[Westheim]

Raccoons (70-79) vs. Falcons (78-71) – September 22-24, 2042

Last games against the CL South for the year, with the Raccoons holding a 4-2 edge in the season series, and the Falcons still harboring playoff hopes, three games out and in third place after a 6-game winning streak. They were this close solely thanks to their pitching and defense, which surrendered the fewest runs in the CL, while their offense was second from the bottom in runs scored. Their run differential (+27) barely beat the Coons’ (+17).

Projected matchups:
Cory Lambert (4-6, 3.80 ERA) vs. Jerry Felix (5-8, 4.92 ERA)
Jake Jackson (11-12, 3.74 ERA) vs. Nick Wright (3-2, 2.58 ERA)
Brent Clark (5-4, 2.51 ERA) vs. Adam Messer (7-2, 2.17 ERA)

Three right-handers – all of which were career relievers having been turned into starters rather recently. Felix and Messer were relatively young. Wright was pushing 38. Somehow it all worked out for the Falcons and their league-best defense.

Game 1
CHA: CF M. Martinez – 3B Farfan – LF Besaw – SS Aparicio – 1B Cahill – RF Quesada – C Templeton – 2B B. Nelson – P Felix
POR: 1B Ramos – 2B Trevino – CF Reyna – 3B Maldonado – SS Harroun – RF Waltz – LF Casaus – C Sieber – P Lambert

Cory Lambert started the game by registering six flyball outs on 13 pitches, which was the sort of “yes, but…” scenario that made you expect a shellacking being due. Nevertheless, the Raccoons scored first, with a single from David Harroun, a Justin Waltz double (!), and a sac fly by Sandy Casaus in the bottom 2nd. Sieber singled, but Lambert grounded out to strand runners on the corners. Two more runs were tacked on in the third inning; Cosmo and Reyna hit back-to-back doubles, 2-0, and Maldonado singled to reach a 12-game hitting streak. Harroun then scored another run with a groundout. Waltz singled, but Casaus whiffed to strand another pair. Lambert retired the first 11 on frighteningly few pitches, then walked Jose Besaw in the fourth. Tony Aparicio grounded out, though, ending the inning. Antonio Quesada singled to center in the fifth to take off the no-hitter, but was doubled up by Kyle Templeton to get Lambert through five.

By the sixth, the Falcons had the bases loaded. Bob Nelson led off with a single, was bunted over, and Lambert also fumbled the bunt to put Felix on, too. Jose Farfan’s single made it three on with one out for Joe Besaw, hitting .320 with 18 homers ahead of Aparicio with 20 homers on a .304 clip. The former popped out, the latter rolled over to Harroun, and all the little Falcons runners walked back to their dugout, somehow. But Lambert created more chaos in the seventh; he yielded a leadoff single to Mark Cahill, then nailed Quesada. When Templeton singled to center, Cahill went around to score, but Quesada was trapped in a rundown between second and third and slapped out. That was enough from Lambert, though, who was yanked for Jon Craig on only 76 pitches. Craig secured two strikeouts and a 3-1 lead at the stretch. With the Coons’ offense bumbling about for no greater gains, the Raccoons employed rookie Alexis Cortes in the eighth, quickly leading to a blown lead. Miguel Martinez singled, Joe Besaw homered to left, and we were even at three. Singles by PH Mitch Cook and Bob Nelson would give the Falcons a lead against Zack Kelly in the ninth inning. Portland needed one to get even and prolong everybody’s suffering, and two to win against right-hander Marcus Goode in the bottom of the ninth. It took two outs before somebody got on, Berto whacking a double to right. Manny Fernandez then came off the bench to pinch-hit for Kelly in the #2 spot, which Cosmo had vacated in a double switch earlier. Manny ended the game – by striking out. 4-3 Falcons. Trevino 2-4, 2B; Waltz 3-4, 2B; Haley (PH) 1-2;

Game 2
CHA: CF M. Martinez – RF C. Robinson – LF Besaw – SS Aparicio – 1B Cahill – C M. Cook – 3B Farfan – 2B Shay – P N. Wright
POR: 1B Ramos – 2B Trevino – 3B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – RF Waltz – CF Nettles – C Kilmer – SS Haley – P Jackson

