[Westheim]

Originally Posted by TheMaus2

I feel like Drake is the best artist to listen to while reading this thread.

I like to come up with a stupid reply, but I have no clue what you could be alluding to.

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Kenichi Watanabe starts a rehab assignment, which will be a short affair, since the minor league season is almost over and he won’t get more than one start.

Raccoons (89-53) @ Loggers (64-79) – September 10-13, 2007

The Loggers had only managed three wins against the Raccoons this year, but the Raccoons were … calling them to be scuffling would put it overly mildly. The Loggers in any case had the least runs scored in the Continental League and had allowed average runs.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (14-8, 2.50 ERA) vs. William Lloyd (11-12, 4.17 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (19-2, 2.23 ERA) vs. Martin Garcia (15-5, 2.83 ERA)
Cássio Boda (6-4, 4.17 ERA) vs. Fernando Cruz (10-6, 4.65 ERA)
Raúl Fuentes (9-11, 4.64 ERA) vs. Roy Thomas (7-13, 5.11 ERA)

Game 1
POR: 3B Flores – CF Castro – 1B Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – LF Crespo – SS R. Miller – 2B J. Gutierrez – P Brown
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – LF C. Parker – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C J. Reyes – 1B T. Powell – SS M. Clark – 3B Wright – P Lloyd

Offense was at an absolute premium despite Brownie being wild and throwing two wild pitches in the first four innings (three walks aside…), until Ken Wright’s 2-run triple got the Loggers 2-0 ahead in the bottom 4th. The Raccoons countered immediately, loaded the bases in the top 5th and had a bloop single by Flores for one run, and a Castro sac fly for the second to tie it. The joy was short-lived: Tim Austin’s 2-out RBI single plated ex-Coon Chris Parker to make it 3-2 Loggers in the bottom of the inning. Brownie struck out eight, but had a wholly unsatisfying outing that ended in the top 7th when he was hit for by Danny Sharp with Gutierrez on second base and one out. Sharp lofted a soft fly to shallow right that dropped right in front of Hiwalani, who misplayed it for an error and the tying run to score. Sharp took second, but was left on base, and Brownie was no-decisioned. Neither team did much against the opposing bullpen into the ninth. Jose Gutierrez was hit by a Gabriel Garcia pitch with one out in the ninth, was run for by Yoshi Yamada, pinch-runner deluxe, who got himself thrown out, and the Raccoons didn’t score. Ed Bryan struck out Francisco Garza and had two foul pops registered for outs to get into extra innings. While the Furballs continued to not get anything done offensively, the Loggers got to third base in the bottom 11th, but Bill Gallagher struck out against Law Rockburn to keep the game going. They had two on against Kaz Kichida in the 12th only for Bakile Hiwalani to hit a skipper right to Ryan Miller for a double play to end the frame. The top 13th saw some faint tail twitching from the Coons, when a Pruitt grounder eluded Gallagher at third for a 1-out single, their first hit since the eighth inning. That brought up Duke Smack nursing an 0-for-5 day against righty Eric Fontenot, run-of-the-mill quality. The Duke was due for on, and got it despite falling 0-2 behind, then fired a laser to left center that was never not going to go out – home run!! Bottom 13th, we had saved Angel – and Angel got rocked with a Jaime Garcia double, and singles by Tyrone Powell and Francisco Garza, then recovered to strike out Gallagher and escape on a pop out by Antonio Clemente. 5-4 Coons…! Pruitt 2-6; Miller 2-5; Gutierrez 2-3; Sharp (PH) 1-1, RBI; Bruno 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K; Rockburn 2.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K;

Kaz picked up the win, and Angel had his 43rd save. By the way, our franchise single season record is 49, held – of course! – by Grant West.

The Crusaders and Canadiens were playing against another. Round 1 went to the Crusaders, 7-5, on the road. Division remains tied.

Next, Kel, who leads the league in wins and ERA, but trails significantly with 19 K to Curtis Tobitt.

