[Westheim]

Raccoons (25-24) @ Knights (20-29) – June 1-3, 2043

New month, new Coons? The road trip continued into Atlanta on Monday, where the Knights were seventh in runs scored, but stricken with the worst flock of pitcher artists in the league (although the CL’s worst defense also played a role). They were bottoms in many categories, and their rotation had a 5.09 ERA. The Raccoons led the season series, 2-1.

Projected matchups:
Jake Jackson (4-4, 4.40 ERA) vs. David Farris (6-1, 3.18 ERA)
Brent Clark (5-3, 3.60 ERA) vs. Tim Scott (0-0, 6.75 ERA)
Jason Wheatley (2-7, 3.63 ERA) vs. Brad Santry (4-6, 5.02 ERA)

Three right-handers, probably – the middle spot would require a gap filler. They had a few injuries, including SP Kurt Olson and regular backstop Adam Horner.

Game 1
POR: 2B Carreno – 3B Jimenez – CF Maldonado – LF Fernandez – RF Nettles – SS Castro – 1B Casas – C Sieber – P Jackson
ATL: CF Oliver – 1B Jam. King – RF Hester – 2B Crim – LF A. Montes – 3B L. Duarte – C Raymond – SS McKoy – P Farris

Jackson was skinned alive in the first as he kept putting up ****** start after ****** start. Jamie King walked, Billy Hester singled, and then the extra-base knocks started to drop in. Joe Crim hit a 2-run double, Andy Montes an RBI triple, and with two outs Bryant Raymond found another RBI single. The first Raccoons runner was Stephon Nettles, who singled in the second inning, then was thrown out bidding for a double. Jackson hit the opposing pitcher Farris to begin the second inning, and would not live to see the end of it, giving up another two runs on a Hester triple and a Crim single. The ball went to Seth Green, who would get 10 outs for the cost of three runs (two earned), all runs scoring on a Tyler McKoy homer in the bottom 5th. Carreno chipped in an error there, while nobody chipped in any sort of offense; the Coons had two hits through five innings, no runs, and nobody reaching scoring position either. Carreno would at least drive in the Critters’ first run in the eighth inning after a tiring Farris filled the bases on a hit batter and two walks. Carreno snapped an RBI single through the left side with two outs, then Jimenez flew out to Justin Kristoff to strand a full set. Maldonado hit a leadoff double in the ninth, then was stranded on second base… 9-1 Knights. Sieber 1-2, BB, 2B;

Game 2
POR: 2B Carreno – 3B Jimenez – CF Maldonado – LF Fernandez – SS Castro – RF Casas – C Kilmer – 1B Yamamoto – P Clark
ATL: RF Hester – 1B Jam. King – 2B Crim – CF Oliver – 3B D. Myers – C J. Herrera – LF Kristoff – SS McKoy – P T. Scott

Former Raccoon Dave Myers started at third base, but injured himself on the first play of the game, lunging and snatching a liner by Carreno. He was replaced by Lorenzo Duarte. Jimenez and Maldonado hit 1-out singles, but Manny struck out and Castro grounded out easily to end the top 1st. Casas was stranded on third base the next inning, hitting a leadoff single and stealing a base while his teammates had nothing to contribute. Carreno hit a single to begin the third inning, stole his way all the way to third base, and lo and behold, Maldonado released the knot with a 2-run homer to left, the first markers on the scoreboard. Clark didn’t allow a lot to the Knights early on, shedding two singles the first time through the order, and allowing a double with two outs to Brian Oliver in the bottom 4th. Duarte walked, but Juan Herrera struck out, keeping it 2-0.

The Knights had another hit and and walk with two outs in the fifth, but then brought up Jamie King, a vaunted slugger not that long ago. He hit a fly to deep left that eluded Manny Fernandez for a game-tying double. Crim struck out, but permanent damage had been done. Oliver hit another bomb to begin the bottom 6th, giving Atlanta a 3-2 lead. The Knights put another run on Clark in the seventh as McKoy drew a leadoff walk, got to second on Greg Ortiz’ pinch-hit grounder, and scored on a Hester single to center. Jon Craig would have to get out of that inning, but it got worse in the eighth inning, when Arturo Carreno hurt himself on a defensive play and left for the attention of Dr. Padilla, with Omar Gutierrez replacing him. Gutierrez didn’t get to bat; the 6-7-8 batters were up in the ninth against ex-Coon Antonio Prieto. Kilmer hit a double. Nobody else hit much of anything. 4-2 Knights. Maldonado 3-4, HR, 2 RBI; Kilmer 2-3, BB, 2B;

Carreno headed for the DL with a strained biceps that would likely cost him all of June.

