[Westheim]

Raccoons (29-19) vs. Aces (17-31) – June 2-4, 2008

So far we had lost two of three to a team that didn’t do anything particularly well. They were second from the bottom in scoring runs, they were allowing the third-most runs. They had the worst bullpen, but their rotation was no apple pie either, but two of the culprits for the 5+ ERA in the rotation, Jim Pennington and Joe Hollow, had recently gone to the DL and who knows what horrible things the replacements would do to our beleaguered lineup.

Projected matchups:
Colin Baldwin (1-3, 5.09 ERA) vs. Donnie Fitzgerald (0-1, 9.00 ERA)
Javier Cruz (2-3, 4.70 ERA) vs. Jack Thomas (0-0, 1.29 ERA)
Nick Brown (5-2, 3.12 ERA) vs. Juan Valdevez (5-3, 3.94 ERA)

All pitching matchups will feature opposite-handed competitors.

Game 1
LVA: 1B McDermott – SS F. Soto – C Durango – RF R. Garcia – LF Cameron – 2B Dahlke – CF Messinger – 3B Pollack – P Fitzgerald
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Baldwin

Donnie Fitzgerald, 33, made his 30th career start, the second of the year, and also the second since 2003. He would go seven innings against the Raccoons, but not because he was stellar, but more because the Aces manager didn’t seem to bother much anymore. Apart from Tomas Castro in the #2 hole being a total blackout, striking out twice against Fitzgerald after grounding into a double play on his ninth pitch of the game the first time up, seven of which had been balls, the Coons lineup saw Fitzgerald pretty well and drove the ball a good distance. They had numerous doubles caught by the Aces outfielders, but Black and Bowen left the yard for solo home runs, and while Black also left the bases loaded once in the game with a pop out, he legged out an infield single in the fifth to load the bases for Pruitt with two outs in a 3-1 game. Pruitt doubled to get to 5-1, which was perhaps the deciding blow. Baldwin, after being taken deep by Eduardo Durango in the first inning, pitched well and went into the eighth inning before the Aces put runners on the corners, a situation that Marcos Bruno mopped up with a key strikeout to Francisco Soto. 5-1 Critters. Quebell 2-3, 2 BB; Martinez 2-4; Black 3-4, HR, RBI; Chavez (PH) 1-1; Baldwin 7.1 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W (2-3) and 1-3;

While Colin Baldwin had his first hit as a Raccoon, Nelson Chavez had his second pinch hit (in 17 attempts).

Game 2
LVA: 1B McDermott – SS F. Soto – RF R. Garcia – CF Cameron – LF L. Taylor – 2B Dahlke – C T. Turner – 3B Pollack – P J. Thomas
POR: 1B Quebell – 2B Barrón – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS R. Miller – CF Crespo – P Cruz

The Duke gave the Coons the lead with an RBI single, scoring Barrón, in the first inning, but it didn’t last. After Cruz sat down the first eight (including striking out the side in the first), Jack Thomas’ 2-out double set up Sean McDermott in the top 3rd, who homered to right center to flip the score in the Aces’ favor, 2-1. In the bottom of the frame, the Raccoons had Quebell and Barrón on the corners with one out, only for Black and Pruitt to both strike out. Nothing worked the Raccoons’ way the entire game. They hit the ball hard, but neither out of the park, nor at least onto the green. The opposing outfield caught simply everything. Meanwhile, Quebell dropped a pop in the top 8th to give the Aces an extra out which they converted into another run on Law Rockburn. It wasn’t until the bottom 8th that a Raccoon had an extra base hit. With Barrón on first, Black doubled past Melvin Pollack into the corner, but Barrón had to hold at third base. Still, the tying runs were in scoring position with one out, with Pruitt coming up. The Aces stuck with their left-hander against Pruitt (and we didn’t have any appealing options on the bench). Thomas got to 2-2 before Pruitt lined to the right side, and OVER Howard Jones for a game-tying 2-run single! He was left on, Sims held the Aces down in the top 9th, but the chances for a walkoff in regulation were slim with Andrew Wills facing Crespo, a pinch-hitter, and Quebell in the ninth. The Raccoons kept getting robbed by everything that didn’t defeat an infielder, with Nomura and Quebell being retired on awesome catches by Logan Taylor.

