[Westheim]

Raccoons (18-13) vs. Gold Sox (18-13) – May 8-10, 2029

This was only going to be a brief stopover at home before the Raccoons would head back out to Milwaukee for the weekend. We had played the Gold Sox the last two years, losing two of three in ’27, but sweeping them after Rich Hereford had switched sides in 2028. Denver ranked second in the FL West, trying to end decades of playoff futility, and was third in both runs scored and runs allowed in the Federal League with a +23 run differential, 12 runs better than the Coons’ even after a weekend sweep over the Rebels.

Projected matchups:
Tom Shumway (3-2, 2.27 ERA) vs. Tommy Weintraub (2-1, 3.55 ERA)
Billy Ramm (4-2, 2.95 ERA) vs. Danny Arguello (2-2, 4.34 ERA)
Dan Delgadillo (4-2, 4.32 ERA) vs. Mario Alva (2-1, 2.49 ERA)

Southpaw in the middle here; but just like the Coons were using the off day on Monday to skip Trevor Draper, who was still around, but would not make an appearance until the weekend, after which we would likely exchange him for Rin Nomura on account of the latter’s expiring rehab assignment (Rin had yet to find his command, though…), the Gold Sox could skip somebody in that order to bring southpaw Mike Cavallin (4-2, 2.80 ERA) into the set.

Game 1
DEN: SS Schlegelmilch – 3B Rock – CF Madsen – RF Chavira – 1B Gore – C F. Garcia – LF Colston – 2B Canchola – P Weintraub
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – 1B Harenberg – LF Hereford – CF Mora – 3B Nunley – RF Gomez – C Tovias – P Shumway

Abel Mora kept hitting doubles, but his second-inning, two-base knock was the only mark the Coons left in the box score in the early innings. Somewhat of a pitcher’s duel, the game saw Shumway retire the first eight Sox in a row before Tommy Weintraub singled up the middle in the third, but was stranded. Bottom 3rd, the Coons had two out and nobody on before Ramos walked, Stalker singled, and Harenberg walked. There was a full count to Rich Hereford, then a strikeout, continuing the stark contrast to last year, where Rich would have driven in any number between one and six runs on that play. Teams would occasionally find a single in the next few innings, but got nowhere near scoring, with the occasional double play involved; Abel Madsen hit into one for Denver, Tim Stalker was guilty for Portland. Bottom 6th, Weintraub began the inning by nailing Kevin Harenberg in the knee. Harenberg went down and seemed to be in considerable agony, as was his GM in his office atop the playing field. Baldwin would run for him and take over at first base, stole second base, then saw Hereford strike out again, yet the bags filled up with an intentional walk to Mora and Nunley reaching on a Trey Rock error. Rafael Gomez was 0-for-2 with 2 K and a decided lack of clutch, but the Coons didn’t twitch and send Jamieson. Gomez flew out poorly to shallow right, the runners all held, and Elias Tovias gingerly lifted a ball over to Eric Colston to end the inning. The Gold Sox got to third base in the seventh with the help of a Hereford handling error on Vinny Chavira’s leadoff single, but Colston lined out to softly to Matt Nunley to strand that runner. Shumway led off another inning with a leadoff single in the bottom 7th – he had been the guy doubled up by Stalker earlier – but was stranded just as well, and it would only get worse. Shumway got through eight, but Alberto Ramos didn’t, leaving the game with an injury as well and being replaced by Butch Gerster. Kyle Anderson held the Coons at bay in the bottom 8th, and Boles got through the ninth after Shumway left with 108 pitches on the odometer. But still, nobody could dig out a run, and a scoreless game went into overtime with the Coons nearly out of personnel… Top 10th, Hector Morales allowed a single to Fernando Garcia, nailed David Canchola, but somehow was not toppled by the Gold Sox. The miserable game went to the 13th when Hereford struck out to strand Gerster on second in the 12th, and Juan Barzaga’s third inning finally yielded a run… for the Sox of course. Reliever(!) Allen Reed singled, as did Bob Rojas, and a Trey Rock groundout produced the golden run. Rocha and Nunley made poor outs against Reed to begin the bottom 13th before Rafael Gomez doubled to right to prolong the pain. Tovias fouled out on a 3-1 pitch to end the game. 1-0 Gold Sox. Gerster 1-1, BB; Stalker 2-5; Shumway 8.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 8 K and 2-3;

Harenberg out for a week, which is a ****ty duration for an important player to be out, and Alberto Ramos had not yet been processed and dissected by the Druid, who went home to pray to the Moon Goddess in the 11th inning.

(tries to wrestle a bottle of booze from Slappy) No, Slappy, no! – I need it all …!!

