. Corkum got Vieitas in the eighth, Williams whiffed Durango, but then walked Burke, and we brought our fourth pitcher, intended to be the last one today, Marcos Bruno, to go on a quest for a 4-out save. Nobody reached base on him! 4-1 Furballs. Brady 2-4, 3B; Martin 2-4, RBI; Ford 6.2 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, W (3-3); Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, SV (7);

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – C Ledesma – 3B M. Ramirez – LF Beairsto – P Amador
CHA: CF Hudson – LF J. Lugo – C F. Chavez – RF Burke – 3B H. Green – 1B Mendoza – SS Vieitas – 2B McGreary – P J. Silva

The Furballs struck first again. While Amador’s control problems were persisting stubbornly, the Falcons left their men on early, but a leadoff walk to Beairsto eventually turned into an RBI single for Brady, and a 2-run homer for Torrez, both with two outs. The first really tough spot wasn’t encountered until the fifth by Amador, when he walked Vieitas and McGreary zinged a liner past a perplexed Ingall to put runners on the corners with no outs. But Silva struck out on a foul bunt, Hudson popped out and Jose Lugo whiffed to keep the score at three-zip. They came back the next inning though, and this time broke through violently. Bases loaded with one out, Vieitas lobbed a fly to Beairsto in left for the second out. Beairsto tried to nab Burke at home, which was ill advised, and poorly executed, giving every runner the extra base. Next, McGreary grounded to Ramirez, whose throw went well past Martin, and plated the tying runs. Amador, shell-shocked, gave up two more runs before mercy helped the Coons to the third out. Five runs, four unearned on the not-contributing blokes at third base and in leftfield. Top 8th, three 1-out singles by Brady, Torrez, and Martin loaded them up and chased Silva from the 5-3 game. Sharp hit for an 0-3 Ingall and walked against reliever Luis Hernandez, 5-4, and Hernandez was immediately replaced by another right-hander in Arturo Ramirez. Ledesma HAD to do something here to save poor Amador’s ham. He jabbed at a 3-1 pitch and grounded to first, where Jose Mendoza got him out, but didn’t get Sharp at second – tied game. Reece hit for Ramirez for the go-ahead RBI single before Beairsto grounded out. The Falcons had Vieitas hit a 1-out double off Huerta in the bottom 8th, but then left him there as the Coons led 6-5. They didn’t get anything done in their half of the ninth before Bruno came on for the bottom half – and struck out the side. 6-5 Furballs! Torrez 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Reece (PH) 1-1, RBI; Moreno 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, W (1-0);

The Titans also took two of three in Oklahoma, losing the series finale in 12 innings.

Raccoons (30-18) vs. Bayhawks (25-20) – May 28-30, 2004

Surprise! We just played the CL South leaders, and now we’ll play the CL South leaders! The Bayhawks had squeezed past the Falcons with a sweep over the Indians, scoring 22 runs in those three games, and they had also beaten the Titans two out of three before that. So while they had a -6 run differential with the sixth-most runs scored and the sixth-most runs allowed, they were a dangerous bunch and not be taken lightly!

Projected matchups:
Felipe Garcia (3-4, 5.53 ERA) vs. Carl Bean (1-1, 5.14 ERA)
Nick Brown (7-1, 2.97 ERA) vs. Takeru Sato (3-4, 4.70 ERA)
Randy Farley (3-4, 4.34 ERA) vs. Raúl Fuentes (5-5, 2.22 ERA)

That’s two legit starters struggling as the first two opponents in this series, and the latter two are both lefties. Sad to see Bean toiling away in the land of 5+ ERA’s, but we would still like that victory, thank you. It would probably require a good dose of offense, though.

Game 1
SFB: LF Arroyo – SS J. Barrón – RF A. Johnson – 1B I. Gutierrez – 2B J. Cruz – CF Morton – C J. Lopez – 3B T. Torres – P Bean
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – C Ledesma – LF King – SS Sheehan – P F. Garcia

Bean walked Brady in the first, but retired all other Coons in the first two innings. In the third, the Coons got going with an infield single by Sheehan, with Brady scoring him with a blooper to shallow left and Torrez driving in Brady to make it 2-0. Garcia added a run in the bottom 4th with a sac fly. Himself he had given up a hit in the first, and didn’t give up another until Lopez doubled in the fifth, but was left on base. Bean was held to five innings in his return to Portland, surrendering five runs when Torrez took him deep in the fifth. Garcia was gracefully gliding through six innings until the Bayhawks hit three straight singles off him with one out in the seventh. Tony Torres had been hurt earlier on defense and was replayed by Jesse Foster, who got his first AB of the year right here, and killed his team’s chances with a double play. When we had three on with one out in our half of the seventh, Reece initially struck out, but Brady and Sharp plated three runs with 2-out singles. Only down 8-0 the Bayhawks started to hit and drive the ball. They would take chunks out of Martinez and Nordahl down the stretch, but came up well short. 8-3 Raccoons. Brady 2-3, 2 BB, 2 RBI; Sharp 2-4, BB, 2 RBI; Torrez 2-4, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Ledesma 2-5; King 2-3, BB; Sheehan 1-2, 2 BB; Garcia 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 K, W (4-4) and 1-1, RBI;

Al Martin went 0-5, but if he had hit as well, we’d have won 19-3 probably.

Game 2
SFB: LF Buell – SS J. Barrón – 1B J. Cruz – CF Black – RF A. Johnson – 2B Valdes – C M. Vela – 3B Foster – P T. Sato
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – C Thomas – 2B Sheehan – P Brown

Brown struck out five the first time through the lineup, allowing only a walk and a single, but threw a few too many balls overall. Neither team scored early on, and neither came even close. The Bayhawks were the first to reach third base after a walk to Foster and a single by Takeru Sato with two out in the fifth, but Brown struck out Buell to run his whiffs to eight. He struck out three more in the sixth, but en route was tagged with a leadoff single by Barrón, who was then doubled in by Luke Black, who led the ABL in homers with 11. Vela and Foster reached to start the seventh, but Brown bit down on them and then got K’s to Buell and Barrón to keep them on base. That’s 13 strikeouts! – and yet he was trailing, 1-0. When the Coons went down 1-2-3 to Sato in the bottom of the inning, it ended Brown’s winning streak at seven games. But he wouldn’t *lose*. With two out in the eighth, Guerin doubled, Brady walked, and Sharp singled to right, with Guerin beating Avery Johnson’s arm to be safe at home and tie the score at one. Ricardo Huerta survived three left-handed pinch-hitters in the ninth inning to give the team a walkoff chance, facing closer Johnny Smith (6.75 K/BB) in the bottom 9th, starting with Martin hitting for Marv to counter the righty Smith. Martin hit a drive to right, but Johnson made the play. When Buell hit a leadoff double in the 10th, Huerta got in trouble. He was at third base with two outs and Black at the plate, but this was not a favorable bet for us. Black was put on intentionally, and then Dave Williams was tasked with the lefty Johnson, got a hard grounder to Sharp, but Danny made the play and the Bayhawks didn’t score, but the Coons didn’t do anything against Johnny Smith, but he didn’t return for the 11th, the top half of which was taken care of by Bruno, but only Sharp reached on a single against Salvadaro Soure, and we were about to run of arms sooner or later. Dan Nordahl struck out the side in the top 13th, and Soure was still pitching in the bottom 13th, striking out Brady and Sharp. Torrez then singled, and Martin walked, with the Bayhawks going to right-hander Juan Santana after that. Santana faced only one batter, Reece, who livened up an 0-5 day with a bloop single on which Eddie Torrez never stopped running. 2-1 Raccoons!!! Guerin 2-6, 2B; Sharp 2-6, RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 13 K; Huerta 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K;

Brownie picked former Furball Stephen Buell off first base in the third inning. I know that no pitcher had a pickoff for us all of last year, so our last before that goes back to 2002!

The Bayhawks struck out TWENTY-THREE TIMES in this game! 34-year old Mauro Valdes hit for a platinum sombrero! Brownie was propelled to the top of the strikeouts board in the CL, and trails only WAS Chris York by three, 81 to 78.

Game 3
SFB: LF Arroyo – SS J. Barrón – RF A. Johnson – 1B I. Gutierrez – 2B J. Cruz – CF Morton – C J. Lopez – 3B Foster – P R. Fuentes
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – C Thomas – RF King – P Farley

Four lefties and a switch hitter in their lineup or not: there was not a whole lot of bullpen available for Randy Farley to abuse in the rubber game, so he’d better improve on 2.2 innings and seven runs from Tuesday…

Farley had a scoreless first, then witnessed his teammates take a quick sledgehammer to Fuentes, plating four runs in the first inning, with RBI singles by Ingall and Thomas sandwiching a 2-run double by Reece. Trouble started soon for Farley, although it was not all his own making and baking. Jesse Foster reached on catcher’s interference to start the third inning and was singled home by Juan Barrón with two out to cut the lead to 4-1, but Farley chipped a 2-out single to shallow right in the bottom of the inning, with Marvin Ingall scoring to make it 5-1 and a 4-run lead again. Top 5th, Foster was on again, when Mauro Valdes hit for Fuentes and flew to right. Matt King caught it, then dropped it. A nervous Farley walked Luis Arroyo, which brought up the tying run in Juan Barrón with no outs, but that tying run would pop out twice in succession then before Ivan Gutierrez, a slugger by trade, but batting .164 in late May, grounded out to Concie. Whoah, bullet dodged. The Birds left another runner on third in the sixth inning. Farley went seven, with the team taking bats to Bubba Cannon in the bottom of the seventh to add two runs for a 7-1 lead. The bullpen was used minimally, with Williams and Corkum delivering scoreless innings to complete the 3-game sweep! 7-1 Raccoons! Martin 2-5; Ingall 3-4, 2B, RBI; Reece 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Thomas 3-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Farley 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, W (4-4) and 1-3, RBI;

Ironically, Farley struck out only one right-hander, with six K’s coming at left-handed batters!

In other news

May 25 – OCT OF/1B Mike Olson (.256, 0 HR, 5 RBI) is out for six weeks with a broken finger.
May 25 – CIN OF/1B Will Bailey (.315, 3 HR, 13 RBI) ends up on the DL for the second time this year, suffering a thumb sprain.
May 28 – LVA INF Oliver Torres (.235, 1 HR, 19 RBI) will miss all of June with a broken thumb.
May 30 – The Condors will be without OF Robbie Luxton (.247, 7 HR, 25 RBI) until after the All Star Game. The 25-year old right-hander has sprained his ankle.

Complaints and stuff

You know your opposition is great when you drop only one game all week and still can’t make up ground on them. The Titans only lost that 12-inning game in Oklahoma, and went 5-1 just like us. But we dethroned two division leaders this week (even though it doesn’t show in the standings), and that should give us the tie-breaker as far as this week is concerned.

We are 24-12 against right-handers, and, well, look at our lefty bats. 9-6 against left-handers isn’t shabby, but 24-12 is a word.

Why do our backups insist on playing such ****ty defense? All except Sheehan. This includes Reece in a platoon that is no more, but Reece is old and gets a pass on past merits in a lot of things when it comes to roster decisions, and well, maybe for Beairsto a “roster decision” could include turning him into a muff!

To be precise, Beairsto has one option left. No other backup position player has one.

By the way, Neil Reece got under 75 to go in respect to the 2,000 career hits mark. And with more playing time coming his way…

Oh, and a stat that never gets talked about are doubles. Who leads the franchise in doubles? Daniel Hall, far and away, and nobody is even remotely close. But here’s the top 20, because we never talk about doubles, and a few names from the distant past crop up, too:

Portland Raccoons – Doubles
1st – 485 – Daniel Hall
2nd – 323 – Mark Dawson
3rd – 289 – Tetsu Osanai
4th – 268 – Neil Reece
5th – 240 – Ben O’Morrissey
6th – 208 – Jorge Salazar
7th – 204 – Conceicao Guerin
8th – 200 – David Vinson
9th – 185 – Vern Kinnear
10th – 184 – Marvin Ingall
11th – 161 – Ben Simon
12th – 157 – Pedro Sánz
13th – 156 – Matt Higgins
14th – 128 – Bobby Quinn
15th – 127 – Matt Workman
16th – 124 – Daniel Sharp
17th – 122 – Cameron Green
18th – 120 – Sam Dadswell
19th – 117 – David Brewer
20th – 115 – Steve Walker

[Westheim]

Raccoons (33-18) @ Thunder (25-26) – May 31-June 2, 2004

The Thunder knew how to make the most out of their mediocre .256 batting average, scoring the fifth-most runs in the league, while their solid rotation (4th) allowed them to rank just barely inside the upper half in runs allowed, too. They were still under .500, and the Raccoons had swept them in our first series this year.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (3-3, 3.38 ERA) vs. Aaron Anderson (5-3, 3.98 ERA)
Edgar Amador (5-1, 2.90 ERA) vs. Pancho Trevino (4-5, 2.58 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (4-4, 4.91 ERA) vs. Luis Martinez (0-0)

After Vernon Robertson retired last winter, Anderson is now the active player with the most major league wins, 219, which rank him 14th all time, five ahead of Milwaukee’s Martin Garcia, and eight ahead of Nashville’s Dennis Fried. The all-time leader, Woody Roberts, has 279.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – LF Beairsto – P Ford
OCT: SS Nixon – C De La Parra – 1B L. Soto – 3B Higashi – CF A. Flores – RF Rangel – LF C. Martinez – 2B H. Castro – P Anderson

The Thunder did not send a left-hander against Ford, who got double plays turned in his favor each of the first two innings. The Furballs moved ahead 1-0 in the second inning, when Sharp scored on Beairsto’s groundout. An Ingall single got us another run in the sixth, with little action in between. Ralph Ford faced the minimum inning by inning, and when somebody got on, he was double played away, like in the bottom 6th, when Cesar Martinez hit a leadoff single, then was doubled up when Al Martin (!) caught Hector Castro’s liner and gently strolled to first with the glowing iron in his glove. But Ford’s can’t-touch-dis streak ended in the seventh, when both Max Nixon and Antonio De La Parra hit singles to get going. We were up 3-0, and the Thunder didn’t hit for power, so Ford was granted a little more leeway. Luis Soto grounded hard to third, where Sharp got only the lead runner. Then Higashi got hold of one and ripped a game-tying homer to left. Yeah, the Thunder, they ain’t hitting for power. Both starters went eight before hitting the hay, and once Sancho Rivera and Ricardo Huerta had exchanged scoreless ninth innings, we went to extras – yay! Top 10th, Brady led off with a single to right. Torrez doubled, and Martin was walked intentionally to load them up with no outs. Rivera remained in the game, but he wouldn’t get out of this. Sharp and Ledesma hit RBI singles each, Ingall flew out, but Beairsto and Reece brought in another run each. And although we now led 7-3, Manuel Martinez couldn’t seal this one off. He allowed three singles, with a double play in between, and we had to bother Marcos Bruno. He drilled Hector Castro to load the bases, before Jesus Palacios popped up a 3-1 pitch before it could get really ugly. 7-3 Raccoons. Brady 2-5; Torrez 2-5, 2B, RBI; Sharp 3-5, RBI; Ingall 2-5, RBI; Ford 8.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K and 1-3, 2B;

Well, Ford was unlucky in this one. True, he got a lot of double plays, but Higashi’s homer was the only hard fly they hit in the entire game. We turned five double plays in total in this contest, and since the Titans were idle this Monday, we closed to within four games of them – whooo!!

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Sheehan – P Amador
OCT: 2B Palacios – SS Nixon – 1B L. Soto – 3B Higashi – RF Humphrey – CF A. Flores – C Baca – LF Walls – P Trevino

The Thunder, who didn’t hit for power, saw Luis Soto knock a 2-run homer off Amador in the first inning. The Fat Cat wasn’t right – at all. He walked the next three batters, before Alonso Baca drove in a pair, and Tom Walls also plated a run with a single. 5-0 Thunder, and Amador was all over the place. He stumbled through a few scoreless innings after that, but a leadoff walk to Soto in the fifth was the final nail in the coffin. By then the score was still 5-0, with Trevino giving the Raccoons quite the handling, striking out nine of them through five, against only two singles. It was not 5-0 for much longer. Huerta walked the bags full, before Alberto Flores chopped a 2-run single into center. No outs. Nordahl came in and wiggled out of the inning while conceding one more run to make it 8-0. Trevino went eight innings, whiffed a full dozen, and the Raccoons did not return to form against Jose Ochoa in the ninth either. 8-0 Thunder. Ledesma 2-3; Nordahl 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K;

We had four hits. They had five.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – C Thomas – CF King – P F. Garcia
OCT: 2B Palacios – C De La Parra – 3B Higashi – RF Humphrey – CF A. Flores – SS Nixon – 1B H. Castro – LF Walls – P L. Martinez

Concie led off with a single and Danny Sharp drove a ball to deep left where it just fit over the fence for a 2-run homer in the top 1st. Garcia showed to be easily hittable quickly, however, and the Thunder got a run on three hits in the bottom of the same inning. Brady and Flores both hit home runs in the third inning, but Flores’ counted for two and the game was tied at three, before the Thunder took a 4-3 lead in the fourth. Garcia was no impediment to their scoring ambitions whatsoever. It didn’t get better once Garcia left after the fifth inning. Dave Williams got one out from Palacios in the sixth before De La Parra and Higashi singled and Humphrey sent a deep one outta there to make it 7-3. Corkum didn’t fare any better and three runs were charged to him in the seventh. It was so bad, Beairsto pitched in the eighth – and was not scored upon then. The Raccoons had hardly anything going through the middle innings and never scored again in the second consecutive thrashing. 10-3 Thunder. Sharp 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Martin 2-5;

Did you hear that sound? That was our bubble. It burst.

Raccoons (34-20) @ Crusaders (22-30) – June 4-6, 2004

The Crusaders had hoped that they could charge through the other teams and get back into winning ways, but they were tied for last with the Indians. While they were pitching decently, they weren’t scoring an awful lot. The good news was that we would get to bypass their better guys, Whit Reeves and Marvin Hall, and face the other three guys.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (7-1, 2.82 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (3-7, 4.60 ERA)
Randy Farley (4-4, 4.00 ERA) vs. Russell Benson (1-3, 3.78 ERA)
Ralph Ford (3-3, 3.38 ERA) vs. Kelly Fairchild (3-5, 4.25 ERA)

Those are three right-handers. We will have another off day right after this set.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Ingall – P Brown
NYC: RF Gonzales – 2B J. Hernandez – LF M. Ortíz – 1B Tinker – SS Rice – CF Britton – 3B A. De Jesus – C D. Anderson – P Connor

Two batters for Brown into the game we knew we had lost already. Jorge Gonzales was walked on four straight, and then he hit Julio Hernandez. Two bloop singles scored two runs for the Crusaders, and despair crept up early. While the Raccoons were shut down hard by Greg Connor, Brown sucked outright, hit another man in the fourth, and then hit Tinker and Rice consecutively with first pitches in the sixth, and inning he would not survive. He ended up stuffed with six runs, the Coons had zip. The only guy to get the ball past the infield more than once was the frail guy, but Neil Reece was robbed of run-scoring doubles twice on the warning track. The latter at least produced a sac fly that broke up Connor’s shutout bid in the ninth inning, as Miguel Ramirez came in to score, having replaced Al Martin due to injury. 6-1 Crusaders. Martin 2-3, BB, 2B; Sharp 2-4; Beairsto (PH) 1-1;

Al Martin had tweaked an ankle and would be severely hampered for about a week. We were advised to best not use him at all.

Nick Brown getting mopped up and swept into the gutter ended a personal streak of ten games in which he was undefeated. He lost the season opener, then also against the Crusaders. They are the only team to beat him this year.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 1B Sharp – CF Torrez – LF Reece – 2B Ingall – C Ledesma – 3B M. Ramirez – P Farley
NYC: CF Javier – RF Britton – LF M. Ortíz – SS Rice – C D. Anderson – 1B D. Carroll – 3B Edralín – 2B J. Hernandez – P Benson

Eddie Torrez took Benson deep in the first, plating Guerin as well, for a quick 2-0 lead. Farley had a perfect first inning, before Gary Rice led off the bottom 2nd with a single to right which he tried to convince Clyde Brady was a double. Brady however was insisting that it was a single and threw him out at second base. Farley faced the minimum until he walked the pitcher. In the third he walked the bags full and was lucky enough that Dave Carroll hit into an inning-ending double play. Another walk in the fifth, that 2-0 lead, which was not going to be enlarged anytime soon by the hopelessly flailing Raccoons, was looking more than just flimsy. Bottom 6th, it was about to come apart, finally. Ortíz and Rice hit singles to get going, before Anderson grounded to the mound. Ingall dropped Farley’s throw to second, a run scored, and still two on and no outs. Ramirez then turned another double play on Carroll and Pedro Edralín grounded out to keep Rice starved at third base. The top 7th was the end for both starting pitchers. Farley was hit for, while Tony Vela replaced Benson and got a pop out from Brady to end the inning and keep two Coons stranded. Two more were stranded in the eighth despite Vela trying to help out by balking them into scoring position with one out, and the ninth, despite Charlie Deacon being the always ready scoring invitation. The Coons’ pen scrambled along, with Brady making a huge catch on a drive to deep right that Martin Ortíz hit off Williams. Bruno faced the 6-7-8 guys in the bottom 9th, went to full counts on Greg Andrews, Edralín, AND Hernandez – and whiffed them all. 2-1 Coons. Guerin 2-5; Sharp 2-5; Torrez 1-4, HR, 2 RBI; Sheehan 1-1;

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 1B Sharp – CF Torrez – 2B Ingall – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 3B M. Ramirez – P Ford
NYC: RF Gonzales – 3B A. De Jesus – LF M. Ortíz – 1B Tinker – SS Rice – CF Britton – 2B Edralín – C D. Anderson – P Fairchild

We plated two in the top 1st again. Guerin and Torrez hit singles, then stole in tandem while Ingall nursed a full count, then zinged a MARVELOUS INGALL SINGLE to left to plate both. Just like Brown on Friday, Fairchild didn’t have it. He was booked for 11 hits and five runs in four innings. Ralph Ford had control issues (like the entire rotation) and issued leadoff walks in the second and third, the latter instance leading to the Crusaders first run when De Jesus singled Anderson in with a single, their first hit of the day. They added a run in the fourth, 5-2, with the scoring runner again reaching via walk. The Furballs loaded them up in the top 6th after Torrez had already plated Guerin once more, 6-2, but Ledesma would then strike out against righty Bob Evans and left three men on. Guerin scored Beairsto in the seventh to make it 7-2, and it looked quite cozy there for Ford. Until it didn’t. The Crusaders rapped off three straight singles to start the bottom 7th to get to 7-3, two on and no outs, chasing Ford, and while Bill Corkum wiggled out of the commotion with three ground balls, we took a loss too hard to replace, as Concie left the game after getting bowled over by Daryl Anderson at second base. Bill Tinker homered off Moreno in the eighth to get back into save range, and after a Reece walk, Sheehan double, and intentional walk to Brady we had the bases loaded in the ninth, but an entirely luckless Danny Sharp found a way to hit into a double play. It didn’t matter to Marcos Bruno, who notched his 11th save of the year at a rapid pace. 7-4 Coons. Guerin 4-5, RBI; Sheehan 1-1, 2B; Brady 2-5, BB; Sharp 2-6; Torrez 4-4, 2 RBI; Ledesma 2-5, RBI;

Concie fell on his wrist when taken out by Anderson and will miss at least four weeks with a bad sprain.

In other news

May 31 – INF Jose Correa (.258, 1 HR, 22 RBI) will be sorely missed by the Gold Sox, as an elbow sprain should cost him a month on the DL.
June 2 – 37-year old veteran ATL SP Scott Murphy (2-5, 6.42 ERA) will have to undergo Tommy John surgery to repair a torn UCL. He will be out for a year, if he can return at all.
June 6 – 1B/3B/LF David Lopez (.248, 10 HR, 35 RBI) agrees with the Indians on a 3-year contract extension, which will pay him $3.18M.

Complaints and stuff

Are we ever going to play at home!?

Number of the week: Pablo Ledesma, **** of ****s, threw out his second base stealer this week, Gary Rice of the Crusaders. 23 made it to their bag safely over the year.

Next week on Fluffy Detectives: we try to resolve the mystery where Al Martin’s power has gone, whether there is life after Concie, and why all our pitchers had their candle blown out at the same time.

Sunday’s 7-4 marks our 2,200th regular season win.

The draft pool analysis post has been scratched due to irrelevance. I knew that drafts and prospects work differently from OOTP 12 to 16, but I have nevertheless been shocked by a draft pool full of scums. There are at most three players in there which have decent potential. Two of them are starting pitchers and we will pick eighth. So it’s a crap shot now, isn’t it?

[Westheim]

Last complete week before the draft, which will take place next Tuesday, but before we’d go there, we’d first have to disable Conceicao Guerin and his sprained wrist. We did this on Monday, which we had off. Finding a replacement was a tall task, since basically all of our minor league middle infielders sucked outright. In the end we called up Vito Mendez, a 25-year old third baseman, who had been a waiver claim off the Scorpions in early April. He was batting .206 in AAA. But the options were REALLY limited.

With Al Martin still ailing, too, Danny Sharp would play a few more games at first base. Ramirez was needed at short. Or could Sheehan do something? Probably not.

