[Westheim]

Raccoons (42-25) vs. Crusaders (43-25) – June 22-24, 2009

Here they come! We are 5-0 against the Crusaders this season (plus a still-suspended scoreless effort), but something tells me that at some point they might win one against us. Or three. The most productive offense in the league, combined with a concept that had them in the top 3 in avoiding opposing runners to score, could not be denied forever…

Projected matchups:
Colin Baldwin (5-4, 2.75 ERA) vs. Elwood Spurrell (8-2, 3.61 ERA)
Greg Grams (6-3, 3.90 ERA) vs. Whit Reeves (7-2, 3.84 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (5-3, 3.36 ERA) vs. Greg Connor (4-7, 4.00 ERA)

I’m having an eye on the Wednesday game, with two guys starting that divided all the Continental League pitching silverware between themselves in 2008 and are pitching rather commonly this year. We flicked Baldwin and Grams in our rotation for reasons relating to the All Star Game in three weeks. The long version reads that right now, Nick Brown would have started the last game before the break, but you can pretty much bet on him getting nominated, so I would want to rather not have him start that last game. Since it’s too hard to reshuffle Brown into the deck at a more convenient position, Baldwin and Grams get flicked, with Baldwin planned to start that last game on short rest.

Game 1
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B J. Hernandez – LF M. Ortíz – 3B Reece – 1B Batlle – SS J. Ortega – RF MacKey – C D. Anderson – P Spurrell
POR: CF Castro – SS Correa – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – 2B Nomura – 3B Sharp – C De La Parra – P Baldwin

Neither pitcher was exactly known for fooling hitters for strikeouts, and both lineups had high batting averages (with the Crusaders having benched a recently struggling Stanton Martin). The Coons climbed all over the amazingly named Elwood Spurrell in the first inning, plating three runs including a 2-piece by Quebell. Baldwin was surrendering some loud contact, too, but it took the Crusaders and their primarily left-handed lineup until the third inning to get a run off him. Daniel Sharp’s solo home run in the bottom 4th restored a 3-run lead, but when the fifth inning started with a Daryl Anderson single past Correa and Baldwin capitally airmailing Spurrell’s bunt, that put two men in scoring position with no outs, which is never a good spot to be in. Two batters later, the game was tied after singles by Roberto Pena and Julio Hernandez, together with some ill-advised throwing by Tomas Castro, and we were back to square one for a second, before Martin Ortíz’ double plated Hernandez and Baldwin’s day was over. As was mine. The Crusaders’ 5-spot gave them a 6-4 lead, and the Raccoons were in no hurry to get back into contention.

In the bottom 7th, still facing Spurrell and down by two, Sharp and De La Puzzle opened the inning with consecutive singles up the middle, but Trevino, Castro, and Correa hurried to make three quick outs on eight total pitches. That was too bad, since that started the bottom 8th with nobody on for Ron Alston’s 18th homer of the year, and left the Coons short at 6-5. With Pruitt on first and one out, Ayers batted for Yoshi against lefty Sammy Davis, who was swiftly removed for righty Lorenzo Flores, who still gave up a single, moving Pruitt to second base. And then, Sharp, and a double play, just before Ted Reese ran out of ability and allowed another run in the top of the ninth. Bottom 9th: Esquivel batted for De La Parliament and got hit by Scott Hood. After two fail at-bats, Correa grounded to short where Jorge Ortega ran out of ability just as well and made an error that brought Ron Alston to the plate as the winning run. Raccoons fans in the park were completely antsy now and were chanting for the slugger that had been imported 11 months earlier. He struck out anyway. 7-5 Crusaders. Castro 2-4; Quebell 2-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Ayers (PH) 1-1; Sharp 2-4, HR, RBI; Bryan 2.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Maybe I want to think about an extra start for Colin Baldwin again…

Game 2
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B J. Hernandez – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Patlle – SS J. Ortega – 3B M. Williams – C D. Anderson – P Reeves
POR: CF Castro – 2B Correa – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – 3B Sharp – SS Howell – C De La Parra – P Grams

Grams loaded the bags in a hurry in the first inning before striking out Stanton Martin (so he WAS struggling!), got a pop from Batlle and also whiffed Ortega. Quebell missed another first inning homer by not all that much, plating Castro with an RBI double instead, but Quebell and Alston remained on base despite reaching scoring position with one out when Pruitt lobbed out to left and Sharp whiffed. But a 1-run lead with Grams close to it was as good as no lead, and the Crusaders landed three hits for two runs in the top 2nd to take a 2-1 lead.

