[Westheim]

Raccoons (81-75) @ Canadiens (101-55) – September 24-26, 2040

Spoiler alert: this series had not worked out for us in 2040. Of 15 games played, the Raccoons had won a whole pair, and it’s not like the damn Elks had won the North on our broken spines alone, but we had surely had a paw in them winning the division with a million innings to spare. They remained first in offense and first in pitching, and only a cruel joke by the perpetually untrustworthy baseball gods would stop them from getting that fourth set of rings this time.

Projected matchups:
Nelson Moreno (6-6, 3.44 ERA) vs. David Arias (15-8, 4.02 ERA)
Ian Wilson (5-4, 2.90 ERA) vs. Alexander Lewis (6-5, 2.79 ERA)
Angelo Montano (4-8, 6.11 ERA) vs. Matt Sealock (22-5, 2.45 ERA)

Saturday’s double-header prevented Sabre from going on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the damn Elks carted up two right-handers surrounding a left-hander.

Game 1
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Trevino – LF Fernandez – C Morales – CF Hooge – RF Balaski – SS Kilgallen – 1B Salazar – P Moreno
VAN: CF Foss – 1B J. Lopez – 2B Schneller – 3B Sprague – RF R. Phillips – C D. James – LF V. Vazquez – SS Cabral – P D. Arias

The damn Elks began by tearing my precious pitching prospect right in half, with Aaron Foss opening with a single that the defensive nightmare Balaski overran for his seventh error of the year. Johnny Lopez hit another single and one run scored on Dan Schneller’s double play grounder, but Glenn Sprague reached anyway and Ryan Phillips hit a bomb to right to put them up 3-0 right away. Moreno continued to get crowded with two more runners in the second inning, then was hit by an Arias pitch to begin the top 3rd. Somehow the Raccoons filled the bags with Cosmo and Morales reaching on a walk and single, respectively, but with two outs Ed Hooge grounded at Schneller … who flubbed the ball for an error, and Nels scored. Then Balaski hit the worst fly out ever to Victor Vazquez, stranding a full for good.

Schneller would leave the game in the fifth inning after being bowled over by Cosmo in breaking up a double play attempt on Manny Fernandez’ grounder. Manny Mongome replaced the second baseman, and the damn Elks, who had already lost Jerry Outram to injury, were not amused. (hugs Honeypaws a little tighter) We should just take out every player we truly love, right? The inning itself led nowhere despite a 2-out single by Hooge, with Balaski hitting another pathetic fly to Vazquez. Moreno lasted six innings, but not without getting another run shoved onto his ledger when a Sprague double to left conincided with Derek James singling with two outs in the bottom 6th. The Raccoons had just as many answers down 4-1 as they had had down 3-1, and that was before Mauricio Garavito and Alex Ramirez were singled to death for three runs in the eighth inning. 7-1 Canadiens. Trevino 4-5; Brito (PH) 1-1; Gonzalez (PH) 1-1;

Jon Caskey’s knee contusion consistently refused to get any better, and the Raccoons pulled the plug on his season after another setback was reported by Dr. Padilla on Tuesday and dumped him onto the DL. He would technically be eligible to be activated as soon as Saturday, since he had last appeared in a game on the 14th.

Game 2
POR: SS Brito – 3B Trevino – LF Fernandez – C Kilmer – RF Balaski – 1B Salazar – 2B Lando – CF Gonzalez – P Wilson
VAN: CF Foss – 1B J. Lopez – 2B Sibley – 3B Sprague – C Clemente – LF DeVita – RF V. Vazquez – SS Cabral – P A. Lewis

Wilson did even worse than Moreno on Tuesday, conceding a run on two singles and two walks even before Marc DeVita raked a bases-clearing triple to put the game into the books, 4-0. Neither Victor Vazquez nor Ramon Cabral managed to bring in DeVita from third base, which was such a relief… The Raccoons didn’t even get a hit the first time through; but Manny Fernandez hit a solo homer in the fourth inning to at least get them on the board. Hooray.