Raccoons (36-21) vs. Canadiens (27-27) – June 8-10, 2004

The Canadiens sat at rock bottom in terms of runs scored in the Continental League, with only 206 tallies in their favor. They had allowed only 194 runs, however, with a tough-to-crack pitching staff. They had already taken three of four from us once this year up in their frosty home lands.

Projected matchups:
Edgar Amador (5-2, 3.55 ERA) vs. Daniel Dickerson (2-3, 2.78 ERA)
Nick Brown (7-2, 3.28 ERA) vs. Juichi Fujita (3-5, 4.12 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-4, 3.65 ERA) vs. Joe Hollow (3-5, 3.62 ERA)

These guys hanging in the breeze like that is a shame. They should improve their lineup. I heard Tetsu Osanai is available.

Game 1
VAN: LF T. Wilson – CF E. Garcia – 2B Dobson – 1B Suzuki – 3B Phillips – RF Wheaton – SS Rodgers – C Hurtado – P Dickerson
POR: RF Brady – CF Torrez – 1B Sharp – 2B Ingall – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – SS M. Ramirez – 3B Mendez – P Amador

The Coons were robbed in the first inning by a base running blunder by Danny Sharp – nothing to see here, move on, please. The Raccoons had four hits in the first three innings, and left a runner in scoring position in every one of them, leading rather quickly to Amador getting dissolved in a mess of his own bad control, ground balls finding the seemingly grown seems between infielders with Guerin gone, and his own catcher being thoroughly unable to throw out any base runner, no matter with two legs, four, or one. After three scoreless, the Elks tacked four runs onto Amador in the middle three innings, and no response was forthcoming from the home team, which had collective zero hits to the visitors’ seven from inning four through six. The Canadiens, who weren’t scoring at all when not playing the Raccoons, piled four runs onto Dan Nordahl in the eighth, while the Raccoons managed one infield single after the third inning, and got that one removed on a double play on the way to be run out of their own park. 8-0 Canadiens. Ledesma 2-3, BB;

Well, that sucked.

Game 2
VAN: CF T. Wilson – LF Trinidad – 2B Dobson – 1B A. Munoz – 3B Suzuki – C Rosa – SS Phillips – RF E. Garcia – P Fujita
POR: RF Brady – 1B Sharp – 2B Ingall – CF Torrez – C Thomas – LF Beairsto – 3B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Brown

Woes continued in uninterrupted manner for the Raccoons. While Beairsto hit a solo shot in the second inning that put Brownie up 1-0, the team then failed to do something after the Canadiens made errors on consecutive plays in the third inning. In the top 4th, Suzuki was on second after a double with two down, but Brown struck out Freddy Rosa – unless Thomas lost the ball and the lead-footed Rosa made it to first safely. Brown dissolved runners on the corners with two down with a really angry strikeout to Jim Phillips, his sixth on the day, and with eyes glowing a furious red whiffed the side in the fifth inning, and he also struck out Ramón Trinidad and Jerry Dobson to start the sixth! Seven strikeouts in a row – unheard of! Anastasio Munoz broke the streak with a grounder to the mound that Brown converted into an out at first base. Brown victimized Rosa in the seventh for his 12th K on the day, and the score remained 1-0. The bottom 7th was led off by Beairsto, whose chip single to right was the Raccoons’ fourth hit on the day. Beairsto advanced on Ramirez’ groundout, then on Fujita’s balk, and was singled in by Brad Sheehan. Brown singled after he couldn’t get a bunt down, and Brady singled to load the bases with one out, but a Sharp sac fly was all that came out of it. Brown then got two grounders in the top 8th before striking out Tom Wilson, tying the franchise mark for strikeouts in a game. He was at 112 pitches, but came out for the ninth, ahead 3-0, with Marcos Bruno ready to come in at the slightest sign of trouble. Trinidad getting snuffed out for a new franchise mark was not a sign of trouble, and Brown got two more grounders to finish the job himself. 3-0 Brownshirts!! Beairsto 2-4, HR, RBI; Sheehan 2-4, RBI; Brown 9.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 14 K, W (8-2) and 1-3;

BROWNIIIIEEE!!

Nick Brown expended 120 pitches on his complete game, which was about the upper limit of where you should go with him. He visibly lost bite in the ninth inning. In any case, it was his fourth career shutout, first this season, and who held the franchise record of 13 strikeouts in a game that he just broke?

Nick Brown himself, twice. The first rank shared with other pitchers is that of 12 K, which Brown ended up with once, joining Steven Berry (once), Kisho Saito (once), and Ralph Ford (twice).

Game 3
VAN: LF T. Wilson – CF E. Garcia – 2B Dobson – 1B Suzuki – RF Wheaton – SS Rodgers – 3B Rivas – C Hurtado – P Hollow
POR: 1B Sharp – 3B M. Ramirez – LF Reece – CF Torrez – 2B Ingall – RF King – C Thomas – SS Sheehan – P Farley

Initially, Farley looked strong, whiffing four batters in the first two innings. However, the impression didn’t last. In the third inning the Canadiens just didn’t stop hitting and crushed Farley with two outs, ringing off four consecutive base hits, the last of those a 3-run homer by Dave Wheaton, and took a 5-0 lead. It would still get worse for Farley in the fifth, in which he allowed a single and a walk and was removed in favor of Felipe Garcia, who had been skipped in the rotation – and with good reason. Wheaton’s bases-clearing double gave that particular Elk six RBI on the day. The Raccoons were batting, too, but aside from a Miguel Ramirez triple that helped them to two runs in the bottom 3rd, their success was largely limited, and they were handed the second clobbering by the Canadiens in three days. 10-3 Canadiens. Sharp 2-4, BB, 2B; Thomas 2-2, BB, 2B;

Thank god these ass cramps are out of town now. I hate the Canadiens anyway, but even more I hate LOSING TO the Canadiens.

And this is why the Raccoons were never destined to hover 15 games over .500 this year. They suck. They have about four to five good players, and a whole lotta scum.

Of those four to five good players, one pitched a 2-hitter and two others were ailing in this series.

Raccoons (37-23) vs. Cyclones (27-34) – June 11-13, 2004

Interleague play again, with our 25-29 record against the Cyclones over the years being our fourth-worst against all Federal League teams, and we haven’t won a series against them since 1999. They were doing quite well for themselves, coming in with a 4-game winning streak after a harsh first two months. They had no pitching whatsoever, but knew how to score runs, ranking in the upper half in many offensive categories.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (4-3, 3.48 ERA) vs. Jeremy Peterson (4-7, 4.67 ERA)
Edgar Amador (5-3, 3.75 ERA) vs. Jose Marquez (3-4, 7.19 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (4-5, 5.22 ERA) vs. George Allen (3-4, 4.86 ERA)

Two righties sandwiching a horrendous left-hander. They also have Ramiro Cavazos, and a now 38-year old Bitc- … Ben O’Morrissey, whom I will never forgive until the day I die, and beyond.

Game 1
CIN: SS Butler – 3B Watts – RF Bailey – LF D. Morris – CF Cavazos – 1B O’Morrissey – C J. Clark – 2B Moultrie – P Peterson
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 2B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Ford

Ford sat down the first five Cyclones, but O’Morrissey started a 2-out rally in the second with a single and the Cyclones tied the game at one after Clyde Brady’s leadoff jack in the first. Ford was increasingly surrendering line drives while the Raccoons nibbled a bit here and gobbled a bit there, but it was all not productive. After Ford fell behind in the third inning, they left the bases loaded in the fourth, and runners on the corners in the fifth. Dan Morris homered in the sixth, bringing the score to 3-1 for the visitors, and then Sheehan and Ford hit 2-out singles in the bottom of that inning, and Brady’s line drive went right into Peterson’s glove. No skill, and then, no luck, either. This continued steadily however. Top 7th, Ford gave up more liners and then a homer to Will Bailey for a 6-1 score, while the Raccoons habitually left the bases loaded in the bottom 7th, and two more on in the eighth, and two more in the ninth. 6-1 Cyclones. Sharp 2-5; Martin 2-4, BB; Ledesma 2-3, 2 BB;

The essence of futility, this was one of those games that make you want to just quit. Quit, and keep that tiny little rest of sanity. 11 hits, six walks, two hit batsmen, and they leave SIXTEEN runners on base, and scored ONCE, on a homer by the leadoff batter in the first. GODDAMNIT!!

Of course all of this is part of the grander regression-towards-the-mean thing, with the mean being 72-90.

Game 2
CIN: SS Butler – 2B M. Garza – RF Bailey – LF D. Morris – CF Cavazos – 1B O’Morrissey – 3B Watts – C Rucker – P J. Marquez
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – LF Reece – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – CF King – C Thomas – SS Sheehan – P Amador

The Cyclones batted through the lineup in the first inning against a hideously Fat and even more helpless Cat. Three runs scored right there, and it was 4-0 after three, during which no Raccoon touched base. In five and a third innings, Amador walked five once again. A Sharp single had broken up any bid Marquez might have had in the fourth, but the Raccoons didn’t scratch out a run until the sixth. In between, Marvin Ingall had shoved his body into Bob Butler’s at second base and had left the game. After some good relief from Williams and Corkum, the Raccoons actually got the tying run to the plate in the eighth inning, with Marquez still pitching, after Torrez and Sharp had singled. Brady was up with one out, lined to second, where Garza made the play and Sharp found himself doubled off first for the second time this week. Unbelievable in itself, but unbelievably they got another chance in the ninth. 2-out singles by Beairsto and King brought the tying run up once more, with Ledesma hitting for Thomas against righty closer Lorenzo Flores. Ledesma struck out. 4-1 Cyclones. Sharp 3-4; Beairsto (PH) 1-1; Torrez (PH) 1-1; Williams 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K and 1-1;

Marv Ingall had a sore shoulder after taking Butler’s knee there, and with that the second part of our Gold Glove middle infield combo went to the DL for a month or so, which finally put us out of even semi-decent options for middle infield.

Yeah, well. Agony and such. When is Brown due to pitch again?

However, we NEEDED a middle infielder, of which we now had only two between Sheehan (a good defender) and Ramirez (a third baseman, really).

Desperate times call for desperate measures. As such, we called down to St. Pete to send new meat our way. That meat was a 20-year old with 11 games in AAA: 2002 top pick Ieyoshi Nomura.

Game 3
CIN: SS Butler – 2B M. Garza – RF Bailey – CF Cavazos – 1B O’Morrissey – 3B Watts – LF Graves – C J. Clark – P Allen
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P F. Garcia

Garcia was under pressure from the start, with Garza doubling, but he got thrown out at home by Torrez as he was tagging on Cavazos’ fly. The Cyclones would still score first, one run in the second, because Garcia had nothing. Yoshi Nomura’s first major league at-bat resulted in an infield single that put runners on the corners in the bottom 2nd, right before Sheehan struck out to end the inning. Homers by Marcos Garza and Ramiro Cavazos raced the score to 4-0 in the top of the third, and the Raccoons just never had a chance, and when Eddie Torrez was hurt on a catch, their season officially ended. Garcia gave up five runs in five innings, while the Raccoons came close to scoring once, and then left the bases loaded. 6-0 Cyclones. Nomura 2-3;

Both of Nomura’s singles were of the infield variety. He was also hit by a pitch, and lined out to center when it possibly could have counted for something.

In other news

June 8 – Loggers conceding defeat? They trade 37-yr old SP Marc Padgett (3-5, 4.11 ERA) to the Bayhawks for three prospects, but only 20-yr old A INF Steve Madison is ranked, at #170. It’s the second trade between these two teams in a month.
June 9 – SFB SP Raúl Fuentes (6-6, 2.77 ERA) 3-hits the Condors in a 6-0 Bayhawks win.
June 10 – The Knights’ second baseman James Miller (.297, 3 HR, 31 RBI) lands a double in his team’s 8-3 loss to Aces, extending a hitting streak to 20 games.
June 11 – CYCLE: BOS RF/LF Christian Greenman (.269, 8 HR, 19 RBI) shows the Pacifics how it’s done, knocking four hits and driving in four in a 14-4 smashing of the L.A. team. Greenman collects a hit of each variety, connecting for the 34th cycle in ABL history, less than a month after the most recent happening by Topeka’s Jerry Henry. It is the first cycle in Titans history, leaving only seven teams without one (IND, NYC, PIT, CIN, SAC, WAS, VAN).
June 12 – More reason to celebrate in Boston: CL John Bennett (0-2, 2.67 ERA, 21 SV) signs a 3-yr, $3.72M extension with the Titans.
June 13 – SFW RF/LF Raúl Vázquez (.305, 8 HR, 31 RBI) not only leads the ABL in home runs over his career, now the 38-year old has also joined the 2,500 hits club with three knocks in a losing effort against the Crusaders. The milestone hit is a single off Marvin Hall in the fifth inning. The Dominican Vázquez, who started his career with the Indians and won six Gold Gloves and two Hitter of the Year awards, might make news soon again, since he is just three home runs shy of being the first ABL player to 400.
June 13 – The Bayhawks keep restructuring, adding LF/RF Yohan Bonneau (.304, 8 HR, 40 RBI) from the Pacifics in exchange for a minor leaguer and #142 prospect Pedro Cruz.
June 13 – NAS C Felix Hernandez (.242, 1 HR, 19 RBI) will miss two weeks with a sore shoulder.

Complaints and stuff

We’re in the gutter.

A player I hate ferociously cycles, the Elks romp over us, we lose all our middle infielders, and we scored like minus four runs in total. And no idea what Torrez tore, broke, or ripped off. All I know is we’re done.

And no, Nomura is not ready, and yes, this will be Orlando Lantán all over again.

Because I feel like churning out numbers rather than talk more about the suckers on the roster, and to celebrate the new franchise mark for strikeouts in a game, the following list, and it’s expanded to 20 players mainly for the purpose of getting #20 mentioned once more. “Pooky” hasn’t often been the talk around here in the last few years.

Portland Raccoons – Strikeouts
1st – 2,322 – Kisho Saito
2nd – 1,417 – Scott Wade
3rd – 1,022 – Logan Evans
4th – 997 – Jason Turner
5th – 934 – Miguel Lopez
6th – 791 – Randy Farley
7th – 774 – Christopher Powell
8th – 684 – Wally Gaston
9th – 673 – Grant West
10th – 648 – Ralph Ford
11th – 582 – Nick Brown
t-12th – 511 – Daniel Miller
t-12th – 511 – Juan Martinez
14th – 487 – Richard Cunningham
15th – 447 – Jackie Lagarde
16th – 425 – Carlos Gonzalez
17th – 395 – Carlos Morán
18th – 377 – Carl Bean
19th – 369 – Antonio Donis
20th – 353 – Raimundo Beato

Most impressive is the fact that with the exception of Ralph Ford and the two relievers, everybody ahead of Brownie has at least twice as many starts as he has.

(And I also missed the leaderboards last week, because I suck. They are supposed to be posted after each month...)

[Westheim]

2004 AMATEUR DRAFT

The Raccoons had the eighth pick in every round, and no extra picks for this year’s 12-round bonanza.

We had our eyes on a few select players, including SP Darin Kappley and SP Colin Sabatino, C/1B Erik Ruff, and INF/LF/RF Tom Dahlke. That’s merely four picks, Vince doesn’t like anybody else, calling today’s youth weak and indulged with video games and that internets thing. Back in the 70s, way back, young men were tough and made to play the game. Now they’re all pussies.

Says Vince. Although I hardly ever doubt what Vince says.

Darin Kappley went #1 to Sacramento, Tom Dahlke went #2 to Las Vegas, and Colin Sabatino went #3 to San Francisco. Ruff went to us.

2004 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS
Round 1 (#8) – C/1B Erik Ruff, 20, from West Springfield, MA – good power potential, might hit tons of home runs and doubles; can call a good game too, but sometimes he rips to eagerly and doesn’t even meet a ball the entire game
Round 2 (#57) – 2B A.J. Altheide, 18, from Honolulu, HI – singles slapper that just never strikes out, and has some speed, although starting with the glove, the issues already begin
Round 3 (#81) – SP G.G. Williams, 20, from La Harpe, IL – left-hander with a changeup that, if developed, could be his ticket to a major league rotation, if he also can get his fastball to move more, especially since he finds it hard to throw it at more than 90mph
Round 4 (#105) – CF/RF Zaire Collins, 18, from Grafton, OH – he has explosive speed, and a good eye (two even!), but that’s where the good times end.
Round 5 (#129) – INF/RF Kevin Rex, 19, from Visalia, CA – quirky infielder with good speed and a remarkable eye and plate discipline, but no power whatsoever
Round 6 (#153) – SP Eric Thrift, 18, from Aurora, IL – throws a bit of this and that, right-handed, but overall his mix his rather poor
Round 7 (#177) – 1B Zachary Rail, 20, from Staten Island, NY – your typical first baseman, except that he’s not very good at the things typical first baseman excel at
Round 8 (#201) – CL Tom Bartlett, 20, from Whisper Walk, FL – has a curve so fantastic, he can make it ditch ten feet in front of the plate
Round 9 (#225) – SP Gil McDonald, 21, from Benson, MN – throws four pitches, all over the place, and hardly fools anybody
Round 10 (#249) – RF/3B/2B Zach Dulin, 18, from Youngtown, AZ – has no power, can’t run, and broke his arm twice last year
Round 11 (#273) – MR Manny Gomez, 21, from Wilmington Manor, DE – left-hander without much sparkle … or any sparkle
Round 12 (#297) – SP Will Abram, 17, from St. Peters, MO – leader of his high school team, despite an inherent inability to pitch

All our picks were assigned to the A level team in Aumsville.

Irrelevant note: Will Abram was born July 18, 1986. Six days later and he’d be the first Coon younger than me in real life.

[Trebro]

My goodness, you're a baby!

[Questdog]

All those draftees might suck, but they sure do have good names.....

[Westheim]

Raccoons (37-26) @ Stars (33-28) – June 14-16, 2004

While the Raccoons were on the way down, the Stars were on the way up, being 9-2 in June. Combined with their most runs scored in the Federal League, the Raccoons were probably in for another pelting, having lost their last four games. But hey, we’re gonna have Brownie! All we ever need is Brownie!

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (8-2, 2.96 ERA) vs. Juan Santana (2-3, 4.89 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-5, 4.30 ERA) vs. Elwood Spurrell (4-7, 5.74 ERA)
Ralph Ford (4-4, 3.89 ERA) vs. Veit Koell (4-6, 3.10 ERA)

That’s three right-handed pitchers. Whether that is a good or a bad thing with Torrez out (and not diagnosed) will have to be found out. All we know is that Martin and Brady aren’t hitting either…

Game 1
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – CF Beairsto – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Brown
DAL: SS K. Sato – 2B H. Garcia – RF T. Austin – 1B R. Perez – 3B Cavalleri – C P. Fernandez – LF M. Smith – CF Cowan – P Santana

Turns out, we didn’t even had Brownie. All we ever needed, was just not there. While he struck out four in a row between the first two innings, and got three runs of support in the top 2nd when Brady tripled in a pair and scored on Sharp’s single, Brown was whacked in the bottom 3rd, in which the Stars took all the pretty runs right back and tied the score at three. He didn’t walk batters, but he was whacked. The Stars would continue to hit him quite good, as it seemed they adopted a strategy of rip-and-hope-for-contact. They also struck out nine times in seven innings, after which Brown was in the lead by the slimmest of margins, 4-3, with the run driven in by Beairsto in the fifth. We did get some major breathing space however in the eighth. Nomura singled off ex-Coon Gabby De La Rosa, and Miguel Ramirez hit for Brown, and assaulted Gabby with a cannon shot out of right center. Bottom 8th, Martinez and Williams each allowed a single that put runners on the corners, which Marcos Bruno was tasked with removing early to get a 4-out save. Now, before the bottom 8th we had removed Martin, moving Sharp to first and Ramirez stayed in at third. Martin’s spot was due up first in the ninth, however. When Bruno came in, another double switch removed Reece and put Beairsto in left. That probably saved the game, because Beairsto made a strong play on a howling line drive by Ramiro Gonzalez, who had much earlier replaced Vitantonio Cavalleri, who had blamed striking out against Brown on the umpire, and had done so for everyone to hear. Bruno’s ninth was uneventful and saved Brown’s ninth. 6-3 Raccoons. Sharp 3-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Reece 2-5; Ramirez (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, W (9-2) and 1-3; Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, SV (12);

After hardly anything went right the last four games, this time at least the most important things went right.

Game 2
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – CF Beairsto – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Farley
DAL: SS K. Sato – 2B H. Garcia – C R. Garza – LF R. Perez – 1B Barnes – RF A. Solís – 3B Cavalleri – CF Cowan – P Spurrell

Vitantonio Cavalleri had been ejected the previous day, but was not denied this time, hitting a solo home run off Farley in his first plate appearance. Beairsto matched his output in the fifth, and that was all the scoring through five, although the Stars left plenty of men on against Mr. Singles. Mr. Singles then surrendered a double to Angel Solís, the one-time Elk, and walked Cavalleri to start the bottom 6th, and that quickly spiraled out of control. Moreno replaced Farley, but the Stars put up a 4-spot and that was enough to sink the team with Spurrell not being magnificient, but good enough to master what was left of our lineup, and he ended up whiffing nine. 6-1 Stars. Martin 2-4;

We had nothing the entire day, and this is something that could be a more frequent occurrence down the road. Never mind all the injuries, Al Martin hasn’t hit a homer in weeks, no outfielder is producing, no catcher is producing. Danny Sharp is trotting along, and that is about it.

Oh yeah, injuries. Eddie Torrez was finally diagnosed with a knee sprain. He will miss about ten more days, and that is enough to put him on the DL. One or two days extra aren’t gonna kill us twice over. We called up 22-year old Darwin Tyler, our 1999 first round pick, who was slugging .505 in AAA. The main issue is who will play center. Neither Beairsto nor Tyler have a lot of range, Reece doesn’t have any anymore, so Matt King might play regularly. But when Tyler is up, we want to play him…

Ah, decisions.

Game 3
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – C Ledesma – 1B Martin – CF Beairsto – 2B Nomura – LF Tyler – SS Sheehan – P Ford
DAL: SS K. Sato – 2B H. Garcia – RF T. Austin – 1B R. Perez – 3B Cavalleri – C P. Fernandez – LF M. Smith – CF Cowan – P Koell

The Coons stormed out of the gate with a Brady single, Sharp hitting one up the left field line, Ledesma hitting one up the right field line – and then stopped at 2-0. For that inning at least. Sheehan got on in the second, stole second base, and then scored on a Brady single and subsequent Austin error. Sharp doubled in Brady, 4-0. In the top 3rd, Tim Austin robbed Martin of a homer, but couldn’t rob Beairsto of a single, and quickly the bases were loaded for Sheehan, who managed a sac fly, 5-0, and now it was Ford’s to blow, something that he instantly set out to do. Smith and Cowan singled to get the bottom 3rd started, Ford unraveled, walked Koell and Sato on eight pitches, and surrendered four runs in a gruesome, soul-killing inning. Another one of those was coming up right away. While Koell was removed after three, Ford was yanked in the fifth after short-time Coon Pablo Fernandez rocketed a go-ahead 3-run homer off him. The Raccoons weren’t even close to mounting a comeback rally, lacking any bite. 8-5 Stars. Brady 4-5, 2B, RBI; Sharp 2-5, 2 2B, RBI; Sheehan 1-2, BB, RBI;

Raccoons (38-28) vs. Titans (50-16) – June 18-20, 2004

We’re gonna get killed. That’s the shorthand version of the Titans, who led the league in every conceivable, and most inconceivable categories, except home runs (but they still tied the Coons for fifth in that category). No way the Raccoons will not get disemboweled.

Projected matchups:
Edgar Amador (5-4, 3.96 ERA) vs. Joe Mann (9-0, 2.67 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (4-6, 5.47 ERA) vs. Francisco Garza (7-2, 4.29 ERA)
Nick Brown (9-2, 3.02 ERA) vs. Bryce Hildred (10-3, 3.39 ERA)

It’s right-hander week! All right-handers 30% off! Get your own!

