[Westheim]

Raccoons (13-6) vs. Falcons (8-9) – April 25-27, 2033

The Falcons had started really, really average. They had pretty bad defense and were tied for second in stolen bases, but apart from that they were average in runs scored, runs allowed, and had an average rank in their division, which wasn’t bad for a team that had lost a blinding 110 games the season before, and 89 or more games in all but one of the last ten years. None of these two teams had managed to win as many as six games against one another in any season since 2027, when the Coons had won seven games from the Falcons. We had since lost four of the last five season series, all to a tune of 4-5, including the one in ’32.

Projected matchups:
Andy Palomares (1-1, 6.75 ERA) vs. Matt Moon (2-0, 4.50 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (2-1, 3.16 ERA) vs. Chris Miller (1-0, 1.23 ERA)
Ignacio del Rio (1-1, 2.73 ERA) vs. Doug Clifford (0-3, 5.40 ERA)

Right, right, left, then an off day, which we’ll probably need before the Titans will come stomping in.

Game 1
CHA: CF Adkins – 2B D. Ruiz – LF Salto – C Huichapa – 1B R. Morales – 3B G. Ortiz – RF Aguilar – SS Aguirre – P Moon
POR: SS Ramos – CF Reichardt – LF Wallace – 1B Zitzner – C Garcia – RF Jennings – 3B Perkins – 2B Stalker – P Palomares

The Raccoons’ recipe for success from the previous week continued at least for the part where the other team scored the first run. Danny Ruiz stuck a triple into the rightfield corner in the first inning and Graciano Salto scored him with a single before being caught stealing. The Falcons got a second run in the second inning, but that was after putting three on with nobody out. Roberto Morales and Greg Ortiz singled, and Jerry Aguilar was walked on four pitches before Oscar Aguirre hit a comebacker for a force at home. Moon hit a sac fly to center, and Reichardt also took Travis Adkins’ fly to retire the side. Third inning, only more trouble for Palomares, who couldn’t get anybody out, although Ruiz reached on a Ramos error. Salto and Ernesto Huichapa chucked singles, 3-0, as did Morales, 4-0, and Palomares walked Ortiz to load them up. A Jerry Aguilar sac fly made it 5-0, and when Aguirre singled to load the bags, Palomares was yanked. Nick Bates replaced him, but nothing got any better. He walked Moon (!!), allowed an RBI single to Adkins, and plated another run with a wild pitch before the inning somehow mysteriously ended in the middle of an 8-0 slaughter. On top of that, we had an hourlong rain delay in the fourth inning. Wonderful game, just perfect for a Monday. So far the Coons hadn’t even been on base yet; Reichardt walked in the bottom 4th after Moon had retired ten in a row to begin his day, Wallace doubled, and Zitzner hit an RBI single, but then the inning died. Into the fifth, the dreaded pitching debut for Preston Pinkerton in 2033 awaited. The Falcons stuck him with four runs before the groans in the ballpark had subsided, and that was only the fifth. The bags filled up on a single and two walks in the sixth, too, and then Dave Trahan pinch-hit for Moon and socked a grand slam to center. Victor Anaya took over to as much success as to see two Falcons thrown out at home plate in the very same inning as the team was down by a mere 15 runs. Nothing about that changed in the final three innings. 16-1 Falcons.

That was … unpleasant. That was the baseball equivalent of explosive diarrhea, and I hope the return to the top of the rotation will plug that splashing broken pipe.

Please….!