The Coons had runners on second and third with one out in all of the first three innings, and managed a total of one run from there, a Castro single in the second. That tied the game, but Grams untied it at the very next opportunity. The Coons had runners on first and second with one out in the fourth and failed their way out of that, too. The Raccoons even managed to get Whit Reeves out of the game in the FIFTH inning by wearing him out, despite him still holding a 3-2 lead! Sharp hit into a double play to end that inning against Nobu Matsui, whose appearance mysteriously ended all offensive ambition by the home team. A Matt MacKey home run off Law Rockburn opened the score a bit in favor of the team that actually knew how to handle a RISP situation and also ensured that it would maintain a sound division lead beyond this miserable midweek series. 5-2 Crusaders. Castro 1-2, 2 BB, RBI; Alston 2-4; Quebell 2-4, RBI; De La Parra 2-3; Bryan 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

Yes, my plan with Ed Bryan is to either pitch him to death by exhaustion or wait for the first slight hint of failing to designate him for assignment.

Game 3
NYC: CF R. Pena – 2B J. Hernandez – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Batlle – 3B M. Williams – SS Davidson – C D. Anderson – P Connor
POR: CF Castro – 2B Nomura – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – LF Pruitt – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – SS Howell – P Umberger

Another day, another three on, no outs in the top 1st. Umberger walked Pena on four pitches, Hernandez singled, and Quebell simply missed a grab on Ortíz’ bouncer. While the Crusaders were satisfied with a Stanton Martin sacrifice fly and a double play that Paco Batlle hit into, the Raccoons started like a fire brigade with a Castro triple, an RBI double by Yoshi, and then came to a screeching halt and left Nomura at second base in a 1-1 tie. After that hectic beginning, both teams laid down for a while, before a sparkling play by Nomura in the fifth inning avoided a potential big inning for the Crusaders. Connor had reached with one out on a double to right, but when Roberto Pena lined a ball to second base, Connor was moving with his mind on scoring. He didn’t anticipate Yoshi catching that liner, but catching it he did and easily doubled Connor off second to end the inning. The Raccoons didn’t get a hit after the first until a Rob Howell single in the bottom 5th, but he was left on, as was Martin Ortíz in the top 6th (on third base), and three Critters in the bottom of the same inning.

With a bit of reserves in his pitch count and a recently much-used bullpen behind him, Umberger batted in the bottom 7th after Howell started the inning with a groundout. Umberger’s grounder was not fielded quickly enough by Connor, enabling Jong-hoo to reach with an infield single. It’s always those little things that tip games and doom the teams that allow them. Nomura hit a single with two outs, and then Alston uncorked a massive home run that forcefully broke the tie and gave the Raccoons a 4-1 lead! Umberger went eight before Angel salvaged at least one game in the set with a 9-pitch ninth. 4-1 Coons. Nomura 2-4, 2B, RBI; Alston 1-4, HR, 3 RBI; Pruitt 2-3, BB, 2B; Umberger 8.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, W (6-3) and 1-2;

Could have been better, could have still been much worse. The RISP batting is awful, though, and that’s gotta change soon because we can’t just keep playing like that and hope that the Crusaders will mess up more wins than we do. We’re 1 1/2 back now and gotta do our part, and soon.

Raccoons (43-27) @ Knights (37-35) – June 26-28, 2009

It was hard to imagine, but the Knights led the CL South with their .514 team. They were hardly outscoring their terrible pitching with a productive lineup, ranking in the top 3 in the league in both most runs scored and most runs allowed. Bad defense also contributed to their issues, since they actually weren’t quite that bad in terms of ERA… We have taken two of three from them this season.

Projected matchups:
Javier Cruz (6-5, 3.08 ERA) vs. Johnny Krom (6-2, 3.82 ERA)
Nick Brown (5-3, 1.76 ERA) vs. Domingo Cruz (4-5, 5.13 ERA)
Colin Baldwin (5-5, 3.13 ERA) vs. Dave Butler (5-2, 4.23 ERA)

Krom and Butler are left-handers. None of their three starters for this set are older than 25 years. They certainly have potential and I wouldn’t mind flicking Grams for Butler for example. We have a chance to get even with the Knights with regards to our all time record. We were never ahead of them, but we open this set at 145-146 and a sweep is all it takes.

Catching up on previous years’ failures had to wait until Saturday however, with heavy rain cancelling the series opener on Friday, creating a double header on Saturday. I was tempted to flick our starters at first, because you assume Nick Brown has the higher chance to pitch with a lead in the late innings, but assumptions get you killed, or in baseball terms, his last start was bad and we didn’t make that move partly because of that.