Game 1
BOS: LF Elizondo – 3B V. Flores – RF G. Munoz – C L. Lopez – 2B M. Austin – RF Greenman – 1B Brewer – SS D. Silva – P Mann
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – 1B Martin – CF Beairsto – C Thomas – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Amador

The Titans wasted no time. Amador lasted not even three innings, surrendering eight hits and four runs, with a man left on base. The heavily left-handed Titans lineup ripped him to pieces, hitting him hard in every at-bat. The Titans still took a blow when Luis Lopez got hurt on the bases. The Raccoons scored an unearned run in the first inning, but didn’t get an actual hit until the third. In the fourth, a few chips fell in and they loaded the bases once Sheehan drew a walk in a full count with two out, but Ramirez hitting for Moreno flew out to right. Nominally, the Raccoons stayed close, but what is a 4-1 deficit, 5-1 after the fifth, against an undefeated pitcher with an offense that can at any time explode for another six runs in his support, while your own lineup has been decimated by plague? Nevertheless, Yoshi Nomura hit his first major league home run in the bottom 6th, and it counted for two, getting us back to 5-3, and that wasn’t all quite yet. Al Martin hit his first jack in a long time to cut the gap to one run in the eighth, with Beairsto and Thomas coming up with 1-out singles after that, and Mann got knocked out on the latter. Ramiro Román relieved him, and the first thing he did was to balk the runners into scoring position. Then Nomura flew out to shallow left. Ledesma hit for Sheehan, but the Titans countered with lefty Roger Hahn, Ledesma grounded out, we fell short and played the ninth with Vito Mendez at short, and thankfully no ball was hit there. Bottom 9th, still one run to make up against the impenetrable John Bennett. Matt King led off with a pinch-hit double, and Clyde Brady singled up the middle, King scoring after running for his life. The game was tied – and once Daniel Sharp fired another grounder past the resented Daniel Silva, Brady stood at third base with no outs. Neil Reece had been robbed of an RBI double in the fourth, and was oh-for-a-million, but the bench had been used up, and surely he would manage a sac fly? No. No he didn’t. Martin was not pitched to, and the Raccoons left the bases loaded – extra innings. Dan Nordahl pitched three innings, and got sliced upon from top to bottom in the 12th. A man on with two out, we walked Gonzalo Munoz intentionally to face the right-handed Fernando Diegúez, who singled to score the Titans’ sixth run, and then Mark Austin emptied them with a 3-run homer. No Raccoon ever reached base in extra innings. 9-5 Titans. Nomura 2-5, HR, 2 RBI; King (PH) 1-2, 2B; Corkum 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

They had …

They had the winning run on third base. With. No. Outs.

But at least we had the bullpen pitch another 9.1 innings.

(gasps)

A roster move was necessary. The pitching sucked too bad, and we needed another arm. Nobody had any particular use for an 0-fer Vito Mendez, so he got removed and we added … (drum roll) … Angel Casas, with his 6 K/BB and apart from that one spill in May, where he surrendered four runs in a game, untarnished record.

Game 2
BOS: LF Elizondo – 1B Matsumoto – RF G. Munoz – C F. Diéguez – 2B M. Austin – CF Garrison – 3B V. Flores – SS D. Silva – P F. Garza
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Beairsto – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – 2B Nomura – LF Tyler – SS Sheehan – P F. Garcia

Titans scored in the first inning, only one run, but … well. Garcia knew that he had to give us at least five innings or his bacon was in jeopardy. Said bacon was saved from ending up on my sandwich twice in the early innings by Nomura starting a double play, and the Raccoons even tied the game in unearned fashion when Munoz made another critical error, this time unleashing a throw to third, where Beairsto was headed after Martin’s 2-out single, that was thoroughly wild and got Beairsto all the way to home plate, 1-1. Top 4th, Garcia worked around a 1-out triple by Austin by getting a poor grounder from Rudy Garrison, then had Vic Flores 0-2 and knocked one right into him, but recovered by striking out Silva. The Coons then took the lead on scratch singles by Nomura and Sheehan, a balk by Garza, and Garcia grounding one right through Flores, but also left their third run on third base with one out. It didn’t last long, though. Garcia’s first walk issued of the entire game was a leadoff four-baller to Munoz in the sixth. Diéguez promptly went deep, 3-2 Titans. Garcia walked Elizondo to start the seventh, and Matsumoto reached on a perfect bunt, which got Garcia removed. Williams came in, got two outs and then a grounder from Austin right to Nomura – and now the young Japanese through it away, handing the Titans an extra run. Angel Casas debuted in the eighth, pitching a scoreless inning. Bottom 8th, Martin and Nomura hit singles. Reece hit for Tyler against Hahn, struck out, but Sheehan singled past Flores and Martin scored, with Nomura being safe at third as the tying run. King, hitting for Casas, popped out. With Bennett exhausted from all the saving, the Coons were sat down 1-2-3 in the ninth by the unknown Ray Conner. 4-3 Titans. Martin 2-4; Nomura 2-4; Sheehan 3-4, 2B, RBI;

I would prefer Garcia to strike out Garrison in the fourth, then take Silva’s head off with a pitch. But who’s asking me for my opinion?

Maud, Vince, Slappy, Chad, and Honeypaws just responded “Nobody” in unison.

Darwin Tyler chipped a single in this game for this first major league hit! And: Angel Casas’ first major league strikeout victim? Daniel Silva. Justice has been served.

Game 3
BOS: SS D. Silva – 1B Matsumoto – RF Greenman – 2B M. Austin – CF Garrison – 3B V. Flores – LF Bryant – C F. Diéguez – P Hildred
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – RF Brady – 1B Martin – CF King – C Ledesma – LF Tyler – SS Sheehan – P Brown

Leadoff walk for Brown to Silva in the first, merely caused the fire alarm to go off in the dugout. Matsumoto hit into a double play and nothing happened in the top 1st, but we needed Brown to be top notch to snatch a win here. He didn’t get ahead of any batter in the first two innings, and with the way the Coons started out flailing against Hildred, we braced for the worst. Brown struck out two, including Silva, in the third, but the Titans then got lucky in the fourth, chopping four singles, at least two of which could be classified as cheap, and once Brown walked in a run to Diéguez were up 2-0, with Hildred still perfect. Clyde Brady took care of “perfect” with a single in the fourth, but they couldn’t do much with Hildred until King led off the fifth with a double to left. Ledesma walked, and then Darwin Tyler sent a grounder just past the diving Silva to avoid a double play, but rather score King for his first RBI in the Bigs. To anybody’s surprise, Hildred folded here, and served one down Broadway that even Brad Sheehan couldn’t miss and tattered it for a 3-run homer! 4-2, no outs, Brown singled, Sharp singled, but then Hildred seemed to remember how to pitch and sat down the next three Critters. Brady also left Sharp and Nomura on the corners in the seventh, and we hoped that this wouldn’t come back to bite as Brown – despite ill control and little bite – kept on trucking into the eighth, but after getting Matsumoto and Greenman then put the left-handers in Austin and Garrison on base with singles. Marcos Bruno was called to the rescue and in the first act got a grounder to Nomura from Flores for the third out. Two were left on in the bottom 8th when Tyler and Sheehan couldn’t solve Nick Lee in his second inning, but we would not get kicked in the furry balls for once, as Bruno sat the Titans down in order in the ninth. 4-2 Brownshirts! Sharp 2-4, 2B; Ledesma 1-2, 2 BB; Sheehan 1-4, HR, 3 RBI; Brown 7.2 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, W (10-2) and 1-3; Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, SV (13);

In other news

June 15 – BOS INF/LF Mark Austin (.352, 8 HR, 39 RBI) knocks two singles in a 7-3 win over the Miners, bringing a hitting streak to 20 games.
June 16 – Washington’s SP Chris York (4-10, 4.60 ERA) unleashes his anger on the Crusaders, and strikes out a major-league record 18 batters in a 10-3 Capitals win.
June 16 – In the same game, WAS OF John Alexander (.356, 10 HR, 45 RBI) flips a single to extend a hitting streak to 20 games.
June 16 – Atlanta’s James Miller (.315, 4 HR, 35 RBI) extends his own hitting streak to 25 games with three singles in the Knights’ 4-2 win over the Pacifics.
June 16 – The Titans romp 10-0 over the Miners, with SP Jorge Chapa (8-3, 1.86 ERA) pitching a 3-hit shutout.
June 17 – TIJ INF Bruce Boyle (.263, 6 HR, 27 RBI) might miss a month with a sprained ankle sustained in an on-base collision.
June 17 – The hitting streaks of BOS INF/LF Mark Austin (.357, 8 HR, 41 RBI) and ATL 2B James Miller (.310, 4 HR, 35 RBI) end at 21 and 25 games respectively.
June 19 – WAS John Alexander (.354, 12 HR, 48 RBI) has his hitting streak end at 22 games at the hands of the Rebels.

Complaints and stuff

Since the Canadiens invaded and infested town, the Raccoons are 0-9 in games not started by Nick Brown. We are 3-0 with Nick Brown on the mound in this time frame.

May I confess right now that I am engulfed in Flames of Love for Nick?

Yeah, 15 over .500 was nice. Now let’s see how quickly we can end up 15 under. One factor in this will be our injuries. The ETA are one week for Torrez, two for Concie, and three for Marv. Let’s see who can bust up a knuckle, knee, or neck ‘til then.

Originally Posted by Questdog

All those draftees might suck, but they sure do have good names.....

At some point I decided to forego marginal talent, and draft guys with nickname potential.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (39-30) @ Indians (28-40) – June 21-23, 2004

The Indians weren’t doing much of anything. They had the worst batting average, allowed the most runs, and had the worst rotation with an ERA over five. The season series was split, however, 3-3. But the Raccoons were the Raccoons, and worst of all, Nick Brown wouldn’t pitch in this series, so no wins for us!

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (5-6, 4.58 ERA) vs. Alonso Alonso (2-2, 4.57 ERA)
Ralph Ford (4-5, 4.58 ERA) vs. Jack Hamilton (1-8, 7.24 ERA)
Edgar Amador (5-4, 4.28 ERA) vs. Anthony Mosher (5-7, 4.07 ERA)

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – RF Brady – 1B Martin – CF King – C Ledesma – LF Tyler – SS Sheehan – P Farley
IND: 2B D. Mendez – SS Stevens – LF Alston – 1B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF MacKey – RF P. Taylor – 3B Kilters – P Alonso

Alonso pitched only two innings before he left the game with an injury. Through three innings, the Raccoons had three runners but no hits and didn’t score, while Farley walked the bases full in front of the slugging trio in the heart of the Indians’ lineup and got out with a pair of RBI singles by Alston and Lopez. Two out in the bottom 5th, there was a runner on first for the Indians, and Martin made an error and dropped Nomura’s throw for what would have been the third out on David Lopez. Instead, Farley issued another three walks for seven total before getting yanked, flogged, tarred, and feathered. And the Raccoons? Still without a hit. The first hit they got was a 2-run homer by Al Martin off Patrick Moreau, ERA over six, collecting Brady, and cutting the gap to 4-2. They would manage only two more singles, and remove both on inning-ending double plays. 4-2 Indians. Williams 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Well, are they pathetic or what!?

Wow. Just wow.

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – CF King – LF Reece – 1B Martin – C Thomas – RF Beairsto – 2B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Ford
IND: 2B D. Mendez – RF Cortez – LF Alston – 3B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF P. Taylor – SS Stevens – 1B Kilters – P Hamilton

Ford struck out six in the first three innings, not allowing any runs, and with two men on base got a key strikeout to Art Stevens to survive the fourth inning without a score, too. The Coons had tallied one hit through four against a total joke of a pitcher toeing anxiously against the rubber. The second hit for the Coons came in the sixth inning, when Sharp singled with one out. Reece worked a lucky walk, having struck out twice already, and once the total joke had wild-pitched the runners into scoring position, Martin singled through into left field and the runners scored. Up 2-0 became 2-1 right away on Ron Alston’s leadoff jack in the bottom of the inning, but that run was gotten back from Hamilton in the seventh when Sharp singled in Beairsto. No reason for happy feelings, though. Ford put two men on with singles, then was whacked by Cortez and Alston with doubles. Corkum allowed Alston to score as well and the Indians, who were never hitting and were pitching like crap, put up a 4-spot. This was not something the Raccoons were able to come back from, getting the first two men on base in the eighth or not. They only scored on a balk, and that run got away from Corkum again, too. 6-4 Indians. Sharp 2-5, RBI; Martin 2-4, 2 RBI; Ramirez 1-2, 2 BB;

Game 3
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – C Thomas – 1B Martin – CF King – LF Beairsto – 2B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Amador
IND: 2B D. Mendez – SS Stevens – LF Alston – 1B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF MacKey – RF Martines – 3B I. Burns – P Mosher

More of the same, more of the same. The Fat Cat was wonky with control, didn’t keep the ball on the ground, but the Indians didn’t make very good contact either and allowed Amador to go seven shutout innings that had absolutely no sparkle to them. The Raccoons in those seven innings reached third base once, with the help of an error, and didn’t score either. Neil Reece hit for Amador to start the top 8th, singled to left, and was on second when Sharp singled. No outs. Brady lined out to Mendez, but Thomas FINALLY came through and hit a double up the left foul line that scored Reece, but not Sharp, who had to wait for Martin’s single that made it 2-0. Then Matt King grounded into his second double play of the day. All that work quickly went bust when Alston homered off Moreno in the eighth, and while Williams survived a triple by Matt MacKey, Bruno blew the save in the ninth after a leadoff double by Miguel Cortez. Yay, more extra innings. But it didn’t take long to lose this one. David Lopez gladly took Angel Casas deep in the bottom of the tenth. 3-2 Indians. Sharp 2-5; Brady 2-5; Reece (PH) 1-1; Amador 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 3 K;

How very pointless is our very existence.

We sent for Alejandro Rojas to join us the following day, needing another bat off the bench. Angel Casas wasn’t going to help us with anything anyway.

Raccoons (39-33) @ Condors (31-41) – June 25-27, 2004

Oh, look, it’s the team with the second-lowest batting average! They were still scoring runs through extra-base power, ranking sixth in the Continental League in offense. They gave up the fourth-most runs. We are 2-1 over them this year. Gonna change that to 3-3 at least, depending how Brownie’s gonna fare.

Projected matchups:
Felipe Garcia (4-7, 5.40 ERA) vs. Manuel Pineda (9-3, 3.75 ERA)
Nick Brown (10-2, 2.97 ERA) vs. Brian Patrick (1-3, 5.47 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-7, 4.64 ERA) vs. Kelvin Yates (3-10, 4.90 ERA)

The interesting thing about the last of these three right-handers? Yates is second in the league in strikeouts (to Brown), yet has lost double digits already in late June!

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – RF Brady – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – CF King – SS Sheehan – P F. Garcia
TIJ: SS A. Simon – C Cicalina – CF R. Perez – 1B B. Román – RF B. Miller – 2B Stein – LF MacGruder – 3B N. Chavez – P Pineda

With the Condors bringing a heavily left-handed lineup to the plate, all except the battery, not much was expected from Garcia, who was just getting pummeled relentlessly by anybody capable of holding a stick. Bartolo Román took a bite out of him with a 2-run homer in the first inning, with another loss coming up in a hurry. We also had our share of left-handers playing, but they weren’t doing anything to Pineda. In the fifth inning, the right handers hit singles, King up the middle, Sheehan to left center, and after a bunt by Garcia then Sharp to left, with Sharp driving in the runners to tie the score. Garcia responded to the help by walking the leadoff man, Arthur Simon, in the fifth, but the defense kept digging him out, with Sharp starting a double play on Cicalina’s ground ball, and Brady stretched pretty well to snag Ramón Perez’ fly to right. Al Martin homered in the top 6th to put the Coons up 3-2. And Garcia? Walked the leadoff man. Miller’s rocket was caught in mid-flight by Sheehan, but it was enough for Garcia. The sucker was removed and pelted, with Williams coming in, walking Jim Stein, and then surrendering a 2-out, 2-run double to Nelson Chavez. Pineda was still going in the eighth, got Sharp, but Nomura singled and Brady doubled, bringing the tying and go-ahead runs into scoring position with one out and Martin next. But Martin walked, Ledesma flew out to shallow center, and Beairsto grounded out to short, and nobody scored. In turn, the Condors got an unearned run off Huerta, with Huerta making the error himself, and I still think in that case runs should not count for zero, but ten-fold against the ERA. 5-3 Condors. Brady 2-4, 2B; Martin 2-3, BB, HR, RBI;

So, by logical extension this gives us a win for Brownie in the middle game, then another gut-tearing loss on Sunday with Farley messing around.

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – RF Brady – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Reece – CF Tyler – SS Sheehan – P Brown
TIJ: 2B Heathershaw – RF B. Miller – C Cicalina – CF R. Perez – LF Bayle – 1B Cambria – SS Stein – 3B N. Chavez – P Aguilar

No score through two, but early on it was clearly visible that Brown had left his stuff in Portland and that Aguilar was dominating the lineup the visitors’ fielded, except that he allowed the first run of the game on a solo home run by Brad Sheehan in the top 3rd. Bottom 3rd, Stein reached on a single, and Brown walked Chavez, until Aguilar’s bunt was skillfully played to third by Brown for the out on Stein, and that allowed Brown to wiggled out, nabbing only one K through three innings. Aguilar had five, but also surrendered his second leadoff jack in the top 4th, hit by Clyde Brady. And there was something with leadoff batters for the Coons in this game. Tyler sent a poor roller to third that Chavez gutted for a 2-base error, and Tyler would score on Sharp’s 2-out single to make it 3-0. Brown found something around the fourth inning and struck out the side in the fifth, holding the 3-0 lead. Aguilar then walked Brady to lead off the top 6th, but the Coons didn’t score for the first time since the second inning. Brown was untouchable by now. When the Condors made contact at all, it was poor. He shut them out over seven, was left in to retire the lefty Jim Stein, but was then removed since a go at a shutout would most likely pushed him towards 125 pitches, and we need him for another three months. Plus 12 years or so. Martinez finished the inning, and in the top 9th Shane Sweet loaded the bags with no outs. After Sheehan whiffed, Beairsto managed a run-scoring groundout, but we did get a bigger tally when Sharp walked and Nomura singled home a pair. Sharp 2-4, BB, RBI; Nomura 2-5, 2 RBI; Brown 7.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K, W (11-2);

If Nick “One Man Army” Brown won’t win Pitcher of the Month, I’ll blow up the ABL headquarters. I’m as serious as sulphuric acid.

Game 3
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Nomura – RF Brady – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Reece – CF Tyler – SS Sheehan – P Farley
TIJ: SS A. Simon – 2B Stein – LF Reya – CF R. Perez – 1B B. Román – RF B. Miller – C Estrada – 3B N. Chavez – P Yates

Brownie had been one strikeout ahead of Yates before his start on Saturday, in which he fanned nine, thus growing his lead to ten. The Critters in this game were NO help to keeping him in front. Yates matched Brown when he fanned Farley to start the top 6th in a scoreless game with three singles total. He got Martin and Ledesma in the seventh, leaving Brownie in his dust, and the Critters were hopeless at the plate. Although Farley DOUBLED with Sheehan at first, Sharp struck out to end the eighth still without a score. Bottom 8th, Jeff MacGruder and Hugues Cambria led off the inning with a pair of doubles. That knocked out Farley, and the team as a whole. Cambria scored on a throwing error by Brady. 2-0 Condors. Sheehan 2-3; Farley 7.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, L (5-8) and 1-3, 2B;

In other news

June 25 – CHA LF/RF/1B Jose Lugo (.314, 2 HR, 22 RBI) faces missing up to a full year with a ruptured medial collateral ligament.
June 26 – The Crusaders acquire 26-yr old 2B Todd Moultrie (.333, 2 HR, 16 RBI) from the Cyclones in exchange for 1B Bill Tinker (.275, 7 HR, 24 RBI). The Crusaders also receive Jose Andrade, the Cyclones’ 2003 second-rounder.
June 26 – Denver’s Victor Bernal (8-6, 3.46 ERA) spins a 3-hitter in a 7-0 shutout over the Cyclones.
June 27 - While the Gold Sox fell 7-6 to the Cyclones, it was a big night for one player: 41-year old LF Dale Wales (.328, 3 HR, 21 RBI) picked up two hits to break through the 3,500 hits mark! The landmark knock is a first inning RBI double off Jeremy Peterson. Wales, who has been an All Star nine times after being picked second overall in the amateur draft *24* years ago, ends the day with 3,501 base hits, just 81 off the ABL record mark of 3,582 set by Jeffery Brown.

Complaints and stuff

There are no words.

Few notes, despite the fact that there are no words.
• We will get Eddie Torrez back from the DL on Monday. We could dump any outfielder except for Brady, but in reality, it will be Tyler. Concie is a week off, Marv a few days longer, but Concie should help a great deal.
• No Raccoon other than Brownie has won a game in three weeks. See also this thread: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ever-seen.html
• And yes, this will be losing season number eight. At the current pace, we will drop below .500 on July 5 in Milwaukee, a Felipe Garcia start (unless he gets shot before)

And Ledesma? He raised his CS% all the way up to 12.5% this week! Yeah, you go, Pablo!

(picks up the phone)

[Westheim]

Raccoons (40-35) vs. Aces (34-42) – June 28-30, 2004

Aces games rarely ended up 2-1. They were fourth in runs scored, but tied for tenth in runs allowed in the Continental League, with neither their rotation, nor their bullpen being much help in keeping an even keel. There was a 2-1 in play however: the Raccoons were 2-1 against them this season.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (4-6, 4.76 ERA) vs. Manuel Alba (6-8, 3.88 ERA)
Edgar Amador (5-4, 3.93 ERA) vs. Antonio Sanchez (1-1, 2.42 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (4-7, 5.38 ERA) vs. Jim Pennington (4-6, 5.83 ERA)

Three more right-handers coming.

Game 1
LVA: SS Hitchcock – LF L. Jenkins – 2B O. Torres – 1B Nichols – CF Talamante – RF P. Flores – 3B Pollack – C L. Paredes – P Alba
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Ford

All Aces starters combined for three hits off Ralph Ford in their careers, but of course three had never faced him before, too, including Brian Nichols, Pedro Flores, and Melvin Pollack. The weather forecast was icky.

Nichols and Flores compensated for their inexperience with run-scoring hits right in the first inning, in which Ford looked very much like his tenure on the mound would not be of great length, and the Aces scored three runs. He would walk six in total over four innings, after which a continued performance was disallowed by him being guillotined and the weather forcing a delay anyway. At that point the Raccoons trailed 4-1, their run courtesy of Sheehan legging out a triple in the bottom 3rd and scoring on Ford’s groundout. What looked like a game that was not quite a loss yet, saw Brady also hit a single in that bottom 3rd, and after that no Raccoon ever reached base again – except for Alejandro Rojas, who reached on an error with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. Along the way, Lou Jenkins showed Bill Corkum the right field bleachers. 5-1 Aces. Sheehan 1-2, BB, 3B;

And it continues. And have I mentioned the Elks will be in town over the weekend? And that they will have a more-than-splendid chance to pass us in the standings?

Anybody other than Brownie willing to pitch a good game?? ANYBODY???

Game 2
LVA: RF Covington – 3B Warrain – 2B O. Torres – LF Messinger – 1B Nichols – CF Talamante – SS Pollack – C L. Paredes – P A. Sanchez
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – 1B Rojas – CF Torrez – C Ledesma – LF Reece – 2B Nomura – SS M. Ramirez – P Amador

The weather was better, the Critters were not. While Amador struck out the first two men he faced and allowed only one silly hit, a bloop double by Sanchez that hopped past Brady giggling, the Raccoons were sat down in order entirely their first time through the lineup. Then Brady led off the bottom 4th with a triple, and Sharp doubled to plate him, 1-0 Coons. Sanchez melted away here, walking the bases full before Ledesma’s grounder to third was not played conclusively by anybody for a bases-loaded infield single. Reece drew a walk, which ran the score to 3-0, before Sanchez recollected himself and retired the next three to keep three others stranded. Something seemed to be wrong with Sanchez, however, as he issued four more walks in the bottom 5th, but everybody who hacked at the ball missed it and made an out. Neil Reece was the only batter of seven to step into the box to put a ball in play, an RBI groundout. We moved away to 5-0. Amador was most dazzling through six innings, whiffing nine against two hits, but unraveled in the seventh, walking a pair. Martinez rescued him from his predicament. The Furballs added a run in the bottom 7th which was unearned after a grave error by Inaki-Luki Warrain. Moreno and Nordahl would pitch clean innings at the back of this game, and the Raccoons managed to cobble together a shutout. 6-0 Coons. Torrez 0-1, 3 BB; Ledesma 1-2, 2 BB, 2 RBI; Amador 6.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 9 K, W (6-4);

Is the evil spell broken now? I sure hope so!

Game 3
LVA: RF Covington – 3B Warrain – 2B O. Torres – LF Messinger – 1B Nichols – CF Talamante – SS Hitchcock – C L. Paredes – P Pennington
POR: RF Brady – 2B Nomura – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Thomas – LF Beairsto – SS Sheehan – 3B M. Ramirez – P F. Garcia

While the Coons took advantage of a triple again, this time it being Nomura tripling in Brady and then scoring on Torrez’ sacrifice fly, Garcia was actively working against his team, drilling a batter, throwing away a pitcher’s bunt, and a wild pitch, too, and all of that condensed into TWO innings, and yet we were still up 2-1. While Pennington surrendered plenty of walks, Garcia gave up hard contact galore, although the outfielders – their lives at risk – sucked up most of it. Funnily it was Pennington surrendering a home run then, a solo shot to Beairsto, who made another case for a .200 batting average and now was actually getting close. That made it 3-1, Pennington walked two in the inning, but Garcia couldn’t get a bunt down and it fizzled out. Carlos Talamante then hit a double in the sixth that sent Brian Nichols around the field from first base after walking. Beairsto fired home, and the runner was out. Pennington in any case was more horrible than Garcia, and the Aces let him rack up eight walks before yanking him in the seventh, in which he walked two, with those runners scoring on a Nomura single and a Martin sac fly. Forest Messinger clobbered Dave Williams for a solo homer in the eighth to get the Aces back to 5-2, and they flared up down to their final out once more when Luis Paredes tripled off Marcos Bruno, but Bruno whiffed Jenkins to close this one out. 5-2 Coons. Sharp (PH) 1-1; Nomura 2-5, 3B, 2 RBI; Beairsto 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; Garcia 7.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (5-7) and 1-2;

Anybody still remember Jack Pennington? Yeah? Then we’ll move along swiftly.