Game 2
POR: SS Flores – 1B Quebell – CF Castro – RF Black – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – LF Crespo – 2B J. Gutierrez – P Yates
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – LF C. Parker – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – SS Tolwith – 1B T. Powell – C Baca – 3B Wright – P M. Garcia

The game had the potential to start with a catastrophic first inning, when Bartolo Hernandez reached on Sharp’s kazillionth error, and Parker on an infield single to Gutierrez. Kel mowed down the next three batters to escape the jam. The more depressing was Martin Garcia’s go-ahead, 2-out RBI single in the next inning… Another home run by the Duke would tie the game in the fourth inning, 1-1, but other than that there wasn’t much excitement coming off the bats. The next runner in scoring position would appear there due to a third baseman’s error, but Sharp was the guy actually appearing on base: Tolwith had thrown away his grounder, but Crespo grounded out to Ken Wright. In the top 8th, Gutierrez hit a leadoff single against Martin Garcia before Yates popped up a bunt for a casual out logged by Alonso Baca. Vic Flores came through, however, singling through Powell into right. Gutierrez turned second aggressively, and Hiwalani’s throw was late and both runners appeared in scoring position. Sato hit for an 0-3 Quebell, but both him and Castro depressingly popped out. The Loggers were handed a scoring chance on a Gutierrez error in the bottom of the inning, but Yates remained dominant and held him at second base, ending with a strikeout to Parker. Dominance ended in the bottom 9th, when with one out, Yates drilled Austin and walked Tolwith. Marcos Bruno replaced Kel, but a bloop single by Powell loaded them up for Alonso Baca, who only had to chop a floater to medium-depth center to allow the Loggers to walk off on Castro’s poor arm. 2-1 Loggers. Flores 2-4; Yates 8.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 9 K, L (19-3);

The Crusaders won 3-2 and we dropped to second for good.

Game 3
POR: SS Flores – CF Castro – 1B Pruitt – RF Black – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – LF Crespo – 2B J. Gutierrez – P Boda
MIL: 2B B. Hernandez – 1B T. Powell – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C J. Reyes – SS Tolwith – LF J. Garcia – 3B Wright – P F. Cruz

The third game of the set was entirely about missed chances. The Raccoons would out-hit the Loggers at a 2:1 ratio. Cássio Boda would carry a 2-hit, 1-run game through five, with support from a Gutierrez RBI single and a Black sac fly for a 2-1 lead. Then came the Loggers to bat in the bottom 6th, Tyrone Powell singled, Hiwalani walked, Tim Austin singled, Jesus Reyes singled… the Loggers put up three runs in the inning to take a 4-2 lead and knock out Boda. Bennett got the final out when Bartolo Hernandez lobbed out to Castro in center. The top 7th saw the Raccoons put the tying runs in Flores and Castro into scoring position before the middle of the order failed completely and thoroughly. Pruitt popped out to shallow left. Black popped out to shallow center. Bowen bounced a poor grounder to Ken Wright, who had made two errors earlier in the game, but now came through. Ashamed of themselves, they didn’t even try to get on base and into the spotlight again… 4-2 Loggers. Flores 2-5, 2B; Castro 2-5, 2B; Sharp 2-3, BB, 2B;

The Crusaders bowled over the Canadiens, routing them 13-4, to open a 2-game lead in the division. It’s all over, folks. It’s all over.

Game 4
POR: SS Flores – CF Castro – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 1B Quebell – 2B Nomura – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – P Fuentes
MIL: 1B T. Powell – SS Tolwith – CF T. Austin – C J. Reyes – LF Wheaton – 2B M. Clark – RF C. Parker – 3B Wright – P R. Thomas

The first hit of the game was a Vic Flores grounder in the top 4th that eluded Tyrone Powell for a single. Flores appeared on third base soon after that, stealing second base and advancing another base on Reyes’ errant throw. Tomas Castro scored him with a single, stole second, but was stranded on base. The bottom 4th saw the Loggers put two men in scoring position before a fantastic defensive play by Quebell, who had already dug out two bouncing throws by Sharp and Flores to avoid damage in the early innings, ended the frame with the go-ahead runs stranded. The fifth inning developed the game further into the Raccoons’ favor. With runners on the corners and one out, Fuentes popped out, but then Vic Flores came up with a 3-run homer. A hit batter and a walk gave the Loggers two runners of their own in the bottom of the inning before Ken Wright’s AB ended with a strike-em-out-throw-em-out when Mark Clark tried to snag third base. Fuentes went seven awesomely decent innings, allowing only one run on four hits. Seven innings meant that we handed the game right to the teeth of our bullpen. Bruno and Angel good-nighted the Loggers without allowing a base runner to salvage a split in a series, in which a split just had not been enough. 4-1 Coons. Flores 2-4, HR, 3 RBI; Fuentes 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, W (10-11);

In good news, the Elks shut out the Crusaders in the final game of their 4-set, 2-0, with Juichi Fujita winning his 17th game, bringing the gap back to one game with 16 to play.

