[Westheim]

Raccoons (68-62) vs. Thunder (57-74) – August 27-29, 2057

Lots of playing out the string here. The Thunder were up 4-2 on the season series, while sitting seventh in runs scored, tenth in runs allowed, and fifth in the CL South. For being 17 games under .500, they had a relatively mild -40 run differential.

Projected matchups:
Ramon Carreno (4-5, 5.01 ERA) vs. Aaron Harris (9-9, 3.43 ERA)
Justin DeRose (2-1, 3.68 ERA) vs. Tan Brink (10-8, 3.38 ERA)
J.J. Sensabaugh (1-2, 4.97 ERA) vs. Eric Barnes (3-1, 5.06 ERA)

The Thunder had two left-handed starters, and we would not see any of them.

The Raccoons still had an even shorter bench than usual, since Todd Oley was suspended for two more games.

Game 1
OCT: SS Almadanim – 3B Soberanes – CF D. Guzman – RF M. Harmon – 2B Ban – C Korfhage – LF Weant – 1B de la Roca – P A. Harris
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – CF Abercrombie – 1B Brassfield – RF Griggs – C Zamora – LF Johnson – 3B Espinoza – P Carreno

Ed Soberanes’ homer got the Thunder in the lead two batters into the game, but the Coons would make that deficit up in unearned fashion. Jonathan Ban’s throwing error put Labonte on base to begin the bottom 1st. Lonzo singled and Abercrombie grounded out get Labonte around to score. The Thunder came back with three 2-out singles in a row from their 3-4-5 batters in the top 3rd to grab a new 2-1 lead, and Carreno wasn’t really fooling anybody, giving up seven hits total in just three innings. But the Coons also got three singles in the bottom 3rd to tie the game with two outs, the hits coming from Labonte, Lonzo, and Brassfield. Griggs’ grounder to Ban ended the inning, however.

Carreno wobbled on, giving up singles to Soberanes and Danny Guzman in the fifth inning, then walked Jonathan Ban on four pitches with two down in the inning. The bullpen was warmed up at this point, since Carreno was hard to watch, but Mitch Korfhage popped out just before we could launch a lefty from the pen to face Tim Weant. Carreno then retired the 7-8-9 batters in order in the sixth inning to finish the day. The Thunder instead got up against John Scott in the seventh inning. Will Buras led off with a double to right, while Guzman hit a double to left with one out to go up 3-2, and Mancilla and Herrera gave up another run in the eighth inning, giving up singles to Korfhage (the former) and Matt Cox (the latter) to put the 2-out run together. The string kept going in the ninth with Jonathan Ban’s sac fly off Reynaldo Bravo, who had given up a single to Guzman and a double to Mike Harmon. The Critters never got anywhere in terms of rallying; Zamora hit a single in the ninth, but that was about it. 5-2 Thunder. Labonte 3-4; Lavorano 2-4; Brassfield 2-4, RBI;

Game 2
OCT: SS Almadanim – 3B Soberanes – CF D. Guzman – RF M. Harmon – 2B Ban – C Korfhage – LF J. Mendoza – 1B de la Roca – P E. Barnes
POR: CF Royer – SS Lavorano – RF Abercrombie – 1B Brassfield – 3B Brobeck – C Chavez – LF Johnson – 2B Bribiesca – P DeRose

I sighed when the Thunder went up in the first again, 1-0 on a Soberanes double off the wall, wild pitch, and Guzman’s sac fly against DeRose, who melted down with great hurrah in the second inning, just as the contents of my bottle of Capt’n Coma. Ban led off with a triple on the first pitch of the inning, scored on a single by Korfhage, and Jose Mendoza grounded out. Eddie de la Roca hit an RBI single, DeRose ****** Barnes’ bunt into an infield single with an attempt, charitably described as “ill-advised”, to get the lead runner at second base, Hélder Almadanim’s RBI single, and then, after a K to Soberanes, an RBI single by Guzman, with a second run scoring on a throwing error by Eiljah Johnson before Harmon finally grounded the **** out. 5-0. DeRose kept pitching anyway, because there wasn’t a way to cram enough tossers on a 25-man roster to cover for all his and the other turds’ ********.