Garcia’s line looks much better than it was. There were 12 fly outs registered by the brown-clad fielders.

Raccoons (42-36) vs. Canadiens (37-39) – July 1-4, 2004

The Canadiens were scoring the least runs in the CL, despite the fact that they possessed both power and speed, but their on-base percentage as a team was a meager .320. On the other hand they were also allowing the fewest runs, with both their rotation and their bullpen rating as excellent. They came in weakened, though, missing starters Cal Holbrook and Rod Taylor, outfielder Tony Velasquez, and their hot second baseman Jerry Dobson had just gone down with an undisclosed injury.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (11-2, 2.78 ERA) vs. Scott Spears (3-4, 4.33 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-8, 4.48 ERA) vs. Joe Hollow (6-5, 3.66 ERA)
Ralph Ford (4-7, 4.96 ERA) vs. Daniel Dickerson (3-6, 2.59 ERA)
Edgar Amador (6-4, 3.66 ERA) vs. George Norris (1-3, 4.43 ERA)

Hollow will be our only left-hander this week.

Game 1
VAN: CF Wheaton – 3B Suzuki – 2B J. Zamora – 1B A. Munoz – RF R. Green – LF Trinidad – C Rosa – SS Phillips – P Spears
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – LF King – C Ledesma – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Brown

Brown didn’t get a strike past anyone – surrendering a homer to Zamora – until Royce Green struck out to end the first. Brown was not any good this time around and needed over 80 pitches to get through five, walking three and striking out five. The Coons made up the early difference on a Martin double, Ledesma’s infield single and a wild pitch in the second, but overall Spears struck them out one after another. The Coons then broke out in the fifth, which was led off by Nomura with a single to center. Brown bunted him to second base, and Brady scored him with a bloop single to shallow center. Then Sharp hit one sharply to left for a single, and Torrez hit a wildly caroming triple off the centerfield wall to bring the score to 4-1 after five. Brown singled in a run in the sixth, but got only one out in the seventh before walking Freddy Rosa, and that was it for him. Martinez came in, got Phillips, but PH Ken Rodgers hit a double to center, yet the Coons had Torrez fire a rocket back in and Rosa was thrown out at home. Top 8th, Al Martin bungled Dave Wheaton’s grounder for an error, which loomed big soon after that when Zamora tattered a homer off Huerta to axe our lead in half to 5-3. The Coons missed a chance to increase the lead when Sheehan’s and Beairsto’s 2-out singles in the bottom 8th were rendered irrelevant by Brady whiffing. In the top 9th, Bruno stumbled, putting runners on the corners, before he recovered and ended the game with a K to Wheaton. 5-3 Raccoons. Torrez 2-4, 3B, 2 RBI; Martin 2-4, 2B; Beairsto (PH) 1-1; Brown 6.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, W (12-2) and 1-2, RBI;

Everybody in the starting lineup had a hit, and we had a dozen in total. This win also means that the Canadiens will not move into second place in this series, which is only good. They could have achieved a virtual tie by Sunday with a series sweep.

Brownie trails only Topeka’s Dan George in wins, and Washington’s Chris York in strikeouts.

Game 2
VAN: CF E. Garcia – LF Wheaton – 2B Phillips – 3B Suzuki – 1B J. Zamora – SS Rodgers – RF Jardine – C Hurtado – P Hollow
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – C Thomas – 1B Martin – LF Reece – CF King – 2B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Farley

Randy had lost his last four games, and while the Coons put their first two men on in the bottom 1st, Thomas quickly hit into a double play to kill the effort. Farley was booked for two runs with Hurtado’s 2-out single in the top 2nd, and the Raccoons got one of those runs right back, but couldn’t get their other runners in. Neither pitcher was very good, in short. Farley surrendered Jim Jardine’s first major league home run soon, and while Farley had a sniff at the sixth inning, he put three Canadiens on base while retiring nobody. The Elks took a 5-1 lead in the inning, and put another run on Nordahl in the seventh. The Raccoons were hitting into double plays, but they did at least that well, hitting into three in the first six innings. Brady had two on in the seventh, grounded out pathetically to first, which ended the inning. Corkum was tagged, Hollow was not, and the Raccoons were washed away in this one. 7-1 Canadiens. Sharp 2-3, BB;

The Raccoons, who had been third in runs scored in late May, dropped to 10th with this particular uninspired game. And Randy has lost five in a row…

Game 3
VAN: CF Wheaton – 3B Suzuki – 2B J. Zamora – 1B A. Munoz – RF R. Green – LF Trinidad – C Rosa – SS Phillips – P Dickerson
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Beairsto – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P Ford

First inning, the Canadiens put their first three men on, and the Raccoons their first two, before both teams hit into a double play. Only the Canadiens scored a run, and they got one handed over by Ledesma’s throwing error in the third to make it 2-0. Dickerson walked four before surrendering a hit, and then it was an infield single he couldn’t field himself, allowing Martin to reach in the fourth. Torrez was on after a walk, and there were no outs. Finally some life: the next three Coons, Ledesma, Beairsto, and Nomura, all had run-scoring hits to flip the score to 3-2, and another run would score on Ford’s groundout, 4-2. Sharpie led off the bottom 5th with a double, scored on Martin’s single, and the Raccoons would plate him as well when Nomura sacrificed him over home plate, 6-2. After a really crappy beginning, Ford got into the seventh, but not out of it. Freddy Rosa’s 2-out solo homer sent him showering, with Nordahl ending the inning. With Bruno out a couple of times the last few days, we planned with Martinez to get a save opportunity, but had to go to him in the eighth already when Moreno couldn’t get right-handers out. Martinez could, striking out Zamora, and he whiffed two more in the ninth. 6-3 Coons. Martin 3-4, RBI; Ledesma 2-3, BB, 2 2B, RBI; Beairsto 1-2, BB, RBI; Martinez 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, SV (1);

This is our first winning week since the last week of May …!!

The Elks however got bad news after this game, with 23-year old Jerry Dobson out for the season with a fractured knee.

Game 4
VAN: CF E. Garcia – LF Wheaton – 1B Suzuki – 3B Phillips – 2B J. Zamora – SS Rodgers – RF Trinidad – C Hurtado – P Norris
POR: RF Brady – 2B Nomura – 1B Rojas – CF Torrez – C Ledesma – LF Reece – 3B M. Ramirez – SS Sheehan – P Amador

On Sharp’s off day, Miguel Ramirez put the Raccoons on top with a 2-run homer in the bottom 2nd for the first scoring of the game. He came up again in the third inning with one out and the bases choked full of Coons, and drove in one more with a groundout. It killed the inning at the same time, though, since Sheehan was walked intentionally and Amador struck out. But Ramirez came up once more in the fourth to make up for it. Neil Reece had just hit a bases-loaded infield single with one out, running the score to 4-0, and now Ramirez hit a fly into the gap that nobody caught up with and it emptied the bases, 7-0! Now for the bad news: the Fat Cat was already out of the game with back pain. While Huerta was brought in for two, hopefully three innings, the Raccoons had two on with two out in the bottom 5th with Ledesma batting. Ledesma struck out against Jose Torres, but it came even worse for the Elks. Hurtado missed the ball, which went to the backstop, and Ledesma made it safely to first to load them up for Reece, who hit another single to plate two runs. Huerta pitched 2.2 innings, allowing two runs in the sixth, but the Coons were still in cruise control at 9-2. The Raccoons then stranded a total of seven runners between the sixth and eighth without scoring, but at least they had pretended to be clutch team pretty well earlier. Unfortunately, Corkum was socked for two runs as well in the ninth inning, but we still got away with a convincing series win. 9-4 Furballs. Nomura 3-5; Sharp (PH) 1-1; Torrez 3-6; Ledesma 2-4, 2 BB; Reece 4-5, 3 RBI; Ramirez 2-4, BB, HR, 6 RBI; Martin (PH) 1-1; Amador 4.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K and 1-2; Williams 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

In other news

June 30 – NYC SS/3B Gary Rice (.301, 1 HR, 35 RBI) will miss the month of July on the DL with shoulder tendinitis.
July 1 – IND SP Bob King (3-5, 5.01 ERA), who is just 20 years old, is out for the season with shoulder inflammation.
July 3 – The Indians acquire MR Tommy Woolbridge (3-3, 3.35 ERA) from the Scorpions for a prospect and a minor leaguer. The Scorpions also trade for #46 prospect 1B Bernalldino Pixeiro by sending 34-yr old INF Haruki Nakayama (.301, 3 HR, 18 RBI) to the Buffaloes. Meanwhile the Indians deal with the Gold Sox, with 35-yr old MR Enrico Gonzalez (2-3, 3.92 ERA, 1 SV) along with cash going to the mountains in exchange for three low-key minor leaguers.
July 4 – Fireworks in Sioux Falls: fittingly on the Fourth of July, Raúl Vázquez (.306, 11 HR, 44 RBI) slams his 400th major league home run in a 7-1 win of the Warriors over the Wolves, a 2-run homer off Lawrence Bentley. No other ABL player has reached 400, ever, and only 16 other players even made it to 200. The next-closest active player is Cincy’s Dan Morris at 277, sixth all time.

Complaints and stuff

The Fat Cat might miss two weeks and will go to the DL. He has a back strain. Must come from that Oregon-sized waist of his.

The real joy will be in finding a replacement. The best guy at AAA, ERA-wise, is Kenichi Watanabe, at 4.58; our AAA team sucks that hard. They are playing .320 ball. No bullpen in the world can help those guys. This includes Piquero, Meza, Beach, and – worst of all – 33-yr old scrap heap pickup Dan Barnes, who a long time ago was fairly decent for the Indians, among others.

Concie started a rehab assignment on Saturday, and should be here by the middle of the week. Marv is about one week behind, and that should really tighten up our offense. Not that Nomura has been terrible, but I prefer our old middle infield combo, thx. Nomura and Rojas will be demoted when the two stalwarts come back.

Still looking for an upgrade with Beairsto, although Reece is drifting dead in the water, too… Those four hits on Sunday equaled his output the last month, I fear, and he needs 59 to 2,000. Plus King. No wonder we’re not scoring runs. We scored SEVENTY-FOUR RUNS IN ALL OF JUNE.

You know whose’ on masher Raúl Vázquez’ Warriors team? Mike Crowe. Once upon a time the Coons third baseman of the future (someone’s gotta have copyright on that future crap, right?), he was dumped after 2000 and shipped off to Atlanta, where he appeared in 35 games for the Knights before ending up in AAA. At 33, he has made it back into a regular role with the Warriors, but his .676 OPS is just a tad over his career mark.

Chris Roberson had a 5-hit game this week for the Buffaloes. He spent most of last year in Bakersfield in AAA for them, but this season he is starting most of the time, but he’s batting a measly .240-something. He was traded to them with Juan Diaz (ARGH!!) and Jack Berry, a home-run-super-prone pitching prospect, for Ledesma and Dale Moore. We already ridded ourselves of Moore, and I’m trying to remove Ledesma as well, but nobody wants a piece of that sucker. He won’t even be a free agent this fall, and he will get even more than his $1.06M in arbitration. The sucker HAS to go!

Nick Brown was NOT Pitcher of the Month, but Boston’s Jorge Chapa. I need to buy explosives now, if you would excuse me…

[Westheim]

Raccoons (45-37) @ Loggers (38-44) – July 5-8, 2004

We start the last week before the All Star game. The Loggers were a shadow of their former self, not scoring runs (even less than the Coons), and also their pitching had kind of fallen apart completely. They were second-last in offense and seventh in pitching. They are our four-and-four partner this year around the All Star game, and so far we are up 3-1 in the season series.

Projected matchups:
Felipe Garcia (5-7, 5.05 ERA) vs. Jaime Aguila (2-10, 4.79 ERA)
Nick Brown (12-2, 2.71 ERA) vs. William Lloyd (2-1, 4.32 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-9, 4.72 ERA) vs. Dani Alvarado (6-7, 4.23 ERA)
Ralph Ford (5-7, 4.80 ERA) vs. Ramiro Gonzalez (7-8, 3.97 ERA)

Who are these guys and what are they doing in the majors?? All we know is that Lloyd and Gonzalez (well, we know Gonzalez) are left-handers. And we are not lucky to miss Martin Garcia, but he is on the DL. And boy, could they use him.

Game 1
POR: RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Martin – C Ledesma – LF Reece – 2B Nomura – SS Sheehan – P F. Garcia
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B M. Brown – RF Hiwalani – LF Graham – 1B M. Woods – SS T. Johnson – CF C. Ramirez – C Melendez – P Aguila

And here is a pitcher that doesn’t get anything done, and the Raccoons are dazzled beyond belief. They wouldn’t do anything against Aguila, marveling at his ****ty dime-a-dozen stuff. Garcia meanwhile went 3.2 innings of no-hit ball before Dave Graham hobbled a single up the middle into center. In rapid succession Mac Woods singled and Johnson plated both with a double. Garcia’s little world hurriedly headed for total implosion, as the Loggers whacked him at will in the fifth inning. Corkum replaced him, but by then the score was 6-0 and the ship named Hope had long sailed. Corkum also gave up another run in the sixth, and then it was Neil Reece, the Sorry Specter From A Better Time, to actually do some damage with a solo homer off Aguila in the seventh. All too late, and by far not enough, though. 9-1 Loggers. Torrez 2-4, 2B; Reece 2-4, HR, RBI;

For Garcia, this was the end. Enough sucking. Our AAA depth may be shallow, but so is he. We made a few roster moves before Tuesday, as both Garcia and Alejandro Rojas were demoted to AAA. In turn, Conceicao Guerin returned from his rehab assignment, while Marvin Ingall started a rehab assignment in St. Pete. We also added 33-year old Dan Barnes, the contents of a municipal trash bin in a suburban park, cast into pitcher’s form. Barnes pitched to an 8-ish ERA in St. Pete. He will get his two, three starts in July, suck balls tremendously, and will then be released, while I try to trade some unwanted catcher for a mediocre but proper back-end pitcher.

We will also insert Kaz Kichida into a starter’s role in AAA. Yes, he sucked the air of the park as a reliever, no we’ll have him start! Because that’s how we roll, and how do YOU think a team can lose seven-going-on-eight consecutive seasons??

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – LF Reece – C Thomas – CF King – 2B Sheehan – P N. Brown
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – RF Fletcher – LF Hiwalani – 1B M. Woods – SS T. Johnson – 3B Tolwith – CF K. Wood – C Melendez – P Lloyd

After going down in order in the first, the Raccoons jumped on Lloyd in the second inning. Martin led off with a double, and Reece and Thomas added singles to get the line moving. Sheehan and Guerin would also hit singles to plate a total of four runs in the inning. Under normal circumstances ample support for a certain pitcher who led the league in wins and was pretty darn close in strikeouts and ERA. It would not be an easy cruise for Brownie, however, and the Loggers put Ken Wood and Ruben Melendez on to start the bottom 3rd, and also brought them in to score to cut the lead in half. The Coons had their chances to increase their bid again, but f.e. in the fifth had Sharp and Martin in scoring position with no outs and didn’t score. In the sixth they would add a run, with the runner (Sheehan) reaching after being drilled. Brown’s stuff was lacking against a fully right-handed lineup and he struck out only five before retiring after seven innings on 90 pitches, but the 5-2 lead was still sound. Then we did something we hadn’t done in a while. We trusted Dan Nordahl with a lead and he made it through an inning without shattering Brown’s thirteenth to bits. Jerry Fletcher hit a leadoff double off Bruno in the ninth, but while he came in to score eventually on Woods’ groundout, that was all the Loggers got. 5-3 Raccoons. Guerin 2-4, 2 RBI; Martin 3-4, 3 2B; Reece 2-4; Sheehan 2-3, 2B, RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, W (13-2);

Brownie has now won six straight, and 13 of his last 15 after going 0-1 in the first three starts of the year. The exceptions in the streak came back to back after seven straight wins, first a no-decision against the Bayhawks, then that dismal 6-1 loss where the Crusaders piled fudge on him.

Odd: all of Brownie’s runs this year have been earned.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – LF Reece – C Ledesma – 2B Nomura – P Farley
MIL: 3B M. Brown – CF Fletcher – RF Hiwalani – 1B M. Woods – SS T. Johnson – 2B Tolwith – LF J.J. Villa – C Melendez – P Alvarado

The Coons had had a 4-run second inning the previous day, the Loggers matched them this time, putting their first six batters in the second inning on base before Fletcher hit into a double play. Otherwise they might well have piled 28 runs on Farley, who continued to be utter dog ****. Like the previous day, the other team scored two in return, here with Al Martin’s 2-run homer, but the Loggers kept piling. They were robbed of a score in the fourth by Brady’s strong catch in right on Tom Johnson’s fly that would have plated two, but ended the inning, but in the fifth, with Villa on base, Farley walked Dani Alvarado, and it was ENOUGH. Out with the carcass, in with Williams, who gave up an RBI single to Matt Brown and we were down 6-2. But let’s not forget that the Loggers had a piece of scum on the mound as well, although their piece of scum went into the seventh, where it threw a wild pitch to plate the first run, before Reece singled in another. That put the tying runs on (Brady was on second) with one out. But the useless Ledesma popped out innocently and Nomura struck out against the Loggers’ piece of scum, and the chance went up in smoke. 6-4 Loggers. Guerin 2-5; Sharp 2-5; Martin 3-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Nomura 2-4;

4.2 innings, 10 hits, four walks, six runs. All earned. If we even HAD more crap pitchers at AAA, I’d send Farley to hell as well. He has lost six straight games, and he has earned every single one of those losses. Well, except the one in Tijuana, but that’s not an excuse. Farley has registered an out in the seventh inning merely FIVE times this season.

Game 4
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – LF Reece – C Thomas – RF King – 2B Nomura – P Ford
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – RF Fletcher – LF Hiwalani – 1B M. Woods – SS T. Johnson – 3B Tolwith – CF K. Wood – C Aguilar – P R. Gonzalez

The first guy to get a hit in the game was Ramiro Gonzalez in the bottom 3rd, a 1-out single. When Fletcher and Hiwalani also singled, the Loggers took a 1-0 lead. The Coons finally got a single by Torrez in the fourth, but Sharp swiftly hit into a double play. King hit a leadoff single in the sixth, then was thrown out stealing. There really was not a whole lot going on for the road team. The Loggers loaded up the bases in the bottom 6th when Fletcher and Johnson drew walks around a Mac Woods double, with one out in the inning. Aaron Tolwith then lined out directly to Ford, who couldn’t get anybody else, but then had Ken Wood fly out to Torrez. Another Sharp double play cost a tally in the top 7th, and we kept trailing by the slimmest of margins. With two outs in the bottom 8th, Mac Woods doubled the score with a monstrous homer off Ford, and Gonzalez came back out for the top of the ninth. There, Concie reached on a single. Then Torrez grounded hard to third, where Matt Brown blew the play and the tying runs were on base with no outs. Sharp had two double plays already, but here he came up with a single to stack them three-wide on the bases for Al Martin. Martin had been hot recently (well, the last few days), but here popped out, and that put it on Reece, and – have we hit into a double play in this inning yet? Nope. Oh, so let’s do that. 2-0 Loggers. Torrez 2-4; Ford 8.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, L (5-8);

Oh, well, let’s sigh collectively, send two people to make their Raccoons debut in New York, and pretend that it is a brilliant move that can’t go wrong.

However, not all of the 25 Raccoons made the trip to the east.

Player trade

The Raccoons on Friday morning announced a trade with the Wolves. The Raccoons get SP/MR Carlos Sackett (1-1, 4.78 ERA, 1 SV) from the Wolves, sending C Pablo Ledesma (.249, 2 HR, 23 RBI) and minor leaguer 3B Raúl Valle up the Willamette in return.

To contemplate the trade, the Raccoons demoted Chris Beairsto to AAA, while they called up Gary Fifield.

Raccoons (46-40) @ Crusaders (38-48) – July 9-11, 2004

10th in runs scored, but sixth in runs allowed, the Crusaders kept toiling away in obscurity. Well, their bullpen was pretty good, despite them relying on the unfathomably mediocre Charlie Deacon in a prominent role. The rotation was struggling to a 4.52 ERA, but we’d see its best pieces.

Projected matchups:
Kenichi Watanabe (0-0) vs. Marvin Hall (6-3, 3.36 ERA)
Dan Barnes (0-0) vs. Greg Connor (6-10, 4.15 ERA)
Nick Brown (13-2, 2.70 ERA) vs. Russell Benson (2-9, 4.06 ERA)

That’s three right-handers, and we are fielding two Raccoons debutees, including the Japanese import and a 33-year old, run-down, out-of-control knuckleballer.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – LF Reece – 2B Nomura – C Thomas – P Watanabe
NYC: CF Javier – RF Britton – LF M. Ortíz – C D. Anderson – 1B Breach – 3B A. De Jesus – SS Edralín – 2B Caraballo – P M. Hall

Marvin Hall showed horrendous control, walking six batters in the first three innings. The Raccoons forgot their bats in Milwaukee, though, and failed to drive people in conclusively. In the third, Reece drew a bases-loaded walk for their first run before Nomura popped up a 3-1 pitch and on the way to the dugout got slapped in the helmet by Reece and taught a lesson. Watanabe’s control wasn’t much better, but the Crusaders had trouble getting good contact on his 90mph fastball which had a slight jitter to it. Watanabe walked two in the first three innings, then walked two in the fourth, but the Crusaders popped out twice and the threat was over. Ape Britton’s leadoff single in the sixth got the Crusaders’ foot in the door however, and Britton stole a base and was then slowly moved around to score and knot the score at one. Watanabe didn’t finish the inning; Martinez retired Pedro Edralín with two on and two out. Hall didn’t go much further, walking Torrez in the seventh for walk number eight in the game and Tony Vela replaced him. It was only the Raccoons’ third hit of the day when Al Martin doubled off the fence in left and Torrez was sent, but the favorable bounce and Ortíz’ laser throw got Torrez out at home to end the inning. Top 8th, Reece singled with one out, before Carlos Gonzales walked both Nomura and Thomas. That brought up Ramirez, who had replaced Sharp in a double switch in the bottom 7th. And Ramirez tended to miss a lot of pitches, but when he got hold of one, it rarely ever came down again. The fly he hit off Gonzales DID come down again, but by then all runners had scored on the 3-run double to deepest center. The Coons bullpen held up and got this one into the record books. 4-1 Raccoons. Sharp 1-2, 2 BB; Reece 2-4, BB, RBI; Ramirez 1-1, 2B, 3 RBI; Moreno 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K, W (2-0);

After the game we found out that Neil Reece had injured himself on the final play of the game, a Caraballo fly to left, where he stretched awkwardly at the foul line. He ended up on the DL with a strained oblique, but the 15-day frame should be enough to get him fixed.

And JUST as he was getting warm!

So, NEXT roster move. It doesn’t get any calmer here! I wanted no piece of Beairsto, so Darwin Tyler was called up as Reece’s replacement for the next two days, and we were playing with a man less anyway right now, so Tyler was pretty much guaranteed two starts against the right-handed pitchers.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 2B Nomura – C Fifield – LF Tyler – P Barnes
NYC: CF Javier – 3B A. De Jesus – LF M. Ortíz – RF J. Gonzales – C D. Anderson – 1B D. Carroll – SS Edralín – 2B Moultrie – P Connor

Daryl Anderson’s 2-run homer in the bottom 2nd gave the Crusaders the lead over Barnes, who had been handed a 1-0 lead for his first (and highly likely only) Raccoons start. By the third, he generally stopped throwing strikes altogether. The Crusaders kept hacking, which limited their output, but 109 pitches carried Barnes barely through five innings, in which he struck out four but walked seven! The Crusaders were up 3-1. So, bring on the next debutee! Carlos Sackett appeared for the first time in a Coons uniform in the sixth prior to getting a start against the Loggers after the break, and delivered a scoreless sixth. The Raccoons somehow lucked into a run in the seventh, but Corkum gave that right back, and they couldn’t even get the bats up against Deacon. 4-2 Crusaders. Martin 2-4, 2B, RBI; Ramirez (PH) 1-1;

They had four hits, we had five. Crap game.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 2B Sheehan – C Thomas – LF Tyler – P Brown
NYC: SS Edralín – 3B A. De Jesus – LF M. Ortíz – RF J. Gonzales – 1B D. Carroll – CF Britton – C R. Rivera – 2B Moultrie – P Benson

Benson took major damage in the first inning. First, the Coons hit a couple of singles, with Martin plating Torrez for the first run of the game. With the bases loaded, he issued walks then to Sheehan and Thomas, 3-0, before Tyler poked and grounded to short, but the Crusaders got only Thomas at second. Brown flew out to keep it at 4-0, but it was quite the head start. Then, bottom 1st, double to right, double to left, homer. Um, what? Yes, Brown was pitching, but it was not quite a Brownish start… In a 4-3 game, the Raccoons hit into double plays in the next two innings, while Brown just so held on to dear life, before they had a pair of 2-out RBI hits in the fifth that knocked out Benson, a Sheehan single and a Thomas double. Tyler walked, and Brown also drew a walk, yet Concie struck out against Bob Evans. Brown got through six without any more damage, but was then hit for with Nomura, who hit into another double play. Nordahl was handed the 6-3 lead in the bottom 7th and bulldozed it with a double to Ricardo Rivera and two walks, and nobody out. Martinez came on to try and save the unsavable. He struck out Edralín. Breach popped out, and then - … **** managed to stick. Martinez walked Martin Ortíz, then gave up a bases-clearing double to Gonzales to shatter Brown’s winning streak. That was not the end, as the Raccoons bullpen exploded for seven total runs in the final two innings, with more damage on Corkum. 10-6 Crusaders. Torrez 2-4, BB; Martin 3-5, RBI; Tyler 1-2, 2 BB, RBI;

I blame no one but that squared ****head Nordahl. I have to get rid of that ****ing piece of ****.