Game 2
CHA: CF Adkins – RF Trahan – LF Salto – 1B R. Morales – 3B G. Ortiz – 2B D. Ruiz – C Carmichael – SS Aguirre – P C. Miller
POR: SS Ramos – CF Reichardt – LF Wallace – 1B Zitzner – RF Jennings – 3B Perkins – 2B Marsingill – C Thompson – P Chavez

Ramos walked, stole a base, and was stranded in the bottom 1st, but at least somebody seemed still alive in this new week that was so far full of horrors. That included Bernie’s second pitch of the game being hit right to, but not over, the fence by Travis Adkins, and nobody reaching base for Portland the first time through after the Ramos walk until Berto walked again in the third with two outs, only to be left on first base when Reichardt flew out to Trahan, who would lead off the fourth with a sharp single to right, then scored on Roberto Morales’ double, the first run in the game, as usual not for the brown-clad team. The Coons finally got into the H column in the fourth, just like on Monday, with a Wallace single to begin the bottom 4th. He was swiftly doubled up by Zitzner. Jennings singled, Perkins grounded out. Nobody scored. A similar pattern repeated itself in the home half of the sixth, with Ramos hitting an infield single, getting doubled up by Reichardt, and then Wallace dropped one into shallow center. Zitzner struck out to end that frame.

Bernie all the while soldiered on bravely and held the Falcons to a single run through seven despite lacking his good stuff. He whiffed only four, but also allowed only four hits. His stint in the game ended through no fault of his own when Perkins walked and Thompson singled in the bottom 7th and the two were on the corners with two outs and the #9 slot up. Tim Stalker hit for him and grounded out to short. Blair and Garavito pieced the eighth together, with Aguirre hitting a single off the former and being caught stealing on the latter’s watch to end the inning. Bottom 8th, Berto lined out to Salto before the Falcons went to the pen and right-hander Bryce Sparkes, who allowed a single to Adrian Reichardt, then a gapper to Jimmy Wallace on the first pitch. Thanks to a hit-and-run call born out of despair, Reichardt got a great start and scored on the double, tying the game and taking Chavez off an unthankful hook. Wallace, however, was stranded with two groundouts. Garavito held the Falcons away in the ninth (Wise had pitched a garbage inning on Monday, so we tried to walk off in regulation without pestering him) before righty Marcus Goode appeared for the Falcons. Unfortunately, the Critters lacked a lefty pinch-hitter, something that needed addressing. Thompson drew a 2-out walk, but Ferrero popped out batting for Garavito. Wise got the tenth, and scored upon, too, issuing a 2-out walk to PH Jorge Lopez before the heretofore hitless Jason Carmichael hit a double past Jimmy Wallace, which was its own sad story. Lopez scored with one of those early starts, and th Coons entered the bottom of the inning trailing, but with the top of the order due up. Goode walked Berto on four pitches, bringing the winning run to the plate again. Reichardt slapped a single over the head of Aguilar, and Wallace knocked one up the middle; three on, no outs! Zitzner had the chance to end it, but poked the first pitch at second base guard Gavin Westmoreland, who beat Ramos to home by a whisker, but the bags remained stacked for Jennings, who fell to 2-2 before poking a ball back past Goode, who swiped, but missed it, and Aguilar hustled in, but had no play – tied game on an infield single! And then? Perkins popped out, Marsingill whiffed, and the game went on. Fernandez got the 11th, allowed a single to Trahan and a homer to Salto, and the Coons could not get past Ramos’ umpteenth walk in the bottom 11th. 4-2 Falcons. Ramos 1-2, 4 BB; Reichardt 2-6; Wallace 4-5, 2B, RBI; Jennings 2-5, RBI; Chavez 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K;

Maud? Maud? – Why are they not winning anymore?

Game 3
CHA: CF Adkins – RF Trahan – LF Salto – C Huichapa – 1B R. Morales – 3B G. Ortiz – 2B D. Ruiz – SS Aguirre – P Clifford
POR: SS Ramos – CF Reichardt – LF Ferrero – 1B Zitzner – RF Jennings – C Garcia – 2B Stalker – 3B Hawkins – P del Rio