Anybody remember Nick Lando?

Game 3
POR: RF Nettles – 3B Jimenez – CF Maldonado – LF Fernandez – SS Castro – 2B Gutierrez – 1B Yamamoto – C Sieber – P Wheatley
ATL: 3B G. Ortiz – 1B Jam. King – RF Hester – SS Crim – LF A. Montes – C J. Herrera – CF Oliver – 2B McKoy – P Santry

39-year-old Greg Ortiz, who I wanted to trade for about 47 seasons ago, and Jamie King went to the corners with singles to begin the first inning for Atlanta, and runs scored on Hester’s groundout and a Montes double with two outs. Shuta Yamamoto hit a 2-run homer with Omar Gutierrez on base in the top of the second, tying the ballgame. Both pitchers looked like they could be pushed over rather easily, and Santry put Manny and Castro on base to begin the fourth inning. Gutierrez grounded out to advance the runners, and Yamamoto, dumped to the bottom of the order, drove in another two runs with a single to center, giving the hapless Coons a 4-2 lead.

Wheatley labored hard, but not without success. He took 84 pitches through five innings, but struck out seven batters through those five innings, which was certainly a pointer in the right direction. The bottom 6th began with hard knocks, though. Hester shot a single into right, and Crim cracked a liner – into Yamamoto’s mitten, and the first-sacker beat Hester back to first sack, double play, 3-unassisted…! In turn Wheatley, with Yamamoto and Sieber on second and first, bunted into a 5-3 double play in the seventh. Nettles grounded out, nobody scored. He then walked Oliver in the bottom 7th, but got a McKoy grounder to short for another double play to get out of the inning, and to complete an ultimately fine outing.

More offense came in the eighth with Maldonado singling and stealing second. Manny ended up drawing a walk, and Castro snuck a 1-out single through the gap between the middle infielders for an RBI and a 5-2 lead. Gutierrez grounded out, Yamamoto flew out to Hester, and the inning ended. Wheatley had not been hit for, and when Justin Kristoff pinch-hit in the #9 hole, leading off, in the bottom 8th, Wheatley was sent back out to face him, and secured an eighth and final strikeout. Ramirez replaced him, got Ortiz, then put two lefty batters on base in King and Hester. Crim grounded out as the tying run… Josh Rella would secure the save with three groundouts. 5-2 Raccoons. Jimenez 2-4; Yamamoto 3-4, HR, 4 RBI; Wheatley 7.1 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, W (3-7);

Raccoons (26-26) @ Canadiens (33-21) – June 5-7, 2043

The Raccoons went off into the frozen wastelands north of the 49th parallel, where they would happen to coincide with the summer weekend this year – lucky them! – and probably get slaughtered. The Elks were second in runs scored, third in runs allowed, and seemed to have the division almost under control now after some unruliness by various teams early on. They were up 4-2 on the Coons and I was not concerned that they would not reach 7-2 before long.

Projected matchups:
Corey Mathers (6-4, 3.11 ERA) vs. John Roeder (4-3, 4.60 ERA)
Cory Lambert (1-4, 3.65 ERA) vs. Joe Hicks (1-5, 3.96 ERA)
Jake Jackson (4-5, 5.16 ERA) vs. Paul Medvec (5-5, 3.49 ERA)

Roeder would be the only southpaw we’d get this week. We used the opportunity to sit a slumping Manny Fernandez.

I went back to the ballpark in Portland for this series, slumped into the cushions on the trusty brown couch, and told Maud that I wasn’t here and wouldn’t take any calls. I would take cookies, though. I looked at her expectingly, but was disappointed, as she hadn’t baked cookies ahead of the series.

Game 1
POR: LF de Wit – 3B Jimenez – CF Maldonado – C Kilmer – 1B Yamamoto – SS Castro – RF Casas – 2B Lando – P Mathers
VAN: RF van der Zanden – C Clemente – CF Outram – 2B Schneller – 3B J. Becker – 1B J. Lopez – LF Escobido – SS R. Johnston – P Roeder

Mathers walked two in the first, then struck out the side in the second inning, and didn’t allow a hit until the unavoidable Jerry Outram (.397, 5 HR, 26 RBI) singled off him with two outs and Timóteo Clemente (walk) on first base in the bottom 3rd. Dan Schneller flew out easily to Maldonado, keeping the game scoreless through three innings. While Mathers got his ERA under three with scoreless ball into and through the fourth inning, the Raccoons didn’t even find a base hit against Roeder until the fifth inning, when they got no fewer than EIGHT hits off Roeder, seven of them with two outs…! Jose Castro hit a 1-out single, and reached second base on Jose Casas’ groundout. Starting with Nick Lando’s single, the Raccoons kept battering Roeder senseless. Mathers, de Wit, and Jimenez all hit RBI singles to go up 3-0, and Maldonado hit a blast to left-center to double that mark. Kilmer doubled to left, Yamamoto singled him in, and that was enough for Roeder. Castro would sneak a single to left against southpaw replacement Jordan Antonio for the eighth straight hit before Casas struck out to make the second and third outs in the same inning in different at-bats.