In other news

July 10 – OCT INF Bob Grant (.311, 6 HR, 32 RBI) is out for the season with a broken kneecap.
July 11 – BOS 1B/2B David Brewer (.281, 1 HR, 16 RBI), in a 3-2 win of the Titans over the Indians, collected his 2,500th career base hit, a sixth inning single off Alonso Alonso. Brewer, once the second-overall pick by the Canadiens in 1988, debuted with them in the same season and stayed there until 1994 before signing up with the Raccoons, with which he won the 1995 Hitter of the Year award. He also played with the Condors, Stars, and Cyclones, and the Titans once before, and two months shy of his 37th birthday has amassed 86 HR, 937 RBI, 161 SB, and a .327/.400/.453 career slash line. He was an All Star seven times consecutively, from 1991 through 1997.
July 11 – The Loggers deal MR Jesus Longoria (1-2, 1.99 ERA, 2 SV) to the Capitals for a bushel containing five marginal prospects, none of whom is ranked. Longoria, 35, was already a Capital from 1991, his debut, to 2001, winning two titles with them.

Complaints and stuff

This week’s trade was done to get rid of an expensive and outrageously poorly performing player who had somehow won in the Gold Glove Lottery last year. Sackett will settle into the rotation once we have disposed of Watanabe and/or Barnes. I tried to get more for Ledesma, but other teams know he’s ****, too. I was after Vaughn Higgins of the Thunder, an actually very good pitcher, but the price would have been so steep, we’d bled ourselves dry. And while ten relief pitching prospects look nice on the Top 200, they have zero trade value.

By the way, Sackett is 26, and was the Wolves’ first-rounder in 1999, picked 10th overall. He has appeared in 52 games in the majors since 2002, 13 of those starts, with a 10-4 record and 4-40 ERA. Seven wins came in 2003, in which all of his 12 appearances were starts, with a 3.00 ERA. He tends to keep the ball on the ground, but he won’t overpower people. In a way, he’s a bit like Edgar Amador, just way slimmer.

The Titans have offered us Hector Ramirez in trade for Brad Sheehan and a potential outfield prospect Santiago Trevino, who is in AA, but can’t find a way to use his bat. Now, Ramirez fits best on second base for us, and he would without a doubt be an upgrade over Marv Ingall, but he is guaranteed $1.9M per season through 2006, and I want no part of that contract.

By the way, I do not want Bryce Hildred to win that wins title. If he ends with the most wins in the CL, I will make my way up the Wells Fargo Center via the stairs and my way down the Wells Fargo Center WITHOUT STAIRS.

[Westheim]

As the All Star break began, we sent Yoshi Nomura to AAA to recall Marv Ingall. Yoshi is merely 20, and he fared respectable, but right now I’d prefer to see him in AAA. Also, Kenichi Watanabe was sent back to AAA, Carlos Sackett moved to the rotation, and we called up Alejandro Rojas.

All Star Game

The Raccoons sent two players to the All Star Game, SP Nick Brown and OF Eddie Torrez. The Titans led the CL with five nominations, but the Loggers and Indians also each had four. The FL were headed by six Buffaloes.

The CL handed the FL a terrible pounding, winning 11-1. IND C Jose Paraz was named MVP. Most damage was done on Tony Hamlyn, the Federal League starter, who allowed six runs in the first inning.

Brownie did not play in the game, while Torrez was a starter and notched three hits, including a double, and drove in a pair.

Raccoons (47-42) vs. Loggers (41-48) – July 15-18, 2004

Not a lot had changed with this team since we had left Milwaukee, although they were now ahead of the Raccoons in runs scored. Oh wonder.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (5-8, 4.60 ERA) vs. Ramiro Gonzalez (8-8, 3.71 ERA)
Carlos Sackett (1-1, 4.61 ERA) vs. Jaime Aguila (3-11, 4.64 ERA)
Dan Barnes (0-1, 5.40 ERA) vs. William Lloyd (2-3, 5.60 ERA)
Nick Brown (13-2, 2.78 ERA) vs. Dani Alvarado (7-7, 4.25 ERA)

Game 1
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B Tolwith – SS T. Johnson – LF Hiwalani – RF Fletcher – 1B Aguilar – CF K. Wood – C Melendez – P R. Gonzalez
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – RF Brady – C Thomas – LF King – P Ford

A strange kind of pitching duel developed. Both teams drew a few walks, but through four managed only one hit off the opposing starter, and thus zeroes were lined up all over the line score. The scoreless parade, in which both teams managed two hits apiece through six innings, was broken up in the top 7th when Ken Wood hit a solo home run off Ford. It took the Coons until the eighth inning to get two runners on base at the same time, and then Torrez lifted out softly to left, and Sharp grounded out, and they just couldn’t score. Gonzalez casually pitched a 3-hit shutout. 1-0 Loggers. Ford 8.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, L (5-9);

Well, the excuse that we have three important batters on the DL is no longer valid. Taken for what it is, this remains a crap team full of crappy, sorry souls.

Game 2
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B M. Brown – RF Hiwalani – LF Graham – SS T. Johnson – 1B Aguilar – CF C. Ramirez – C Benitez – P Aguila
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – C Thomas – LF Tyler – P Sackett

Sackett’s first start as a Raccoon started pretty badly. The Loggers chopped a couple of singles in the first inning, but ran themselves out of it after scoring one run when Torrez threw out Hiwalani at home. The Loggers didn’t do much through the next three innings, but broke through in the fifth, plating three runs and narrowly leaving a pair on when Sharp intercepted a hard grounder and finally made the third out at second base. The Raccoons? Goddamn awful. Jaime Aguila humiliated them for the second time in two weeks, and faced the minimum through five. The Loggers left another two men on in the top 6th, which was the last inning for Sackett in a **** start, having allowed eight hits and four walks against zero strikeouts. Tyler’s 1-out double in the bottom 6th actually sparked the dead-in-the-water Raccoons, with Rojas hitting a single in Sackett’s spot to plate Tyler. Torrez singled, and Sharp singled, scoring Rojas, which put the tying runs on base for Martin with two out. Martin hit an RBI single, and Brady singled to left, but Sharp had to be held up at third. That brought up Ingall as the ninth man in the inning, and we would happily take an Ingall sing- HOLY COW, it is high, it is deep, it is – GONE!! GRAAAAAAAND SLAAAAAAAMMM!!!

So, that’s a 7-run inning nobody saw coming. Moreno got two in the top 7th before Dave Graham doubled, but Martinez ended the inning. In the top 8th, Nordahl struck out Arturo Aguilar, before Cristo Ramirez singled hard to right. That brought up Benitez. When the count ran full, Ramirez ran, Nordahl struck out Benitez, and Thomas gunned down the veteran Ramirez to end the inning. In the bottom 8th the Loggers suffered a bullpen implosion, with five runs falling out of Enrique Fernandez and Edgar Cruz. 12-4 Raccoons! Sharp 2-4, RBI; Martin 3-4, RBI; Ingall 1-3, HR, 5 RBI; Tyler 2-4, 2B; Rojas (PH) 1-1, RBI; Nordahl 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K, SV (4);

Carlos Sackett actually got a win in this game for basically nothing.

We really need to solve this crap parade of a rotation… next up is Barnes, who will then be removed in some way or other to make room for the Fat Cat to come off the DL next week.

Game 3
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B Tolwith – SS T. Johnson – LF Hiwalani – RF Fletcher – 1B Aguilar – CF K. Wood – C Melendez – P Lloyd
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 1B Rojas – RF Brady – LF King – C Fifield – P Barnes

Three scoreless innings into the game, Barnes just like that walked the bases loaded in the fourth inning with no outs. Although Ken Wood hit into a double play, Hiwalani still scored the first run of the game, and then Melendez drove in Fletcher to make it 2-0. While Brady hit a homer in the bottom of the same inning, that did only half the job. The Coons made a few strong plays to keep a toothless Barnes in the game, and in the bottom 6th chopped a few singles to put two on with no outs. Rojas grounded out to first, moving the runners into scoring position, but Brady’s groundout kept them pinned. Then it was Matt King, not known for clutch (or any) hits, but he hit a 2-run double to right and the Coons took the lead. Both teams blew up in the top 8th. Concie made a terrible throwing error to get the tying run on base against Martinez, and after Williams got Cristo Ramirez out, Corkum came in and surrendered a game-tying 2-out RBI single to PH Pedro Benitez. Then J.J. Villa hit for Melendez and singled up the middle, and Benitez tried to go to third, but was caught in a rundown and that ended the inning. Then we faced Gabriel Garcia in the bottom 8th. Brady hit a single, and then King doubled with one out. Prime chance to have Martin hit for Fifield! Yet Martin struck out and Thomas hitting for Corkum was not any more successful.

Both teams sent their closers for the ninth, and again in the tenth. Bottom 10th, Rojas had a 1-out single and was run for with Ramirez, who made it to second on Wills and Melendez while Brady whiffed on the hit-and-run. With the open base, Brady was then walked intentionally. Robbie Wills then struck out both King and Sheehan to advance to the 11th. Huerta was then brought in for two easy innings, and then Tom Johnson doubled to start the 13th. He was at third with one out, but Huerta kept him there. A fourth inning was squeezed from Huerta, while ex-Furball Benton Wilson matched his shutout pace, but only for 3.1 innings, when Fernandez took over. Nordahl had a scoreless 15th, Ramirez drew a leadoff walk and was caught stealing in the bottom 15th. Top 16th, J.J. Villa hit a 1-out double. Melendez flew out to King, moving Villa to third, but the Loggers were out of bench players and Fernandez struck out. Fernandez continued pitching, and he had had a big hand in last night’s collapse. Bottom 16th, Concie drew a 1-out walk, and then Ingall singled to right, moving Concie to third, the furthest advance in a few hours by then. Sharp grounded to short and Johnson fired home to get Concie. Then Fernandez walked Torrez, bringing up Ramirez, who got a new pitcher in Carl McCoy and flew out to left to end in the inning. We had one more unused reliever, Moreno, who started the top 17th. He walked a man, drilled two, some hits, and the Loggers had both Hiwalani and Melendez hit 3-run homers. 9-3 Loggers. King 4-7, BB, 2 2B, 2 RBI; Bruno 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K; Huerta 4.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K; Nordahl 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

17 innings, and the suckers had ten hits all day and all night long. I just want to cry.

Game 4
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B Tolwith – SS T. Johnson – LF Hiwalani – RF Fletcher – 1B Aguilar – CF K. Wood – C Melendez – P Alvarado
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – C Fifield – LF Tyler – P Brown

Brown was in trouble from about the time he warmed up. After Tolwith got hit in the first inning, Hiwalani hit a double but Tolwith stopped at third, and Fletcher didn’t get the job done. Tolwith then doubled in the third with Hernandez starting from first. Hernandez did NOT stop at third, and Tyler threw him out at home. Brown was also the first Raccoon on base with a single in the third. The Coons still were held to a single by Alvarado when he came up with two out and two on – Brady and Ingall had walked – in the fifth inning. And he singled again, Brady turned third and scored, aided by an error by Hiwalani. And the home team just COULD – NOT – GET – ANYTHING DONE. Top 7th then, Aguilar drew a leadoff walk off Brown. Wood reached on a capital throwing error by Fifield, and then Meldenez clanked a 3-run homer off the foul pole, soiling everything and hanging a wholly undeserved loss on Brown. Danny Sharp’s 1-out double off Robbie Wills was the first hit by a Raccoons position player – in the bottom 9th! Nominally that brought up Al Martin as the tying run. He sent a liner to left center which eluded Hiwalani and became an RBI double. Brady struck out, as did Ingall. 3-2 Loggers. Brown 6.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, L (13-3) and 2-2, RBI; Corkum 1.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

How very depressing. Why can’t this team just be wrapped up and sold to Balochistan? I don’t want to see those suckerfaces anymore…

Dan Barnes was DFA’ed as Edgar Amador came off the DL.

Raccoons (48-45) vs. Indians (41-51) – July 19-21, 2004

The Indians had lost five games in a row, but at the same time the Raccoons had lost any credibility whatsoever. The Indians had the most dismal pitching corps with the most runs allowed, and only scored the ninth-most runs in the CL despite them carrying the two leading home run hitters in the Continental League, with Alston and Lopez both having swatted 20 so far. They were really not any good. But well, the Raccoons …

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (5-10, 5.04 ERA) vs. Patrick Moreau (5-6, 6.05 ERA)
Ralph Ford (5-9, 4.35 ERA) vs. Doug Morrow (7-7, 3.72 ERA)
Carlos Sackett (2-1, 4.86 ERA) vs. Alonso Alonso (4-3, 3.56 ERA)

Game 1
IND: 2B D. Mendez – SS Stevens – LF Alston – 1B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF MacKey – RF Martines – 3B I. Burns – P Moreau
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – C Thomas – LF King – P Farley

Torrez and Sharp in scoring position with one out in the bottom 1st, Martin and Brady just plainly failed. Ingall was up with the bases loaded in the third, but made the final out, but he had already saved Farley’s bacon in the field three times in the game, starting double plays in the first and second innings, and making another difficult play to end the top 3rd, and Ingall would start *another* double play in the fifth, but with the greatest dismay he had to watch everybody around him in the lineup to not manage to hit a lick. So, Ingall ponied up, and when he came up again in the bottom 6th, he hit a solo home run to left that was the first tally in the game. Farley rode on Ingall’s back through seven with that 1-0 lead, then drilled Felix Martines to start the eighth and was swiftly yanked. Moreno saw Ian Burns bunt the runner to second, before Patrick Moreau duped the Raccoons with a bloop single to right that scored Martines. We would parade two more hurlers into the inning before Ingall held on to the tie when he nabbed Alston’s grounder to strand runners on the corners. Bottom 8th, Danny Sharp led off with a double, which did not go to waste once Al Martin found his grounder elude both Stevens and Burns for an RBI single. The Coons loaded the bases on Moreau, who came apart, and two more runs scored, before Bruno had a Nordahl-esque ninth, being hit with a Jose Paraz homer, his sixteenth, then hit MacKey, but the Indians failed to mount a rally. 4-2 Raccoons. Sharp 3-4, 2 2B; Ingall 2-4, HR, RBI; King 2-3, RBI; Farley 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K;

The third baseman bunts, and the pitchers swats an RBI single. **** like that works ONLY against crap teams.

Game 2
IND: 2B D. Mendez – RF Cortez – LF Alston – 3B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF P. Taylor – SS Stevens – 1B Kilters – P Morrow
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – CF Torrez – 2B Ingall – 1B Rojas – LF Tyler – C Thomas – P Ford

We tried to be aggro early and had Concie and Brady engage in some hit-and-run. Brady sent a vicious liner to center that was nevertheless caught by Phil Taylor and by that time Concie was almost around third, over home plate, into the dugout, down the tunnel, up in the clubhouse, had a shower, and cold one, but he was still out at first. Bottom 2nd, bases loaded, no outs, Doug Morrow struck out Tyler and then couldn’t believe it when Thomas grounded back right to his feet, double play, home and first. When Tyler actually met a ball and singled to right in the bottom 4th, Sharp was sent from second base, but was out at home to end the inning. While the offense was doing dumb **** for the entire evening, Ford was one-hitting the Indians through five, before that glass fell to the ground and burst into a million splinters, too. David Lopez’ RBI triple in the top 6th also led to him being scored on a Jose Paraz grounder right through Sharp, and the Indians were up 2-0. Bottom 6th, Sharp hit a grounder, Torrez walked, and Ingall hit into a double play to advance us to the seventh. That triple was the entire game through 51 aggregate outs. Morrow carried a 7-hitter into the bottom 9th and the Indians waited to have him finish it. After Sharp grounded out to short, Torrez walked. Martin hit for Ingall and walked. Sheehan hit for Rojas and grounded to short, but Stevens bungled the play and all hands were safe. Tyler grounded to first, but Kilters was carried off-bag after picking it up and again all hands were safe! Now it was 2-1, bases loaded, one out, and the Indians saw that they probably needed to bother their closer Iemitsu Rin after all. Rin struck out Thomas, before King popped out to shallow right. 2-1 Indians. Sharp 2-4, 2B; Ingall 2-3; Tyler 2-4, RBI;

How long has it taken the Raccoons to score their last 100 runs? 32 days, in which they played 28 games.

Game 3
IND: 2B D. Mendez – SS Stevens – LF Alston – 1B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF MacKey – RF C. Rey – 3B I. Burns – P Alonso
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – LF Tyler – C Fifield – P Sackett

The Indians piled onto Sackett, who surrendered plenty of contact, and twice one that hurt really hard. Jose Paraz hit a 3-run home run in the first inning, all runs unearned after Fifield had given the Indians a head start with an error. Not much happened through the next few innings, but in the sixth inning it was Ian Burns to double the output with another 3-run shot, with nobody out even. That was Sackett’s final batter. The Raccoons happened into a run themselves somewhere along the way, but 6-1 with no outs in the top 6th was a definitive statement. Two runs were surrendered by Dave Williams in the eighth, and the Raccoons just had nothing, until they had something in the bottom 9th, with Rojas reaching on an error and Sheehan hitting a single. And then they still had nothing, as suddenly the skies burst open and intense rain doused the park and everybody confined in it – mostly players and crews, no fans anywhere. Two on, one out, the game got called by the umpires eventually. 8-1 Indians. Torrez 2-4; Martin 2-4, RBI; Sheehan (PH) 1-1; Huerta 1.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

It is so utterly depressing.

We made two roster moves. Gary Fifield was waived and designated for assignment, and Alejandro Rojas was sent away for Matt Love. Fifield was replaced with Bob Wood, 23, who is an excellent defensive catcher, while he has never hit successfully at any level. We selected him in the third round in the 1999 draft.

Raccoons (49-47) @ Knights (41-52) – July 23-25, 2004

The Knights ranked bottoms in the Continental League with 371 runs scored, six fewer than the Raccoons, and with a chance to turn the table. They also had the worst bullpen complementing a perhaps average rotation, so the overall package cried out for last place.

Projected matchups:
Edgar Amador (6-4, 3.51 ERA) vs. Larry Cutts (9-5, 2.82 ERA)
Nick Brown (13-3, 2.78 ERA) vs. Sadakuno Imamura (3-3, 5.28 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-10, 4.79 ERA) vs. Johnny Collins (6-5, 2.86 ERA)

Carlos Sackett will be available out of the bullpen, as we plan to skip his start with another off day on Monday.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – 1B Sharp – CF Torrez – 3B M. Ramirez – RF Brady – LF King – C Thomas – P Amador
ATL: 2B J. Miller – SS Luján – CF Ware – LF J. Morales – C J. Lopez – 1B Maldrum – RF A. Rodriguez – 3B Verdon – P Cutts

The Raccoons had no runners the first time through the order before Guerin drew a walk to start the fourth. Ingall single, two on with no outs, and then Sharp grounded out, Torrez struck out, and oh here it comes. However, this time Ramirez came through with a 3-run homer for the first scoring in the game. While Amador was erratic with control and walked a few, through five he allowed only two hits and those both went through Ramirez, who originally had been in for the improved defense. After the Coons got an unearned run in the top 6th, when Guerin reached on an error, stole third, and scored on a sac fly by Ingall, the Knights hit two singles up the middle in the bottom 6th, but didn’t score, yet they repeated their feat in the bottom 7th, and this time Amador was at least removed with the top of the order up and Martinez replaced him to quell the threat, which he did successfully by striking out James Miller and then playing Antonio Luján’s grounder to first himself to end the frame scorelessly. The bullpen handled the lead responsibly. 5-0 Coons. Sharp 2-4; Ramirez 3-4, HR, 3 RBI; Amador 6.1 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 5 K, W (7-4);

We had only one other hit, by Ingall, but at least we got the big knock this time. Last year we had six guys to hit ten homers. This year we are about to drop into the bottom half in home runs. In fact, Ramirez’ shot lifted us into a tie of sixth place.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – LF Tyler – C Wood – P Brown
ATL: RF R. Lopez – SS Luján – CF Ware – LF J. Morales – 1B J. Garcia – C J. Lopez – 2B J. Miller – 3B Verdon – P Imamura

The Coons had runners on second and third with no outs in the first and led themselves be held to one run, before Brown came out and had a crappy inning, giving the run right back and bailing out luckily on a double play. At least Brown put the go-ahead run over the plate with a groundout in the top 2nd again. Before him, Bob Wood had hit a double in his first major league at-bat. Brown came out for the second inning and walked the leadoff man, his third walk on the day, before he struck out Miller, which was his first K… Brownie never found his control in the game and had to scratch and bite to not lose his lunch to the Knights. At least some more support came around. Torrez went yard in the fifth off Imamura, increasing the lead to 4-1 with his tenth homer of the season. Imamura singled in the bottom 5th and Brown then walked the bases full. Stephen Ware singled in a run before Concie turned a double play on Alejandro Rodriguez, who was in as injury replacement for Morales, and that ended the inning. Jorge Garcia’s leadoff jack chased Brown in the sixth after a horrible 5-walk outing. Imamura kept working even after he surrendered an RBI single to Wood in the top 7th, with Wood not retired on the day, and the score up to 5-3. More backup was probably desirable, since we all know our Critters, although they struck out the side in the bottom 7th and bottom 8th, allowing a single in between each time. Martinez, Williams, and Nordahl collaborated. Top 9th, Wood reached for the fourth time on the day with another single, and Matt King pinch-walked. Guerin and Torrez made outs, but Sharp salvaged an 0-4 day with a single up the middle to get us to 6-3 and give Marcos Bruno the maximum cushion. And what happened then? He walked Ricardo Valadez, before Rodrigo Lopez and Antonio Luján both singled up the middle. Bases loaded with no outs. Oh great, that’s why Nordahl doesn’t pitch in that spot anymore! He balked in a run and another run scored on a groundout while he struck out a pair. Jorge Garcia was walked intentionally as a .300 lefty, to get to whatever the bench would offer in place of the pitcher, which turned out to be righty .250 batter Larry Maldrum, who struck out. 6-5 Raccoons. Torrez 3-4, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Tyler 2-4, 2B; Wood 4-4, 2B, RBI;

And this, kids, is the reason why you never stop hustling, even in the ninth inning, and even if your team is already in the lead, and even if you think you’re smart enough to think it’s enough, because NO, because you’re DUMB and you don’t know ****, and NOW DO AS I SAY!!

Yeah, that was almost ugly. Maybe that’s the difference. Nordahl would have resolved that ninth inning with a grand slam.

And how about Bob Wood? No fanfare whatsoever, but four hits in his major league debut!

Well, could we please clinch a winning week here? I need it calm myself down! Bad thing is, if we want to have that winning week, we’ll have to bind and gag Randy before he takes the mound, since he attracts losses like rotting fruits attract flies.

Maybe this can make a good nickname.