Literally nothing happened for the first three innings; del Rio was perfect, and the Coons were hitless, but had at least drawn two walks to no great effect. All that changed in the fourth. First, it started to rain, and second, del Rio turned into a turd. Adkins singled, he nailed Trahan, the two pulled off a double steal, but he walked Salto anyway. Three on, no outs, Huichapa popped out to Stalker. Then we had another disconcerting rain delay, and when play resumed, Morales hit a rocket to right, but precisely into the path of Billy Jennings, who hustled in to make the catch and to shy Adkins back to third base. Greg Ortiz, Raccoons trade target two winters ago, grounded out to Tom Hawkins to end the inning. For the third time in the series, the Raccoons only got a hit in the fourth inning, a Zitzner single, but made as little of that as of the leadoff double Stalker knocked in the fifth. The game remained scoreless through six when Huichapa hit a blooper for a leadoff single to set the Falcons up in the top of the seventh. Del Rio instantly walked Morales, then had Ortiz fly to shallow right, where Jennings fumbled the ball for an error. Three on, no outs, again. Mario Mendoza pinch-hit for Ruiz and hit a groundout that brought Huichapa across with the first run, but Jorge Lopez lined out to Ramos and Clifford flew out to Ferrero to keep it at 1-0. Bottom of the inning, Garcia and Stalker hit singles, and Hawkins hit into a double play to end the inning, at which point I screamed like my innards had been pierced by a halberd and went to look for liquor, but things hadn’t markedly changed when I came back, slightly doozy, with a pitcher containing a mix of Capt’n Coma, some rice wine I had found in Dr. Chung’s office, and a few blood thinners, in the bottom of the ninth. Clifford was tasked with holding his own 1-0 lead against the 4-5-6 batters. He extinguished the Raccoons in six pitches. 1-0 Falcons. Stalker 2-3, 2B; del Rio 8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, L (1-2);

First place went away on Thursday, as well as most of my residual headache, when the Loggers beat the Knights to take sole possession of the top slot in the North. The headache returned in full force on Friday, along with the Titans and Nick Valdes.

No, Nick, I don’t know why the **** they scored only three runs against the Falcons. – Yes, they scored only one run against the Titans at the start of the season. – Okay, I might look like the wise man of the mountain, but I have long accepted that I can’t know the reason for everything…!

He was not happy about that.

Raccoons (13-9) vs. Titans (11-9) – April 29-May 1, 2033

First the negatives – the Titans had swept the Critters in a 3-game set at the start of the year, and the Coons’ bats had since returned to ice cold. On the other hand, they were only eighth in runs scored themselves, and fourth in runs allowed, with a miserable +2 run differential. Their pen was crumbly (but would we ever see it?), and there was another advantage I claimed we had: the Raccoons came off a day of rest and had played only one game in the last two days, but the Titans had played three games in the last two days (including a 15-inning grinder!) after an off day on Monday thanks to icky weather in San Francisco, where they had dropped two of three and had given up 18 runs.

Projected matchups:
Raffaello Sabre (1-1, 1.93 ERA) vs. Jordan Caldwell (2-0, 3.52 ERA)
Rico Gutierrez (2-0, 4.15 ERA) vs. Dustin Wingo (1-1, 0.84 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (2-1, 2.76 ERA) vs. TBD

Due to their circumstances, the Titans struggled to name a starter for Sunday as the series began. Adam Potter (2-2, 4.73 ERA) and Tony Chavez (2-0, 3.00 ERA) had pitched in the double header on Wednesday. Chavez was highly unlikely as he was reported day-to-day with back issues and would probably not be sent on short rest on top of that, so our best guess was that we’d get one southpaw (Wingo) sandwiched by righties.

Palomares was skipped after the Monday disaster and would rejoin the rotation after del Rio’s next assignment. That was as far as we could push him – no further off day would crop up until the 12th of May.

