[Westheim]

Raccoons (33-29) @ Cyclones (29-31) – June 15-17, 1998

The Cyclones ranked a bit below average in just about every category imaginable, but were really not extraordinarily awful in any one thing. Their batting average ranked 11th, but they made up for that with power. We have swept the Cyclones the last two times we met them.

Projected matchups:
Randy Farley (7-2, 2.85 ERA) vs. Russ Ewing (3-4, 3.86 ERA)
Jose Rivera (4-2, 2.55 ERA) vs. Raúl Chavez (2-4, 6.38 ERA)
Kisho Saito (3-7, 2.57 ERA) vs. Marc Padgett (7-4, 4.52 ERA)

Chavez is the only left-hander we get in this series.

Game 1
POR: SS Guerin – 1B Brady – CF Reece – LF Buell – 3B Crowe – 2B Caddock – RF Villegas – C McDonald – P Farley
CIN: CF Porter – 3B R. Gonzalez – RF D. Morris – LF Harris – 1B Nava – C Cardenas – 2B Durán – SS Duenas – P Ewing

The series opener derailed early, and with force. Farley got whacked in the first with four hard hits for two runs, and a Crowe error along with more bad pitching (and catching) for two unearned runs in the second inning. “Papa” Ewing did not allow a hit until the fourth, when Reece doubled and eventually scored, but the Coons sat in a 4-1 hole, and that was never a desirable situation with this team. To make this worse, they were at best hitting a shy single somewhere, and racked up ten strikeouts in the game. Ewing easily ran away with this one. 4-1 Cyclones. Crowe 2-3, RBI;

Oh dear baseball gods, can we please get some offense at some point!?

Game 2
POR: 3B Crowe – RF Brady – CF Reece – LF Buell – C Turner – 1B Utting – SS Guerin – 2B McLaughlin – P Rivera
CIN: 2B Durán – 3B R. Gonzalez – RF D. Morris – LF Harris – 1B Nava – CF Starr – C H. Wilson – SS Duenas – P Chavez

Another day, another pitcher beaten up early, as Rivera gave up three runs in the first inning, and another day of no offense at all. Not that they didn’t have runners. They left runners on third base in three of the first four innings, and never scored. This included Stephen Buell getting thrown out stealing by weak-armed Herman Wilson before the Raccoons loaded the bags in the same inning. Rivera didn’t surrender any more through his six innings of work, but it was too late. He had already lost the game. Chavez, the alleged pushover, shut out the Raccoons through eight innings, and only left the game due to blowing through 120 pitches in the eighth. Kelly Fairchild was ravaged for three runs and collected no outs in the bottom 8th. Reliever Peter Hughes in the top 9th walked the first three Raccoons that came up. And all the suckers managed was PH Steve Caddock grounding into a force out, scoring a run. 6-1 Cyclones. Buell 2-5; Turner 2-4, 2 2B; McLaughlin 1-2, 2 BB, 2B;

Game 3
POR: 3B Crowe – 2B Caddock – CF Reece – LF Buell – C Turner – SS Guerin – RF Newton – 1B Utting – P Saito
CIN: CF Porter – 3B R. Gonzalez – RF D. Morris – SS Valdes – LF Starr – 1B Maldrum – C Cardenas – 2B Durán – P Padgett

Saito was struggling with control recently, like plunking a trio of batters in one game, and this continued in the last game in Cincy. Saito walked three early on, but the Cyclones couldn’t convert since they also failed to hit him when it counted, and instead whiffed seven times in the first four innings, after which the Coons were up 2-0. The latter run had been driven in by Saito himself with a 2-out RBI single in the top 4th. Then came the bottom 5th, and things went south in a hurry. Padgett led off with a single to left, and then Troy Porter doubled, and Ramiro Gonzalez singled. 2-1, runners on the corners, no outs, Saito struck Morris for the third time in the game, before Manuel Valdes tied the game with a sac fly. Saito went seven, and had to settle for nothing. Since the Raccoons weren’t doing anything anyway, how long the game would go depended entirely on the relievers. Tamburrino and Miller turned in scoreless innings to send the game to overtime. Donis pitched two scoreless, and Fairchild survived the 12th mainly due to Guerin’s Platinum Glove at short, and yes, we were still batting in the top halves of innings, and no, we were not hitting ****. Fairchild pitched a perfect 13th, including handing Dan Morris his 5th K of the day, before Werner Turner led off the 14th with a double. Go get ‘em, boys!! Turner was at third with one out, which prompted Villegas and McLaughlin to strike out. It was too horrible to watch. You wished yourself away. Like, to prison, or to Cambodia, or worse. Prison in Cambodia. In the 18th, Mark Alexander was pitching in his fourth inning for the Cyclones. He came in with a 5.56 ERA. By now he had shed almost a run off that. Caddock livened up an 0-7 day with a 1-out single to left. Reece struck out, but Buell doubled to center. Caddock was waved around third, and Porter threw him out at the plate. Scott Wade pitched FIVE innings in relief, 14th through 18th, and Alexander came back out for the 19th. We still had De La Rosa to go after Wade. De La Rosa allowed a 1-out single to ALEXANDER in the bottom 19th, then walked Cardenas. Durán grounded back to De La Rosa, who ended the game with a throw into the seats. 3-2 Cyclones. Saito 7.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 8 K; Donis 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K; Fairchild 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K; Wade 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K;