Also, Neil Reece came off the DL before the Sunday game, with Matt Love being demoted after getting into one game as defensive replacement, but not getting any at-bats.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – RF Tyler – C Wood – P Farley
ATL: 2B J. Miller – SS Luján – CF Ware – RF J. Garcia – C J. Lopez – 1B Maldrum – LF A. Rodriguez – 3B Verdon – P J. Collins

Bobby Wood extended his career hitting streak to five with a single to start the top 3rd. In a scoreless game, Farley whiffed on bunt attempts twice before bunting past the mound to short, where Luján had played a bit deep, then had to hustle and rush the throw, which skipped into the dugout and put two Coons in scoring position with no outs. Concie and Torrez cashed in with RBI singles and Martin scored Concie with a sac fly to take a 3-0 lead. Both teams made errors in the bottom 3rd and top 4th, respectively, with Martin guilty for the Raccoons, but neither led to a run, while Farley looked quite good to start the game, whiffing five in the first three innings. But that was the beginning, and with Randy’s starts, there was always an end, and it was always ugly. Bottom 5th, Maldrum led off with a single, and Rodriguez also singled to right, where Tyler overran the ball and moved the runners into scoring position. Nick Verdon singled, 3-1, tying runs on the corners, and no outs. After Collins bunted and Miller popped out, the Raccoons were almost out of the weather, and then Antonio Luján’s double eluded Tyler, too, and the game was tied. Stephen Ware drove in the go-ahead run with a single, and it was all in the ****. It took the Raccoons all the way to the eighth to reach scoring position after Sharp led off with a single, crawled along casually as the team made outs, and then scored on Neil Reece’s 2-out single to tie the score. In the top 9th, the Knights sent Manuel Reyes, who allowed Guerin and Torrez to reach with one out. The hope was to Sharp to draw a walk and get a sac fly from Martin, who doesn’t do anything worthwhile with the bat anymore. Sharp made the second out, which made extra innings loom big, until suddenly Al Martin DID crack a home run, and that blew the game up big time! With Bruno expending almost 40 pitches the night before, we went to Bill Corkum to save this game. He allowed a 2-out single to Ron Brantley, but danger never knocked on the door like on Saturday… 7-4 Raccoons. Guerin 2-5, RBI; Torrez 2-5, RBI; Reece 2-3, RBI; Sackett 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, W (3-2);


In other news

July 14 – The Crusaders deal 36-yr old MR Cory Maupin (2-1, 1.69 ERA, 1 SV) to the Crusaders for three prospects, none of which are ranked.
July 14 – The Buffaloes acquire 1B Julio Garcia (.309, 3 HR, 28 RBI) from the Rebels for a second-rate prospect.
July 15 – WAS SP Chris York (7-12, 3.77 ERA) strikes out eleven in a 2-hit shutout over the Blue Sox, which the Capitals win 2-0.
July 16 – The Condors trade CL Alonso Villegas (2-4, 2.55 ERA, 21 SV) to the Buffaloes for three non-ranked prospects.
July 16 – The Knights acquire C/1B Jorge Lopez (.248, 12 HR, 54 RBI) from the Warriors for #53 prospect MR Juan Sanchez and another prospect.
July 17 – CYCLE!! The Scorpions get clobbered 23-5 by the Stars, with DAL RF/LF Artie Barnes (.301, 7 HR, 36 RBI) connecting four times for one hit of each kind. He drives in two runs in the game. It is the Stars fourth cycle, the third since 2000, and the 35th overall in ABL history.
July 17 – CHA SP Jorge Silva (7-9, 4.73 ERA) is out for the season and possibly a part of 2005 with a torn labrum.
July 18 – VAN SP Daniel Dickerson (4-8, 2.74 ERA) is out for the season with a fractured elbow. The Canadiens swiftly acquire SP Harry Wentz (6-7, 5.48 ERA) from the Pacifics for two prospects, including #93 SP Lou Cannon.
July 21 – 3B Sonny Reece (.319, 11 HR, 55 RBI) of the Sacramento Scorpions knocks his 2,000th base hit in a 7-6 defeat to the Pacifics. Reece, 31, is famous for the 1994 postseason, in which he smashed come-from-behind walkoff homers to clinch both the CLCS and the World Series for the Thunder, and both times in game 7!
July 21 – The Condors acquire LF/RF Josh Thomas (.235, 7 HR, 34 RBI) from the Miners, sending over SP Manuel Pineda (11-6, 3.62 ERA) and a pitching prospect in #28 Richard Vincent.
July 21 – WAS SP Steve Rogers (10-5, 3.81 ERA) 3-hits the Cyclones in a 6-0 shutout.
July 23 – The Titans sent C Fernando Diéguez (.291, 1 HR, 23 RBI) to the Canadiens in exchange for MR Juan Sanchez (5-1, 1.72 ERA) and unranked 1B prospect Ricardo Martinez.
July 24 – The Canadiens acquire MR Paco Leoniedas (2-1, 2.19 ERA, 2 SV) from the Condors in exchange for a minor leaguer.
July 24 – SFB INF Trystao Bulco (.319, 3 HR, 12 RBI) has stitched together a 20-game hitting streak with one hit against the Loggers.
July 25 – Trystao Bulco’s hitting streak ends already as he goes hitless in the Bayhawks’ 3-2 win over the Loggers.

Complaints and stuff

I always liked Sonny Reece. His postseason exploits are part of the ABL lore. But I find it indecent of him in the highest degree to notch 2,000 career hits before NEIL Reece, who is six years his senior! Naughty Sonny!

Chris Parker was Player of the Week in the FL.

We are getting a swath of trade proposals this year. People are really keen on Marvin Ingall (!?) and Santiago Trevino, an outfielder in AA ball. Yet, they all just want to dump their overpaid veterans on us, and we have our own overpaid veterans, thank you.

And a lot of grief, too, much of which must come down to two facts: Al Martin has two home runs in the last month, and Clyde Brady is on a 4-for-49 skid. However, you don’t go on a 15-29 spin as we have since June 1 just because of two players. The rotation has been junk with the exception of Nick Brown since then, and now Brown is entering a funky mood, which will not be good. I would dig seeing him win 20 games, and he was certainly on pace for that, but with this wonky offense, he needs his A game, which he hasn’t had in his last few starts: 17.1 IP, 16 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 8 BB, 17 K over his last three outings.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (52-47) @ Falcons (47-50) – July 27-29, 2004

The Raccoons’ 4-game winning streak would meet up with the Falcons’ 6-game losing streak to see whether both teams had the guts to go on. If they weren’t disintegrating violently, the Falcons knew how to bat, ranking second with a .270 average, and third with 430 runs scored, outscoring us by 35 markers, and they were at least tied for fourth (with the Coons!) with 398 runs allowed.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (5-10, 4.26 ERA) vs. Miguel Diaz (8-9, 4.37 ERA)
Edgar Amador (7-4, 3.30 ERA) vs. Frank Pierre (10-8, 3.70 ERA)
Nick Brown (14-3, 2.88 ERA) vs. Dylan Jones (8-6, 4.21 ERA)

After Diaz, and starting with Pierre, whom the Falcons just on Monday acquired from the Condors for Toby McGreary (.308, 3 HR, 31 RBI), we will be served two left-handers, and the possibility for a third one to start the following series is high. The Coons vs. left-handed pitching? Uh-oh.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – CF Torrez – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – RF Brady – C Wood – LF Tyler – P Ford
CHA: 2B Heffer – 3B Whaley – CF Burke – 1B H. Green – LF Estrada – SS Vieitas – C E. Durango – RF Correja – P M. Diaz

Three Coons got on, three Coons brought them in, and we were up 3-0 in a hurry. By the second inning, the Raccoons’ offense was in refusal mode, not even scoring runs when the Falcons were begging them with errors and hit batters like in the top 3rd, Ralph Ford showed to be easily hittable, and Eddie Torrez had been lost to injury. The Ford thing was most unnerving right now. There were constantly Falcons on base, and sometimes you thought there even Falcons on base when the Raccoons were batting. Well, it couldn’t be Coons, because for all practical purposes the Coons ticked all boxes for being legally deceased from the second through the sixth inning. All of a sudden in the top 7th, Martin and Ingall erupted to hit back-to-back home runs and run the score to 5-1. While the Falcons were indeed on base all the time and chased Ford after 6.1 laborious innings, they didn’t get the key hit, and their lone run scored on Pedro Estrada’s inside-the-park home run in the fourth. Ford willed them two base runners, which Manuel Martinez snuffed out quickly with strikeouts to Matt Whaley and Jake Burke. While the Falcons would get one run from Huerta in the eighth, they didn’t even get close to mounting an actual threat late in this one, and both decision streaks endured. 5-2 Raccoons. Ingall 3-4, HR, 2 RBI; Brady 2-3, BB, RBI;

Brady now has two multi-hit games in the last six weeks. Yay!

The injury to Torrez smells. I wanted to sit Brady against the left-handers, but now King has to cover center. Darwin Tyler doesn’t even hit the ball in any fashion, but before we make a roster move regarding him, we want to find out what is wrong with Torrez and whether he will have to be put down.

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – 1B Martin – 3B M. Ramirez – RF Brady – C Thomas – CF King – P Amador
CHA: 2B H. Green – LF Estrada – C F. Chavez – CF Burke – 1B J. Mendoza – SS Vieitas – 3B Moore – RF Warner – P Pierre

The Coons again put three on in the first inning before Ramirez hit into a killing double play. The top 2nd then saw a major spot develop on the vest of the Falcons’ new acquisition. Brady, Thomas, and King reached by various means to load them with no outs, with Amador then lifting a fly to right for a sac fly. Guerin then grounded hard to Herberto Vieitas, by all estimated the end of the inning, except that Vieitas dropped the ball and all hands were safe. From here, another five runs scored when Ingall walked, Reece hit a sac fly, and Martin hit one entirely out of the park. Reece singled home Ingall in the fourth inning, which only then had Pierre see his Falcons debut end, and at 7-0 we were comfortably ahead. Or maybe not. Amador surrendered contact the whole game, and it was not good contact if it’s your pitcher. The Falcons got him for two in the fifth, but we were still up 7-2. Then Amador didn’t get anybody in the bottom 6th, three up, three on. 7-3, runners on first and second, Moreno came on, with the middle infielders twice not turning a double play, and then Moreno surrendering some contact to get yanked. Nordahl allowed an RBI single to Estrada that romped the score to 7-6 before Chavez struck out to end a most dismal 4-run inning. It wasn’t over, though, because Nordahl walked two in the bottom 7th to be yanked himself with two out. We brought Williams, they brought Whaley, and the ex-Indians singled to tie the game. Corkum bloked up a leadoff triple to Hubert Green in the eighth, and that was that. 8-7 Falcons. Ingall 2-4, BB, 3B, RBI; Reece 2-4, RBI; Martin 3-5, HR, 3 RBI; King 3-4, 2B;

Up by seven with 15 outs to collect. No, there is no complicated explanation for it. They just straight suck. They just ****ING SUCK.

We haven’t traded away everything that didn’t have 10/5 rights in a while. Might be time soon. Can’t stand a lot of sorry faces around here anymore.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – 3B Sharp – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – LF Reece – RF Brady – C Wood – CF King – P Brown
CHA: 2B Heffer – 3B Whaley – CF Burke – 1B H. Green – LF Estrada – SS Vieitas – C E. Durango – RF Correja – P D. Jones

Everything was falling to pieces in a hurry in this game. While Brown knocked in the first run of the game with a funny double in the top 2nd, he did not get out of the bottom 2nd. Hubert Green hit a bloop single before Brown walked the bases full, then hit Durango to tie the game. Correja singled, 2-1. The pitcher struck out, before Brown also plunked Dave Heffer. Whaley walked, 4-1, and another run scored on Burke’s groundout, before Green hit another single to score Heffer. When Estrada walked, Brown was grabbed and thrown under a bus. I didn’t realize much of the remaining seven innings, crying furiously in the corner of my box. Let’s shorten the bad news section by saying that some teams can come back from being force-fed a bitter 6-run inning, and some teams just can’t. 7-4 Falcons. Ingall 4-5, RBI; Ramirez (PH) 1-1; Sheehan (PH) 2-2, 2B, RBI;

Also, Eddie Torrez was diagnosed with a concussion and is out for the year. We have no replacements for that. Beairsto sucks. Beairsto capitally sucks. I hate Beairsto. More than anybody else on the roster.

Lacking any enlightenment, Matt Love was called up as additional warm body.

In slightly less agonizing news, we claimed catcher Freddy Rosa off waivers by the Canadiens. Bob Wood, who followed up going 5-for-5 to start his major league career by going 0-for-11, will be sent back to AAA, and Rosa will be added to the major league roster to serve as our 395th catcher of the last seven years. He was batting .214 with 6 HR and 13 RBI for the Elks.

Raccoons (53-49) vs. Thunder (54-46) – July 30-August 1, 2004

The Thunder ranked third in both offense and defense. What a favorable matchup for a team in entirety and eternity composed of perpetual fails.

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (5-10, 4.86 ERA) vs. Fabien Armand (8-9, 3.43 ERA)
Ralph Ford (6-10, 4.11 ERA) vs. Aaron Anderson (11-6, 3.64 ERA)
Carlos Sackett (3-2, 4.53 ERA) vs. Dave Crawford (2-9, 6.07 ERA)

Game 1
OCT: 2B Palacios – LF Humphrey – 3B Higashi – C Baca – 1B L. Soto – RF A. Flores – SS Nixon – CF Olson – P Armand
POR: SS Guerin – 3B Sharp – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – LF Reece – RF Brady – CF King – C Thomas – P Farley

Sharp singled home Guerin in the first for a 1-0 lead that didn’t survive Farley meeting up with Armand in the top 2nd. Armand singled to break a 1-1 tie as Max Nixon crossed the plate, who had earlier brought home Alberto Flores after Flores had hit a leadoff triple. The Thunder had the bases loaded in the top 4th after a Sharp error, but Palacios and Humphrey couldn’t get anybody in and the inning ended with the Coons still trailing 2-1, but they got even in the bottom 5th with an RBI groundout by Sharp, who seemed to have his hand in everything. Farley was still going in the top 8th when he walked Nixon and Olson singled. Martinez replaced him, facing Antonio De La Parra, and walked the batter to load the bases. Martinez then fell to 3-0 on Jesus Palacios, before Palacios poked and grounded out to end the inning, leading to his manager bursting a few vital blood vessels. In the bottom 8th, Clyde Brady hit into an inning-ending double play on a 3-0 pitch, leading to the second manager being rushed to the hospital in the span of ten minutes. The game spilled into unlonged-for extra innings when the Raccoons’ top of the order couldn’t do anything with two on, one out, and Jimmy Morey pitching in the bottom 9th. Huerta had replaced Moreno with two out in the ninth, entering with a double switch that removed Brady. In the top 10th, Alberto Flores doubled to get going and scored on an Olson single. Bottom 10th, Ingall hit a rocket to center that annoyingly Olson managed to catch. Martin hit a bloop to right and was run for by Sheehan, who was barely alive at second when Reece pirouetted flailingly to hack out on a hit-and-run. Ramirez then hit for Huerta, and followed the Ingall trail in hitting a high, hard one to center. Only difference was, Ramirez’ wasn’t coming back. Walkoff homer!!! 4-3 Raccoons!! Guerin 3-5, 2B; Ramirez (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI; Thomas 3-4; Tyler 1-1; Farley 7.2 IP, 9 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K;

Game 2
OCT: RF A. Flores – C De La Parra – 1B L. Soto – 3B Higashi – 2B Nixon – LF Walls – SS Scott – CF Olson – P A. Anderson
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – 2B M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – SS Sheehan – C Rosa – CF King – LF Tyler – P Ford

Five straight 2-out batters reached for the Thunder in the top 1st, scoring two runs before Olson struck out. Anderson hit a leadoff single in the top 2nd and although Flores followed up with an infield single that Sheehan refused to do anything with, the Thunder didn’t score. That didn’t change that Ford sucked outright and got yanked by the fourth inning. In 3.1 innings, he surrendered 11 hits, three walks, and was laden with five runs. The Raccoons followed a simple pattern offensively, putting Sharp on base and have some dork hit into a double play, at least early on. Eventually, even Sharp stopped getting on base, then hit into a double play himself. The Raccoons hit into four in this game, and generally didn’t get a lick done. In mop-up, Corkum allowed two runs, and Bruno was touched for one run. 8-1 Thunder. Sharp 2-4; Guerin (PH) 1-1;

Game 3
OCT: SS Nixon – LF Humphrey – 3B Higashi – C Baca – 1B L. Soto – RF A. Flores – 2B Scott – CF Olson – P Crawford
POR: SS Guerin – 3B Sharp – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – LF Reece – RF Brady – CF King – C Thomas – P Sackett

Sackett pitched to give the kids that loudly filled the park for some bull**** family promotion Maud had cooked up a valuable lesson. If you put the leadoff man on every single inning, damage will be done to you. To be precise he put the first two men on twice and the leadoff man in the first three innings, and the Thunder casually took a 4-0 lead. In a twist, Sackett then surrendered 13 straight Thunder once the damage was already done in sufficient numbers to thwart hopes for a comeback. That streak ended with Max Nixon’s 2-out double in the top 7th, and Sackett quickly walked Humphrey, and Martinez then replaced him, only to give up an RBI single to Takahashi Higashi. The score after six and a half? 5-0. The Raccoons had two hits against the pushover Dave Crawford, who got pounded by everybody. But not the Raccoons. Because the Raccoons are **** as all hell. Brady had their third single in the bottom 7th with one out and nobody on. Then King singled. Tyler hit for Thomas for his left-handed bat, and singled to right, scoring Brady. Ramirez hit for Martinez and got hold of one of those pushover pitches, and pushed it over the wall in leftfield, axing the lead down to one run. Then Guerin got on with a double. Sharp came up, singled, Guerin ran, and was safe – tied ballgame, six straight base hits against Crawford, who struck out Ingall, before Martin singled. Reece was down 1-2 before he sent a pitch to left for a single, and Sharp was sent and made it home safely. So that’s a 6-run inning, and our record this week with 6-run innings anywhere in the line score? 0-2. Moreno walked a pair in the top 8th but the Thunder never hit a ball fair in the inning, and eventually a foul out ended the inning, handing over the 6-5 advantage to Marcos Bruno, who faced the top of the order. Tyler had replaced Reece for defense earlier and made a miraculous catch on Max Nixon’s line drive that started the inning. Woot!! Now everything will be fine! We’d have a .500 week, and we’d have finished better than - … and then Humphrey homered. Never mind Brad Sheehan hitting a walkoff single, plating Sharp with two out in the bottom 9th. Emotionally, the damage was off any scales or charts. 7-6 Raccoons. Sharp 2-4, BB, RBI; Rosa 1-1; Sheehan (PH) 1-1, RBI; Brady 2-4, 2B; King 1-2, 2 BB; Tyler (PH) 1-2, RBI; Ramirez (PH) 1-2, HR, 3 RBI;


In other news

July 27 – The Capitals acquire SP Jonathan Dumont (4-6, 4.10 ERA) from the Pacifics in exchange for #56 prospect C Errol Spears, 19.
July 27 – The Loggers add DEN SP Jaime Aguila (3-13, 5.21 ERA) for a minor leaguer.
July 28 – INF Oliver Torres (.274, 2 HR, 36 RBI), who basically powered the Aces on his own last season, is now out for the remainder of this season with a torn back muscle.
August 1 – The 2,000 hits club welcomes CIN LF/RF Dan Morris (.319, 10 HR, 28 RBI), who joins with two hits in a 5-3 win over the Pacifics, knocking a first inning RBI double off Raúl Chavez. The 34-year old Morris, once a first rounder in 1991, spending his entire career with the Cyclones, has been to the All Star game eight times and was the FL Hitter of the Year in 1995 and 1997.
August 1 – SFB SP Raúl Fuentes (11-10, 3.42 ERA) 2-hits the Canadiens in a 14-0 threshing.

Complaints and stuff

Thank heavens Thomas Watts got traded this week. The Cyclones were bugging me with him daily. Usually for Ingall and Trevino. Do I look that stupid? It doesn’t even make our News section because Watts is far over the mountain as far as ability to contribute is concerned. The Miners picked him up and will soon regret it.

Everybody wants Trevino, who can’t hit a lick in AA.

And then I would like to express how raging mad I am at this team, not for faltering catastrophically like a straw hut in a cyclone, but for starting the season .640-ish well into May. It makes them all the more unbearable to watch as they are clogging along in sub-.350 land. If they had started out .420 and had maintained that **** pace throughout, nobody would have been mad. Now I can’t stand their repulsive sight anymore.

[Westheim]

Today's update has been cancelled due to Steam's refusal to accept my request for a login. Neither Steam nor any game responds to my pleas, and I am endlessly tired and can't deal with any technical **** right now.

Just when we wanted to give Miguel Ramirez a shot in right field, at least against left-handers.....

[Westheim]

I’ve had a strange week. Here comes only the second update.

Danny Sharp enters the week with a 12-game hitting streak in place.

Raccoons (55-50) @ Condors (46-59) – August 2-4, 2004

While the Condors were fifth in runs scored and generally capable of hurting opposing pitchers, their own pitching staff was kind of a bottomless well, as they conceded the second-most runs in the league. Horrible defense also had a hand in their struggles.

Projected matchups:
Edgar Amador (7-4, 3.48 ERA) vs. Jose Aguilar (1-12, 5.91 ERA)
Nick Brown (14-4, 3.21 ERA) vs. Brian Patrick (1-4, 5.75 ERA)
Randy Farley (5-10, 4.70 ERA) vs. Kelvin Yates (6-11, 3.51 ERA)

We will do good to keep our head above water in this series, because after that we play four with the Titans. These three pitchers are all right-handed. Yates leads the Continental League in strikeouts.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – RF Brady – CF Tyler – C Rosa – P Amador
TIJ: SS Heathershaw – C Cicalina – CF R. Perez – LF Luxton – 1B B. Boyle – RF J. Thomas – 3B N. Chavez – 2B McGreary – P J. Aguilar

And the week started with one of those games that just kicked you in the guts, sent you to the floor, and when you were rolling and wincing, here comes a kick in the stomach.

Amador pitched two innings, then left with an injury, while the Raccoons left a few runners wherever they chose to. The bottom 3rd saw Bill Corkum rocked for three runs, but most blame was on a capital dork move by Darwin Tyler in centerfield, allowing Ramón Perez a 2-out, 2-run double on a ball that could easily have been a single, and no runs, and Tyler, the dork, wasn’t even charged an error. The mess didn’t get any less awful from here. Moreno just didn’t retire anybody and was charged four runs between the fifth and sixth innings, with Freddy Rosa making a terrible throwing error on a stolen base attempt. Jose Aguilar, who had won ONE game all year long, cruised through seven, and when Albert Martin did hit a 3-run home run in the eighth, it was way too late, and way too little. 8-3 Condors. Guerin 2-3, BB; Sharp 2-4; Thomas (PH) 1-1; Love (PH) 1-1;

Game 2
POR: SS Guerin – 3B Sharp – LF Reece – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – RF Brady – C M. Thomas – CF King – P Brown
TIJ: CF R. Perez – 2B B. Boyle – C Cicalina – RF Luxton – 1B Heathershaw – SS McGreary – LF J. Thomas – 3B Stein – P Patrick

Good news were that Brownie registered the first seven outs with strikeouts. Bad news were that the Condors scored two runs on three hits in the bottom 1st anyway, driven in by Bradley Heathershaw. The Coons had about nothing going for them for their first 17 outs. Martin doubled with two out in the sixth, their first runner in a few innings. From here, Ingall singled, Brady singled, plating Martin, and Thomas drew a walk. That brought up King with the bases loaded, down 2-1, and the count ran full. Matt King for once didn’t flunk out, and hit a single to left to plate two runs and flip the score to 3-2 in favor of Brown, who was up next and blooped a single to shallow center to score Thomas and it was 4-2. Guerin struck out, ending a streak of six straight runners that had created some terrific 2-out terror. Brown delivered a shutdown inning, striking out McGreary to reach ten K’s on the day, and he got pinch-hitter Luis Reya for his 11th to end a perfect seventh, but he had now over 100 pitches on his odometer, and we had very little bullpen to work with. But maybe he had another one or two outs in him. Brown batted with runners on the corners and one out in the eighth, and singled through the venerable Jim Stein to score the team’s fifth run. Guerin struck out again on a rotten day, but Sharp went from 0-4 to a 14-game hitting streak with an RBI single that plated King, 6-2. Brown was squeezed dry in the bottom 8th, which he completed despite plunking Cicalina with two outs. Clyde Brady made a strong catch on Robbie Luxton’s drive to right, and Brown got through eight with a dozen strikeouts. And yet, it was all about to go up in flames. Huerta couldn’t finish the bottom 9th, and put McGreary on base. With two outs, Williams replaced him, but walked the bases full. We had to get out Marcos Bruno with the tying run at the plate in Ramón Perez. Bruno fell to 3-1 before Perez sent a drive to left, and while the less confident souls around fainted, Neil Reece wrung the last bit of ooze from his old, wretched body and intercepted the drive to end the game. 6-2 Coons. Martin 4-5, 2B; Brady 2-4, BB, RBI; Thomas 3-4, BB; Brown 8.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 12 K, W (15-4) and 2-4, 2 RBI;

To be honest, I didn’t faint in the ninth, I fainted in the first.

Now off to Randy, who, if he doesn’t take victory in this game, will have gone TWO MONTHS without a W.

Game 3
POR: SS Guerin – 3B Sharp – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – RF M. Ramirez – C M. Thomas – LF Tyler – CF King – P Farley
TIJ: SS McGreary – C Cicalina – CF R. Perez – LF Luxton – 2B B. Boyle – RF J. Thomas – 1B Cambria – 3B N. Chavez – P Yates

A Perez single, a stolen base, another single, and the Condors were up 1-0 in the first. By contrast in the top half of the third inning, the Raccoons turned King getting on, stealing second base, with no outs, into a bad bunt and an out at third base and a double play. Farley turned out to have nothing at all and managed to get to two full winless months with ease, being laden with five runs over 5.1 innings. It wasn’t all his fault. Part of the issue was the Raccoons not scoring anything anyway. If your team nets you zero runs, it’s hard to win, logically. They had the bases loaded with one out in the third, didn’t score, and then didn’t even come close against Yates. In the eighth, the Condors doubled their output against Corkum, who did not get a strike past any of the four batters he faced, and Nordahl. The Raccoons managed two hits (none by Sharp) in a fantastic smothering. 10-0 Condors.

For additional delight, Edgar Amador has a ruptured tendon in his right index finger, and will not come back this season. Oh, the most terrible joy!

Luckily, we still had Felipe Garcia stowed away and sucking to a 3-2, 3.71 ERA tune in St. Pete, and he was recalled. That also earns Carlos Sackett a more permanent role in the rotation completely without his own merit, since who else should start games for us?