Bribiesca’s walk, singles by Royer and Lonzo, and Abercrombie’s decently-placed groundout allowed the Raccoons to score two runs in the bottom 3rd, RBI’s for Lonzo and Abs, but when in the fourth a Brobeck double and another Ban error put a pair on the corners, Bribiesca smashed a ball into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play. While DeRose failed his way through six innings without allowing another run despite serving up two more leadoff doubles in the fourth and sixth innings, the Raccoons actually got the tying runs into scoring position in the bottom 6th. Abercrombie and Brassfield got on to begin the inning, and Johnson drove an RBI single to left with two outs to shorten the score to 5-3. Bribiesca flew out, though, and instead the Thunder ran away with the game in the eighth after Sencion and Scott walked the bags full, and they got a 2-run double from de la Roca and a pinch-hit RBI single from Tim Weant before Mike Lane entered to restore some semblance of order. The Raccoons found a weak reply with Brobeck plating Brassfield and his 1-out double in the bottom 8th, but after that immediately had Chavez hit into a double play, and Bribiesca hit into another ******* double play in the ninth inning. 8-4 Thunder. Lavorano 2-4, RBI; Brassfield 1-2, 2 BB, 2B; Brobeck 2-4, 2B, RBI; Johnson 2-4, RBI;

Game 3
OCT: SS Almadanim – 3B Soberanes – CF D. Guzman – 2B Ban – LF Weant – RF Buras – C T. Anderson – 1B de la Roca – P Brink
POR: 2B Labonte – 1B Royer – 3B Brobeck – RF Abercrombie – C Chavez – CF Oley – LF Johnson – SS Bribiesca – P Sensabaugh

Five Thunders stuffed four singles into Sensabaugh in the first inning, making it another 1-0 lead early on for Oklahoma City and also two outs on the base paths, Almadanim and Guzman both getting thrown out at the plate by Abercombie. For Portland, singles by Labonte, Royer, and Abercrombie loaded the bases in the bottom 1st, and more were to follow. Chavez singled to tie the game, and Todd Oley, fresh off the penalty bench, singled home two with a shot through the right side. Johnson singled to fill the bases again, but Bribiesca popped out and Sensabaugh grounded out. They both were productive in the third inning, though; Bribiesca hit a sac fly to cash in on Johnson’s 1-out triple, and then Sensabaugh singled to center with two outs and nobody on, but was left stranded on Labonte’s fly out. Johnson himself hit a sac fly in the fifth inning for the Coons’ fifth run, plating Marcos Chavez, who had whacked a double to left to begin the inning.

Strikeouts remained hard to come by for the apparently underdone Sensabaugh, but he had a few calm innings in between before giving up a home run to Soberanes in the sixth that narrowed the score to 5-2. He pitched into the seventh inning, then suddenly gave up a single to Jose Mendoza, a triple to Almadanim, and whacked Soberanes to have the tying runs on the corners with two outs in a 5-3 game. Eloy Sencion got a fly to Abercrombie from Danny Guzman to keep the Raccoons ahead. Sencion and Mancilla handled the eighth, although after Will Buras’ 2-out single and the pitching change Mancilla sure tried to give up a game-tying homer to Travis Anderson, light-hitting rookie catcher. Matt Walters handled the rest. 5-3 Raccoons. Labonte 2-4, BB, 2B; Chavez 2-4, 2B, RBI; Johnson 2-3, 3B, RBI;

Raccoons (69-64) vs. Loggers (73-60) – August 30-September 2, 2057

For whatever reason, the Raccoons couldn’t play against the Loggers this year. Of 11 games contested, we had won ONE. Milwaukee ranked fourth in runs scored and sixth in runs allowed with a +40 run differential and was nine games behind the Crusaders as of Thursday morning, but they had seven games left with the hapless Critters, so that already auto-won them to 5 1/2 games out…

Projected matchups:
Craig Kniep (4-4, 5.13 ERA) vs. Seisaku Taki (11-9, 3.99 ERA)
Kyle Brobeck (3-7, 5.55 ERA) vs. Julian Dunn (13-9, 4.02 ERA)
Ramon Carreno (4-5, 4.86 ERA) vs. Tyler Riddle (10-11, 3.27 ERA)
Justin DeRose (2-2, 4.21 ERA) vs. Sam Webb (7-5, 4.09 ERA)

After a string of right-handers, the Raccoons would face southpaws on Saturday and Sunday – unless the Loggers would celebrate September 1 with a roster-expansion surprise.