Between games, the Gold Sox swapped C Fernando Garcia (.211, 0 HR, 6 RBI) to the Elks for two meager prospects.

Game 2
DEN: SS Schegelmilch – 3B Rock – CF Madsen – C Brooks – RF Chavira – 1B Gore – LF Colston – 2B Canchola – P Arguello
POR: 2B Stalker – CF Magallanes – LF Jamieson – RF Hereford – 1B Gomez – 3B Nunley – SS Gerster – C Tovias – P Ramm

The only Coons hit the first time through was a gapper for a double by Ramm in the bottom 3rd, and that led nowhere. Billy shed at least a runner per inning from the start, but the Gold Sox never got that fat knock in that would do anything major to the scoreboard. The bottom 4th then gave the Raccoons a real chance they had not earned: Jamieson led off drawing a walk from ex-Coon Danny Arguello (although he had never suited up in the brown shirt, only in the minors), and when Hereford rolled a grounder across the infield, Jeremiah Brooks threw that one past Brad Gore for a 2-base error. Runners in scoring position, no outs for Rafael Gomez and his 3 RBI on the season. He added a fourth one – whoah, pace yourself, big fella! – on a groundout to Ted Schlegelmilch, while a passed ball on Brooks plated Hereford. Before the inning was out, Butch Gerster homered to left-center, putting the Coons up 3-0 in wholly unmerited fashion. To make up, they added two earned runs against Arguello in the bottom 5th. Stalker singled, Jamieson singled, Hereford walked, and with two outs and runners all over, Rafael Gomez found the gap for a 2-run double to stretch the score to 5-0, and there was a sixth run in the sixth inning when Butch Gerster led off with a single, stole second, advanced on a grounder by Tovias, and scored on Ramm’s grounder to David Canchola.

Up to that point, Billy Ramm had held up extremely well despite all the runners, but was singled to death in the top of the seventh. Colston and Canchola opened with singles and went on to score one by one on singles by Schlegelmilch and Rock, at which point Ricky Ohl replaced Ramm. Ricky allowed a MIGHTY deep drive to left off Abel Madsen’s bat that was just a tad too high and not long enough and dropped into Jamieson’s glove right at the fence. Brooks then struck out. The Critters responded by raking righty Jeff Horton for a 4-spot in the bottom of the inning, and that after he retired Magallanes and Jamieson to get going. Hereford and Gomez singled with two down, Nunley walked, and then Gerster and Tovias each hit 2-out doubles into the gaps. Sometimes it works, sometimes it ****ing doesn’t. Like the ninth, which ****ing didn’t. Sean Rigg bled two walks, three singles, and got only one out and got yanked for Brotman with the bases loaded and Vinny Chavira batting with one down. One run scored on the resulting fielder’s choice, but Brotman walked Gore. Eric Colston ran a 2-0 count before grounding to third base. Nunley to first, out, game over just in time before I could snap. 10-5 Raccoons. Jamieson 1-2, 2 BB; Gomez 2-4, 2B, 3 RBI; Gerster 3-4, HR, 3 RBI; Ramm 6.1 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, W (5-2) and 1-3, 2B, RBI;

By Thursday morning, the Druid came up with only a minor issue with Ramos, who had iced his paw for two days… and then turned out to only have a finger blister. Now his hand was somewhat dead, and he would only be available to pinch-run and maybe light other duties for the next few days.

Game 3
DEN: 2B Schlegelmilch – 3B B. Rojas – CF Madsen – RF Chavira – C Brooks – 1B Gore – LF Colston – 2B Canchola – P Alva
POR: 2B Stalker – CF Mora – LF Jamieson – RF Hereford – 3B Nunley – 1B Gomez – SS Gerster – C Rocha – P Delgadillo

Delgadillo came apart entirely right out of the gate. Abel Madsen homered in the first, and the third began with a Jeremiah Brooks double. Colston singled in the run, and Delgadillo yielded a walk to Canchola, the runners pulled off a double steal, and Schlegelmilch singled in two more with a 2-out liner into shallow right center. Three singles loaded the bases in the third before Colston struck out and Canchola popped out to Gomez at first base, but the Coons were in a 4-0 hole that was threatening to get much deeper rather soon. The bases were loaded AGAIN in the fourth, which Alva opened with a single to center (…), Bob Rojas chipped in a single and Chavira drew a 2-out walk to bring up Brooks, who had making-up to do after his shoddy defense on Wednesday, and smashed a 2-out single to center on the first pitch. Gore grounded out, but it was now a 6-0 quagmire.