I called Slappy to inquire the phone number of One-Eyed Jack, to see whether he had some of his special booze on stash. Turned out, he had, and the boss delivered in person by the fifth inning, a crate of six bottles, each of which looking different thanks to being repurposed from something else entirely, and one of them looked really mucky brown inside, but then again, One-Eyed Jack’s was so high-volume that it probably killed everything that would otherwise kill the drinker. Since Jack, who wore a rainbow-colored eye patch and was tattooed all over, had nothing else to do, he watched the rest of the game with me and Honeypaws at home. He would not drink his own booze, saying that it was for mere mortals. Instead he licked a crystal of unknown provenance and then zoomed out, not saying anything from the sixth through the eighth innings.

All of that was long after Wilson’s demise, squeezed out in the fifth inning of a 4-2 game. The Raccoons had scratched out a run in the top 5th on a Lando single, a groundout, Lando stealing third base, and then Brito legging out an infield roller with two outs. The damn Elks clawed that run back off David Lindstrom, with Vazquez hitting a leadoff double in the sixth and not being contained on base by Chuck Jones. Elk City tacked on two more runs in the seventh on four straight 2-out singles off Pena, one of which was overrun by Balaski (…!) to put the game into no-doubt territory. Although, to be fair, the Raccoons hadn’t looked like rally material even before that late onslaught against generally overwhelmed AAA pitching… Lewis went the distance on nothing more than a 4-hitter. 7-2 Canadiens. Brito 1-2, BB, RBI;

What do you mean, One-Eyed Jack, “what happened”? The Raccoons lost. – Why did you put down a fiver on the Coons against the *Elks*??

Oh never mind. (takes another voluminous sip from the brown-stained bottle)

That bottle looked almost as bad as Jon Caskey’s knee, as I saw from pictures Dr. Padilla sent me from the Arctic Circle. Like One-Eyed Jack’s eye patch, it was all the colors of the rainbow.

Game 3
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Trevino – LF Fernandez – C Morales – CF Hooge – RF Balaski – 1B Anderson – SS Kilgallen – P Montano
VAN: CF Foss – 1B J. Lopez – 2B Sibley – C Clemente – RF R. Phillips – LF DeVita – 3B R. Ashley – SS Cabral – P Sealock

Starting Montano in Elk City amounted to intense animal cruelty, but I kept blaming the rainout on Friday – otherwise Sabre would have been in this game and Montano would have been left to rot in the pen. Instead he’d get to rot out in the open, although miraculously the damn Elks couldn’t score off him in the early innings. They had a walk and a single in each of the first two frames, didn’t score anybody, and were sat down in order in the third. The Critters scattered four hits for no gains in the first three innings, keeping the game scoreless.

The fourth began with Ed Hooge singling to right and stealing second base. Balaski singled, putting them on the corners, which almost looked like a scoring opportunity. And they did actually score… on Oliver Anderson’s 4-6-3 double play grounder. Kilgallen then singled with two outs, as did Montano, and they reached the corners for Berto, who lined out to DeVita in left… Four singles, one run in the inning, and eight hits for one run in the game! The Elks had 2-out singles from DeVita and Ray Ashley in the inning, but left them on the corners when Ramon Cabral grounded out to Anderson. Top 5th, Cosmo and Morales hit singles and Ryan Phillips threw away the ball on the latter so thoroughly that Cosmo scored from first base on a single and error. Morales was stranded in a 2-0 game.