I’m gonna ****ing kill them. I’m just gonna ****ing kill them. They are ATROCIOUS, ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS.

AAAAARGH!!!

Maybe things will get better on the weekend, when Liam Wedemeyer will be activated from the DL and will replace Jason Kent on the roster. It can’t possibly get any WORSE. The sucker bunch has scored three runs or less in TEN OF THEIR LAST ELEVEN games! No wonder I’m running out of hair to pull out!!

Raccoons (25-38) @ Canadiens (25-38) – June 18-21, 1998

Since humiliating the Raccoons a few weeks ago, the Canadiens’ pitching had recovered to allow less than six runs per game overall, so now they couldn’t even considered pushovers anymore. And they were outscoring us by some 50 runs, but then, who wasn’t …

Projected matchups:
Manuel Movonda (5-5, 2.43 ERA) vs. Manuel Hernandez (2-5, 6.38 ERA)
Miguel Lopez (5-7, 4.31 ERA) vs. Jose Dominguez (5-5, 4.72 ERA)
Randy Farley (7-3, 2.83 ERA) vs. Jose Marquez (6-6, 4.52 ERA)
Jose Rivera (4-3, 2.71 ERA) vs. John Collins (2-10, 5.57 ERA)

The bullpen situation was difficult, but not hopeless (yet) for Movonda in the opener. Wade had been professionally gassed in the marathon in Cincinnati, and would not be available for a couple of days, and we might also want to leave Fairchild and Donis alone for the first two games. Neither had thrown more than 23 pitches in “game 3”, but they had also both been active in the game before that. Readily available were Tamburrino, De La Rosa (who had ended the misery in style), and Carlton. We would prefer to get seven to eight from Movonda anyway, and please don’t play extra innings again, thanks.

Game 1
POR: 3B Crowe – SS Guerin – CF Reece – LF Buell – C Turner – RF Newton – 1B Utting – 2B McLaughlin – P Movonda
VAN: C J. Lopez – 3B Sutton – 1B Mosley – RF Givens – LF Moore – CF J. Moreno – 2B Corona – SS Duarte – P M. Hernandez

Movonda dazzled the Canadiens – thank god – and got some support early with a go-ahead solo home run from Jai Utting in the second inning, and then two runs in the fourth. With Newton on first, McLaughlin doubled into the gap, and Newton was waved around. The Canadiens tried to make the play at home, didn’t, and McLaughlin moved up to third base, from where Movonda groundballed him home. Hernandez was still pitching in the eighth, but loaded the bags with no outs. Movonda was to bat next, and since he probably had gas for another inning (maybe even two), we let him bat. He lined up the middle and into center field, RBI single. While Hernandez popped up Crowe, he then walked Guerin, 5-0, and was removed. Reliever Claudio Duarte was supposed to pick up the pieces, but the inning collapsed away from the Canadiens and the Coons put on a rout. Reece singled home a run, Buell doubled for two, Turner hit a sac fly, and Utting brought home a run. It actually got worse for the Canadiens in the ninth. Caddock had a PH single, and Guerin and Reece got on, bringing up Stephen Buell, who cranked a Chet Frazier pitch to deep, deeper gone! GRAAAAAAAND SLAAAAAAAMMMM!!! We will cover the mantle of silence over what happened to Fred Carlton in the bottom 9th. 14-5 Raccoons. Caddock (PH) 1-1; Guerin 3-5, BB, RBI; Reece 2-4, 2 BB, RBI; Buell 3-6, HR, 2B, 6 RBI; Newton 2-3, 3 BB, 2B; Utting 2-5, BB, HR, 2 RBI; McLaughlin 2-3, BB, 2B, RBI; Movonda 8.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 7 K, W (6-5) and 1-4, 2 RBI;

Bad news is, we have used up our run allotment for this series. Actually exceeded it already…

Never mind that Liam Wedemeyer was rejoining the roster right now, replacing Kent.