Delgadillo was gone after the fourth, pinch-hit for by Magallanes with Gomez and Gerster in scoring position and two outs, by far the team’s best opportunity to date. Magallanes put an 0-2 pitch into play, but grounded out to Canchola. The flames licked Juan Barzaga for four 2-out singles and two runs in the fifth, an inning in which Tim Stalker hit a leadoff triple and was stranded at third base, a point at which I consigned myself to the various vices I had access to, only some of which the Druid knew about. (slowly reaches into the inconspicuous white box and pulls out a live yellow-and-black frog and licks it across the neck) Oh, boyyyy …! Oh, … oh, boyyyy …!

OOH… BOYYYYYY….!!

Weird things must have happened down the road. I woke up the following morning in a hotel room in Milwaukee, with a newspaper on my face that heralded Tim Stalker to have hit for the cycle.

Apparently, Mario Alva had retired nobody in the sixth after I had entered a medium-to-heavy trip. After hitting a single and being caught stealing in his second attempt, and that futile triple, apparently – as I pieced it together from the paper – Tim Stalker had homered for the Coons’ first runs after a pinch-hit single by Baldwin in the bottom 6th, and the inning lasted long enough to bring him back up with Gerster and Rocha in scoring position, two outs, and then he knocked a double to plate them. Well, yeah, that tied the game, and completed the cycle, too.

And I missed it.

Stupid frog.

Ah, whatever, the Coons lost anyway. Ricky Ohl surrendered two hits, a walk, and a run in the eighth, and they never made that run up anymore. 9-8 Gold Sox. Stalker 4-6, HR, 3B, 2B, 4 RBI; Jamieson 2-4, BB; Gomez 3-3, BB, RBI; Gerster 2-4, BB, RBI; Baldwin (PH) 1-2;

Raccoons (19-15) @ Loggers (11-23) – May 11-13, 2029

The Loggers sat in the bottom three in both runs scored and runs allowed, and were also already almost ten games out in the division. They had a few injury woes, like the Coons, missing primarily outfielders Alexis Rueda and Vinny Diaz, and also had neither power nor defense to offer, also only two pitchers with multiple wins. As a matter of fact, reliever Bobby Valencia had four of the team’s 11 wins. The Coons were 3-0 against them this year.

Projected matchups:
Mark Roberts (2-3, 5.68 ERA) vs. Alex Contreras (2-1, 3.40 ERA)
Trevor Draper (0-0, 6.00 ERA) vs. Joe West (1-4, 3.43 ERA)
Tom Shumway (3-2, 1.89 ERA) vs. Morgan Shepherd (1-4, 4.34 ERA)

Three righties this time around.

Game 1
POR: 2B Stalker – CF Mora – LF Jamieson – RF Hereford – 3B Nunley – SS Gerster – C Tovias – 1B Baldwin – P Roberts
MIL: 3B Lockert – 2B Holder – C J. Young – RF W. Trevino – LF Cambra – 1B Aquino – CF Sherrod – SS Rauser – P Contreras

The game started hysterically, at least as far as I could tell during the super-thick sunglasses I had to wear because of all the bright pink lights everywhere… although they were also shining inside the glasses? Stalker reached on a throwing error by Jim Young, Mora dropped in a single, and then Matt Jamieson hit a gapper between Firmino Cambra and Chris Sherrod, who almost took another out, and both fell down. The runners scored, Jamieson was waved around third base, too, and by the time the Loggers found the ball again, Jamieson crossed the plate with a 3-run, inside-the-park homer! The crew added a run in the second on little more than two infield singles. Baldwin hit the first one, stole second, moved up on Roberts’ groundout, and came home when Stalker legged out a grounder that Jason Rauser intercepted deep, but could not turn into a play. Rauser went onto hit into an inning-killing double play in the bottom 2nd, which Roberts started by nailing the just-healed-up Willie Trevino, and surrendered that run on a Cambra single and a groundout. But Roberts held up for the moment, while the Loggers as a whole kept withering. Matt Lockert’s massive throwing error to begin the fourth inning put Gerster on second base. Baldwin hit an RBI single, a little floater into shallow right, with one out, was bunted to second, and scored on a clean Stalker single to make it 6-1. A seventh and final (and fourth earned) run fell out of Contreras in the fifth; Jamieson hit a leadoff double and was singled home by Nunley, 7-1. At that point it was about waiting for Roberts to turn into a catapult again, which never happened. He lasted eight innings on three hits and that lone run as the Loggers mildly despaired against him. The ninth saw Ramos return to action for the first time since Tuesday, hitting a pinch-hit leadoff single in the #9 hole against Alfredo Casique and stole second base before the bags filled up and Hereford scored him with a sac fly. The Loggers got that run back against chronically useless Sean Rigg in the bottom of the inning on doubles by Young and Cambra, but the Coons would not turn this into a new ballgame anymore. 8-2 Critters. Stalker 2-5, 2 RBI; Mora 2-5; Jamieson 2-4, BB, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; Baldwin 2-4, RBI; Ramos (PH) 1-1; Roberts 8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, W (3-3) and 1-2;

Scoring eight+ runs for three straight games moved the Raccoons into FIRST place in runs scored in the Continental League?