And the Elks? No discernible rally reaction as of the sixth inning. The Raccoons knocked out Sealock after 12 hits in 6.2 innings, while Montano faced the bottom of the order in the 2-0 game in the seventh, entering on 88 pitches. This was likely his last inning anyway. He nailed Ashley with a 1-2 pitch. The runner advanced on grounders by Cabral and Mongome. The opportunity to bring a left-hander was there for both of those batters as well as for Foss, but why not see how far you can bend Angelo Montano before he snaps in a meaningless game (even for the Elks, who had the top seed locked up by quite the margin)? Foss ran a 2-1 count, then popped out, completing *seven scoreless* for Montano in Elk City. Neither me nor Honeypaws could believe it. As soon as the pen got involved, though… Timóteo Clemente took Brent Clark deep in the eighth, cutting the lead in half. The Raccoons didn’t tack on against Tim Zimmerman, giving the lead to Alex Ramirez without a cushion in the bottom of the ninth. He promptly walked DeVita leading off, who was run for by Alex Perez. Ashley grounded out, Cabral walked. Glenn Sprague pinch-hit with one out and popped out to Brito at second base, which brought back Foss. The Raccoons made another move and brought in Chuck Jones for the lefty batter. The damn Elks countered with right-handed bat carrier Derek James. Jones got the K anyway. 2-1 Critters. Ramos 2-5; Fernandez 2-5, 2B; Balaski 2-4; Anderson 2-4; Montano 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K, W (5-8) and 1-3;

Angelo ******* Montano!!

Raccoons (82-77) @ Titans (85-74) – September 28-30, 2040

The Titans had lost five in a row, but it wasn’t like that had killed their playoff ambitions, either. They were fifth in runs scored and fourth in runs allowed with a run differential about one fifth of the damn Elks’. The season series stood 8-7 in favor of Boston.

Projected matchups:
Raffaello Sabre (15-8, 3.14 ERA) vs. Blake Sciulli (4-7, 4.85 ERA)
Bernie Chavez (8-10, 4.06 ERA) vs. Javy Santana (12-12, 4.22 ERA)
Nelson Moreno (6-7, 3.55 ERA) vs. Seth Green (4-3, 4.12 ERA)

Three right-handers coming up, it seems.

Game 1
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Brito – RF Fernandez – C Morales – CF Hooge – 1B Salazar – LF de Wit – SS Kilgallen – P Sabre
BOS: 3B Rangel – RF J. Davis – CF Vermillion – 1B A. Zacarias – LF W. Vega – C Duryea – SS Bunyon – 2B Toney – P Sciulli

A Ramos Special involving a walk, a stolen base, and a Brito single put the Raccoons up 1-0 in the first inning, while Sabre seemed to be doing alright until Sciulli hit a leadoff double in the bottom 3rd and Kilgallen dropped a pop by Ruben Rangel to put runners on the corners. John Davis tied the game with a single to center, Sabre hit Mark Vermillion, and Alex Zacarias and Willie Vega both hit singles. Down 3-1, Michael Duryea’s comebacker was taken for an out at home plate, the first out of the ******* inning. Donovan Bunyon popped out and Mike Toney grounded out to Berto to end the inning…

Sabre was chewed up in just five innings, while the Raccoons looked overeaten and didn’t get anything moving, landing only one base hit in addition to the Brito RBI single through five innings. Berto and Morales found singles off Sciulli in the sixth, which was enough to score a run and narrow the gap to 3-2, but the Titans got the run right back off certified waste of oxygen, Francisco Pena in the bottom of the inning. He walked Toney to get going, threw a wild pitch, then conceded the run on a 2-out RBI single by Davis. But it was late for everybody – Gold Glover Willie Vega had an easy fly by Berto come right at him and dropped it in the seventh. The play should have stranded Kilgallen and Anderson on the corners, but instead became a run and a 2-base error, and then three runs and a Coons lead once Brito slapped a single through the hole on the left side to score Anderson and Ramos. That 5-4 lead then somehow survived a parade of Fonseca, Garavito, and Lindstrom and three Titans runners in the next two innings. The Coons offense failed to tack on and Lindstrom was left in for the ninth inning. Zacarias struck out. Vega flew out to Jordan Gonzalez in center while it started to rain. Duryea fanned. 5-4 Coons. Ramos 2-3, BB; Trevino (PH) 1-1; Brito 2-5, 3 RBI; Morales 2-3, BB, RBI; Anderson (PH) 1-1;

John Davis was 5-for-5 for the Titans, which was more than half the Raccoons’ output on hits. And Boston still lost.