Game 1
BOS: CF M. Avila – SS Spataro – LF W. Vega – 1B Uliasz – C Lessman – 3B E. Gonzalez – RF M. Walker – 2B T. Johnson – P Caldwell
POR: SS Ramos – CF Reichardt – LF Wallace – 1B Zitzner – RF Jennings – 3B Perkins – 2B Stalker – C Thompson – P Sabre

Boston scored in the top of the first (…) thanks to a Moises Avila single, a throwing error by Thompson on Avila’s stolen base attempt, and a groundout by Keith Spataro. Reichardt hit a jack in the bottom of the inning to re-tie the game, and Tim Stalker rammed another one over the leftfield fence in the second to put the Raccoons in front for the first time all week (...!), while 2-out singles by Thompson and Sabre evaporated when Willie Vega shagged a Ramos fly to shallow left. Sabre was not without flaws and put Spataro and Vega on the corners in the third inning, but then got a crucial strikeout against Justin Uliasz (121 RBI in ’32, 18 so far in ’33) to strand them. That however didn’t keep Mark Walker from homering to tie the score the following frame… Nick Valdes then explained to me his insane plan of movable outfield walls that we would raise 25 feet whenever the other team would be batting.

Boston took the lead without the aid of another homer in the fifth inning. Spataro drew the leadoff walk, Sabre served up an RBI triple to Vega, and Uliasz’ groundout got him across as well, making it a 4-2 game. Reichardt pulled back another run with another homer in the fifth, but when Sabre was done after six messy innings, he was still on a 4-3 hook. But he didn’t remain on it – while nothing came of Tim Stalker’s leadoff single and stolen base in the bottom 6th, the Coons still had some sort of rally sense in them. Fernandez and Bates did some stingy relieving in the seventh and eighth, and Billy Jennings drew a 4-pitch walk to begin the latter inning. Perkins grounded out to advance him, but Stalker hit another deep fly to left. I screamed “outta here” prematurely, while Valdes yelled “lower the wall!” – none of those happened, but the ball hit off the fence and was far enough into the corner that Willie Vega couldn’t prevent Stalker from sliding in with a game-tying RBI triple! Thompson ran a full count, but struck out, bringing up the other catcher, Fernando Garcia, to hit for Bates. Caldwell threw a wild pitch at 0-1, which moved Stalker across with the go-ahead run; Garcia ended up fanning, but IT COUNTS!! Chris Wise was brought in for the ninth. PH Manny Ramirez grounded out to short, but Avila and Spataro slapped clean singles with one out. Vega drew ball four in a full count. I resigned myself to my fate and tried to lick the remainders out of Wednesday’s pitcher. With the sacks stacked, Uliasz hit a sac fly to right, where Pinkerton made the catch after Wallace had been removed for D, and the game was tied. Roberto Avila struck out, sending the Coons back to the plate, with Pinkerton now batting third. Great! He made the third of three depressing outs in the inning.

The game went to extras, where Anaya allowed one walk in the 10th, then two walks and a 2-out Roberto Avila RBI single to put Boston back on top. The Critters carted up the bottom of the order against Jermaine Campbell in his second inning of work, with Stalker leading off. I was bemoaning the emptiness of my pitcher, when Valdes asked me why there was “double time” flashing on the scoreboard. I had no idea. Maud!? – Maud!? … just then Cristiano rolled into the room and casually remarked that if Stalker hit a double now, he’d have a cycle. Ooooh. Yeah, no, we totally knew that, no-no, we hadn’t missed that. *Clonk* made the bat on the ball and a liner soared into deep left. Three guys in my office screamed (Slappy had long passed out on the couch) as the ball bounced fair and then off the wall to Willie Vega. Stalker turned around second, but retreated wisely, and that completed all four legs of the cycle. And it was even his SECOND CAREER CYCLE. Valdes and me jumped up and down screaming, and while Cristiano couldn’t jump, he screamed anyway. It didn’t take long for the everyday slack to catch up to us. Thompson struck out. Marsingill popped out. Ramos popped out. The Coons lost. 6-5 Titans. Reichardt 2-5, 2 HR, 2 RBI; Stalker 4-5, HR, 3B, 2B, 2 RBI; Thompson 2-5, 2B;

Come Saturday morning, I drank my coffee with a good shot of toilet cleanse, and bits of a crushed poisoned rat bait.