Game 1
POR: CF Castro – 2B Correa – LF Alston – 1B Quebell – 3B Sharp – RF Ayers – SS Howell – C De La Parra – P J. Cruz
ATL: SS Kester – 3B Bond – CF J. Morales – RF G. Munoz – LF Ju. Garcia – 1B Jo. Garcia – 2B C. Martinez – C Delgado – P Krom

For the third game in a row, the Raccoons shuffled opponents onto all bases in the first inning in the first leg of the double header, starting with a Howell error that made me howl in my box. Julio Garcia scored a run with an infield single before Cruz struck out the next two batters. While Cruz found it hard to miss bats throughout this game, the Raccoons only got three hits and one run off Johnny Krom in six a and a third. Cruz logged only one more out than Krom, trailed 2-1 in the bottom 7th and was removed when he drilled Kevin Bond and Jose Morales hit a single. Donald Sims got Gonzalo Munoz to ground out to Correa. The Knights added a run off Reese in the eighth, but the Raccoons never got going and were held to three hits. 3-1 Knights.

Worse than the three hits is the fact that Tomas Castro was injured on a defensive play in the second inning and has to be evaluated. With a right-hander in the nightcap, Trevino will play in center.

Game 2
POR: 2B Nomura – LF Pruitt – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – 3B Sharp – C Esquivel – SS Howell – CF Trevino – P Brown
ATL: SS Kester – 1B Bond – CF J. Morales – 2B C. Martinez – LF Ju. Garcia – 3B Jo. Garcia – RF Keller – C Fowler – P D. Cruz

The go-ahead run for the Raccoons scored in the second inning when Domingo Cruz balked in Daniel Sharp. Howell had just bobbled into a double play and Trevino was almost down on strikes, but the Knights left us with that little gift right there. Brownie, who had struck out only two in his abominable last start, threw A LOT of balls, but the Knights were happily flailing. Brown had five 3-ball counts in his first ten batters, but walked only one and logged four strikeouts while maintaining a 1-0 lead through three innings. The Knights tried to help the Coons even further, with an error here and a wild pitch there, but no, no, this team was not biting.

Top 6th, Esquivel and Howell lined up 2-out singles of which one was right into the crease between Martinez and Bond and the other didn’t even leave the infield. Cruz threw a wild pitch to move them into scoring position with Trevino batting. The Knights forewent the .172/.197/.224 batter (58 AB) for the .278/.297/.278 batter (36 AB) from the same side, and while Brownie hit the ball the furthest of all batters in the inning, he still flew out to Julio Garcia, then blew the lead in the bottom 6th with doubles to Jaime Kester and Jose Morales.

Brown went eight, whiffed eight, then was reduced to watching the further developments. Trevino led off the top 9th with a floater that dinked in just fair in medium left for a leadoff single. He was the go-ahead run, and we sent Brown in to bat to get him to second base against right-hander Clyde Henderson. Brown failed to lay down a bunt, taking a strike on a poke, bunting foul once, then flew out to Garcia once more. Nomura grounded out and Pruitt walked, bringing up Alston, but he had already hit a 3-piece in a 1-1 game once this week, and what were the chances …? Another wild pitch, now by Henderson, even moved the runners into scoring position, but there was that unwritten rule that Nick Brown would NEVER receive ANY run support, and Alston lifted a soft pop to shallow left.

Except that Julio Garcia hadn’t read the memo, didn’t get to the ball in time (playing deep for a reason) and Kester couldn’t get out and Alston snipped a 2-run single that was followed by Quebell’s 2-run homer. Bruno worked around a leadoff double by Morales in the bottom 9th to end the game. 5-1 Brownies! Nomura 2-5; Sharp 2-5; Esquivel 2-3, BB; Brown 8.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, W (6-3);

I would have put my salary for this year and next year on Alston’s pop getting caught. Thankfully betting is outlawed. My track record at begging is pretty bad. Just look at our budget…

But at least we got through a double header using only three relievers, which is somewhat special. Bryan, Cash, Law, and Angel were all unused.

Tomas Castro was diagnosed with back tightness the next morning. He would not be able to play for up to two weeks, which required a trip to the DL. In his place we called up Ricardo Martinez while Luke Black started a rehab assignment to St. Pete that shouldn’t take more than two or three days.