Kaz Kichida was tasked with extra innings, but in the end we were content with one additional inning, which gave us more than we could stand seeing. After Pollack’s leadoff single, Kichida walked Durango in the #9 hole. McDermott’s grounder was taken by Bowen and thrown to third, except that it was miles away from third base and sailed into the stands. The Aces got their first run, but wouldn’t stop there. After getting two outs, Kichida allowed two runs on a Don Cameron single, then issued another walk and threw a wild pitch, bringing up Tom Dahlke, who crowned the whole affair with a 3-run homer to dead center. 9-3 Aces. Barrón 2-3, 2 BB; Black 3-5, 2B, RBI; Pruitt 2-5, 2 RBI; Cruz 7.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K;

There’s losing, and there’s getting your groin charred with boiling acid. This was the latter. All runs in the 10th were unearned.

Slappy found me the next morning snoozing in the middle of his secret booze stash, but I had been alert long enough to place Kichida on waivers before passing out. Dan Parker joined the club. That gives us three left-handers in the pen, but Ed Bryan might not be here for much longer, either. We acquired Parker from the Pacifics this winter when we traded away Raúl Fuentes. He had cleared waivers at the very beginning of the season and had kept AAA hitters’ success to a minimum.

Game 3
LVA: 1B McDermott – SS H. Jones – RF R. Garcia – LF Cameron – 2B Dahlke – CF Messinger – C T. Turner – 3B Pollack – P Valdevez
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – C Rios – P Brown

In lovely Oregon summer weather (black clouds and driving rain causing a 45-minute delay in the second inning), Quebell tripled in the first, was stranded, then popped out to right to leave the bases stocked in the second inning, after Rios and Brown had kept the line moving. They did the same in the bottom 4th, or rather, they were the line that produced a pair of 2-out singles. This time, Quebell singled, but Castro fouled out. Seven hits, no runs, typical Brown start. Brownie in the meantime massacred the Aces, not allowing a well-hit ball out of the infield until with two outs in the fifth, and Castro took care of that. The bottom 5th had the Coons load the bases for the third time in the game, now with singles by Black and Pruitt, and Barrón drawing a walk. One out, Valdevez finally mended and threw a wild pitch to plate a run before Don Cameron could throw out Pruitt trying to score Nomura’s fly out to left.

Brownie reached double digit strikeouts when he whiffed Howard Jones to start the seventh inning. That was ten more K’s than he had allowed hits, and that gap only grew bigger when Ricardo Garcia flew out to Pruitt and Cameron went down on strikes. Bottom 7th, Castro with a leadoff walk was in motion when Martinez grounded to the mound, but was safe at first anyway. Castro held at second and thus couldn’t score on the following Black 6-4-3 grounder. But – finally someone came through! – Matt Pruitt doubled over Forest Messinger into center to score Castro anyway, 2-0 Raccoons, and it had taken only 11 hits to get there. Barrón walked, and Crespo hit for Nomura, but popped to short, and – oh! – Jones dropped the ball! Bases loaded for the fourth time on the day, this one came with two outs and Juan Rios batting, and he flew out to Messinger on the first pitch.

With Brownie working on his masterpiece, Tom Dahlke’s grounder to third base was not only mishandled, but completely abused by Martinez for a nerve-wrecking error. After Messinger struck out, Tom Turner catapulted a pitch into the gap between batter’s eye and the rightfield bleachers. Raccoons: 11 hits. Aces: 1 hit. And yet it’s a tied game. Now it was all going to ****. With two outs, Min-tae Yu had a pinch-hit single, and Castro couldn’t claim McDermott’s drive to center as the Aces took the lead. Brown left defeated, but that was only the beginning. After Rockburn ended the frame, he put Cameron on base in the ninth. Dan Parker was called on to face Messinger with two outs, but walked him. After Turner singled and drove in a run, Parker’s Raccoons debut was glorified by Melvin Pollack’s 3-run homer. 7-2 Aces. Quebell 2-5, 3B; Black -2,5; Pruitt 2-4, 2B, RBI; Brown 7.2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 12 K, L (5-3) and 2-3;

There are no words.