This was the 38th start in 646 career appearances for Wright, all having come in the last three seasons with the Falcons. He was spotted a quick lead, with singles by Chris Robinson and Aparicio plating a run in the first, and a leadoff walk to Mitch Cook and Adam Shay’s single creating another run in the second inning. Jackson continued to look all too hittable, giving up a homer to Cook for a 3-0 gap in the fourth inning, while the Raccoons hit nothing at all until Cosmo hit a gapper to right-center for a double in the bottom of that inning; Wright had only issued two walks the first time through the order. He walked Manny and Waltz after Maldo flew out to center, loading the bases with one out for the slumping Stephon Nettles, who grounded a 2-2 pitch to the right side. Shay tried to get two, but was held to a fielder’s choice, with Cosmo scoring to shorten the gap to 3-1. Kilmer, who had missed a homer to left narrowly the first time through, weakly flew out to right to end the inning and strand the tying runs on the corners. Cosmo found another single in the sixth, but it took until the seventh for a second Raccoons batter to land a base hit, Kilmer singling to right to open the bottom 7th. That got rid of Wright, with right-hander Kyle Conner replacing him. Jay de Wit batted for Haley – and grounded straight into a double play. Maldonado found a hit in the eighth to extend his hitting streak, but the Raccoons arrived in the ninth staring at Goode again, this time down by two. Waltz whiffed. Nettles walked. And Kilmer jabbed a bouncer to short for a double play. 3-1 Falcons. Trevino 2-4, 2B;

Is the season gonna be over soon, Maud? – Soon? – You promise?

Game 3
CHA: CF M. Martinez – LF Watt – RF Besaw – SS Aparicio – 1B Cahill – C M. Cook – 2B B. Nelson – 3B Farfan – P Messer
POR: 2B Trevino – RF Reyna – 3B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – 1B Yamamoto – SS Harroun – C Kilmer – CF Gonzalez – P Clark

While Messer retired every Raccoon in order the first time through the lineup on Wednesday, Brent Clark wasn’t far behind, walking Tony Aparicio, but whiffing five while allowing no base hits in his first three innings. In the fourth, he walked Matt Watt to get the inning underway, Aparicio found a single, but Mark Cahill found the shortstop and a 6-4-3 inning-ender. Maldonado ended Messer’s 11-strong retirement run with a hitting streak-extending double (14 games now) in the bottom 4th, but Manny popped out to leave him on base.

The game remained scoreless through six with only scant hints of offense, although Clark was up to two singles and three walks allowed after six innings, whiffing eight. He retired the 5-6-7 hitters in the seventh, whiffing Bob Nelson for a ninth strikeout. And why exactly did we never use him as a starter before? This was his 213th major league appearance, and only his sixth start. So far he was holding a sub-2 ERA as a starting pitcher.

Manny hit a double to the base of the fence in right to begin the bottom 7th, maybe giving the Coons a scoring chance with a runners on second and nobody out. The Falcons walked Yamamoto with intent, but Harroun grinded out another walk, making it three aboard with nobody out. Rats! We’d never score again!! Actually, Kilmer got a grounder through Aparicio for an RBI single, the first marker on the board. Berto hit for Jordan Gonzalez and managed to make it 2-0 with a sac fly. Clark was supposed to bunt the runners over, failed twice, and then was hit by the 0-2 pitch to restock the bases, only to get involved in Cosmo’s inning-ending double play. Clark went back to the mound, retired the Falcons in order in the eighth, then saw Reyna reach base to begin the bottom 8th, followed by a Maldonado jack to center, 4-0…! A string of singles loaded the bases after that for Nettles in the #8 hole, with his grounder to second scoring another run. Clark struck out to end the inning, then retook the mound on 96 pitches. He needed eight to get Matt Watt to fly out to left. Besaw grounded out to Maldo, and Aparicio flew out to Nettles. 5-0 Critters. Maldonado 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Fernandez 2-4, 2B; de Wit (PH) 1-1; Kilmer 3-4, RBI; Clark 9.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 10 K, W (6-4) and 1-3;

Seriously. Why did we never move Brent Clark into the rotation before??

After an off day spent asking questions nobody had a good answer to, repeatedly, the team headed out for the final road series of the year, meeting the Arrowheads at their place.

Raccoons (71-81) vs. Falcons (68-85) – September 26-28, 2042

The Indians still had a chance to get into fourth place, and a sweep would be a good starting point for them. We had however already snatched the season series, 10-5. They had the worst offense in the league (but the Coons had just lost a pair to the second-worst, so…) and were eighth in runs allowed for a -90 run differential.