Game 1
MIL: CF Valenzano – 2B Garmon – LF Pigman – 1B D. Robles – RF Callaia – C Mi. Gilmore – SS Wartella – 3B Sostre – P Taki
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – LF Abercrombie – 1B Brassfield – C Chavez – RF Griggs – CF Oley – 3B Espinoza – P Kniep

Kniep was taken deep by Dave Robles for a 3-run homer inside 15 pitches, which was astounding on its own, following leadoff singles by Steve Valenzano and Corey Garmon. The Raccoons’ foremost master of disaster (and that was saying something!) went on to offer a walk to Taki in the second inning, singles to the 1-2 batters, a bases-loaded walk to Perry Pigman… and then got taken deep by Robles for the second consecutive inning, this time for a grand slam, after which the game could comfortably be written off as another soul-mauling L.

Was it a huge surprise that Kniep pitched another four innings in the lost cause, or was it an even bigger surprise that the Loggers got only one more run out of him on a Garmon homer with two outs in the sixth to get the score to 9-0? We *truly* didn’t care about individual results anymore, so in the interest of the actually valuable arms in the bullpen, please continue your absolute ***********, thank you. At the same time, Taki had a 1-hitter; he put the first two batters on base in the bottom 2nd, so there was legit hope for a Taki inning, but the Raccoons then raced to make three quick outs, and didn’t come close to scoring thereafter until Lonzo forced out Labonte and his 1-out single in the bottom 6th, but then stole second base… and was left there when Abercrombie grounded out to serial tater Robles. The Loggers didn’t make it double digits until Pigman hit a solo homer off John Scott in the ninth inning, and the Coons didn’t get Taki out of the game until there was one out in the bottom of the ninth, and then still didn’t ******* score against Roberto Navarro. 10-0 Loggers.

The funny thing is that we still have a winning record and a positive run differential (+28).

That was also the last game we played in August, since Friday brought persistent rain and the second game of the series was thus wiped out and pushed into a September 1 double header. The Loggers would stick to having Dunn in the first game of the double header, and since the Coons had only tossers left, they also didn’t have to switch Brobeck and Carreno.

There was a number of additions to the roster, however, because we definitely needed more garbage relievers. For pitchers, Argenziano had left his Friday start in St. Pete with an injury, so he was XXX’ed out from the depth chart, but we added Adam Harris, Colby Bowen, and Alex Rios, e.g. every reliever that was on the 40-man roster already, plus Ryan Wade, who would slide into the rotation after the weekend at the expense of Brobeck, Kniep, and everybody else, because they were all pitching like dog piss.

For position players we brought back Aaron Wade (yes, I will mix them up all the time), Carlos Solorzano, and also added Loggers prospect import Tony Benitez; the switch-hitter was batting .280 for St. Pete in 28 games. He was a natural right-handed hitter, so he wasn’t exactly what you’d hope to be the stronger side. Matt Stanton was brought back as token third catcher.