Game 3
POR: 1B Sharp – 2B Correa – 3B R. Martinez – LF Alston – RF Ayers – SS Howell – CF Trevino – C De La Parra – P Baldwin
ATL: SS Kester – 3B Younger – CF J. Morales – 2B C. Martinez – LF Ju. Garcia – 1B Bond – RF Jo. Garcia – C Delgado – P Butler

What was easily the oddest lineup the Raccoons had put up so far this season still managed to strand five Coons in scoring position in the first five innings while not putting even half a paw on home plate. That RISP total was error-assisted by the Knights in the first place, but their appalling batting approach with runners in scoring position was getting worse and worse. While Baldwin did a good job of generating groundball after groundball and allowed only one hit in five innings, the Raccoons lacked orientation so badly that it was Rob Howell(!) with a home run to finally put something on the board in the top of the sixth, 1-0.

The Raccoons then started the seventh with De La Pistacchio’s third leadoff single of the game, with Baldwin bunting for the third time. He had gotten his catcher killed at second base once before, but executed nicely this time, and Butler then showed signs of melting with walks to Sharp and Correa just in time for the big bats to get a chance. Martinez lobbed a 2-2 pitch just over the leaping Kester for an RBI single, and Alston brought in a run with a groundout to extend the score to 3-0 before Ayers rolled out to end the frame. Martinez batted again with the bases loaded, and now two outs, in the top 8th of a 4-0 game after Sharp had singled in a run earlier in the inning. The Knights didn’t remove Butler on 124 pitches, and Martinez grounded out on #127.

Baldwin was on shutout course the whole time, having allowed only one hit to Morales early in the game and nothing since, but his control went away badly by the eighth. He walked two, and with two outs pinch-hitter Tommy Keller singled up the middle to score the Knights’ first run. Baldwin was out of steam it seemed, and we made a move to bring Bruno, who struck out Kester to get us to the ninth, and Angel Casas didn’t allow anything, either. 4-1 Raccoons. Sharp 3-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Howell 3-4, BB, HR, 2B, RBI; De La Parra 4-4; Baldwin 7.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, W (6-5);

In other news

June 22 – The Indians place SP Curtis Tobitt (7-4, 2.74 ERA) on the DL. The 29-year old has a tight shoulder, but two weeks of rest should do the trick.
June 23 – BOS INF/LF Mark Austin (.222, 1 HR, 28 RBI) celebrates his 2,000th career hit in a 7-4 Titans win over the Canadiens, a second inning single off Scott Spears. Austin, 34, was a 1995 first round pick by the Pacifics and has won three Gold Gloves and five All Star delegations in a career by batting .278/.379/.404 with 133 HR, 905 RBI, and 115 SB. He was part of the World Series-winning Titans squads in 2001, 2002, and 2004.
June 23 – Another bad knock for the Indians: C Jose Paraz (.283, 3 HR, 32 RBI) goes onto the DL with an oblique strain and might be out until August.

Complaints and stuff

AAA managers have petitioned the league office to force the Raccoons to permanently recall Ricardo Martinez from St. Petersburg. He does harm to pitchers while there.

Listen, guys. If you allow me a 26th roster spot, Martinez is back on the Coons without limitation. Right now I don’t know how it should work out. Okay, we’re hardly using Gutierrez at all. Still.

Our next 18 games are all against middling teams: Oklahoma, Indy, Boston, Smell Polution City. 10-8 won't do! Beyond that string lurk the Crusaders yet again, three at their place, plus the completion (hopefully...) of that suspended game that's 0-0 in the middle of the seventh since April.

Most home runs in a single season:
1st – Raúl Vázquez (1992) – 42
t-2nd – Ken Potter (2003) – 41
t-2nd – Dan Morris (1995) – 41
t-2nd – Michael Root (1989) – 41
t-5th – Ron Alston (2003) – 39
t-5th – Ken Potter (2004) – 39
t-7th – Royce Green (1994) – 38 *
t-7th – Marty Battle (1999) – 38
t-9th – Iván Gutierrez (2002) – 37
t-9th – Mac Woods (2003) – 37

*Royce Green is the only player in the top 10 to launch his dingers as a Raccoon. Just outside the top 10th is Ron Alston twice more with a pair of 36 HR seasons, and the next-highest Raccoon, t-15th Tetsu Osanai with his 35 bombs in ’89.

Ron Alston could smash a few edges of that home run board this year. We're not quite at the halfway point and he is right on pace for just over 40 bombs.

Offense is down in the CL again this year. From 1992 through 2006, CL ERA moved only slightly in a narrow band around the 3.90 ERA mark with a low of 3.77 in ’98 and a high of 4.00 in ’92 itself. The ERA was 4.10 in ’07 and 4.02 in ’08, but right now we’re slightly above 3.90 again, while in the Federal League, the ERA has been over four since 1995, and after trending to a 10-year low of 4.05 in ’05 has been on the climb again. This year the league has an ERA just over 4.20, which it topped only five times in history.