It- … no. No, no. Slappy. Tell your cousin he has to fire up the still this weekend.

Raccoons (30-21) @ Loggers (21-32) – June 6-8, 2008

The jokes of the league crawled into Milwaukee for a weekend 3-game set with another desperately bad team. The Loggers had lost five in a row, were 11th in runs scored and 9th in runs allowed. They had been beaten four out of five times by the Raccoons this year, but I was having a gut feeling that this was going to be one of those weeks that make you regret you didn’t study harder as a kid and didn’t get a proper job.

Projected matchups:
Kelvin Yates (5-0, 4.18 ERA) vs. Martin Garcia (4-5, 2.63 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (6-2, 2.10 ERA) vs. Fernando Cruz (1-7, 5.53 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (2-3, 4.15 ERA) vs. Roy Thomas (3-5, 5.11 ERA)

That’s two left-handers and then a right-hander. But they had an off day, they could use lefty William Lloyd (3-5, 5.11 ERA) just as well in the last game. The Raccoons suck hard against left-handers over the last month.

Game 1
POR: 1B Quebell – 2B Barrón – LF Castro – RF Black – C Bowen – SS R. Miller – 3B Chavez – CF Trevino – P Yates
MIL: LF J.R. Richardson – SS B. Hernandez – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C Baca – 3B T. Johnson – 2B K. Scott – 1B Lewis – P M. Garcia

Again, the Duke took care of a lead, doubling home Quebell in the first inning, and again the lead didn’t hold up. The Loggers were up by the third with an inside-the-park home run by Tom Johnson and a conventional out-of-the-park home run by Hiwalani the countables on the home team’s side. Garcia was striking out Raccoons in droves, but Tom Johnson’s error in the top 4th allowed the Raccoons to tie it up again when Ryan Miller scored on Yates’ sac fly. When he wasn’t allowing home runs, Kelvin Yates pitched in 3-ball counts, so the misery train was further kicking up speed. Not that the Loggers didn’t find ways to turn those 3-ball counts into full counts and strike out eventually – they were in last place for reasons – but from time to time they lucked into one, and the next one came in the sixth, Tim Austin’s solo home run regaining them the lead.

The Loggers removed Garcia when Tomas Castro reached on a floater that dinked into shallow right before HIwalani could get to it, with two outs in the seventh. Leonard Williamson faced the Duke, and the Duke relished his appearance, powering a score-flipping 2-run homer! And that lead didn’t last, either. Sims put Richardson on base with a leadoff double in the bottom 8th, and Marcos Bruno uncharacteristically gave away two walks, and the lead, too. The Loggers left the bases full, then saw Micah Steele apparently turned into minced meat in the top 9th. Pruitt singled in place of Bruno, and Quebell walked. Barrón singled into left, softly enough for Pruitt to score and generate the third Coons lead on the night. And this one wasn’t held, either.

Once Steele had struck out Castro, Black grounded out, moving the runners into scoring position, but Steele awarded Craig Bowen the golden sombrero for an 0-5, 4 K evening. Angel was left with a 1-run lead, and loaded the bases with singles by Caleb Lewis, Aaron Tolwith, and Chris Delaney. Tolwith’s was especially bitter, as Casas forewent a sure out at first to nab – or rather, not nab – Lewis at second base. With one out, we needed a K facing Bakile Hiwalani, coonskinner deluxe, but the old adversary legged out an infield single to tie the score. Austin popped out before Alonso Baca’s drive to center was intercepted by Trevino to strand six Loggers in two innings, and send the game to extras. Like we needed to see more of this fecesball.