Raccoons (56-52) vs. Titans (77-31) – August 5-8, 2004

… and thus the Raccoons found themselves back at .500, we will be able to say on Monday. The Titans rank first in so many categories, it would be tedious to list them all. When they don’t rank first somewhere, they are sure as hell in the top 3. The only exception are home runs, of which they hit the fifth-least, but to be honest, if you are first in all conceivable offensive categories without the benefit of home runs, you don’t quite need home runs. The Raccoons have maintained a 3-4 illusion of being .429 as good as the Titans so far, but I don’t quite know how to cover the next four games with the available pitchers just yet.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (6-11, 4.36 ERA) vs. Bryce Hildred (12-6, 3.54 ERA)
Carlos Sackett (2-1, 4.88 ERA) vs. Jorge Chapa (14-5, 1.95 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (5-8, 5.36 ERA) vs. Joe Mann (10-3, 3.18 ERA)
Nick Brown (15-4, 3.16 ERA) vs. Francisco Garza (14-3, 4.11 ERA)

Ha-hah. Funny.

Even funnier was Thursday’s series opener getting rained out and pushed to Friday. This necessitated a roster move, since we need arms. Matt Love was demoted and Angel Casas joined us.

Game 1
BOS: SS D. Silva – 1B Matsumoto – LF G. Munoz – RF Greenman – 2B M. Austin – CF Garrison – 3B V. Flores – C Bader – P Chapa
POR: SS Guerin – 1B Sharp – 3B Ingall – RF M. Ramirez – LF Reece – CF King – 2B Sheehan – C Thomas – P Ford

Whenever the Titans needed a run in the first part of Friday’s double header, they got one, but they were all singles and Ford starved a few men on while they took a 2-0 lead in the first three innings. That 2-0 gap still looked tall as a mountain with Chapa dealing and allowing only three singles through five innings, before he ever so slightly brushed Ralph Ford’s uniform to start the bottom of the sixth. That was still a free first base, no matter how gentle a hit batsman it was, and Guerin followed it up with a single. A wild pitch put the runners in scoring position with no outs, and those were the tying runs after all. Sharp struck out, Ingall popped out, Ramirez grounded out, and nobody scored. Bottom 7th, King hit a single, Sheehan hit an infield single, and Thomas hit into a double play. Austin and Garrison hit singles off Ford with one out in the eighth, but with Martinez replacing Ford didn’t get another hit – but they didn’t need one right now. Bottom 9th, Ramiro Román replaced an about spotless Chapa, and Ingall singled. Martin hit for Ramirez, right into a double play, before Román walked Reece, and then also walked Tyler hitting for King. The tying runs were on once more for Brad Sheehan, and he grounded out to Austin. 2-0 Titans. Guerin 2-4; Ingall 2-4; Sheehan 2-4;

We have TWO extra-base hits in the last three games. That is two extra-base hits TOTAL in three games.

Game 2
BOS: SS D. Silva – 2B V. Flores – LF G. Munoz – 3B M. Austin – CF Garrison – 1B Brewer – RF Bryant – C Baggett – P Hildred
POR: SS Guerin – 3B Sharp – RF Brady – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – C Rosa – CF King – P Sackett

For the fourth consecutive game, the Raccoons allowed a run in the first, and in Sackett’s case it was being glad it was only one, for the Titans got their first four men on base and it was Rosa throwing out Silva trying to steal third base that was a big relief here. David Brewer struck out to leave a pair stranded. Cucumberhead Silva’s revenge was a 2-run homer off Sackett with two out in the top 2nd, 3-0, but the Raccoons had a nasty surprise in store for Hildred in the next inning following a 25-minute intermission due to the Portland weather rearing two or more of its more ugly heads. More 2-out terror was going to come. Sackett led off with an out, but Concie and Sharpie singled, and Brady walked to load them up for Martin with one out. Martin struck out, however, bringing up Ingall. Begging for a single, Ingall doubled up on that, hit one into the deep, dark corner in leftfield and plated all three runners to tie the game. Reece singled then, and that brought up new acquisition Freddy Rosa, who was a player cast in the same mold as Gary Fifield – and took Hildred deep for a crushing 3-run homer that put the Raccoons up 6-3. In a perfect world, Sackett would have gotten at least through five, but didn’t. Rudy Garrison’s 2-run homer in the fifth cut the lead to a minimum, and then Sackett walked Brewer and was run from the game. Angel Casas entered, struck out Bryant and Baggett, and also took care of the sixth inning despite issuing a leadoff walk to reliever Nick Lee. We got a clean seventh from Dave Williams before Nordahl came in for the eighth, still up by a run. Howard Bryant sent a hard fly to deep left that at first looked like it would leave the park, but didn’t, and then it looked like Neil Reece would catch it, which he did, before he banged into the wall, and while it looked like he would hold onto it, he didn’t, and Bryant had a double. A pinch-hit double by Hector Ramirez smashed the Coons’ lead to dust. The go-ahead run would score on a wild pitch, which got Ramiro Román out for the second time on the day in the bottom 9th. Neil Reece drew a leadoff walk, was bunted over by Rosa and scored on King’s single to tie the score at seven. King made it to second on an errant and perhaps ill-advised pickoff attempt while Ramirez was at the plate with one out, but the situation resolved in favor of the Titans when Román recovered to strike out both Ramirez and Guerin. Extra innings started with a pinch-hit home run by Christian Greenman against Ricardo Huerta, and that was the game, although it took Román two walks in the bottom 10th and striking out Ingall and Reece to dodge another bullet. 8-7 Titans. Ingall 2-5, 2B, 3 RBI; Rosa 1-2, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Casas 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K;

I would have a thing or two to say about this team right now, but Maud has talked to me about complaints from the neighbors again with all the screams and curses, and gave me one of those little plastic bags filled with sand or grain or children’s souls or whatever and a sorry face painted on it so I could punch it instead.

Punch it in silence, of course.

Game 3
BOS: SS D. Silva – 1B Matsumoto – LF G. Munoz – RF Greenman – 3B M. Austin – CF Garrison – 2B H. Ramirez – C Bader – P Mann
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – CF King – C Rosa – LF Tyler – P F. Garcia

Four hits, two runs for the Titans … in the first inning, as a very nasty streak of early (in addition to middle and late) failing for Coons starters continued. Garcia in general wouldn’t do anything right in this game, and was dug out by strong defense a few times. Offensively, the Raccoons were acting offensively again, and just couldn’t get anything mounted, and so it was 3-0 through the top 7th, which Garcia started but left sitting in a hole that Dave Williams shoveled in again with a strikeout to Hector Ramirez to strand a pair. Bottom 7th, the Titans showed signs of cracking. First, King got on, stole second base, and then scored on two outs. Reece hit for Williams, singled, and then Guerin reached on Silva’s error and Brady walked to load them up for Miguel Ramirez, whom Joe Mann got to pop up and pop out, and three Coons were left stranded. Bottom 9th, still 3-1 Titans, Rosa hit a single off Ramiro Román, who seemed to work in every game, before Guerin singled to left and Brady walked with two out, and again Ramirez was up. We had Sheehan and Thomas left on the bench, and went with the former, hoping for something other than a strikeout that was all too likely with Ramirez. And Sheehan struck out. 3-1 Titans. Brady 2-3, 2 BB; Reece (PH) 1-1;

Game 4
BOS: SS D. Silva – 1B Matsumoto – RF Greenman – 2B M. Austin – CF Garrison – 3B V. Flores – LF Bryant – C Bader – P F. Garza
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B Sharp – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Reece – C Thomas – CF King – P Brown

A bloop by Silva that fell in front of a sliding Reece, a Matsumoto single to right, a groundout by Greenman, and there were two in scoring position for Brown, who nevertheless ended the recent starters’ futility with first-inning tallies, struck out Austin, and Garrison popped out. Joy was ultimately not called for, since Brown issued a leadoff walk to Vic Flores in the second, and Bryant tripled, also scoring in the course of the inning. While Martin would make half the damage with a homer in the fourth, more comeback was thwarted by Guerin failing with a runner(s) in scoring position and two outs – twice. Bryant’s triple was about everything that put Brown on the hook, who was hardly challenged from the fourth through the seventh, but the Raccoons couldn’t get ANYTHING done. An Ingall error and insufficient recovery pitching by Martinez cost a third run in the eighth inning, which was unearned, but damaging nonetheless. The Raccoons went down without much fuss after all. 3-1 Titans. Martin 2-4, HR, RBI; King 2-3;

There IS sand in these bags. How do I know? Well, it’s spilled all over by office. Slappy came by, looked at it, and refused to clean it up.

In other news

August 2 – TOP SP Tony Hamlyn (14-5, 1.52 ERA) spills three hits and whiffs nine in a shutout over the Warriors.
August 2 – SAC CL Jerry “Horseface” Paul (2-6, 3.24 ERA, 24 SV) is out for the season after being diagnosed with shoulder inflammation.

Complaints and stuff

After April and May, the Raccoons were 34-18. On June 1, they got buried in a mudslide and since then have gone 22-38. And here we are, at .500, and entirely unhappy.

Good thing about The Fat Cat’s injury is that the incessant eating will stop now because he only can use one hand to stuff his jaws full. Might lose a few pounds until next season.

Chris Roberson had a 5-hit day on Sunday for the Buffaloes, including a grand slam and six runs driven in overall in Topeka’s 10-6 win over Cincy.

And hey, if the hairy suckers go 16-34 from here (which is not that far away from 22-38), I will at least win the preseason projection lottery.

YAY. LUCKY ME.

[Questdog]

Crapola....I thought we are off to something good this year. Amador had quickly become one of my favorites.

But who knows? Maybe .500 is still in the cards.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (56-56) vs. Loggers (53-59) – August 9-11, 2004

The Loggers were as average as you could be in scoring and allowing runs, with a rotation that clearly didn’t hold up as well as it had done a few years ago. The bullpen was basically spotless however, so you had to get them early.

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (5-11, 4.86 ERA) vs. Ramiro Gonzalez (11-9, 3.42 ERA)
Ralph Ford (6-12, 4.26 ERA) vs. Martin Garcia (5-2, 2.67 ERA)
Carlos Sackett (3-2, 5.27 ERA) vs. William Lloyd (4-3, 4.91 ERA)

An oddity, we will face three left-handed pitchers in the same series, which is an issue since Chris Beairsto has heated up in AAA and I am looking for an opening to bring him back, but not when Neil Reece would probably start anyway.

Game 1
MIL: 3B M. Brown – 2B Tolwith – RF Hiwalani – SS T. Johnson – 1B A. Aguilar – CF J.J. Villa – LF C. Ramirez – C Benitez – P R. Gonzalez
POR: 1B Sharp – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – RF M. Ramirez – LF Reece – CF King – 3B Sheehan – C Thomas – P Farley

Danny Sharp’s leadoff jack in the bottom 1st gave Farley a lead, which he went about with rather irresponsibly. After Tom Johnson drew a leadoff walk, the Loggers would score three runs on consecutive 2-out extra-base hits by Cristo Ramirez, Pedro Benitez, and, yes, of course, Ramiro Gonzalez. Farley’s value crashing, his case for a win was still not dead yet, for the Raccoons mounted a rally in the third, with Miguel Ramirez hitting a 3-run homer to flip the score back in the Coons’ favor. Ramirez also had a hand in a tally in the fifth, hitting a 2-out single, advancing on a wild pitch, and scoring on Neil Reece’s single to make it 5-3. Farley found something in the middle innings, racking up a few strikeouts, but the soon as we thought, he might go seven or even eight, he loaded the bases with a single and two 2-out walks in the top 7th. Manuel Martinez faced Bakile Hiwalani with the bases loaded and got a fly pop to Ramirez in right to end the inning. From there, Nordahl got two outs, Moreno got two outs, and that already put us into the ninth, with only two outs left to grab for Marcos Bruno, who got a soft liner from Benitez to Ingall, and Dave Graham rolled out to third. 5-3 Coons. Ramirez 3-4, HR, 3 RBI; Reece 2-4, RBI;

Farley ends his winless streak after merely two months and a few days. And we already thought it might last forever!

Ramirez has to play more often. LUCKILY, we face two more lefties. Clyde Brady should not go unemployed, though. Hummm…

Game 2
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – CF Fletcher – LF Hiwalani – SS T. Johnson – 1B A. Aguilar – 3B Tolwith – RF Graham – C Melendez – P M. Garcia
POR: 3B Sharp – 2B Ingall – RF M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – LF Reece – SS Guerin – CF King – C Rosa – P Ford

Again a #1 hitter drove in the first run with a homer, but this time it was Bartolo Hernandez with a 1-out shot in the third inning. There would be another home run against Ford, by Ruben Melendez, 20th in homers all time in the ABL, in the fifth inning, and the Loggers added sac flies in that inning and the next as Ford lacked about everything a good pitcher needed and did not get past the sixth, which he ended with a strikeout to Garcia with two men on base. The Raccoons barely managed to encroach second base, but not third, in this game against him. The Loggers set fire to Bill Corkum in the seventh inning, adding three runs there, before they were mowed down by Dan Nordahl over two innings. And Garcia? He was awesome. The only reason he didn’t pitch a shutout was Tom Johnson throwing away the perfect double play grounder from Sheehan that would have ended the game. Instead, Freddy Rosa got an at-bat with two on and two out and singled through the old hero “Sheriff” Aguilar to break up the shutout bid. 7-2 Loggers. Sharp 4-4, 2B; Martin 2-4; King 2-3; Nordahl 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

I don’t know what is wrong with Corkum. He doesn’t get anybody out anymore. I’ll tell you something, with so many quality relief arms pushing up, we have no room for slackers.

Next bid for a losing record coming in the Wednesday game, which will be started by Carlos Sackett, which makes betting on the Loggers a pretty good financial investment.

Unless you have a duty to perform, of course.

Game 3
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 3B M. Brown – RF Hiwalani – LF Graham – SS T. Johnson – 1B A. Aguilar – CF C. Ramirez – C Benitez – P Lloyd
POR: SS Guerin – RF Brady – 3B M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – LF Reece – 2B Sheehan – CF King – C Rosa – P Sackett

The Coons stripped Billyboy Lloyd naked in due time, plating four runs in the first inning on lots of singles and a few walks, then added one with a Sheehan single in the second. With Sackett now having gotten five early the question was how long he would be able to hang on. We did not get a definite answer since he was pulled while still in the lead, but by then the Loggers, on a 2-run homer by Hiwalani and some other hard contact, had made up four runs and were trailing by only one, since the Raccoons had run into that fabled bullpen and didn’t see the light of day. Dave Williams started the seventh with a walk to Cristo Ramirez and was immediately removed for Angel Casas. Ramirez was thrown out stealing third base right before pinch-hitter Clint Phillip hit a triple off Casas, but Phillip ended up stranded and the Loggers kept trailing. And then a crimp did get put into that bullpen after all. Reece led off the seventh with a single, then stole second successfully, and an RBI triple by Matt King opened the score a bit. King scored driven in by Rosa, and the Coons ended up 8-4 ahead before long. Casas pitched into the ninth and looked like a sure bet to finish the game for his first save, until Martin made a critical error on Aguilar’s grounder. Ramirez singled, and Bruno was called up to collect two outs again. Pedro Benitez singled, 8-5. Jerry Fletcher singled, 8-6, and Reece completely lost that ball, 8-7. Bruno walked Hernandez, then ran a full count against Matt Brown before striking him out, which brought up Hiwalani, and Hiwalani KNEW he had a game-winner coming for him, since Bruno was all over the place. And exactly that saved the Coons, because Hiwalani hacked himself out. 8-7 Critters. Guerin 2-5; Brady 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Ramirez 2-4, RBI; Reece 2-4, RBI; Sheehan 2-5, 3 RBI; King 3-4, 3B, 2B, 2 RBI; Rosa 1-2, 2 BB, RBI;

Well, I sure hope you didn’t put your house on Sackett losing this one. Or had a duty to perform in it.

I tried to get rid of Bill Corkum to keep Angel Casas on the roster, but it just would not work. No team wants any piece of Corkum, under no circumstances. So either we release him and eat the salary, or we cry ourselves to sleep while dumping Casas to AAA for another three weeks. Or both.

Beairsto was called up. Not that he will do anything productive.

Raccoons (58-57) @ Wolves (62-52) – August 13-15, 2004

The Wolves were playing a bit above their talent level, with a just-above-average rotation dragging a just-below-average offense with them. They were 7th in runs scored, and 5th in runs allowed in the Federal League. The Raccoons have won the last two Oregon Brawls, and five of the last six going back to 1995.

Projected matchups:
Felipe Garcia (5-9, 5.28 ERA) vs. Brad Osborne (7-9, 3.93 ERA)
Nick Brown (15-5, 3.14 ERA) vs. Alfredo Rios (8-9, 4.57 ERA)
Randy Farley (6-11, 4.82 ERA) vs. Dan Moriarty (13-9, 3.87 ERA)

Two righties followed by the left-hander Moriarty, which will get Neil Reece, who is chopping singles on a good day, onto the bench for Chris Beairsto, who on a good day strikes out only three times and hits a 3-run homer.

Game 1
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF Brady – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Beairsto – C Rosa – CF Tyler – P F. Garcia
SAL: LF Guerra – 1B Catalo – SS Hutchinson – RF J. Flores – 2B Metting – CF Gentil – C Ledesma – 3B O. Rios – P Osborne

Raccoons players had a total of 8 AB against Osborne, and no Wolf had ever faced Garcia. While Osborne used the fog of war to his advantage and held the Raccoons completely off third base through seven innings of 3-hit ball, Garcia was stuffed with three markers incredibly quickly, two in first with a Jesus Flores single, and another one in the third by German wunderkind Kurt Metting, another single. The three hits that the Raccoons got off Osborne they threw away with double plays, and they didn’t fare any better against the bullpen. While Sharp singled to start the top 9th, Guerin hit into the team’s fourth double play of the night, and after merely two hours and ten minutes, this particular depressing loss was in the books. 3-0 Wolves. Sharp 2-4;

Yeah, that was swift. You know what’s worse than “just” losing this game? We made ONE out to an outfielder. Infield ground balls galore!

Game 2
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF Brady – 1B Martin – 2B M. Ramirez – LF Beairsto – CF King – C Rosa – P Brown
SAL: C McClendon – 1B Catalo – SS Hutchinson – RF J. Flores – 2B Metting – CF Gentil – LF E. Fernandez – 3B M. Hall – P A. Rios

Sharp singled, Guerin singled, Brady grounded to second base and Metting nipped two. What a way to start a game! Martin singled in Sharp then, still, but after Ramirez singled, Beairsto made a poor out. Then came Brown and threw balls, and lots of them. The Wolves didn’t score the first two innings, but then had singles from their 1-2-3 hitters to start the bottom 3rd, which already tied the game. Brown’s fourth pitch to Jesus Flores was wild, which didn’t matter since he walked him anyway. Bases loaded, no outs, and Brown had absolutely nothing. Kurt Metting – somehow – struck out before the Wolves were robbed on hard hit balls by Bryan Gentil and Edgardo Fernandez, with the former at least managing a sac fly, and Martin making a strong play on the latter’s liner. With Ramirez on first and two down in the top 4th, King grounded out to short on a 3-0 pitch. Yeah, well, that’s gonna help us! In the sixth a leadoff walk by Brady evaporated into nothing when Martin converted a 3-1 pitch into pop fly out to shallow right, and Ramirez hit into ANOTHER DOUBLE PLAY. Six innings was also all for Brown, who sucked balls with seven hits and three walks against three strikeouts, and had the leadoff man reach in five of his six frames. He left trailing 2-1 still. Nordahl put two runners on base in the bottom 7th that Moreno and Martinez had to clean up, before a throwing error by Mitch Hall put Danny Sharp on second base at the start of the top 8th. Prime chance to spare your starter a loss, boys! Guerin, Brady, Martin – all three came up to bat and were sent down by Alfredo Rios and lefty Aurelio Garcia, and none of them advanced Sharp. The Wolves loaded them up in the bottom 8th on a hapless Williams, before King caught Catalo’s vicious drive to deep center to end the inning without a score. Top 9th, Ramirez hit a leadoff single. Beairsto lined out softly to first (and Ramirez just barely didn’t get doubled up). Ingall hit for King and drilled a fly into the left center gap that was nevertheless caught by Fernandez. Darwin Tyler hit for Freddy Rosa, because why not, and closer Javier Navarro was right-handed. Tyler took the 1-1 pitch to right, high, deep, gone!! That got Bruno stirring, but it was not to the team’s best advantage. Bruno hit Flores with one out, Tom Fleming doubled, Flores scored, and the save was blown, his fifth on the year. Then he walked Gentil. Somehow the Wolves didn’t devour him outright, but when Corkum faced Pablo Ledesma in the bottom 10th, the result could ONLY EVER BE a walkoff homer. 4-3 Wolves. Sharp 2-5; Sheehan (PH) 1-1; Ramirez 2-4, BB; Tyler (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI; Thomas (PH) 1-1;

The eighth… don’t they know it is highly impolite to refuse to accept presents??

And the ninth. And the tenth.

**** team.

Game 3
POR: 1B Sharp – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – RF M. Ramirez – LF Reece – CF King – 3B Sheehan – C Rosa – P Farley
SAL: LF Guerra – 1B Catalo – SS Hutchinson – RF J. Flores – 2B Metting – C Ledesma – CF F. Jones – 3B O. Rios – P Moriarty

With a pair in scoring position, but first base open and two outs, the Wolves elected to pitch to Freddy Rosa, who chipped a blooper into shallow right. King scored, Sheehan scored, and the Coons were up 2-0 in the top 2nd. Doubles by Guerra and Catalo and a Metting homer off a hapless Farley who had been lucky for Ingall to make a strong play on Moriarty’s grounder to end the bottom 2nd with three Wolves stranded already, and the Raccoons were right on course for defeat again at 3-2 Wolves. Another run scored against Farley who allowed four total on nine hits in just four innings before being hit for with Beairsto in the fifth. Beairsto singled, which got a chain reaction of the dumbest luck going when both Sharp and Ingall reached on infield singles. Ramirez was up with two out and beat Freddie Jones – or rather Jones and a circuitous approach to Ramirez’ fly defeated himself. Ramirez’ fly fell in, plated all runners and the Coons were on top 5-4. Of course, the Raccoons never win on dumb luck, let alone dumbest. Somebody on the Raccoons was due to do something incredibly dumb soon, and it turned out to be Matt King, who let Freddie Jones’ leadoff single in the bottom 6th bounce through his useless legs for the extra base that blew up the lead in Ricardo Huerta’s face. Martinez with two out in the bottom 8th then inherited a pair of runners from Moreno and faced Leborio Catalo, who knocked his fourth base hit on the day to bring home the go-ahead run. We faced lefty Aurelio Garcia in the ninth, since we had exhausted their closer the last two days. Garcia walked Rosa. Martin hit for Martinez and singled, Rosa to second. Sharp struck out. Guerin hit a grounder sharply to third that Catalo gobbled up and tagged third to force Rosa, but didn’t get anybody else. Ingall struck out. 6-5 Wolves. Sharp 2-5, 2B; King 2-4; Beairsto (PH) 1-1; Martin (PH) 1-1;

In other news

August 9 – BOS CL John Bennett (1-3, 3.54 ERA, 25 SV) is out for up to a year with a partially torn UCL and will require Tommy John surgery.
August 12 – IND LF/RF Ron Alston (.303, 25 HR, 68 RBI) connects for the 20th straight game in an 8-7 Indians win over the Canadiens, missing the cycle by the double, and driving home four.
August 13 – Interleague play and the Gold Sox kill off Ron Alston’s streak at 20 games, as Alston goes 0-4 in a 5-4 Indians loss.
August 14 – A badly fractured ankle requiring plates and screws and lots of being laid up in bed sends ATL OF Stephen Ware (.305, 5 HR, 52 RBI) to the DL for the rest of the season.

Complaints and stuff

We had a waiver trade with the Titans lined up which would have sent Mark Thomas over for Christian Greenman, whom I despise, and who is at best their #4 outfielder, but would be a fantastic option for us, especially since he is under team control for another year. However, somebody (and you have to assume Greenman) was claimed and the deal was cancelled on Thursday.

Wednesday’s just-so win was the 2,222th regular season triumph for the franchise, against then 2,268 losses.

Pablo Ledesma with Raccoons: .249/.350/.353 (201 AB)
Pablo Ledesma with Wolves: .376/.460/.741 (85 AB)

Why not just step in front of a train?

[Westheim]

Raccoons (58-60) vs. Buffaloes (73-45) – August 17-19, 2004

Another clobbering coming? They are third in scoring and second in preventing runs in the Federal League, and well, that might be the reason for their .619 pace. We will not be able to dodge their stud starter Tony Hamlyn either. We played the Buffaloes only twice since taking two of three in 1997, and lost both of those series.

Projected matchups:
Ralph Ford (6-13, 4.33 ERA) vs. Tony Hamlyn (15-5, 1.45 ERA)
Carlos Sackett (3-1, 5.77 ERA) vs. John Miller (13-8, 3.93 ERA)
Felipe Garcia (5-10, 5.19 ERA) vs. Alfonso Velasco (7-11, 4.83 ERA)

That is no typo with Hamlyn. He is that mean.

