[Westheim]

Raccoons (29-20) vs. Condors (21-29) – May 31-June 2, 2010

Last place team from the South in, but we had lost two of three the first time we had seen them this season. Scoring was rather frequent in their games as they were putting up among the three most in runs scored and runs allowed. Their rotation was getting whacked to a 5.32 ERA tune.

Projected matchups:
Jong-hoo Umberger (2-4, 4.94 ERA) vs. Micah Kirchberg (1-2, 6.16 ERA)
Javier Cruz (3-4, 3.84 ERA) vs. Brian Furst (0-2, 3.77 ERA)
Kenichi Watanabe (2-2, 4.47 ERA) vs. Harry Wentz (5-5, 4.43 ERA)

Their entire rotation is right-handed, so we know what to expect. Unfortunately we will be Matt Pruitt-less for most or all of this week.

Game 1
TIJ: SS Ybarra – CF Tanner – LF Crum – 1B R. Morris – 3B D. Jones – C Leach – RF Ward – 2B Dougal – P Kirchberg
POR: LF Castro – 3B Merritt – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – CF White – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – SS Canning – P Umberger

Kirchberg was wild in the most horrible sense in this one. He walked three men in his first go through the Coons’ order, but they couldn’t land a hit. Yet, the second time through, he got torn to shreds. It was only a single run in the third inning, after two walks and a White single, but he walked four in the fourth, with a Castro homer in between and a Bowen double to knock him from the contest in a 7-0 score. That’s nine walks total, and it tied a Condors franchise record you weren’t keen on tying. The Raccoons scored an eighth run on a Nomura sac fly before his line was finally ready for burial. Times wouldn’t get happier for the Condors this Monday, with Jose Sanchez allowing a 2-run shot to Craig Bowen as the Coons reached double digits in the bottom 6th despite not many hits at all. Umberger had sprinkled a number of singles from the start, but the Condors had taken a page from the Coons’ book and found a way to hit into a double play whenever they had a man placed on first. They would hit into four double plays in total, the last of which came with Pat Slayton having replaced Umberger in the ninth with runners on the corners and one out. Slayton first walked Dan Jones, but Foster Leach then grounded into the game-ending fourth double play. 10-0 Coons. Castro 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Quebell 3-3, 2 BB; Bowen 2-4, BB, HR, 2B, 4 RBI; Umberger 8.1 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, W (3-4);

Game 2
TIJ: SS Ybarra – CF Tanner – LF Crum – 1B R. Morris – RF M. Cruz – 3B D. Jones – C Leach – 2B R. Harris – P Furst
POR: LF Castro – CF White – 1B Merritt – RF Alston – 3B R. Martinez – 2B Nomura – C Owens – SS Canning – P J. Cruz

The Coons got their patented slow start again, while the Condors stayed out of the double play in a sneaky manner. When Brian Furst hit a leadoff single in the third, he was sent stealing, and not only was safe at second, but also advanced to third on a throwing error by Travis Owens, then easily scored the first run of the game on a groundout by Pancho Ybarra. By contrast, when Pat White hit a leadoff single in the bottom 4th, he was caught stealing. The Raccoons were really, really silent for a team that had scored double digits the previous day, while Cruz dawdled along through the innings until he got stuck in the top 7th. Leach hit a clean single to start the inning before Will Wall reached on a bunt single. Furst bunted them over, after which Rockburn replaced Cruz as we hoped for a K that never came, and the Condors scored their second run on an Ybarra groundout before Beltran got Rowan Tanner. The Coons had the shadiest of chances in the bottom 7th, getting a beneficial ball four called in favor of Alston before Nomura reached on a 2-out error by Stanley Dougal. Then, Owens fouled out on the first pitch, while Johnny Crum homered off Beltran starting the eighth. No, this one was not going to work out. Donald Sims got the top 9th and struck out two right-handers before allowing singles to left-handers Tanner and Crum, but the Condors wouldn’t score. Bottom of the ninth, Jayden Reed issued walks to Merritt and Alston to get the tying run to the plate right away. Bowen batted for Martinez – and another walk, bases loaded in the 3-0 game. Reed’s 2-2 pitch to Yoshi was wild and escaped Foster Leach, plating Merritt, and the next pitch got hit almost to the wall for a game-tying 2-run double! Winning run on second base, no outs, Colin Sabatino, a former first-rounder who hadn’t panned out exactly, replaced the wickedly wild Reed (a common theme here?), and got an easy out with an Owens grounder. Canning singled, but there was no chance for Yoshi to score. Keith Ayers hit for Sims (Quebell had been used already), and chopped an 0-1 grounder to third base. Dan Jones could easily see that he had no chance for two, so he fired home, but … still too late, Yoshi was safe! 4-3 Raccoons! Castro 2-4; Quebell (PH) 1-1; Cruz 6.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K;

I don’t quite know how they pulled this one out of their arse, but the Condors must feel like in one of those slow-motion train wrecks now. “Closer” Jayden Reed threw 24 pitches, 15 for balls, and one past his catcher.