Game 2
POR: 3B Crowe – RF Newton – CF Reece – 1B Wedemeyer – LF Buell – SS Guerin – C Turner – 2B Caddock – P M. Lopez
VAN: 2B B. Butler – SS Shaw – 1B Mosley – CF Hartley – LF Moore – C Guerrero – RF J. Moreno – 3B Sutton – P Dominguez

The Canadiens’ woes continued early. Dominguez loaded the bags in the first inning. While he struck out Buell to get to two outs, his luck ended there and consecutive base hits by Guerin, Turner, and Caddock plated four runs. While Miguel Lopez was retired on a diving catch by Roland Moore, that also retired Moore, who left with an injury. Mario Guerrero, just traded to Vancouver, was the starting catcher in this game, and his leadoff single in the second inning fired his average all the way up to a dizzying .100! While the Raccoons shot to that early lead, they needed it. Lopez was totally not sharp, and would give up 2-run homers to Bill Mosley in the bottom of the third and fifth innings. Thankfully, Werner Turner had come up with RBI hits in the top halves of both frames, and we led 6-4 through five. It was a strange game for Lopez, who struck out seven, but allowed ten hits, the last of which, a 2-out single by reliever(!) Paul Brown, was removed. Now, the pen was thin, but had to collect ten outs. Daniel Miller retired Bob Butler to get the sixth into the books. Miller remained in for the seventh – he had been out frequently the last few days, but in a way he was the most versatile horse in the stables behind the fence, after De La Rosa and Wade, who could both reliably start games – and although the Canadiens put two in scoring position with two outs, I was never worried, for the next batter was Mario Guerrero, and he wasn’t gonna get a hit. And Miller got him to ground out to Caddock. Donis appeared in the eighth, started with an error on Juan Moreno’s grounder, and it escalated. De La Rosa failed to clean up Donis’ steaming pile of ****, and Mosley became easily man of the match with another 2-run base hit, a 2-out double to win the game. 7-6 Canadiens. Newton 2-5; Buell 2-4; Turner 3-4, 2 2B, 3 RBI; Caddock 2-3, BB, RBI; Miller 1.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Honestly, why do I even bother with these left-handed reliever ****tards? Why don’t I shoot ALL left-handed pitchers I have, except for Kisho??

Game 3
POR: 3B Crowe – SS Guerin – CF Reece – LF Buell – 1B Wedemeyer – RF Newton – 2B Utting – C McDonald – P Farley
VAN: C J. Lopez – 3B Sutton – 1B Mosley – RF Givens – CF Hartley – 2B Shaw – LF J. Moreno – SS Duarte – P Marquez

Both teams scored an unearned run in the first inning, with Guerin to blame for the Elks’. Randy Farley had one of those games, where every leadoff man seemed to reach base, and sometimes the two first batters in an inning. Still, the Canadiens had troubles to score them. We took a 2-1 lead on a 2-out RBI single by Wedemeyer in the third, that bounced funnily away from Bill Mosley. The Furballs couldn’t find their way into a big inning, but they added on single runs in the fourth (driven in by Farley himself) and sixth (Crowe with two down). A Raymond Sutton home run brought the Canadiens back within two in the seventh, but by then they had also lost CF Forest Hartley to injury. Jackie Lagarde pitched in the eighth – hi, Jackie – walked Utting and McDonald, and Farley was told to bat with one out. Farley made contact again and singled up the middle, which was enough to score Utting. Lagarde walked the bags full, but struck out Guerin and Reece grounded out to short. Hartley’s replacement Joe Wilson took Farley deep in the bottom 8th, and that got him out of the game. Wade was not available yet, and so we brought De La Rosa to collect four outs for the save. In the ninth, with one out, a Bob Butler single and Jorge Lopez double put the tying runs in scoring position. Sutton dinked a single into shallow right, plating the runs, and it was not going to stop. Mosley singled, and Givens flew to deep right, which Villegas caught, but Sutton tagged from third and scored. 6-5 Canadiens. Utting 2-3, BB, 2B; Farley 7.2 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K and 3-4, 2 RBI;

Fact: one guy can’t win a baseball game.