Projected matchups:
Nelson Moreno (11-12, 4.97 ERA) vs. Drew Johnson (10-9, 2.82 ERA)
Jason Wheatley (1-2, 4.10 ERA) vs. Luke Moses (4-2, 3.72 ERA)
Corey Mathers (4-11, 4.02 ERA) vs. Orlando Altreche (10-14, 4.28 ERA)

More right-handers exclusively in this set.

Game 1
POR: 2B Trevino – CF Reyna – 3B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – 1B Yamamoto – RF Waltz – SS Harroun – C Sieber – P Moreno
IND: CF Crocker – RF M. Ochoa – LF D. Gonzales – 3B Hutson – 2B Sanderfer – SS E. Vargas – 1B J. Diaz – C Custello – P D. Johnson

Offense was slow for the umpteenth game in a row as far as the Coons were concerned, who stranded a few early runners, including Cosmo and Reyna, who reached base on a walk and a hit batsman to begin the third inning. The 3-4-5 hitters then produced three pop outs, two to the right side of the infield and one to shallow center to strand them on base. Indy took the lead in the bottom 3rd in wicked ways; Roger Custello narrowly got a 1-out single past Cosmo before ex-Coon Johnson’s bunt was thrown away for a 2-base error by Maldonado. Nick Crocker brought in a run legging out an infield roller that four Raccoons converged on, but nobody covered first base. Somehow – especially given the easily toppleable pitcher on the mound – this didn’t spiral into a 7-run inning, as Mario Ochoa and David Gonzales then made outs that were just as poor as the Coons’ from the top of the inning. The run was unearned, but the two runs Moreno was whacked around for on three hits in the bottom 4th were not. Moreno opened the fifth with a single, then scored on Maldo’s 2-out homer to left-center, cutting the gap back to that lone run from earlier, 3-2. Well… at least until David Gonzales rammed another 2-piece off Moreno in the bottom of the inning. Moreno finished the inning, then was pinch-hit for. The Raccoons had no rally in them in the sixth or seventh inning. Or the eighth. Or the ninth. They lost as meekly as possible. 5-2 Indians. Maldonado 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Barker 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

For the first time since 2039, the Raccoons will post a losing record – this was our 82nd loss of the season.

Game 2
POR: 1B Ramos – 2B Trevino – SS Maldonado – LF Fernandez – 3B de Wit – CF Nettles – C Lancaster – RF Casaus – P Wheatley
IND: CF Crocker – RF M. Ochoa – LF D. Rivera – 3B Hutson – 1B Balaski – 2B Sanderfer – SS E. Vargas – C Custello – P Moses

The silly baseball gods thought they could annoy me, but as soon as I saw Raccoons cast-off Bill Balaski (.271, 2 HR, 9 RBI) in the lineup on Saturday, I knew he was gonna take Jason Wheatley disturbingly deep, which happened in the second inning. At least it was a solo shot… His other problems were ill control and rotten luck, as when Sandy Casaus played a soft leadoff single by Luke Moses into a double in the bottom 3rd. The bases filled up with a single and a hit batter, and there was nobody out. Wheatley rung up Danny Rivera, but Dan Hutson rammed a ball to deep left – Manny caught it at the fence and held him to a sac fly! Oh ****, Balaski’s back at the plate. Another disturbingly deep fly, but this time to center and into Nettles’ mitten, and Wheatley eloped with only a 2-0 deficit. It didn’t get much better for him as far as the optics were concerned. Alex Sanderfer and Enrique Vargas opened the fourth with clean singles before Custello found a double play and Maldo contained Moses’ bouncer to strand the surviving runner at third base. When Wheatley nailed Rivera in the fifth – his second drilled Indian in the game – there was some barking by the home team and Rivera in particular, but no brawl broke out between the two utterly lost and frustrated teams… yet.

Wheatley hard-scrabbled his way through six and a bit, walking Custello to begin the bottom 7th and moving the runner to third base with a wild pitch and a groundout by PH David Gonzales. Chuck Jones conceded the run on Crocker’s groundout, burying the Raccoons three runs deep. While the Indians’ Luke Moses was out of the game by then, the Portlanders had amounted to all of two base hits through seven innings. Sieber and Cosmo hit singles off Eric Peck in the eighth, bringing on a right-hander in Aaron Iten for Maldonado, who had yet to land a base hit for his streak, but popped out in foul territory to end the inning. Instead, the Indians cobbled together another run against Jon Craig and Zack Kelly in the bottom of the inning. Manny, de Wit, and Nettles went down in order against Willie Gonzales in the ninth. 4-0 Indians. Trevino 1-2, 2 BB; Sieber 1-1;

Oh boy.