Game 2
MIL: CF Valenzano – 3B Gaxiola – LF Pigman – 1B D. Robles – RF Callaia – SS Wartella – C Dye – 2B Sostre – P Dunn
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – RF Abercrombie – 1B Brassfield – P Brobeck – C Zamora – CF Oley – RF Johnson – 3B Benitez

Brobeck was behind everybody, walked two, including Gaudencio Callaia with the bases loaded, and gave up a run on two hits in the first inning as the Raccoons’ remarkable run of cocking up a run in every top of the first this week continued relentlessly. Dunn pitched only one inning before leaving with an injury, and Brobeck pitched only four innings for being absolute dog ****. He walked six batters in those four innings, and gave up another run on a Matt Wartella single after a pair of 2-out walks to Robles and Callaia in the third inning. The Raccoons were getting no-hit by a potpourri of relievers in the meantime. Tony Benitez started his career 0-for-2 with the stick, but got an RBI for plating Todd Oley with a groundout in the bottom 5th; Oley had walked, advanced on a wild pitch and groundout, and found the way to home before Labonte grounded a ball back to the pitcher Sam Geren to end the inning. Milwaukee got that run back quick with Bill Sostre’s leadoff single against Tanizaki and after Herrera walked Robby Gaxiola, a 2-out RBI single from Pigman in the top of the sixth. I was getting headaches and nothing else.

Gaxiola’s throwing error put Lonzo on second base to begin the bottom 6th against Josh Costello, however, and Abercrombie wasted no time singling home the shortstop to shorten the score to 3-2. Brassfield flew out, but a wild pitch and a walk to Jake Griggs increased the pressure. Zamora hit into a fielder’s choice, but Oley drew another walk from Costello, bringing up Johnson with the bases loaded. The Loggers didn’t see the need for a left-hander against this rookie, and paid for it with a bases-clearing double into the left-center gap. Huzzah! Benitez then lined out to Sostre against Curt Rosato, leaving Elijah Johnson on base.

Callaia answered with a seventh-inning homer off Adam Harris. In the same inning, the Raccoons tried to corner Navarro; Labonte and Abercrombie reached base, and then Brassfield grounded to short. The good news was that Wartella was slow to the ball, threw poorly to first, and Brassfield was safe to load the bases. The bad news was that he also tweaked a hammy and had to leave the ballgame. Bribiesca pinch-ran, Royer pinch-hit for the pitcher, whiffed, and then Chavez batted for Zamora, but flew out to Pigman on the warning track, and all the precious runners were left stranded. Sencion defended the 5-4 lead with two strikeouts in a 1-2-3 inning against the top of the order in the eighth, ending a string of crikey outings for him, while Tony Benitez got his first base hit and another RBI in the bottom 8th when he doubled off Navarro to score Todd Oley for an insurance run. Matt Walters whiffed the Loggers in order to put the first game of the day away. 6-4 Coons. Brassfield 2-3, BB; Oley 1-2, 2 BB;

Trent Brassfield would miss at least a week with the tweaked hammy, further watering down an already pretty diluted lineup.

Game 3
MIL: CF Valenzano – 3B Gaxiola – LF Pigman – 1B D. Robles – RF Callaia – SS Wartella – C Mi. Gilmore – 2B Sostre – P Riddle
POR: CF Royer – SS Lavorano – RF Griggs – LF Abercrombie – C Chavez – 2B Bribiesca – 3B Espinoza – 1B A. Wade – P Carreno

This time the Raccoons took a 1-0 lead in the first… even if only on a passed ball that scored Royer from third base while the 3-4-5 batters all croaked with a pair in scoring position as both Royer and Lonzo singled, and Lonzo stole second base, which put him at 499 for his career. To anybody’s surprise, Carreno held on to that precise score for a substantial distance, as it was still 1-0 in the bottom 5th, when Lonzo hit a 2-out single, and everybody was anxious to see what would happen. Riddle nominally had a great move, but he had already been fooled once by Lonzo in the game, and he was fooled again as Lonzo dashed first pitch, and managed to slide in just under the tag by Sostre – it had been done! 500 stolen bases for Lonzo’s career, at age 30! …and then Griggs struck out.