Raccoons (91-55) @ Bayhawks (64-82) – September 14-16, 2007

I don’t have to go into this being must-win games, right? With a -93 run differential, egregiously bad starting pitching with an ERA over five, and an offense that just couldn’t cope, the Bayhawks were certainly beatable, but the Coons, who had taken five out of six from them so far this year, were stuck in offensive rut, scoring 3.16 R/G in September.

Projected matchups:
César Lopez (0-1, 9.64 ERA) vs. Iván Cordero (7-13, 5.28 ERA)
Nick Brown (14-8, 2.56 ERA) vs. Tyler Sullivan (10-15, 4.97 ERA)
Kelvin Yates (19-3, 2.23 ERA) vs. Harry Wentz (7-13, 4.76 ERA)

We open this series facing two more southpaws, for five total this week.

Game 1
POR: 2B Flores – 1B Quebell – CF Castro – RF Black – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – LF Crespo – SS R. Miller – P C. Lopez
SFB: CF Hudson – 2B J. Perez – 3B D. Lopez – 1B Batlle – C Cicalina – LF O. Thompson – RF Durán – SS Irvin – P Cordero

Iván Cordero entered the game with 117 walks in 168.1 innings, and promptly walked three in the first inning. The Raccoons scored two runs with the help of a Castro single and a Durán error, but left the bases loaded. Cordero was outright awful. He would walk seven in three-plus innings, with his night ending on a fat pitch that Tomas Castro walloped over the centerfield fence for a 3-run home run, doubling the Coons lead to 6-0. Reliever Shawn White would cough up two more runs in the inning before a so far strong César Lopez crumbled in the bottom of the inning. The Birds put their first two batters on, and Lopez made a throwing error on Omarion Thompson’s grounder to make it all worse. Then Jorge Durán hit an RBI double. Another run scored on Jeremiah Irvin’s grounder. Lopez had entered the inning with an 8-run lead and was whacked from the game without completing it. Once John Hudson’s 3-run home run cut the lead to 8-6, he was all gone. The Birds didn’t stop there. Adam Riddle was completely rolled over in the fifth for three runs, which already added up to a lead. While making only four outs, the Bayhawks scored nine runs on a team of ****bags.

That team of ****bags loaded the bases in the top 7th. Sato and Flores squeezed singles past David Lopez, and another single off Quebell’s bat eluded Paco Batlle. There was one out as Rémy Lucas came in to face Tomas Castro. In a full count, Castro hit the ball hard to the right side, past Perez, and into right for a score-flipping single, it was now 10-9 Raccoons. Lucas remained in the game with the Duke coming up. Black took the rip of the century and hit a ball that easily cleared Mount Hood for a 3-run homer, 13-9!

And here we were, cobbling outs together with the bullpen. Ward Jackson got two, then put a man on. Sergio Vega got two, then it got dicey, and Ed Bryan took over. Bryan put runners in scoring position with one out in the ninth, so we had to bother Angel with a 4-run lead. After he erased Irvin, PH Cristián Gonzales singled home the runners to bring John Hudson up with the tying run, but Hudson grounded out to Sato at short – which was not necessarily the ending I saw coming. 13-11 Raccoons. Flores 2-5, BB; Castro 3-6, HR, 5 RBI; Black 2-5, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Bowen 2-5, BB, 2B, RBI; Sharp 2-3, 2 BB, 2B, RBI; Sato 1-1, BB;

We haven’t had much offense this month, for which this game was a welcome change, but the pitching is no candy either. I think we do not want to see Lopez near another game this year… We can’t go without a fifth starter, however, so maybe creativity is needed. Well, we can always call up Brandon Teasdale.

Oh wait, there’s still Watanabe! He got whacked for five runs in 6 1/3 innings in his rehab start. Might still be better than another out-of-control rookie. In fact, the AAA season ended on this Friday, so there was no use in not bringing him up. We also added Jose Cruz, that outfielder that barely got half a sniff of major league air in late August.

The Crusaders squeezed past the Knights, 3-2, to keep the distance at one game. But to be perfectly honest, a team that blows an 8-run lead in less than two innings deserves no October baseball anyway.