Game 3
TIJ: SS Ybarra – CF Tanner – LF Crum – 1B R. Morris – RF M. Cruz – C Leach – 3B R. Harris – 2B Dougal – P Wentz
POR: LF Castro – 3B Merritt – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – CF White – C Bowen – 2B Nomura – SS Canning – P Watanabe

Ron Alston got the Coons ahead quickly with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the first inning, but Watanabe gave up a solo job to Manny Cruz about five minutes later. The Condors made good contact off Watanabe in the first innings, but couldn’t get the ball in. That changed in the fifth, when Stanley Dougal, Harry Wentz (…), and Pancho Ybarra hit consecutive 1-out singles to tie the score, and even then Watanabe didn’t get back into control. With two outs, he was in 2-strike counts to Morris and Cruz, and both times allowed another hit, five total in the inning for four runs. The Raccoons’ comeback attempts were shy anyway and then were also met with Castro and Quebell hitting into inning-ending double plays in the fifth and sixth, respectively. The Condors were less shy, plated two off Ray Kelley in the eighth with a 2-out triple by Dougal, and another one in the ninth when Donald Sims failed in basic lefty removal skills AGAIN. Harry Wentz pitched a complete game 5-hitter, with Ron Alston the only Raccoons that was even remotely effective against him. 8-2 Condors. Alston 3-4, HR, 2 RBI; Reese 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

Raccoons (31-21) vs. Indians (26-28) – June 4-6, 2010

We hadn’t had much luck with the Indians so far on the year, with four losses in six games. There wasn’t really anything special about their team. The pitching was sound, the offense very wasn’t, and they ranked second-to-last in runs scored. Their run differential was only -7, however, so we might choke on them the whole weekend.

Projected matchups:
Colin Baldwin (4-2, 3.67 ERA) vs. Paul Kirkland (3-3, 3.46 ERA)
Nick Brown (9-1, 1.53 ERA) vs. Bob King (6-4, 2.71 ERA)
Jong-hoo Umberger (3-4, 4.29 ERA) vs. Curtis Tobitt (6-2, 2.70 ERA)

And three more right-handers come our way. By the way, our two lone wins against them were both the Nick Brown starts.

Game 1
IND: 1B Tsung – 2B Barrón – LF Graham – CF Cavazos – RF Pacheco – SS R. Miller – C Speed – 3B J. Lopez – P Kirkland
POR: CF Castro – 2B Nomura – LF Alston – 1B Quebell – 3B R. Martinez – C Bowen – RF Ayers – SS Canning – P Baldwin

The Indians loaded the bases with basically nothing in their hand in the top 1st when walks to Graham and Pacheco sandwiched an error by Canning on a Cavazos grounder. Ryan Miller grounded out and no bad things happened, if you were willing to ignore Baldwin’s lack of stuff, a 50-minute rain delay in the third inning, and the fact that the Raccoons struggled to get even one hit against Paul Kirkland until Baldwin hit a 2-out double in the bottom 3rd and ran on to third, where he was thrown out by Ramiro Cavazos. He walked the first two batters in the top 4th on eight pitches, with the Indians not pouncing on him then, either. And so it went. Both teams hit into double plays twice through six innings, further preventing damage, and we were in the seventh when Mun-wah Tsung reached on a Nomura error and finally scored on a Cavazos triple with two outs that also knocked Baldwin from the game after allowing that single run, which was enough to sent the Coons spinning towards another inevitable loss. They weren’t confident with losing 1-0 this time, though. Jose Lopez homered off the hapless Rockburn in the eighth, and in the ninth Donald Sims set a new record for suckage with five consecutive 2-out hits slapped of him for three more runs. The Coons scored a window dressing run in the bottom 9th they could as well have left in their arses. 5-1 Indians. Nomura 2-2, 2 BB; Quebell 2-4; White (PH) 1-1;

I keep failing to guess why exactly which things are going wrong. Like, why do they play as ****ty as they do against the Indians now?