Clemente and Outram again reached base in tandem in the fifth inning, but again with two outs and without Dan Schneller getting something on the board for them, either. The game got out of paws for good in the sixth inning when de Wit and Jimenez reached base with two down, and Maldonado took Antonio deep to left for his second 3-run homer in as many plate appearances. Slappy and me, without words, clanked bottles of booze together to approve of Maldonado’s antics.

Mathers would last seven innings before running out of steam, but he never allowed a run to the damn Elks, who then got to see Sauerkraut. The Coons were just bold enough to send him out there with a 10-run lead, and he also hadn’t gotten any play time in the Knights series. He walked the bases full in the bottom 8th, but somehow the damn Elks made poor outs around the three walks, with Ryan Johnston bouncing out solemnly to Yamamoto to end the inning. Maldo drew a leadoff walk in the ninth against righty Matt Fries, advanced on a wild pitch and scored on a Kilmer single. The bottom 9th began with Sauerkraut nailing Steve Jorgensen, then issuing a walk to Arnout van der Zanden. *Fine*! We’d go to Jon Craig. He struck out Clemente, then got a double play from Julio Diaz, who had replaced Outram with the game well out of reach to save the superstar’s juices. 11-0 Furballs!! Jimenez 2-5, RBI; Maldonado 2-4, BB, 2 HR, 6 RBI; Kilmer 2-5, 2B, RBI; Yamamoto 2-4, RBI; Castro 2-4; Mathers 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 7 K, W (7-4) and 1-2, RBI;

Maud, cookies for tomorrow? Celebratory cookies? Something obscene? Like, impaled elks?

We got no such thing, but I saw Chad in the mascot outfit sitting on some stairs near the back entrance to the clubhouse, patting the head of his plush toy elk with the wiggling antlers. Traitors everywhere!

Game 2
POR: RF Nettles – 3B Jimenez – CF Maldonado – LF Fernandez – SS Castro – C Kilmer – 1B Yamamoto – 2B Gutierrez – P Lambert
VAN: RF van der Zanden – C Clemente – CF Outram – 2B Schneller – 3B J. Becker – 1B J. Lopez – LF V. Vazquez – SS R. Johnston – P Hicks

The Coons didn’t get a hit the first time through, then got three in a row with two outs in the third inning from Nettles (double), Jimenez, and Maldo (singles), scoring a run before Manny grounded out. Lambert meanwhile conceded his first hit on a single by Hicks (…!), then gave up a swift double to van der Zanden and a 2-run single to Clemente to find the trailing position in this game. The damn Elks doubled their output in the fourth inning; Justin Becker drew a leadoff walk, and Ryan Johnston hit a 2-out bomb to stretch their lead to 4-1.

The Raccoons had apparently scored all their runs on Friday, because they didn’t convert even the easy chances on Saturday. Maldonado raked a 1-out triple in the sixth with nobody on base, but was stranded with a walk to Manny, a bad whiff by Castro, and a poor fly by Kilmer. Hicks was fooling them left and right, piling up 10 strikeouts through seven innings before giving up a leadoff triple to Ricky Jimenez in the eighth inning and being excused further time on duty. Sebastien Parham replaced him, nicked Maldonado, and a miffed Maldo almost made a whole thing out of it while being gently nudged towards first base by the home plate umpire. The tying run appeared in the box in Manny Fernandez, who hadn’t landed a fat hit all week long, and had to settle for a sac fly to center, 4-2. Castro ended the inning with a 6-4-3 grounder. While Kelly, Ramirez, and Green held the line for the Raccoons through eight, the Raccoons would send 6-7-8 to the plate against left-hander Alex Lewis in the ninth inning. He had a K/BB of flat four, and a 2.36 ERA, and I was not concerned about a rally here. Kilmer, Yamamoto, and de Wit hit three poor grounders to end the game. 4-2 Canadiens. Jimenez 2-4, 3B, RBI; Maldonado 2-3, 3B; Fernandez 0-1, 2 BB, RBI; Anderson (PH) 1-1;

Below Maldonado, the starting lineup hit 0-for-18 with Manny’s two walks.