Anything to get rid of the foul taste of Friday!

Game 2
BOS: CF M. Avila – SS Spataro – LF W. Vega – 1B Uliasz – RF I. Vega – 2B R. West – 3B T. Johnson – C R. Avila – P Wingo
POR: SS Ramos – CF Reichardt – LF Wallace – 1B Zitzner – C Garcia – 3B Perkins – 2B Stalker – RF Ferrero – P Gutierrez

Uliasz’ 2-out, 2-run homer in the first kept the Coons’ score-last streak alive, much to Valdes’ dismay. He was grumpy by default, but after the blown cycle game he was hissing at everybody in sight, including Maud. The Raccoons did little to better his mood. Gutierrez allowed another two singles after the Uliasz homer, but Todd Johnson grounded out to Perkins to strand runners on the corners. Top 2nd, Wingo doubled off the wall, Spataro hit one OVER the wall, and it was already 4-0. The Critters only reached base when Tim Stalker set out for his next cycle, hitting a leadoff double in the bottom 3rd. Ramos finally found a hole for 2-out RBI double, and then scored on a Reichardt single to cut the gap in half, but there remained the basic malady of Rico Gutierrez being tasked with pitching and not doing a very good job about it. The fourth and fifth saw Titans on base, but no cigar, yet in the sixth Todd Johnson homered and Moises Avila hit a 2-out single to send Gutierrez into the clubhouse to cry, or at least I hoped he’d do so in his ****ing shame.

Bates stranded the runner with a K to Spataro, and the Critters made up a run in the bottom 6th to get back to within a pair of the Titans when Wallace hit a leadoff double, Garcia singled, and Perkins plated the lead runner with a groundout, but it just wasn’t enough, was it? By the seventh, Berto was a ****ing homer short of the cycle after burying a triple in the gap with two outs but nobody on base – he had hit a single in the fifth inning to get to 3-for-4 in more ways than one. Wingo walked Reichardt, then was yanked for Alex Contreras. The righty got Wallace to fly out to Ivan Vega, stranding the tying runs. Nothing good happened in the eighth, apart from the Zitzner leadoff single that allowed Garcia to tumble into a 6-4-3, which prompted Valdes to yell at bobbleheads on display in the office. The pen at least held up and allowed the bottom of the order to come up with two runs to tie, three to win in the bottom 9th against Campbell, who had nine walks in 13.2 innings and looked vulnerable. Stalker grounded out. Thompson hit for Ferrero… and grounded out. Jennings hit for Pinkerton… grounded to the right side, but Uliasz missed it for a single. That brought Berto to the plate as the tying run, and he needed a homer to complete the cycle, never mind that his homer rate per at-bat in his career was slightly less (0.39%) than Cristiano Carmona’s chance to ever be able to walk. Berto flew out to Moises Avila. 5-3 Titans. Ramos 3-5, 3B, 2B, RBI; Wallace 2-4, 2B; Jennings (PH) 1-1; Bates 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K;

Nick Valdes left town raging that this sort of play had to have dire consequences. If I played my cards right, maybe he’d have me disappear in some frivolous construction project in a nature reserve…

…and back stiffness be damned, Tony Chavez was lined up for Sunday by the Titans. At least in the morning; come the afternoon, they went with Potter instead.

Game 3
BOS: CF M. Avila – SS Spataro – LF W. Vega – 1B Uliasz – C Lessman – 3B E. Gonzalez – RF M. Walker – 2B R. West – P Potter
POR: SS Ramos – C Thompson – LF Wallace – 1B Zitzner – RF Jennings – 2B Stalker – 3B Marsingill – CF Pinkerton – P B. Chavez