Nomura and Chavez made quick outs before Trevino drew a 2-out walk in the top 10th. Martinez hit for Casas, singled, and when Quebell singled to center, Trevino scored from second base. Oh look, another 1-run lead. What a novel concept. But here, Barrón rammed a double through Lewis at first base to plate another two runs, and we actually went to 8-5 before facing the dilemma of whom to trust with the ball. With right-handers up, Law Rockburn got the call over Ed Bryan and ended the game on three easy grounders to the left side. 8-5 Critters. Barrón 3-6, 2B, 3 RBI; Black 2-4, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Trevino 2-4, BB, 2B; Pruitt (PH) 1-1; Martinez (PH) 1-1;

Kaz Kichida cleared waivers and was assigned to the Alley Cats. Juan Rios also went to St. Pete in exchange for Sergio Esquivel, who had batted over .400 in seven games in his rehab assignment.

Game 2
POR: LF Castro – SS Barrón – 1B Pruitt – RF Black – 3B R. Martinez – 2B Nomura – C Esquivel – CF Crespo – P Umberger
MIL: LF J.R. Richardson – SS B. Hernandez – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C Baca – 3B T. Johnson – 2B K. Scott – 1B S. Johnson – P F. Cruz

Two out, two on in the top 2nd, J.C. Crespo, batting .174, was up in a 3-0 count against Fernando Cruz. While we were really not looking forward to Umberger batting with the sacks full, Crespo’s fly out to right was not any better, in fact it was worse, having Umberger lead off the third with a strikeout. Crespo sucking or not, Tomas Castro gave the Raccoons the lead with his solo shot in the following at-bat. But here was another case of a 5+ ERA pitcher not getting his punishment. Cruz scattered four hits over six innings and got finally a run in his support when Hiwalani singled home Richardson in the bottom 6th, tying the score. Top 7th, Martinez singled to start the inning. The Loggers gave a free pass to Esquivel(!!) to pull up Crespo with one out, but we sent Chavez with a stick, and his fast grounder defeated Spencer Johnson for the go-ahead RBI single. The Coons left two on once Castro struck out, and of course something stupid happened to blow the lead. Keith Scott and Jaime Garcia hit 1-out singles, before Scott scored on Umberger’s wild pitch. Aaron Tolwith hit a pinch-hit single, with Garcia waived around, but was thrown out at home by Castro. Umberger’s final opponent was going to be J.R. Richardson, whom he struck out to end the inning with a 2-2 tie.

While Umberger didn’t get a decision, Rockburn held the Loggers at bay in the eighth. We faced Micah Steele again, as obviously the Loggers weren’t learning lessons unless being indoctrinated repeatedly. Sergio Esquivel reached with a hopper into left for a 1-out single. Chavez grounded out, moving Esquivel to second base, with Quebell now batting for Rockburn. Adrian Quebell was nursing an 11-game hitting streak, but it kinda had to be, the only other batter left on the bench being Ryan Miller. Steele got to two strikes, but didn’t get a third. Instead, the Raccoons claimed two runs on a huge home run to left. Also for once, the Raccoons didn’t allow seventeen runs in the ninth inning, as Angel sat down Baca, Johnson, and Scott in order. 4-2 Raccoons. Castro 2-5, HR, RBI; Esquivel 2-3, BB; Chavez (PH) 1-2, RBI; Quebell (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI; Umberger 7.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K and 1-2, 2B;

Law Rockburn now has as many wins as Brownie and Kel Yates.

Interlude: trade, waiver claim, and roster movements

Sunday was busy day for Portland beat writers. Which means the Agitator had a lot of condemning to do with two moves that were made.

First, the Raccoons claimed 1B/3B Daniel Sharp (.225, 0 HR, 3 RBI) off waivers by the Miners. They had only given him 40 AB in two months. Ryan Miller, batting 1-for-16 since being recalled from the Alley Cats, was sent packing again. That gives us ****ty coverage at shortstop again, but we’ll work something out for that, too.

Then the controversial move: the Raccoons traded for the Canadiens’ 37-year old OF/1B Jerry Fletcher (.277, 1 HR, 18 RBI), who is due another $540k for this year, and hasn’t stayed off the DL since 2003.