Jackson then had to get back out there for Sunday, and the bronze goal for him would be to do better than Monday (1.2 IP, 6 ER)…

Game 3
POR: RF Nettles – 3B Jimenez – 1B Maldonado – LF Fernandez – SS Castro – C Sieber – 2B Gutierrez – CF Anderson – P Jackson
VAN: RF van der Zanden – C Clemente – CF Outram – 2B Schneller – LF M. Hernandez – 3B J. Becker – 1B J. Lopez – SS R. Johnston – P Medvec

Sean Sieber put the Coons on top with a solo homer in the second inning, but Jackson also gave up a leadoff triple to Dan Schneller in the same frame, although Schneller had to leave the game with an apparent injury; Steve Jorgensen replaced him. Melvin Hernandez got the tying run home with a groundout while Jackson continued to be rather not so impressive. He couldn’t get a bunt down in the third inning either after Van Anderson had opened the inning with a single up the middle, then slapped a single through the left side at 0-2, putting runners on the corners. Nettles popped out unhelpfully, but Jimenez gave the Coons the lead with a sac fly, 2-1, although Jackson had another implosion in him. He allowed a single to the opposing pitcher to begin the bottom 3rd, which was always such a red flag, and Clemente and Outram also reached before the Schneller replacement schnelled one outta here for a grand slam.

Jackson was yanked in the fourth after another two hits and a walk, and another run that made it 6-2 for the damn Elks. I was confidently assured that the Opening Day starter’s curse in Portland was alive and well, even though Chuck Jones somehow got out of the stinking inning after entering in a double switch and after allowing a bases-stuffing single to the unretireable Jerry Outram. Jorgensen grounded out to end the inning this time, though…

Jones gave up a homer to Johnny Lopez in the fifth, though, which extended the gap to five runs, and I had no hopes at this point, and no desires other than for lightning to drive from the sky and strike and kill me dead… No such mercy was in the cards for me, but instead I got the bottom 6th, in which Seth Green entered with two outs and nobody on, walked Clemente and Outram, then gave up a 3-run homer to Jorgensen, which gave 7 RBI to a player that hadn’t been in the starting lineup. That 3-run homer was the final exclamation mark on the game. The Raccoons couldn’t, and the ******* Elks stopped trying after that… 10-2 Canadiens. Kilmer (PH) 1-1; Sieber 2-4, HR, 2B, RBI; Anderson 2-3;

In other news

June 3 – DAL 2B Hugo Acosta (.399, 1 HR, 30 RBI) has a 20-game hitting streak with a three-hit game in an 8-5 win over the Capitals.
June 5 – The Loggers empty a bathtub with 13 runs over the Titans in the first inning alone, romping them 17-3 in the end. MIL 2B/3B Jose Cruz (.295, 1 HR, 17 RBI) drives in six runs on three hits, including a bases-clearing triple.
June 6 – SFB 3B/1B Ramon Sifuentes (.296, 11 HR, 44 RBI) shines with four hits and five RBI in a 16-4 rout of the Condors.

FL Player of the Week: TOP 1B Chris Delagrange (.277, 11 HR, 36 RBI), hitting .455 (10-22) with 4 HR, 7 RBI
CL Player of the Week: POR UT Jesus Maldonado (.335, 7 HR, 34 RBI), swatting .391 (9-23) with 3 HR, 8 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Hey, everybody’s favorite worst hitter is back, Nick Lando, thanks to Arturo Carreno coming apart for the time being and spending June on the DL. Lando hit .260 with one homer in AAA. He will slide back into the platoon role at second base that worked so not well at the start of last season when we waited for Cosmo Trevino to come off the DL in April. Going 1-for-3 against John Roeder on Friday actually got him to .200 for his career!

Well, and then he hit 0-for-2 as a double switch replacement in Sunday’s rout.

Cory Lambert took the 5,200th regular season loss for the franchise with his ho-hum appearance on Saturday. Not that it stinks more that the 5,200th came against the damn Elks. Every loss to the damn Elks stinks. We had two of them on the weekend. They both stunk.

Next week, 7-game homestand with the Titans and Pacifics. The team played 7-9 against a string of losing ballclubs. Let’s see how they can do against a string of winning ones! We might get as many as four of those, including the Rebels at the end, in a row here, before a weekend set with the Arrowheads.

Fun Fact: Jason Wheatley’s 3-7 record is not pretty, but we tend to not blame him for it.

The Raccoons are scoring 2.36 runs on average in his starts. He lost six games in a row before winning Wednesday’s contest in Atlanta, but allowed more than three runs only twice, and more than three earned runs only once, and then that was a 4-run game, in those six starts.