Game 2
POR: 2B Flores – 1B Quebell – CF Castro – RF Black – C Bowen – 3B Sharp – LF Crespo – SS R. Miller – P Brown
SFB: CF Hudson – C P. Fernandez – 3B D. Lopez – RF Keshishian – SS J. Perez – 1B Batlle – LF M. Smith – 2B Da Silva – P T. Sullivan

While the Duke was suddenly blazing hot and put the Raccoons 1-0 on top in the second inning with his 30th home run of the season, Nick Brown had lost control completely here in September. He had a walk in the first to John Hudson, got out on a double play, but started the bottom 3rd with another walk to Mark Smith. Hudson was nicked with two outs and then he walked even the lowly Pablo Fernandez before the Bayhawks’ first hit of the night counted for three, a bases-clearing double by David Lopez that defeated Black in right center. A Flores error would cost another run in the fourth inning as the Raccoons fell behind 4-1. The offense, so lively in Friday’s game, was nowhere to be seen. Tyler Sullivan 2-hit them through five, and while the same was true for Brown, he had given out enough freebies to be soundly defeated in this one. The Bayhawks would only get two more hits, the latter of those a booming homer by Paco Batlle to run the score to 6-1 in the eighth, and surrendered by Matt Cash. The Raccoons had a few hits in the top 9th off a tiring Sullivan, but once Salvadaro Soure entered the game, he slammed the door shut on the Coons. 6-3 Bayhawks. Black 3-4, HR, 2B, RBI; Bowen 2-4; Miller 1-2, BB; Nomura (PH) 1-1, 2B, RBI;

The Crusaders were rained out, but we fell behind anyway.

Game 3
POR: SS Flores – CF Castro – LF Pruitt – RF Black – 1B Quebell – 2B Nomura – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – P Yates
SFB: LF G. Morán – 2B J. Perez – 3B D. Lopez – 1B Batlle – C Cicalina – CF Hudson – RF O. Thompson – SS Guerin – P Wentz

Nick Brown had won 20 games in 2004, the last Raccoon to do that, and here Kel had another chance. The offense had to chuck some to get him there, however, and a big spot came up early in the second inning, when Quebell walked, Nomura singled, and Sharp reached on Jose Perez’ error, bringing up Esquivel with one out. He flew out to John Hudson in shallow center, and with the pitcher up next, Quebell was sent. Hudson’s throw easily beat him, but Urbano Cicalina bit the dust when Quebell romped over him and lost the ball, which led to the run scoring. Yates made the final out. Quebell was on the other end of the production chain in the next inning when he singled home Flores and Pruitt with two outs to give Kel a 3-0 lead. No Bird reached base the first time through the order, but David Lopez dumped a ball into shallow right well short of the Duke’s range to end that in the bottom 4th. The Coons added on to their lead, Flores tripling in a pair in the sixth, and before that Yates had already brought in a run with a productive groundout. That was a 6-0 lead, while he was 2-hitting the Bayhawks through six. Of course, there were no such things as easy wins for the Raccoons. In the bottom 7th the Bayhawks hit three doubles, two to left and one to right, to break him up and score three runs. Omarion Thompson was left on third when Ed Bryan struck out the pinch-hitter Durán to FINALLY end the inning at 6-3. Completing seven with a lead, however, was exactly what the Raccoons were looking for, no matter how big the lead. Bruno had a perfect eighth, while Angel allowed a soft 2-out single to Hudson before getting Thompson to ground out to first. 6-3 Raccoons. Flores 3-5, 3B, 2 RBI; Nomura 2-3; Cruz (PH) 1-1; Yates 6.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, W (20-3);

Scott Wade, 1989 – Jason Turner, 1995 – Nick Brown, 2004 – Kelvin Yates, 2007

The Crusaders had quick leads in both of their games in the makeup doubleheader, but blew the first game with a 5-run eighth by the Knights, losing 5-4. They took the latter game, though, 7-1, and as thus remain one game ahead of the Raccoons.

In other news

September 13 – VAN SP Simon Pegler (8-4, 4.11 ERA) is out for the next eight months after being diagnosed with shoulder inflammation.

Complaints and stuff

Duke Smack is the first Raccoon to hit 30 home runs and driven in 100 runs (or either one of those) since Al Martin hit 30 bombs and plated 117 in 2003.

Also, Kel will have two more starts. One more win will tie Scott Wade’s franchise record for wins, and two will set a new one with 22 wins. There will be no Triple Crown, however. While he has wins and ERA (most likely) locked up, he won’t catch Curtis Tobitt, who is 11 K ahead of him.

Remaining games (strength of schedule):
NYC: IND 3, MIL 3, POR 4, OCT 3 (.537)
POR: BOS 3, CHA 3, IND 3, NYC 4 (.560)

I don’t know how we’re supposed to win this. BNN gives the Raccoons 23% for the playoffs. That’s not a whole lot. And that IS a beef schedule. The most important games of course come in the final week, that 4-game set with the Crusaders themselves. Winning that series would do A LOT for our playoff cause, and we’re 9-5 against them this year. But by then, they will have Stanton Martin back. Cássio Boda didn’t break his wrist well enough.