Game 3
POR: 2B Trevino – CF Nettles – 3B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – 1B Yamamoto – C Kilmer – RF Waltz – SS Haley – P Mathers
IND: CF Crocker – RF M. Ochoa – LF D. Rivera – 1B Balaski – 2B Sanderfer – SS E. Vargas – 3B A. Avila – C Custello – P Altreche

The Raccoons scored (tah!) in the first inning, plating three runs after Cosmo (walk) and Nettles (single) went to the corners to begin the game. Maldo got home Cosmo with a groundout, and Manny got a ball out of the ballpark with a homer to right. Corey Mathers then got dismembered… and on his birthday…! – Danny Rivera hit home runs in his first two plate appearances, getting him to 27 bombs and 75 RBI for the season. The first was a 2-out solo job in the bottom 1st. The second was a grand slam in the third that flipped the score to the Indians, 5-3. Altreche (…) and Crocker singled, Ochoa reached on a Yamamoto error, and then … well, then it rumbled in the stands in right-center. Balaski singled and Vargas walked after that, but Mathers got out of the inning, somehow. In the fourth he walked Custello leading off, and after Crocker’s bunt was lifted for Jake White for the heavily left-handed top half of the order. Two groundouts stranded Custello before White bunted in a force to kill Phil Haley when the fifth-string shortstop actually reached base for once in the top 5th. Altreche’s walk to Cosmo and a Maldo single loaded the bases with two outs for Manny, who was robbed of a slam when Altreche balked in White, 5-4, then went down looking at a 3-2 pitch in silent protest.

While Jake White pitched some neat long relief, his bunting performance left him with not more than a D- grade for the game. Haley hit *another* leadoff single in the seventh inning, this time as the tying run. White bunted into a force at second base … *again*! This time Cosmo grounded into a 6-4-3 to make the pain go by quicker, but White continued to finish the seventh inning on the mound, too, conceding no runs to the Indians in 3.2 innings, while at the same time sabotaging every Coons comeback attempt he could get his sticky paws on… Even Travis Sims found a scoreless bottom 8th at the bottom of his heart, which put the Raccoons up against right-hander Vincenzo Battaglia with a 1-run deficit in the ninth, trying to stave off a humiliating sweep. Kilmer flew to the fence in right, but was caught by Juan Salinas. Van Anderson, who had not appeared all week due to the sprained ankle, hit for Waltz and grounded out. Miguel Reyna batted for Haley, two singles be damned against the platoon advantage – and struck out. 5-4 Indians. Maldonado 2-3, RBI; Haley 2-3; White 3.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 2 K;

In other news

September 22 – SFB 3B/1B Ramon Sifuentes (.287, 11 HR, 57 RBI) is out for the season with a torn meniscus.
September 23 – NAS 3B/SS Brad Critzer (.268, 10 HR, 53 RBI) is headed for Tommy John surgery with a partially torn UCL. He is questionable for Opening Day in 2043.
September 24 – The Stars erase a 3-run deficit in the ninth and beat the Cyclones, 10-9 in 12 innings. Both teams score a run in each inning of overtime, except for the Stars scoring twice in the top of the 12th.
September 26 – ATL SP David Farris (13-12, 3.43 ERA) and CL Rico Sanchez (4-1, 2.21 ERA, 43 SV) combine for a 1-hit shutout of the Aces in a 3-0 Knights win. A second-inning single by LVA 3B/2B Doug Richardson (.239, 13 HR, 64 RBI) is all the offensive output the Aces can muster in the game.
September 28 – The Cyclones are the first team to clinch their division with a 6-5 win over the Blue Sox, which will make it back-to-back playoff appearances after a 15-year drought for them.

FL Player of the Week: DAL 2B Hugo Acosta (.324, 4 HR, 79 RBI), batting .467 (14-30) with 1 HR, 7 RBI
CL Player of the Week: VAN OF Jerry Outram (.366, 25 HR, 94 RBI), hitting .500 (13-26) with 2 HR, 6 RBI

Complaints and stuff

I really mean it. Why has Brent Clark not been a starter before there were so many holes in the rotation that efficient relief became meaningless and why the **** not try it as the team’s in freefall?