Carreno kept pitching until he inevitably gave up a game-tying homer to Mike Gilmore leading off the eighth inning, but then still finished that inning without allowing another base runner. The bottom 8th was a sad sight to see, while Mike Lane held the Loggers from scoring in the ninth. While Pigman hit a single, Robles found Lonzo for a double play in that inning, but the Raccoons got just that far themselves in the bottom 9th with two pinch-hitters. Zamora singled, and Labonte found the double play to send the game to extras. The Coons then inexplicably wound up with Mancilla in the top 10th, leading to a welt on Mike Gilmore and a pinch-hit RBI double by Kyle Kohlman for them to take the lead before Kelly Konecny grounded out to Espinoza at third base. Ramon Montes de Oca got the ball for the bottom 10th and allowed the tying run on base with a Royer single right away. Lonzo grounded to Robles, who fumbled the ball for an error. Griggs dorked into a double play, Abercrombie popped out, and it was just horrendous. 2-1 Loggers. Royer 2-5; Lavorano 2-5; Chavez 2-5; Zamora (PH) 1-1; Carreno 8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K and 1-3;

The one time Carreno pitches nicely…

To my even greater annoyance, the Loggers vacated Southpaw Sunday for a serving of right-hander Adam Foley (10-11, 3.95 ERA). How dare they!!??

Game 4
MIL: CF Valenzano – 3B Gaxiola – LF Pigman – 1B D. Robles – SS Wartella – C Dye – RF Garmon – 2B Sostre – P Foley
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – RF Griggs – C Chavez – CF Oley – LF Johnson – 3B Benitez – 1B A. Wade – P DeRose

Labonte’s triple and Griggs’ single in the first and Johnson’s single, a wild pitch, groundout, and Wade’s sac fly in the second gave the Raccoons a 2-0 lead, but Sostre and Foley reached to begin the third inning for the Loggers, and both scored on a 2-out throwing error by Benitez that smelled like sabotage. Elijah Johnson’s 2-run homer in the fourth grabbed the 2-run lead back, and DeRose kept failing forwards bravely, and didn’t even allow a run in the sixth despite giving up three singles to Pigman, Robles, and Wartella. Pigman was caught stealing, and Jonathan Dye’s double play wrapped up the rest of the inning. Kohlman hit a homer pinch-hitting for Foley in the seventh, though, and Valenzano’s 2-out single knocked DeRose finally out of the 4-3 game. Callaia pinch-hit for Gaxiola before the Coons double-switched (Solorzano for Johnson) in Ricky Herrera in relief, and the inning ended with a K.

Lonzo was on the ends of double plays in the bottom 7th, when he killed the inning with a 6-4-3 grounder after Solorzano and Labonte had reached base, and the top 8th, when he started one himself to erase Pigman’s leadoff single. Wartella singled off Herrera with two outs, and Dye singled off Tanizaki to put runners on the corners. The Raccoons kept going to the well and got a groundout from Ryan Bishton to Tony Benitez from Adam Harris to bugger out of the inning, but instead Walters blew the lead in the ninth. Two outs were logged, but then Valenzano singled, stole second, and scored on Mike Gilmore’s single to level the score at four. Arf. Pigman whiffed, but there was no prize for that anymore. Bottom 9th, right-hander Dan Bell pitching: Benitez ripped a double to center as the first man up in the inning, offering a prime walkoff chance. Abercrombie’s day off ended to bat for Atrocious Wade (.105, 1 HR, 5 RBI), but the Loggers walked him intentionally. Solorzano’s scratch single then loaded the bases with nobody out. Oh goody goodness! (pats paws together excitedly) An even bittererer non-ending! What a treat we’re getting here! Nah, actually Labonte slapped a walkoff single through the hole on the very next pitch. 5-4 Raccoons. Labonte 3-5, 3B, RBI; Chavez 2-4; Johnson 3-3, HR, 2 RBI; Solorzano 1-1, BB; DeRose 6.2 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K;