Game 1
TOP: LF Perri – RF Theobald – 2B Spinu – CF J. Gusmán – 1B Valenzuela – C M. Torres – 3B Merritt – SS Nakayama – P Hamlyn
POR: SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – 3B M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – LF Reece – RF Brady – CF King – C Rosa – P Ford

The Buffaloes got two games’ worth of run support for Hamlyn in the first, which seemed over when with Georg Spinu on first base and Javier Gusmán batting, Ford had Gusmán at 0-2, then plunked him. Jose Valenzuela, the former Elk, homered on a 1-1 pitch in the middle of the highway, and that game was officially penciled into the loss column for the Raccoons. By the time the Raccoons came even close to matching that output, Ford had allowed a run in the fourth, fifth, and sixth each, not surviving the sixth as well, and Huerta and Corkum had unraveled in a 3-run seventh. Hamlyn had conceded a run early when Concie singled, stole a base, and somehow came home, and didn’t allow anything else until Sharp and Reece hit 2-out RBI singles, and both of those incredibly cheap, in the eighth. Hamlyn was only temporarily unfazed, and still pitched a complete game, fanning ten Critters. 9-3 Buffaloes. Sharp (PH) 1-1, RBI; Reece 3-4, RBI; Sheehan (PH) 2-2;

Game 2
TOP: 2B Spinu – C G. Ortíz – RF J. Gusmán – LF Perri – SS Merritt – CF Theobald – 3B Sutton – 1B J. Garcia – P J. Miller
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF Brady – 1B Martin – 2B M. Ramirez – CF Beairsto – LF Tyler – C Thomas – P Sackett

The best of defense couldn’t save Sackett’s sorry butt in the middle game of the series. The Buffaloes put two runs on him with the help of a triple by Julio Garcia in the second inning, and Gusmán homered to make it 3-0 in the third. Guerin made an awesome play to end the third, Sharp started an incredible double play in the fifth, but all of that did help little with Sackett pitching in 3-ball counts virtually all the time. The Buffaloes made poor outs in 3-0 or 3-1 counts three times, too. And yet, they led 3-0 once Sackett was removed after six, with the Raccoons doing nothing against Miller. They had runners on the corners with two out in the bottom 3rd, but Brady made a puny out. Puny outs were the topic of the day for the Coons, who accepted to be pierced 27 tiny little holes by John Miller without offering much opposition. Miller joined Hamlyn in tossing a complete game, but bested him in not allowing three runs, but rather three hits, all weak singles, and twirled a shutout, whiffing four. 3-0 Buffaloes.

John Miller has 39 complete games in his career, and this is his seventh shutout. He is a strange case, getting better with age. He spun his first shutout in 1995 at age 26 for the Capitals, and then didn’t get another one until he was 31 with the 2000 Titans.

And what do the Raccoons have? **** pitching, **** batting, and a 5-game losing streak. (We have actually lost 13 of 15 at this point)

Game 3
TOP: 2B Spinu – C G. Ortíz – RF J. Gusmán – LF Perri – CF Roberson – 3B Ramey – SS Sutton – 1B J. Garcia – P Velasco
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – LF Beairsto – C Rosa – CF Tyler – P F. Garcia

Gusmán went deep for two runs in the top 1st, getting the Raccoons trailing early. The next two batters singled and Chris Ramey brought in a third run with a sac fly to right. 3-0 and we haven’t even batted yet. And batting was nothing the Raccoons were particularly good at, either. Ramirez then singled to lead off the bottom 4th. Martin worked a 3-0 count against Velasco before choosing to ground out pathetically. That was an out we ended up sorely wishing to go off the board. While the Coons plated a run on a Rosa single, the bases ended up being loaded for Garcia with two out, and Velasco managed to whiff him to keep three Critters afloat. For those Critters, things got worse at a rapid pace, with two runs on Garcia in the fifth, one driven in by Ramey, and three more runs on Bill Corkum in the seventh, and two driven in by Ramey. The Coons’ output as a whole was wholly insufficient to beat career quad-A player Chris Ramey and they were soundly swept away for a third time. 9-2 Buffaloes. Sheehan (PH) 1-1; Nordahl 2.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K;

Roster moves

The Raccoons, losers of 14 of their last 16 games, cleaned house that night.

Bill Corkum was waived and designated for assignment after suffering a complete meltdown in the last three weeks. He can’t get anybody out, nobody wants a piece of him (understandably), and I need that roster spot!

Also purged from the pitching staff were Carlos Sackett and Felipe Garcia, who were both demoted to AAA. In the place of these three suckers, we called up Angel Casas, Kenichi Watanabe, and Fernando Piquero. The latter two have ERA’s in the 5’s even in St. Pete, so they will offer NO break over the personnel we just dumped in the bin.

Darwin Tyler and Chris Beairsto, who was only warmed up to AAA levels, were also demoted. Jorge Rodriguez was called up to back up the outfield corners (there is no backup to Matt King in center at all now, except almost-38-years-old Neil Reece), while we also added Lawrence Rockburn as additional bullpen arm to survive the next two weeks until rosters will expand.

Raccoons (58-63) vs. Canadiens (58-62) – August 20-22, 2004

The Canadiens were hot compared to the Raccoons. They had lost their last five games, while we had lost our last six. Something’s gotta give here. They were 10th in runs scored, but second in runs allowed, with a +15 run differential, comparing unfavorably for the Raccoons, who were now tied for last in runs scored, and sixth in runs allowed, with a -50 run differential. We trail 5-6 in the season series.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (15-5, 3.13 ERA) vs. Juichi Fujita (11-10, 3.15 ERA)
Randy Farley (6-11, 4.94 ERA) vs. George Norris (2-7, 5.63 ERA)
Ralph Ford (6-14, 4.54 ERA) vs. Harry Wentz (9-12, 5.71 ERA)

Three right-handers. On paper, all three days’ starters are more or less evenly matched...

Game 1
VAN: SS Phillips – LF Trinidad – 3B Suzuki – 1B A. Munoz – RF R. Green – 2B J. Zamora – CF Wheaton – C F. Diéguez – P Fujita
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – RF Brady – CF King – LF J. Rodriguez – C Thomas – P Brown

Brown was wild to start the series opener, and shoveled his own grave, a shallow one, too, in the second inning by drilling Dave Wheaton to put two runners on base. The Canadiens got their runners into scoring position and Jim Phillips’ 2-out single scored both of them, putting Brown down 2-0. The story of the Raccoons’ offensive offense was quickly told. They had two good chances to score while Brown was in the game, and Jorge Rodriguez, just called up, managed to **** up both of them with double play grounders to Zamora, both ending the inning, once with the bases loaded. Bottom 9th, Ingall led off with a single, and Martin hit into a double play. 2-0 Canadiens. Ingall 2-4; King 1-1, 2 BB; Brown 7.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, L (15-6);

Juichi Fujita became the third pitcher to go the distance against the Raccoons this week, and the second to spin a shutout, in this case a 6-hitter.

The Players Union is up in arms over the Raccoons’ offensive ineptness. It puts relievers out of jobs all over the league.

Game 2
VAN: RF T. Wilson – LF Wheaton – CF E. Garcia – 1B Suzuki – 2B J. Zamora – SS Rodgers – 3B Rivas – C Hurtado – P Norris
POR: 3B Sharp – RF Brady – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – LF Reece – CF King – SS Sheehan – C Rosa – P Farley

Wilson and Wheaton singled and Suzuki walked, but somehow Farley was not sunk outright by the smelling Elks. Rather, George Norris was stuck with three runs in the bottom 1st in a fantastic offensive explosion of a walk and three hits, including a 2-run double by Neil Reece. Top 2nd, Alex Rivas led off with a single, before Farley walked Hurtado. He would go on to balk TWICE in the inning, and surrender two more singles to get the Elks right back to within a run. The Coons got those two runs right back in the bottom 2nd, and then Farley led off the third by drilling Jesus Zamora, which was about the point where the manager walked out to the mound to tell that he could either pitch properly now or be choked to death right there on the mound. It worked for a while, but not forever. Farley sat down the next eight Elks before Zamora singled his next time up. While Farley did get through five, he only got an out from reliever Paco Leoniedas in the sixth before being lifted, being on 113 pitches. Dave Williams plated Zamora with a wild pitch to get the Elks back to 5-3. In turn the Raccoons lost a run in the bottom 6th when Guerin hit for Williams, singled, was thrown out stealing, the Coons loaded them up, and Martin and Reece left three men stranded. Then Huerta entered, allowed a leadoff double in the top 7th, and that runner scored as well, 5-4. Bottom of the inning, bases loaded, two out, Brady up, groundout to second, and nobody scored. Reece hit into a double play in the bottom 8th to get the Raccoons as far removed from an insurance run as possible, before Marcos Bruno gave up high flies to deep center to Suzuki and Zamora in the ninth. Reece managed to catch the first for the second out of the inning, but didn’t get Zamora’s. Diéguez hit for the pitcher in Rodgers’ spot, but grounded out to short, as the Raccoons limped away with their first win in over a week. 5-4 Raccoons. Sharp 2-5, 2B; Brady 3-4, BB, RBI; Ingall 3-4, BB; Martin 2-5, 2B, RBI; Rosa 1-2, 2 BB; Guerin (PH) 1-1; Ramirez (PH) 1-1;

Game 3
VAN: CF T. Wilson – LF Trinidad – 3B Suzuki – 1B A. Munoz – RF R. Green – 2B J. Zamora – SS Phillips – C F. Diéguez – P Wentz
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – RF M. Ramirez – CF Brady – LF J. Rodriguez – C Rosa – P Ford

Ford’s dog had apparently eaten his stuff, for he pitched to contact from the start, and it never got any better with him. The Elks scored a run in the second inning, did not score despite ancient Royce Green tripling in the fourth, but got an unearned run on a Martin error in the fifth. The Raccoons got two wimpy singles off Wentz before he had to leave with an injury in the fifth inning. Sharp walked to put two on with two out, but Guerin grounded out on a 3-1 pitch by Leoniedas. While Ford went seven without further incidents, the Coons were just all-out **** and lingered with three singles through seven innings. Bottom 8th, Peter Sanders issued 2-out walks to Concie and Ingall, bringing up Martin, who actually had the spine to drive in a run with a single. Then Ramirez grounded out, and Nordahl gave the run back in the top 9th. Not that Pedro Alvarado needed any support to close this one… 3-1 Canadiens. Ford 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, L (6-15) and 1-2;

In other news

August 16 – DEN INF Jose Correa (.300, 1 HR, 37 RBI) figures to miss a month with an oblique strain.
August 17 – A gem is pitched in Milwaukee, as MIL SP William Lloyd (5-4, 4.70 ERA) spins a 2-hitter in a 1-0 Loggers win over the Miners.
August 18 – A shoulder injury forces TIJ CF/LF Ramón Perez (.240, 11 HR, 58 RBI) onto the DL, where he might remain for five weeks.

Complaints and stuff

Last in runs scored, finally. Also, lost 14 of 17, and going back to June 1, lost 47 of 72.

Corkum was claimed by about 26 teams after being waived (and the Knights were awarded him on Sunday). But nobody wanted to trade for him.

It’s clear what the other 23 GM’s are up to. They want me to step in front of that train.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (59-65) vs. Indians (57-67) – August 24-26, 2004

With the Raccoons sporting the most anemic offense in the Continental League, the Indians are trying to contain that non-threat despite having the worst pitching staff with the most runs allowed. It probably also won’t help the Coons a lot, since their two fresh faces from AAA will face off against two entirely decent right-handed starters. And we are merely 4-8 on the season against the Indians.

Projected matchups:
Fernando Piquero (0-0) vs. Doug Morrow (12-9, 3.63 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (0-0, 1.59 ERA) vs. Alonso Alonso (8-5, 3.55 ERA)
Nick Brown (15-6, 3.11 ERA) vs. Jack Hamilton (4-12, 6.24 ERA)

Game 1
IND: 2B D. Mendez – SS Kilters – LF Alston – 3B D. Lopez – C Paraz – 1B Abrams – CF Martines – RF C. Rey – P Morrow
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – 1B Martin – RF M. Ramirez – LF Reece – CF Brady – C Thomas – P Piquero

The Indians amounted to precious little with their roster except for the three studs in the middle of that lineup. As soon as one of those turned up to face Piquero, the first ball left the yard. After a very depressing third inning, in which it appeared like the miserable Piquero might not retire anybody anymore, and the Indians scored three runs before Guerin got hold of a ball and turned an inning-ending double play, the score was 4-0 and the non-threat of the Raccoons’ offense had largely turned into a non-issue for the Indians, because Morrow actually did know how to pitch to people. Through six innings, only one ball got away from him, on which Jorge Rodriguez hit a pinch-hit solo home run. Then the defense betrayed him. After Ramirez reached on a leadoff single in the seventh, Reece hit the perfect base-cleaner to Kilters, who was not a natural born shortstop and mailed a throw to centerfield. Slightly unfazed, Morrow walked Thomas before facing Sheehan, hitting for Dave Williams, who doubled to deep left, scoring two runs and bringing the score to 4-3 with two men in scoring position. Sharp and Guerin defeated Morrow with RBI singles, before Tommy Woodbridge cleaned up the bases with Martin popping out and Ramirez grounding out to short. Now we were up 5-4, and led the Indians for like five minutes since Manuel Martinez didn’t retire anybody in the eighth and the game was tied again despite Domingo Moreno’s best attempt to clean up and hold the lead. Angel Casas and Iemitsu Rin both pitched flawlessly in the ninth and tenth innings of yet another extra inning contest, which ended up blowing up in the Coons’ faces for their inability to do anything offensively, and Lawrence Rockburn awarding freebies in the top of the 12th. David Lopez’ 26th homer of the season won the game for the road team. 8-5 Indians. Sharp 2-5, BB, RBI; Guerin 2-6, RBI; Ingall 3-6; Rodriguez (PH) 1-1, HR, RBI; Sheehan (PH) 1-1, 2B, 2 RBI; Casas 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

Our #4 through #8 batters hit 0-for-23 in this game. Three ****ing walks drawn. Shove those ****ing walks up your ****ing ***es.

We will tie for last place if Watanabe proves to be no match to Double-Alonso either.

Game 2
IND: 2B D. Mendez – SS Kilters – LF Alston – 3B D. Lopez – C Paraz – CF MacKey – 1B Cortez – RF C. Rey – P Alonso
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – CF King – 2B Sheehan – LF J. Rodriguez – C Rosa – P Watanabe

After Alston and Lopez in the first game, Jose Paraz was the last of the three sluggers to go deep in this series, waiting all the way to hit a leadoff jack in the top 2nd. The Indians got another run in the inning after Watanabe walked the next two batters, and they went to 3-0 in the fourth on a Matt MacKey home run. The Raccoons had twice had a chance to score, but Rosa left King on third in the bottom 2nd, and Martin bloked with two on in the third. Watanabe’s control and composure got worse and worse, and he was removed in the fifth inning with the bases loaded, one out, and Paraz up to bat. Moreno came in, got a pop out from Paraz, then walked MacKey and surrendered a deep drive to Miguel Cortez that Miguel Ramirez only caught at full speed and headed for the wall in right center. After contact, he looked numb, but stayed in the game, the Indians up by four. While Ramirez even drove in a run in the next inning, the offensive endeavors of the Critters were entirely unpleasant. Top 7th, Ricardo Huerta topped the unpleasant hitting by outright offensive pitching, culminating in a 2-out grand slam by Claudio Rey, with all runs unearned after an error by Huerta, who also drilled a man. Paraz managed to sneak in another homer against Dan Nordahl, as the Raccoons got romped. 9-2 Indians. Guerin 2-5, 2B; Ramirez 2-4, RBI; Martin 2-5, HR, RBI;

Game 3
IND: 2B D. Mendez – CF P. Taylor – LF Alston – 3B D. Lopez – C Paraz – RF MacKey – 1B C. Rey – SS Kilters – P Hamilton
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – 2B Ingall – RF M. Ramirez – LF Reece – 3B Sheehan – CF King – C Rosa – P Brown

A perfect first with a K to Ron Alston from Brownie and Jack Hamilton walking three Coons leading to two choppy runs in the bottom of the inning raised hopes that maybe the Raccoons wouldn’t lose every game from here to eternity. Then came the top 2nd, Brown was wild, and then was beaten by MacKey for an RBI single on a 1-2 pitch, bringing the score to 2-1 Coons. Brown continued to be wild, also hitting a batter, while the Indians had a few teeth knocked out when Alston hurt himself on a defensive play. Brown needed 92 pitches through five innings, but had a good sixth and like any good old warhorse soldiered through seven innings with the 2-1 lead untouched. When he was hit for in the bottom 7th, both teams had two hits apiece. The young pony in the pen, Angel Casas, walked Larry Booker to start the eighth, but then sat down the next three batters. Concie then had a leadoff double for the fifth hit total in the game in the bottom 8th, which was a situation crying out for an insurance run to make Marcos Bruno’s job a bit easier. Al Martin hit for Ingall but was intentionally walked by the righty Iván Lopez. Ramirez and Reece both struck out, but then Matt King came through with a single up the middle to score a flying Guerin. David Lopez hit a drive deep to center in the ninth, but King nipped that and nobody reached base. 3-1 Coons. Reece 1-2, BB, RBI; King 2-4, 2 RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, W (16-5);

It was not a BAD outing from Brown. But all our lives were a lot easier if he could cut down on the hit batsmen and the 3-ball counts. He walked only two men in this game, but he could have gone eight if not for the misrouted pitches he threw early on.

Raccoons (60-67) vs. Aces (54-73) – August 27-29, 2004

Hey, a team with a worse record than the dear Furballs! Ninth in runs scored and tenth in runs conceded, the Aces were also inviting to get drummed, but look at how the Indians looked on their way in, and the Raccoons couldn’t get out of their way and score runs either. They scored ten runs in 30 innings.

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (7-11, 4.94 ERA) vs. Manuel Alba (8-15, 4.06 ERA)
Ralph Ford (6-15, 4.39 ERA) vs. Bob Bowden (3-9, 4.21 ERA)
Fernando Piquero (0-0, 6.00 ERA) vs. Anibal Sandoval (11-12, 3.61 ERA)

Game 1
LVA: RF Covington – 3B Warrain – SS Nichols – LF Messinger – CF Talamante – 2B F. Rivera – 1B J. Vargas – C L. Paredes – P Alba
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – CF Brady – LF J. Rodriguez – C Rosa – P Farley

The game started slowly for the lineups, but by the third inning, both teams left a man on third base with less than two outs. Top 4th, Ramirez cut down Forest Messinger at the plate as he tried to score on a Carlos Talamante single, but Talamante scored on Felipe Rivera’s single then and the Aces took a lead. Farley was up with two out and two on in the bottom 4th but couldn’t get it done, and then it was Brady with two outs and the bases full in the fifth. Alba went to 0-2 on him before Brady singled to right and two runs scored to flip the score in favor of Farley. Immediately another mess happened to the Coons, who were charged with three walks, two bases stolen, and a passed ball in the sixth, and the actual miracle was that the Indians only tied the score and left the bases loaded. Freddy Rosa then singled in the bottom 6th to get going, only for Farley to make himself even more unpopular by bunting into a double play. We had Concie on third again with one out in the seventh, but nobody drove him in, and Rosa and Sharp were stranded in the eighth. With neither team being able to pull a run out of their sorry butts, hairy or not, the game went to extra innings, and we have some experience in those. Bottom 11th, Sheehan hit for Casas to lead off, and singled, then stole second. The Aces walked Sharp intentionally to get to Guerin, who grounded to short, but Felipe Rivera dropped Brian Nichols’ throw at second base and the bases were loaded with no outs. Ian Johnson, who had just loaded them three deep came back and struck out both Ramirez and Martin in full counts, and Ingall at 1-2. While I was a little numb and needed a glass of water really urgently, Rockburn put runners in scoring position with one out in the 12th, but the Aces sucked just as badly. Rockburn loaded them up in the top 13th, but Nordahl struck out Rusty Washington and got Luis Paredes to pop out to end the threat. Nordahl pitched the 14th where Martin Covington reached third base with one out and was left stranded. It was a bit embarrassing for everybody involved. The Aces then scored in the 15th when Bruno walked the first two batters he faced and Rusty Washington hit a sac fly to center. The Raccoons went down without much fuss. 3-2 Aces. Rosa 4-7; Sheehan (PH) 1-2, BB; Casas 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K; Nordahl 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

…

Game 2
LVA: RF P. Flores – 3B Warrain – LF Messinger – CF Talamante – 1B F. Rivera – SS Hitchcock – 2B Pollack – C L. Paredes – P Bowden
POR: 3B Sharp – SS Guerin – RF M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – CF King – 2B Ingall – LF J. Rodriguez – C Rosa – P Ford

The Raccoons pulled all kinds of stupid stunts in the early innings, but the Aces couldn’t score off Ralph Ford, a well-deserved 15-game loser. By contrast, Inaki-Luki Warrain’s grave throwing error that put Ramirez on second base in the bottom 1st led to an Albert Martin RBI double, and the Coons got another run in the bottom 3rd on a 2-out Ingall Single. In the top 5th the Aces had runners on the corners with one out, didn’t score, but the Coons had hits from King and Ingall with two outs in the bottom of the inning. Rodriguez doubled to right, King scored, but Ingall was thrown out, 3-0. But not all was well for the Coons’ offense: Ford drew a 1-out walk from Bowden in the bottom 6th, Sharp popped out, and then Guerin doubled to right, but Ford wasn’t going to score on anything but a home run from first base. Ramirez made a poor out and two men were stranded in scoring position, and in the seventh King got caught stealing in a pitchout. Ford went seven, and Martinez and Huerta, who had been used the lightest in Friday’s soul-killing, 15-inning loss, kept the Aces shut out, although Guerin started a double play in either frame for them. 3-0 Coons. Guerin 2-4, 2B; Martin 2-4, 2B, RBI; King 2-3, BB, 2B; Ford 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 6 K, W (7-15) and 1-2, BB;

Concie has hit in 13 straight games, but he will get a day off on Sunday.

Game 3
LVA: RF Covington – 3B Warrain – SS Nichols – LF Messinger – CF Talamante – 2B F. Rivera – 1B J. Vargas – C L. Paredes – P Sandoval
POR: 3B Sharp – CF King – RF M. Ramirez – 1B Martin – 2B Ingall – SS Sheehan – LF J. Rodriguez – C Thomas – P Piquero

The Critters took a 1-0 lead in the first inning that was double-unearned, with Forest Messinger and Felipe Rivera making errors on Sharp and King, and although Ramirez hit into a double play, Sharp scored from third base. Not that the Aces had to wait long for a counterattack. Messinger drew a leadoff walk in the second and Carlos Talamante homered to make it 2-1 in their favor. We had a chance in the bottom 3rd, with three on base for Martin, and in another place and time he might have gotten through, perhaps, but for now he struck out and left them stranded, but somehow Thomas plated Ingall on a groundout in the fourth as the Coons stumbled back into a tied game. One out in the bottom 5th, King hit a single and got an extra base when Paredes’ pickoff throw went into rightfield. Ramirez singled, putting them on the corners. Martin struck out AGAIN, but an Ingall Single gave the team the lead with two outs, 3-2. Inaki-Luki Warrain’s home run in the sixth made it a rather short-lived lead, though, and when Javier Vargas took deep Rockburn in the seventh, the Coons trailed again. That was a state that remained true through the end of this game. 5-3 Aces. Ramirez 2-5; Thomas 2-4, RBI; Reece (PH) 1-1;

So let’s see. We out-hit them 11-7. They made three dumb errors. And we still lost.

Sounds fair.

In other news

August 23 – With three hits in an 8-3 loss of his Capitals to the Cyclones, WAS LF/CF Victorino Sanchez (.364, 11 HR, 73 RBI) now boasts a 20-game hitting streak.
August 24 – Hot streak over, as Victorino Sanchez goes hitless along with most Capitals in a 10-2 drubbing at the hands of the Cyclones.

Complaints and stuff

The Raccoons were eliminated from playoff contention on Sunday. Not that anybody really noticed.

Hard to say much right now. I am contemplating a complete turnover of the roster. Get all that old junk out of here. There would be a few exceptions, of course. Brownie, f.e., isn’t going anywhere unless somebody shoots me and sets me on fire before feeding me to the dogs. There are – at most – five or six players on the roster that will not go anywhere this winter. At most! This includes players on the DL at this point, so you are invited to make your own estimates as to my list of untouchables.

And boy will they have to pick up speed to even get to 72-90…

Final note: Neil Reece is still 32 hits away from 2,000 which might spare us the countdown with only 32 games left on the schedule.

[xepicx2729]

My boy Daniel Sharp seems to be doing well, though Concie isn't hitting at an amazing clip (even with that streak). Sucks to hear about no playoffs (again) but I have a feeling you'll change that by at least 2010! (i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt with that date, considering this game screws the life outta you.) I do think that Ingall still has a tiny spark in him, but I'm not sure how long it'll last. Alright you can stop reading my rambling, as it's probably all useless (LIKE "ICON" ALLEN WHO WAS A REAL ICON FOR DOING JACK WHEN HE WAS EXPECTED TO!(take it back to the 90s with THAT guy.)) How is Julio Mata doing at this point in time? Man I wanna say more but I just can't or else I'll blow a gasket at the guys who think a 4+ ERA is impressive, or about those backup infielders who bat .212 for a living. Alright, alright, I'll stop now.