Game 2
IND: 1B Tsung – 2B Barrón – C Paraz – LF Graham – RF Pacheco – SS R. Miller – CF A. Solís – 3B J. Lopez – P King
POR: LF Castro – CF White – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – C Bowen – 3B Merritt – 2B Nomura – SS Canning – P Brown

Off an awful start last Sunday, Brownie threw a surfeit of balls for sure in the middle game in this series. He walked Barrón twice the first times through the Indians’ order, but while he pitched in deep counts often, he also struck out a lot: seven in four innings, with no hits allowed. The Coons had taken a 1-0 lead in the bottom 2nd with Nomura driving in Quebell. Canning had then doubled to right, but Yoshi was thrown out at home, and Castro was thrown out stealing, ruining a chance in the third, by Jose Paraz and his withered stump of an arm. Bottom 4th, Bowen and Nomura were on second and first with two outs, when Canning hit another double to right. Bowen scored, and Yoshi was held up this time against Roberto Pacheco’s arm. Fine, Yoshi can’t run, but Brownie is still hitting .424 and will – strike out.

Needless to say, throwing lots of balls AND lots of strikes was a sure way to raise that pitch count quickly. Brown walked Angel Solís and Jose Lopez in the fifth before ending the inning with a K to Tsung, already over 80 pitches. Quebell added a point to the score in the bottom 5th, 3-0. Thankfully, the no-hit bid blew with Juan Barrón’s single to start the top 6th. It made me abstain from the temptation to run Brown to 160 pitches to the end of the game. He then walked Paraz in a full count, his fifth free pass in the start. Not missing by much, yet missing, he talked the pitching coach back to the dugout, then struck out Dave Graham, Roberto Pacheco, and Ryan Miller in order to end a quirky outing on 11 K. With Canning on first after a Tsung error, Martinez batted for Brown with one out in the bottom 6th, grounded to Lopez, and his throw was clean past Tsung for another error, but despite an intentional walk to Castro and almost a third error on a bouncing throw to first by Barrón on White’s grounder, the Coons only added one more run to lead by four. The bullpen set out to blow the lead immediately. Kelley faced only two batters in the top 7th, walking Solís and allowing a single to Lopez before Beltran took over and continued to make a mess. The Indians scored their two runners and left a third one at third base. Beltran also faced Graham and Pacheco to start the eighth, two more singles on the board. Those were the tying runs, Rockburn replaced him, madness was sure to ensue, then didn’t. Ryan Miller lobbed a bunt right back to Rockburn, who nipped the lead runner, then struck out Solís and Lopez. No help was coming forth from the lineup, and Angel Casas was out to ruin Brown’s day in the ninth. He walked Bruce Boyle to start the inning, then allowed a 3-2 pitch to be driven to deep left by Tsung. Castro scratched it out of the air with the edge of his glove before it could bounce onto the track. Casas recollected himself to get Barrón on a grounder and struck out Paraz. 4-2 Brownies. Castro 2-4, BB; Quebell 2-3, BB, 2B, RBI; Bowen 2-4; Nomura 2-4, RBI; Canning 2-4, 2 2B, RBI; Brown 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 11 K, W (10-1);

Game 3
IND: 1B Tsung – 3B J. Lopez – C Paraz – LF Graham – CF Cavazos – RF Pacheco – 2B Boyle – SS R. Miller – P Tobitt
POR: LF Castro – 3B Merritt – RF Alston – 1B Quebell – CF White – 2B Nomura – C Bowen – SS Canning – P Umberger