What?

Game 2
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – RF Hereford – CF Mora – 3B Nunley – 1B Gomez – C Tovias – P Draper
MIL: 3B Lockert – 2B Holder – C J. Young – RF W. Trevino – LF Cambra – CF Sherrod – 1B Schorsch – SS B. Day – P J. West

The Coons stranded runners in scoring position in the second, when Tovias struck out, and the third, when Hereford popped out to Kaleb Holder, while Draper maintained a strenuous hold on a shutout until the fourth, when it all came crashing down with force. The Loggers stranded five runners between the first three frames, but by the fourth had Draper’s number. Willie Trevino hit a leadoff single, and before long the bases started to fill up. With two on, Brendan Day hit an RBI single, Joe West also hit an RBI single, and Draper nailed Matt Lockert to load them up for Holder, who hit the first pitch he got high to center and easy fodder for Abel Mora, keeping the deficit at 2-0.

Joe West was upended in due time, though, with a soft single by Tovias over Holder to lead off the fifth. Draper bunted him over, and then Ramos and Stalker ripped extra-base knocks up either line. Ramos hit an RBI double to left, Stalker an RBI triple to right, and the game was tied with the go-ahead run 90 feet away, and Jamieson’s fly to right was deep enough to allow him to chase home and give Portland the 3-2 lead. Draper appeared to have none of the idea of a major-league win on his ledger, though, loading them up with a leadoff walk to Young in the bottom 5th, followed by a Cambra single and walk drawn by Chris Sherrod. Tom Schorsch ran a full count, then spanked into a 4-6-3 double play to bail out the failing Raccoons starter, who was on four walks and zero strikeouts.

Top 6th, Joe West’s 1-2 nailed Mora for a no-out runner. Nunley whiffed on the hit-and-run, but so did Young on the throw to second that saw Mora easily save. With the count now 1-2 on Nunley, he pressed a single through the left side, with Mora waved around against Cambra’s medium-sized arm. He would not have gotten him anyway, but Cambra threw SO wildly that Nunley got an extra base out of the throwing error that sailed 20 feet past Young. Unforunately, the bottom of the order struck out collectively to strand him. But the Loggers kept melting; Ramos drew a leadoff walk in the seventh, moved up on Stalker’s grounder and Jamieson was walked intentionally to get to Hereford(!). The Coons pulled off a double steal, and both runs scored when Hereford turned Travis Feider’s 0-2 pitch into a single to left-center, running the tally to 6-2, then was picked off first to short-circuit the inning. Draper threw one pitch in the seventh, which Holder doubled on, then got yanked. Morales surrendered the run on a Young single, but when Taylor Canody singled to right with two outs, the Loggers sent the sluggish Young from second and found him to be thrown out at home by Rich Hereford to end the seventh. The Coons scored two on Zach Weaver in the ninth, which Ramos, Stalker, and Jamieson opened with straight hits. Jamieson got an RBI, so did Nunley (reclaiming the sole team RBI lead!), and then we went to Sean Rigg once more with a sizable lead. He got two out, then walked Young. Trevino hit a liner to left that Jamieson misplayed; rather than holding Trevino to a single, he rushed it and it bounced under his glove for extra bases. The Loggers waved Young around again, but by now Jamieson had recovered the ball and threw home, where Tovias slapped out his opposite catcher to end the game. 8-3 Furballs! Ramos 3-4, BB, 2 2B, RBI; Stalker 2-5, 3B, RBI; Jamieson 2-2, 2 BB, RBI; Nunley 2-5, 2 RBI;

Game 3
POR: SS Ramos – 2B Stalker – LF Jamieson – RF Hereford – CF Mora – 3B Nunley – 1B Gomez – C Tovias – P Shumway
MIL: 3B Lockert – 2B Holder – C J. Young – RF W. Trevino – LF Cambra – 1B Aquino – CF Wheeler – SS B. Day – P Shepherd

Shepherd lasted five pitches, just long enough to walk Ramos, then departed with an injury, throwing the Loggers into spinout mode again. Alex Gutierrez took over, but at least that gave them a left-handed hurler against a lineup not expecting that. However; Ramos stole second, which was unnecessary given that Stalker ran into a fat one and belted it over the wall in left for a dizzyingly fast 2-0 lead. Milwaukee made up a run right away on Lockert’s leadoff triple and Holder’s sac fly in the bottom 1st, and they made up the difference in the second on Firmino Cambra’s leadoff double that saw him move up to third by the time there were two outs, when Shumway had Brendan Day at 1-2, then balked in the run. Day would end up whiffing, so that one miffed me slightly.