****ing annoying crap team.

Game 4
POR: 3B Crowe – LF Buell – CF Reece – 1B Wedemeyer – C Turner – RF Brady – SS Guerin – 2B Caddock – P Rivera
VAN: 2B B. Butler – C J. Lopez – 1B Mosley – RF Givens – LF Moore – 3B Corona – CF J. Moreno – SS Duarte – P J. Collins

Roland Moore was playing with tightness in his back, while Hartley was still out for them. Meanwhile Bill Mosley continued to kill Coons pitching, hitting his third homer of the series in the bottom 1st, tying the game back after a Reece sac fly had given Rivera a lead. Little more was going on for a few innings until Neil Reece opened the sixth with a bang, and a leadoff jack made it 2-1 Furballs. John Collins then hit Wedemeyer, who took exception and charged the mound. A mild brawl ensued and Wedemeyer and Collins were tossed. Once order was restored by the umpires, Clyde Brady hit a 2-run homer off Paul Brown. The Raccoons threatened in two of the last three innings, but didn’t score and left five on base. Rivera was still pitching, and entered the ninth with 101 pitches on the odometer, and Mosley leading off. On the other hand, eliminating the bullpen altogether probably was the smartest idea I had all week. Mosley singled, but Givens struck out, however that brought up left-handers. Yet, the quality of our left-handed relief has been beaten to death. Rivera would get at least one mo(o)re, and struck out the ailing outfielder, bringing up Ramon Corona, who was batting a scary .087 (2-23). Corona lined to center, but Reece hardly had to move. 4-1 Raccoons! Reece 1-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Brady 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Rivera 9.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, W (5-3) and 1-4;

In a young career of 53 games (51 starts), Jose Rivera turned in his third complete game, and the first since 1996. Back then he had had two shutouts. He is now 21-13 with a 3.09 ERA for his career. Quite a nice #5, if you ask me.

Wedemeyer was suspended for five games for attacking Collins, so he was hurt for six weeks, then he comes back and makes it two and a half games before getting his furry behinds banned for another week. Great job!

In other news

June 16 – Old age is beginning to show on 37-yr old LVA 2B Pete Connolly (.303, 1 HR, 15 RBI), and while the Aces were stomped by the Warriors, 9-1, Connolly shone bright with two hits in the losing effort. The latter hit, a leadoff double off Pat Cherry, who went the distance in the game, in the ninth inning marks Connolly’s 3,000th career base hit. The sixth overall pick in the 1978 draft by the Gold Sox, who debuted for them in 1979 and since played for the Knights, Indians, Wolves, and Cyclones as well, is the second player after Jeffery Brown to reach the 3,000 mark.
June 17 – The Wolves beat the Thunder, 5-0, behind Alonso Lopez (5-5, 4.28 ERA) tossing a 3-hit shutout.
June 21 – IND INF Jose Martinez (.255, 3 HR, 22 RBI) has suffered a sprained ankle and should be out for three weeks.
June 21 – DEN OF Raúl Castillo (.295, 1 HR, 7 RBI) is out for the year with a broken elbow.

Complaints and stuff

GRAVE NEWS. Really, really GRAVE NEWS. Our blue chip SP prospect, Ralph Ford, is out for the season with rotator cuff inflammation. Well, that will put a dent into your mood … so, that brings his likelihood of being on the opening day roster in 1999 from 2% all the way down to NADA.

Kisho Saito was not as usual in the dugout during the first game in Vancouver. He wasn’t even in Canada. We were talking contract in Portland, since I was still banned from entering Canadian soil due to one or the other incident in recent years in Canadian airports, clubhouses, and public parks. No, the claims that I exposed myself are entirely wrong. The truth is that: while strolling through Deer Lake Park after an especially bitter loss two years ago, I encountered two of those ugly Canadian kids with their ugly Canadiens caps who were laughing at joking about those miserable Raccoons. I raged and ripped off their caps, and threw them to the ground, stomping on them. The caps, not the kids.

Anyway!

Kisho Saito desired to stay here, and as mentioned earlier, I was eager to keep him. Saito showed a bluff by demanding a five year deal during our talks. Well, Kisho. You still want to pitch at age 43? Ah… no. We agreed on an offer for two years, but I couldn’t quite get him to bite for $2M, and had to up my offer to $2.2M in total. If he signs this deal, we will keep him in the brown uniform (the only real uniform! Screw the Canadiens and their pinkish red uniforms!!) through to his age 40 season. It’s a risk, but I am taking it. After that contract is up, Saito will probably retire anyway to play with his kids. His son Hisanobu has quite a strong left arm due, his fastball is amazing. He smacked me in the forehead with a bagel during a team barbecue on an off day last August. Three years old and already hating me, fantastic!

So, Saito, 229-173 for his career at that junction, would have some 80 more starts between now and the end of the 2000 season. With this team, reaching 250 wins should be … a nasty challenge.