Brown had no-hit the Indians through five on Saturday, and Umberger at least made it once through the order before Tsung hit a 2-out single in the third. Ace Curtis Tobitt had been doubled to death by the Coons on Opening Day, but had since then been reanimated, only to give up a leadoff jack to Tomas Castro in the bottom of the first inning. After that, Tobitt choked the Coons pretty good and tore of stripes of fur from pretty much everybody in the order except Ron Alston, who singled twice in his first two plate appearances. Umberger in turn got easier to hit in the middle innings. In the fifth, Pacheco hit a leadoff single and with one out Ryan Miller doubled to left to put the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position. Tobitt rammed a ball into the ground in front of home plate and was easily thrown out at first by Bowen, while the runners held, and Tsung’s grounder to right was wonderfully intercepted by Quebell to end the inning. But the tying run was back on third base with one out in the next inning. Lopez had doubled and then moved up on Paraz’ groundout, when Dave Graham hit another nerve-pinching grounder to first base, on which Quebell came in and tagged the runner while glaring menacingly at the itching Lopez at third. Cavazos flew out to White and the Indians let Umberger off the hook again. Bottom 6th, Merritt’s leadoff double was the first faint movement from the Critters in a while. Tobitt wanted no piece of Alston and walked him intentionally, but Pat White would hit that RBI single instead. Bases loaded, two outs, Martinez batted for Canning and hit one deep to center, but into the third out. And when the Indians had Boyle on first after a White error and Tobitt batting with two outs in the top 7th, of course Curtis Tobitt would hit a triple to knock Umberger from the game. Sims came in to face Tsung and allowed a hard drive to center where Pat White’s head was taken almost clean off by the ball, but he made the play after all. Pat Slayton pitched a clean eighth despite a throwing error of his own design (…), and in the ninth it was Angel again, trying to hold on to the 2-1 lead and perhaps even pitch a clean inning, which he actually did – in the box score. What that didn’t show was that leadoff man Pacheco cracked an F7 that looked very much like a HR off the bat. It wasn’t, though, and Castro caught it a few feet in front of the track after it had more height than length. 2-1 Critters. Castro 2-4, HR, RBI; Alston 2-3, BB; Umberger 6.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, W (4-4);

Why Slayton in the eighth? He has ****ed up less than Sims and Rockburn.

In other news

June 1 – BOS OF/1B Gerardo Rios (.306, 13 HR, 49 RBI) has been placed on the DL with an intercostal strain and might miss three weeks.
June 1 – LVA INF/LF/RF Tom Dahlke (.242, 5 HR, 26 RBI) won’t be back until July after suffering a quad strain.
June 3 – Season over for Daniel Dickerson (5-2, 1.57 ERA)! The 32-year old Thunder ace has to get his elbow cut open to remove bone chips and won’t be throwing again until the next year.
June 3 – The Crusaders pick up MR Jose Ramos (0-3, 4.71 ERA) from the Wolves, sending over three minor leaguers, who have all outworn their prospect status, although there’s still hope for AA MR Adam Reece.
June 4 – ATL SP Dave Butler (3-5, 4.11 ERA) 2-hits the Falcons in an 8-0 shutout.

Complaints and stuff

No wonder that this team can’t play the Indians. The amount of banished ex-Raccoons on that roster is staggering: Marcos Bruno, Salvadaro Soure, Mun-wah Tsung, Juan Barrón, Ryan Miller, Ramiro Cavazos, Roberto Pacheco, and not all of them left Coon City on good terms.

Nick Brown’s scratch-and-claw win on Saturday was his 10th of the season and it is almost certainly the earliest the Raccoons have ever had a 10-game winner in a season in a long time. Ralph Ford reached 10 wins on June 24-ish a few years back, but of course there was Scott Wade in ’89, who won his first 15 starts.

Why is Brownie so magnificientastic? Well, if you put strikeouts to salary, every whiff of his is significantly cheaper than one by Umberger or Cruz, who both make a million, but don’t have half Brown’s strikeouts.

You know who doesn’t have his number retired yet? Scott Wade.

It’s a bit of good news / bad news for next week. Bad news, we’ll play a critical 4-set in New York, and I don’t know how excited I shall be. Good news: Matt Pruitt will be back in the lineup on Monday.

Monthly stats below; the Coons show up fourth in runs scored with 259, which is better than … for a long time, but what the numbers don’t show is that they were actually FIRST after the Monday game against Tijuana. That was before they scored 13 runs the rest of the week, though.

Jimmy Eichelkraut a while ago hit for the cycle against the Au Sable Brash. That’s single-A for you. He also hit a slam against the Temple Bandits. That’s single-A as well. His career double-A slash line (roughly 600 AB) remains a sad .169/.232/.231, though. He’s been hit by a pitch in AA more often than he has *really* hit a pitch.

Having had a hard week already, my laptop decided to eat OOTP a couple of games into this week. The touchpad has always been a piece of ****, and when I innocently hovered over the OOTP logo in the bar at the bottom, it just like that triggered five or six times in rapid succession, minimizing and opening OOTP repeatedly and killed it, wiping all progress until Wednesday. Well, this had never happened before… Though I do have to say I’m baffled at how the games had almost identical outcomes the second time through, with only two teams in the North putting up a different outcome in their games, and for the Coons with game one a rout (even with Bowen hitting the score-opening homer both times!) and game two a nail biter.