The Coons struggled to put it together against Gutierrez, then Travis Feider, while Shumway kept making stupid mistakes. He nailed Trevino to begin the fourth, wiggled out of that, but allowed a leadoff single to Day in the fifth, and that one quickly turned sour when Lockert and Holder hit infield singles to bring in the go-ahead run. Jim Young hit a proper single to right to load them up, but Nunley speared a sharp Trevino bouncer AND turned it for two to save the Shumster’s bacon. Shumway was then hit for in the sixth when Feider willed them up with two outs; Nunley singled, Feider walked Gomez and Tovias, and the Coons’ paws were forced. Gerster flew out to left to throw away the opportunity. The game basically ended when the Loggers loaded them up in the bottom of the inning against Barzaga on a walk, a hit batter, and an infield single, then had Lockert hit a gapper to empty the sacks. The bleeding continued against Hector Morales, who waved in another two runs and put the Coons down six after six, in other words – game over. Abel Mora would hit a homer off John Nelson in the eighth to scratch the Loggers a little bit down the road, but that was all in terms of a rally. 8-4 Loggers. Mora 2-4, BB, HR, RBI; Nunley 3-4, 2B;

In other news

May 8 – SAC SP Jesse Koerner (2-2, 4.23 ERA) is going to miss the rest of the season with a torn labrum.
May 9 – PIT 3B Omar Lastrade (.306, 1 HR, 10 RBI) will be out for a month with a strained hamstring.
May 10 – SFW CF/1B Pedro Cisneros (.256, 3 HR, 9 RBI) will be out for a month after spraining an ankle.
May 11 – The Rebels swap RF/CF Dan Dalton (.324, 2 HR, 12 RBI) to the Thunder for #81 prospect SP Eric Peck.
May 12 – Salem’s SP George James (1-2, 4.41 ERA) 2-hits the Gold Sox in a 1-0 Wolves win.
May 12 – A home run by DAL C/1B Jack Stickley (.280, 2 HR, 6 RBI) is the only tally in the Stars’ 1-0 win over the Warriors.

Complaints and stuff

That was a weirdly awful and awfully weird week. For starters, as some of us noticed – I didn’t, because of that hallucinatory frog – Tim Stalker hit for the cycle during a rally, but the Raccoons lost anyway to the Gold Sox. Stalker is the first Critter to be on the losing side while hitting for the cycle, and the first ABL player to suffer that fate since Boston’s Steve Butler in 2015 – then also in an interleague game against the Stars. The Coons now have the two most-recent cycles in the ABL history; Rich Hereford cycled last year against Indy, and the game of black devil magic also served to help Tim Stalker towards Player of the Week accolades this week. He batted .400 (12-30) with 2 HR and 9 RBI.

AND we got an inside-the-park homer this week, too! That game we didn’t even lose…

But there was definitely fire to the offense – take this: the Critters scored 6+ runs in nine out of ten games between June 2 and 12. They lost two of those nine, and the 13-inning stinker on Tuesday, but that still did not really budge our gap to the Titans. Oh well, the season is young, and some of our players haven’t even suffered terminal injuries yet. Which brings us to Kevin Harenberg. How KEVIIIN is that? A 6-RBI game here, and then he immediately misses a week with a banged up knee? Can’t get no momentum like that …!

That is still a tall order for a cry; the Coons are still first in offense with exactly five runs per game at this point. The pitching has been the problem recently… we need a few new arms in that pen, too, but for starters Trevor Draper will now head back to AAA in exchange for Nomura, who walked 20 in 38.2 innings of rehab ball. He had a 1.40 ERA, but on a .196 BABIP…

Back home now, to host the Crusaders and Thunder.

Fun Fact: Danny Arguello was traded by the Raccoons, with Sam Armetta, for Cole Pierson in 2018.

Pierson was last seen in the majors in 2023, so this was not a winning move by the then-contending Raccoons, who never got all that much out of Pierson, who is 39, but still hanging in there with odd minor league jobs. Sam Armetta last appeared in the majors in ’25 with the Coons, and has retired by now, a career .216 batter that was worth negative WAR for the 222 games he featured in between three different teams.