[Westheim]

Raccoons (30-24) @ Indians (24-33)

What had happened to the World Series champions? That was anybody’s guess. The Indians had numbers in runs scored, runs against, and ERA’s very similar to the Raccoons, but ranked 7.5 games lower. Their ace, Miguel Sanchez, had a losing record despite a 2.99 ERA. A lot of mystery surrounded this team, but everybody was waiting for them to break out of their slump and storm to the top of the CL North. Please not this week, please not this week!

Powell got his win #8 with a solid 7-inning, 1-run performance with a tight 3-1 lead behind him. The Indians occasionally threatened against him, but the pen had much more problems in the last two innings. Cunningham stalled and was bailed out by Gaston in the eighth, and after the Raccoons rapped up a 5-spot themselves in the top 9th, Tony Lopez again showed his incompetence with a 3-walk, 2-run bottom 9th. Cooper got the final out in the 8-3 win.

Game 2 was one of those games. Logan Evans was the first Raccoon to land a hit and score a run, and his pitching was marginal, 6.0 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 3 K. The Raccoons did not come back this time, despite some chances to score bigger. Hall batted in both runs in the 3-2 loss.

The rubber game saw Carlos Moran against Miguel Sanchez, who did everything to tie up his record, and succeeded, shutting the Raccoons down hard. Moran was less brilliant and surrendered all the runs in the 3-1 loss.

Raccoons (31-26) vs. Blue Sox (28-31)

The Raccoons were shut out into the ninth and lost 6-1. They landed just three hits, while Jerry Ackerman was yanked in the fifth and charged with all the runs.

The team then scored a pair to start game 2 and then blasted Blue Sox starter Augusto Rodriguez for six more in the second inning, removing him from the game. A Cameron Green homer in the third made it 10-0 Raccoons. The pitcher receiving all the support was again Jorge Romero, who surrendered one run in 6.2 innings. The Blue Sox only rallied against Jason White (and those runs were unearned), but the Raccoons dumped them 14-3. Gonzalez 2-3, 2 BB; Green 2-5, HR, 4 RBI; Borjón 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Dawson 3-4, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Workman 3-5, HR, 2 RBI; Romero 1-3, RBI and 6.2 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K;

This sent Chris Powell back out. He had a few problems in the first innings with the speedy Blue Sox runners, but quickly gained control of the game. The game was scoreless through three, but the Raccoons scored six runs through the seventh, while Powell was in the driver’s seat. His pitch count was rather high early on, but he became automatic in the middle innings. No blue sock reached base after the fourth, and Powell mowed through them on his way to a 108-pitch 2-hit shutout, his second shutout of the season, and his ninth win. He fanned four and walked nobody. Green and Workman were 3-4 each, with 2 and 1 RBI, respectively.

Raccoons (33-27) @ Stars (31-31)

The Stars had finished bottom of the FL West last season, but were the offensive powerhouse of the league this year. Too bad for them their pitching didn’t keep up and they were 9th in runs against. They also led the league in home runs (38; yet the Raccoons led the CL with 45) and they also walked a lot and held the K’s down, so this could become nasty, especially with Evans and Moran, who were out of control at this point.

Evans was sent out first and before he blinked twice he was already charged with four runs. Evans covered six, but the Raccoons never found back into the game. Fletcher Kelley was shelled for four runs in the seventh, and only after that, with the game far removed, the Raccoons scored some against the back end of the Stars pen. 8-5 Stars. Borjón got his 40th RBI in the ninth. Hall and Workman were both 3-5, the latter with a pair of RBI’s.

Two home runs, six runs, two errors, all in four innings – Carlos Moran gave his worst in game 2, quickly letting that one get out of hand, too. The Raccoons were in no way up to this challenge. They scored three in the seventh against a tiring starter Jake Wallace, but overall were at least one league below the Stars. Lopez was bashed for three in the bottom 7th, and the Raccoons cranked it up again with the game far away. Nixon hit a grand slam to make it 10-8 Stars in the top 8th. But it ended there, closer Hidekazu Oyama killed the fur balls quickly in the ninth. Nixon had six RBI’s.

The Raccoons were embarrassingly harmless in the 6-1 loss that completed the sweep in game 3. Ackerman never K’ed anybody, and the pen was not any better. At the plate, the Raccoons only had six hits. Harmlessness as in the dictionary.

This was the 8th sweep to the Raccoons in interleague play – they have never swept an interleague series themselves.

Raccoons (33-30) vs. Crusaders (26-39)

Jorge Romero started the 4-game set against the offensively challenged Crusaders (but what does that mean with the all around challenged Raccoons). He shoveled his own grave with five walks and took a 4-2 loss. It was an awful game. Ralph Nixon was hit by a pitch and injured: a bruise on the shin would put him to day-to-day status for about a week. Gonzalez and Walker made up the middle infield now.

Powell was also sub par in game 2 with 8 H, 4 BB against him. He took the 4-1 loss, while the Raccoons were so god damn awful, it was far past funny. They loaded the bags in the bottom 9th with one out, and Sanchez grounded into a double play.

The offense remained badly lacking in game 3, but a solid effort from Logan Evans (7 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K) was enough to stop the Crusaders and a 5-game losing streak right here. Evans even had to bat in the winning run in the bottom 4th in the 3-2 win. With that, Evans had 25% of all Raccoons hits in the game…

Carlos Moran sucked big in game 4 and was yanked in the second inning with 4 H, 5 BB and 6 ER… the game was blown immediately. Another awful performance and a 7-1 loss later, the Raccoons were again decisively beaten by a last place team.

Before long, the Raccoons would make the last place team.

Again.

In other news:
June 8 – A shoulder fracture ends the season of Nashville starter Jeffrey “Wonder Boy” Tolbert (4-1, 3.14 ERA).
June 10 – Big trade: the Condors acquire all-time home run leader Michinaga Yamada, 32, this year at .298 with 11 HR and 44 RBI, and send SP Alex Miranda (6-4, 2.86 ERA) and prospect Francisco Hernandez, an aspiring outfielder, to the Salem Wolves.
June 10 – The Loggers trade C/1B Mike Gamble to the Stars for reliever Luis Carcia and minor league SP Tad Stout. Gamble was a regular with the 1980 champions Sacramento.
June 11 – The Loggers continue wheeling and dealing and send reliever Steven Parkinson to Atlanta in exchange for prospects, including highly touted 2B Germán Roldán, 17.
June 13 – The Indians trade SP Steve Murray (3-9, 4.80 ERA) to the Canadiens for prospect SP Robert Vazquez.
June 15 – Kent Doyle of the Falcons 2-hits the Warriors in a 4-0 win. Doyle is 5-3 with a 2.69 ERA.
June 17 – LAP SP Freddy Perez (3-5, 4.19 ERA) is out until at least September with shoulder inflammation.
June 21 – Outfielder Dan Younger, 31, with his .270 average is returned to New York in trade with the Buffaloes for SP Tom Moulds (5-6, 3.54 ERA). Two minor leaguers were also swapped in the trade.

Ramón Borjón was signed to a new 2-yr, $520k total contract before the Crusaders series. While his average is around .210 and clearly not what I had hoped for, he still brought danger from centerfield, and opponents were readily walking Nixon to get to Borjón, who had a knack to go deep with nine homers at that point. Despits his low AVG he led the team in RBI’s (41 when the contract was signed). Borjón had signed as a free agent for $300k this season, so the Raccoons even made a small bargain.

The starting pitching had been the one point where I had thought I might be safe before the season. Wow, have I been wrong…