Bernie struck out four the first time through, but straight singles by the 5-6-7 batters plated a run for Boston in the top 2nd, completing an entire 2-week homestand in which we had not scored first even ONCE. The same area of the lineup was more trouble in the fourth, when only Lessman and Walker found base hits while Edgar Gonzalez whiffed. The Titans left them on the corners on Rhett West’s grounder to Ramos. Potter was 3-hitting the Coons in the fourth when he made awkward arm and shoulder motions, sending clear signals of discomfort to the bench, which immediately hauled him in. At that point Billy Jennings was the tying run on third base with two outs. Reliever Wyatt Hamill ended up allowing a game-tying double to Marsingill, but the go-ahead run was stranded with an intentional walk to Pinkerton and a K against Bernie. Top 5th, the Titans had two on thanks to a Spataro single and Bernie fumbling Willie Vega’s 2-out comebacker for an error, but again Uliasz was carved up for a strikeout with two on and two down to end the inning. This was the seventh K on Chavez’ ledger in this game. He was however also up to 82 pitches through five innings. He spent ten more in a whiff-free sixth, then served up a leadoff jack to Rhett West in the seventh, which put him back in the slammer, now down 2-1. That became 3-1 and a definitive exit when Moises Avila hit one in the same direction, only deeper after Todd Johnson’s groundout.

And that was far from the end. The eighth inning began with Fernandez, who allowed two doubles and walked a guy before being yanked, but that was nothing to the way the Titans brutalized Victor Anaya. Roberto Avila hit an RBI double. Moises Avila hit a 2-run triple. Keith Spataro hit an RBI triple. Willie Vega hit an RBI double. At that point, Anaya was yanked, bloodied from top to bottom, and Pinkerton was waved in from centerfield. He actually struck out Uliasz (!), then surrendered another run on a Lessman single, putting the Titans into double digits and the Raccoons firmly in their place. Fittingly, it also started to rain, and not just from my eyes… 10-1 Titans.

In other news

April 28 – DEN 1B Kumanosuke Henderson (.270, 2 HR, 16 RBI) will miss at least a month with a broken foot.
April 30 – OCT SP Andy Jimenes (0-3, 2.87 ERA) will miss two weeks with a mild oblique strain.
May 1 – OCT SP Zach Warner (3-1, 1.38 ERA) and OCT MR Billy Brotman (2-0, 2.00 ERA, 1 SV) combine for a 1-hit shutout of the Knights, who amount to only a CF/2B Justin McAllester (.208, 0 HR, 4 RBI) single while going down to defeat, 9-0.
May 1 – VAN 2B/OF Eric Morrow (.281, 1 HR, 13 RBI) drives in five runs on as many base hits in a 15-1 shellacking over the Crusaders.

Complaints and stuff

(sits at his desk with a metal sweeping bucket over his head and speaks with a cracked, metallic sounding voice) I am wearing this so nobody can see that I cried. I think it works very well.

Kevin Harenberg was Hitter of the Month in the Federal League, batting .360 with 2 HR and 20 RBI, which is nothing that concerns the Raccoons directly except for nostalgic reasons, but I felt the pressing urge to report something, anything positive.

The team as a whole is terrible. They suck. There is also no hope. They will always suck. We will never have a winning team again. Heck, we will never score FIRST in any ****ing game again. The streak is up to *13* games in which the other team got on the board first, going back to the second game of the double-header in Indy two Sundays back. I think this colossal level of misery is best fixed by sending the entire roster to some remote and icy gulag in the frozen wastelands. Too bad that thanks to global warming there aren’t many frozen wastelands anymore.

Maud! … Maud! – Can we trade the entire roster to Vancouver? – No? – Aw.

(with a clonking sound, rests bucket-covered head on the desk)

Fun Fact: Tim Stalker is the only batter in ABL history to hit for multiple cycles without leaving the field as winner even once.

It is TRUE. It is a very Raccoons story. We obviously lost the 11-inning gut-wrencher on Friday, and we also lost his first career cycle on May 10, 2029, a 9-8 defeat against the Gold Sox in Portland. Stalker batted leadoff that day with Ramos routinely on the DL at that point and went 4-for-6 with 4 RBI in an ultimately futile rally after Dan Delgadillo had been whomped for six runs early on.