Game 2
POR: SS Kilgallen – 3B Trevino – LF Fernandez – C Morales – RF Balaski – 1B Anderson – 2B Lando – CF Gonzalez – P Chavez
BOS: 3B Rangel – RF J. Davis – CF Vermillion – 1B A. Zacarias – LF W. Vega – C Duryea – SS Santillan – 2B Toney – P J. Santana

Bernie still had a chance for an ERA under four, but sure liked to play with fire, conceding three singles in the second inning. Zacarias, Vega, and Toney were all stranded though, with the three other batters in the inning all striking out. Bernie reached 3.99 when Rangel lined out to Kilgallen to begin the bottom 3rd, and the game remained scoreless through three. Balaski hit a double in the second, Anderson hit a double in the fourth, and that was about it for actual threats from the Portland team so far. When Jordan Gonzalez socked a home run to right leading off the fifth inning it came as quite the surprise indeed. It was obviously the young Gonzalez’ first major-league home run. Kilgallen hit a 1-out triple in the same inning, coming around on Cosmo’s groundout to run the score to 2-0. Boston countered with Jose Santillan landing a leadoff single, followed by Toney walking in the bottom 5th. Santana bunted them over, but crucially, Rangel struck out. Davis was then out to Balaski to strand the tying runs in scoring position. Bernie completed seven shutout innings with as many strikeouts, but that took 103 pitches and he would not return for the eighth – at least he had gotten that ERA into the threes! Clark and Zabala held the Titans away in the eighth, and Anderson and Lando dropped singles against Santana in the ninth inning. Gonzalez hit a run-scoring groundout to knock him out, while Ed Hooge raked a pinch-hit RBI triple off Santana’s replacement, Mike Hugh. Kilgallen struck out before the Raccoons provoked the baseball gods by inserting Ryan van Campenhout into a 4-0 game. He walked Vega and allowed a single to Duryea before consecutive Titans hit grounders to third base that kept the runners in scoring position. Matt Dear pinch-hit in the pitcher’s spot, and after the pitching coach ventured out to lie to van Campenhout about being confident in him, the hopeless right-hander balked in one run and conceded the other on a single. Chuck Jones replaced him, walked the bags full, and then somehow got a grounder from Vermillion to Lando to bail out. 4-2 Blighters. Balaski 2-4, 2B; Lando 2-4; Gonzalez 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Hooge (PH) 1-1, 3B, RBI; Chavez 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K, W (9-10) and 1-2;

Our mighty pen offered two hits and four walks (one by Clark) in two innings.

Thankfully, only one more game remains…

Although it was a bit of a drag. Sunday brought terrible weather, leading to a postponement and a makeup arrangement on Monday. Since the game had ranking implications, the league insisted on it being played. Regardless of result, the Raccoons would wind up in a tie in the North, either for second place with the Titans, or for third place with the Loggers.

The Loggers!

Game 3
POR: 3B Ramos – 2B Trevino – LF Fernandez – C Kilmer – RF Balaski – SS Kilgallen – CF Gonzalez – 1B Salazar – P Moreno
BOS: SS Gil – RF J. Davis – CF Vermillion – 1B A. Zacarias – LF W. Vega – C Duryea – 3B Rangel – 2B Santillan – P S. Green

Portland went up 1-0 in the first with Berto and Cosmo reaching base before Manny and Kilmer hit into a pair of force plays at second base that allowed Berto to circle around. The game fell apart though for Moreno as early as the second inning. The Titans tied it up on a Vega double and Rangel single, but Moreno then also walked Jose Santillan and Berto fell onto Seth Green’s 2-out grounder without playing it. Antonio Gil’s single and a bases-loaded walk to David both brought in a run for a 3-1 deficit, although only one run was earned. Portland returned with leadoff hits by Cosmo and Manny in the third, plus Matt Kilgallen’s 2-out, 3-run blast to left, putting the Critters back on top, 4-3, but Moreno couldn’t hold on to that either, and the game became tied at four after a Gil single and a Vermillion double.