Conversely, the Raccoons give up on Nelson Moreno as a starter. 85 starts (and one relief appearance) into his career, he’s 30-31 with a 4.44 ERA, but the ERA is getting worse every season (3.52, 4.57, 5.04 ERA) and it’s impossible to ignore that he’s useless in the rotation. He’ll be worked into the bullpen arrangements in the final week of the year to see whether he can be of any goddamn use there, and apart from that I’ll be reduced to sobbing for thinking we’d actually get somewhere with him.

The losing record has been clinched with another dismal 1-5 week. The last two Raccoons wins were both games started by Brent Clark, with eight losses in between and since. Going back a bit further, we won the opener against the damn Elks on the 9th. Since then, we’re 3-15, and have already clinched our worst season since 2032, the infamous year where we had no pitching whatsoever. That year the team ERA was 4.68 – worst in franchise history (narrowly beating out 2000-01). This year has been dreary, meaningless, pathetic, yes, even hopeless (and started fittingly enough with a 1-5 warning shot in opening week), but we STILL have a +11 run differential…! It was not all entirely rancid – other than 2032 and 2000-01. Although the bright spots on the team have been the old farts. Maldo, Manny doing alright. (Manny might be the only guy with 1,000 career hits on the team next year, assuming we still don’t get a deal for him) That’s about it. Omar Gutierrez was a surprise (but didn’t even get 200 at-bats). There’s some solid pitching assembled. Corey Mathers is the surprisingly steady starter nobody is even talking about. Clark might actually work out long term. But the holes are tremendous, especially in terms of position players, and remember that most of our highly ranked prospects are pitchers, and those highly ranked position player prospects? Well, that’s Sandy Casaus for you.

The minor league seasons saw some promise; the Alley Cats finished 78-66, third in their division, and came top 3 in both runs scored and runs allowed despite being regularly fleeced for players by the Raccoons. The Panthers and Beagles both had losing records, but at least individually promising talent. Whether that still included this year’s second-rounder Sean Belisle was up for an open and spirited debate after he went 1-14 with a 6.57 ERA in his professional debut.

There would have been opportunity to bring up a few more players in the second half of September, but the question was whether it made sense – we didn’t want to add anybody to the 40-man roster that didn’t have to be on it for reasons of protection by December 1. Besides experienced eater of garbage innings Angelo Montano, who had cleared waivers a while back, but would surely be an attractive rule 5 flyer for a similarly disorganized team with no ambitions as the Coons were, and genuine prospect Victor Merino, there were no such pitchers in AAA, but Merino, age 21, had walked more than he had struck out in his AAA campaign and needed more seasoning. There was no point in feeding him to the sharks now in late September. The only pitcher actually on the 40-man with the Alley Cats was Ryan van Campenhout, and we’d pass. However – that was before Cory Lambert came down with the flu on the weekend. He would not be able to take his start on Monday, so we would bring up Angelo Montano after all for a spot start… since the 40-man roster was actually full, AAA 1B Damian Salazar was placed on waivers and designated for assignment.

There were lots of position players on the 40-man in AAA: Goetz, Salazar, Carreno, Lando, Cox, and Ben Southall, the only one in the group that had no major league experience and also the only non-infielder. There were no eligible position players worthy of protection, either. We’d not bring back Carreno to preserve his rookie status for ’43, when the second base job pretty much defaulted on him with the end of Cosmo’s contract. He had batted an uninspired .232/.323/.280 with no homers and six runs batted in and four stolen bases for Portland in a June/July gig (when Maldo was on the DL and Cosmo held down third base), but a more steady .297/.376/.382 with no homers and 40 RBI plus 22 bags taken in 91 games with the Alley Cats. He was the second baseman come Opening Day 2043, and I wasn’t even having a discussion about it.

What about the assumed other half of that stellar up-the-middle combo, the other half of the Jason Wheatley trade, and the Raccoons farm’s unluckiest bastard? Matt Waters stayed in Ham Lake all year and batted .185/.289/.307 with 8 homers and 36 RBI. He stole 10 bases. His final BABIP was .239. At this point we had to promote him to AAA for the start of 2043 just to get him out of a toxic environment – not that the AA coaches were stuffing him in a locker or something to deal him emotional trauma, but there have always been rumors that the Panthers’ ballpark was built on an old Native American burial ground, and some people are more sensitive to the tortured voices of the dead than others, right? – (Chad eagerly nods, standing in the corner in the full mascot gear)

Fun Fact: Even after the dreadful depths of 2000-01, the sun rose again in Portland.

Not quite bloody soon, though.