The Elks had used him in right, and were looking for an upgrade at that position. So we traded them 24-yr old AAA RF Bob Mays, batting .311 with five homers in St. Pete, and legendarily squid whenever assigned to the parent club. They also get right-hander Tom Watkins (0-0, 2.51 ERA) right off the DL, and 21-yr old borderline prospect SP D.J. Fulgieri, who was going at a 0-5, 5.65 ERA rate in Ham Lake after being signed out of the home for homeless 11th round picks this winter. He had spun back-to-back shutouts in Aumsville in April. The consensus is that Fulgieri will reach the majors at some point, but a) not now, and b) not soon. The Raccoons need help REAL soon.

The Elks had asked for Mays plus either Hector Santos (another AA starting pitcher, but with lots more upside) or Jimmy E (still picking his nose in Aumsville), and I had been close to dealing the latter, but then worked out a package that cost Watkins in combo with a third-rate prospect. Fletcher is a right-handed batter that doesn’t strike out a whole lot, and will greatly help to balance the lineup against left-handed pitching. Despite his advanced age, he can still play all outfield spots, plus first base. He has a vesting option for $810k for next season that we will carefully try not to trigger.

With Fletcher’s arrival, J.C. Crespo got binned, batting .167 after pleasing outputs in 2006 and 2007. He was waived and designated for assignment.

Raccoons (30-21) @ Loggers (21-32) – June 6-8, 2008

Game 3
POR: 1B Quebell – CF Castro – 3B R. Martinez – RF Black – LF Pruitt – C Bowen – SS Barrón – 2B Nomura – P Baldwin
MIL: LF J.R. Richardson – 2B B. Hernandez – RF Hiwalani – CF T. Austin – C J. Reyes – SS T. Johnson – 3B Tolwith – 1B K. Scott – P R. Thomas

Both pitchers came to bat with two on and wo out in the second inning for their teams, and while Baldwin failed, Thomas singled home a run to give the Loggers a 1-0 lead, but the Coons would soon catch major breaks by defensive calamities committed by the Loggers. An errant pickoff throw by Roy Thomas scored the tying run for the visitors in the third inning, and in the fourth we had Bowen on second after a leadoff double when Barrón’s fly to left was dropped by a stumbling J.R. Richardson to get runners onto the corners. But for the second time this week the Raccoons didn’t score a runner on third with no outs, with Nomura lining out to Tolwith, and Baldwin and Quebell going down looking. And against a 5+ ERA pitcher…

Baldwin was yanked in the bottom 6th. Bowen had already thrown out a runner of his, Tim Austin, but Baldwin issued another single and a walk to the next two batters. Tolwith had already doubled off Baldwin, but doubled off Bruno just as well, and also scored on a wide throw by Castro getting him to third and the subsequent groundout. Sitting in a 4-1 hole after six, ineptly failing to hit a pushover pitcher, was not a new situation for the Raccoons, but it remained infuriating. They had the leadoff batters on in the next two innings, but hit into a double play (Quebell) or left the runner (Black) on third. To make an awful game complete, the Raccoons would lose Matt Cash to an injury in the eighth inning. 4-1 Loggers. Castro 2-4, 2B;

Cash left with an oblique tweak. He will be out for one week or longer, which triggers a DL assignment. We have Monday off, we’ll take a close look at remaining options at AAA then.

In other news

June 4 – TOP C Miguel Torres (.249, 2 HR, 22 RBI) has strained an oblique and will be out for six weeks.
June 6 – CIN RF/LF/1B Will Bailey (.219, 2 HR, 10 RBI) goes back to the DL with a torn meniscus that will keep him out until late July. He already missed six weeks with a hamstring strain.

Complaints and stuff

Jerry Fletcher ain’t no Kisho, nor a Tetsu, but maybe it will still work out for us.

What a week. Not exactly how you’d imagine a wannabe-contending team going about things. We aren’t getting out of the rut.