It remained like that through six, with Nels at least not taking another loss. Salazar and pinch-hitting Ed Hooge made quick outs to begin the seventh but Berto and Cosmo stumbled on base with two outs, which already involved a Santillan error. Manny grounded out to Gil, though, and that ended Moreno’s hopes to finish at .500 for the year. The tie was broken on a Ruben Rangel home run off Nelson Fonseca in the eighth inning. With Duryea on base it counted for two, and the Raccoons had the bottom of the pack up for the ninth inning against Gilberto Castillo. Jordan Gonzalez struck out. Damian Salazar lined out to Rangel. Nick Lando popped out to Zacarias to finish the season. 6-4 Titans. Ramos 2-4; Trevino 1-2, 2 BB; Gonzalez 2-4;

In other news

September 24 – RIC RF/CF Joe Ritchey (.267, 31 HR, 92 RBI) is out for the season with a broken thumb. Ritchey starves in third place in the Federal League home run race behind NAS Sean Ashley and CIN Jamie King.
September 25 – The Buffaloes and Rebels play 17 innings, nearly six hours, and use *61* players before Topeka eeks out a 6-4 win. The game was actually scoreless for *15* innings before both teams scored two runs in the 16th. The Buffos broke out for four in the top 17th before barely holding on.
September 26 – The Aces’ 1B/LF/RF/SS John Byrd (.266, 2 HR, 19 RBI) is only a part-time player and spent most of the year in AAA, but still breaks out by hitting for the cycle in a 5-3 win over the Falcons. Byrd goes 4-for-4 and drives in two runs in the victory. It is the second cycle of the year and the 94th in league history.
September 26 – Dallas RF/LF Sean Calais (.370, 7 HR, 34 RBI) has a 20-game hitting streak with a single in a 7-3 loss to the Warriors.
September 26 – TOP 1B Chris Delagrange (.240, 19 HR, 95 RBI) could miss the rest of the season with a knee contusion, including the playoffs.

September 27 – The FLCS gets set on the same day entirely, with the Buffaloes beating the Rebs, 11-2, to win the FL East, while the West is won by the Wolves with a 3-1 win over the Gold Sox.
September 27 – The 20-game hitting streak of DAL Sean Calais (.366, 7 HR, 34 RBI) ends abruptly with an 0-for-4 in a 4-3 loss to the Warriors.

September 28 – The Knights win the CL South with a 3-2 squeezer against the Thunder.
September 28 – The Canadiens will be in the playoffs without 2B Dan Schneller (.298, 29 HR, 97 RBI) who is out for the year with a strained hamstring.
September 28 – SFW SP Tony Galligher (9-11, 4.43 ERA) is scratched from his final start of the season with a bad case of shoulder inflammation and is questionable for the start of the 2041 season.
September 28 – TIJ RF/LF/1B Bryce Toohey (.369, 3 HR, 15 RBI) has three doubles and two singles with two RBI in a 12-6 win over the Falcons.
September 29 – New York’s Rich Salek (.257, 4 HR, 17 RBI) hits a 3-run walkoff home run to beat the Canadiens, 3-0 in the 10th inning. The game had been scoreless throughout regulation.

Complaints and stuff

(breathes deep sigh of relief)

Maud, we have to write a letter of apology to Ryan Bedrosian. – Yes, for having won the ERA and strikeout titles in the CL. – Yes, he won only 13 games. – Of course it was our team’s fault.

To be complete about our shame, Bedrosian won 5 of his 19 Raccoons starts (…!) with a 2.06 ERA. His ERA ballooned to 2.65 with Atlanta, but he won 8 of 15 games there.

Our tie with the Loggers is for the #12 and #13 pick. Only one of those is protected. At least we don’t plan on signing any big names this offseason…

Manny Fernandez led the CL in runs batted in, which is one of my favorite stats to evaluate players. He should definitely be Player of the Year again with his .751 OPS. He won hit with just 90 RBI in ’36, so I don’t see any issues here.

Fun Fact: John Byrd’s cycle on Wednesday was the first cycle to occur in the month of September since 2017.

Back then, Dallas’ Stephen St. George cycled against the Gold Sox. In between there were 32 other cycles, none of them in the month of September. I am still waiting for a rational explanation of that.