In other news

August 27 – SFB 1B/C Jon Mittleider (.279, 5 HR, 39 RBI) could miss the rest of the season after suffering an intercostal strain.
August 28 – TOP SP Bill Hernandez (12-6, 3.50 ERA) throws a 3-hit shutout with seven strikeouts in a 4-0 win over the Wolves.
August 28 – CIN 1B Gabriel Brown (.274, 14 HR, 66 RBI) hits two home runs on a 4-hit, 6-RBI day to lead the Cyclones to an 18-2 home win over the Pacifics, in which Cincy scores in every inning but the second.
August 28 – Weasely NYC UT Omar Sanchez (.335, 0 HR, 36 RBI) sticks his hip out to get hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to allow for a 6-5 walkoff win against the Aces’ MR Bill McDermott (4-5, 7.44 ERA).
August 29 – The Loggers beat the Falcons, 4-3 in 16 innings. The teams spread a total of 20 base hits across almost five hours of baseball.
August 29 – PIT 1B/RF/LF/2B Chris Jimenez (.200, 4 HR, 49 RBI) goes yard to give the Miners a 1-0 win over the Gold Sox.
August 31 – The Titans celebrate a 5-run rally in the bottom of the ninth for a 12-11 walkoff win over the Canadiens.
September 2 – Thunder OF/1B Mike Harmon (.243, 8 HR, 46 RBI) is out for the year after breaking his ankle.
September 2 – A broken foot ends the season of Titans OF/1B Hector Weir (.276, 0 HR, 32 RBI).
September 2 – VAN C Kevin Weese (.288, 7 HR, 38 RBI) goes deep to beat the Titans, 1-0.

FL Player of the Week: SFW 1B Miguel Medina (.281, 16 HR, 68 RBI), hitting .583 (14-24) with 2 HR, 7 RBI
CL Player of the Week: MIL C/1B Mike Gilmore (.288, 10 HR, 33 RBI), batting .533 (8-15) with 2 HR, 6 RBI

FL Hitter of the Month: WAS LF/RF Dan Martin (.295, 19 HR, 60 RBI), hitting .377 with 5 HR, 16 RBI
CL Hitter of the Month: IND RF/LF/1B Bill Quinteros (.301, 19 HR, 63 RBI), bashing .333 with 7 HR, 14 RBI
FL Pitcher of the Month: DAL SP Rich Morrall (10-13, 3.47 ERA), going 5-1 with a 1.79 ERA, 25 K in 6 starts
CL Pitcher of the Month: MIL SP Seisaku Taki (12-9, 3.81 ERA), posting a 3-0 mark with 1.84 ERA, 32 K
FL Rookie of the Month: DAL 1B Manny Rubin (.268, 7 HR, 24 RBI), going .269 with 7 HR, 22 RBI
CL Rookie of the Month: POR INF Paul Labonte (.316, 4 HR, 22 RBI), slapping .374 with 2 HR, 9 RBI

Complaints and stuff

The best thing this week was Lonzo, and I probably have to concede that nobody literally died. That was about it. The pitching was awful, the offense was awful… the good news is that there’s only four more weeks of this and then we can all go home and hide for six months.

The Raccoons will play the Indians and Titans next week. We have a day off every week now, but also one more double header with the Falcons a bit further down the road. But thankfully we can now cram almost as many pitchers on the roster as we reasonably need to play 54 innings a week, limited only by the 40-man roster.

Fun Fact: 500!!

15 stolen bases in five weeks punched Lonzo’s ticket into the very exclusive 500 SB club, of which he is the seventh member. He won’t make up another spot on the ladder for at least a year from here, but I can just grin and cackle with glee for a bit, can’t I?

1st – Pablo Sanchez – 721 – HOF
2nd – Enrique “Cosmo” Trevino – 708 – HOF
3rd – Guillermo Obando – 686 – HOF
4th – Alberto “Berto” Ramos – 677 – HOF
5th – Alex Vasquez – 575 – active
6th – Rich de Luna – 570
7th – Lorenzo Lavorano – 500 – active
8th – Oscar Mendoza – 494
9th – Moromao Hino – 485
10th – Omar Gonzalez – 478 – active

The top three are of course well known. Pablo Sanchez was Felix Marquez before Felix Marquez was Felix Marquez, playing for forever, until age 45 in his case. He was mostly an FL player, so we didn’t meet him often, but he was a 3-time Player of the Year, won four batting titles, and two stolen base crowns, although he remarkably never stole 50 in a season, topping out at 48 in his age 25 season in 2019. He’s in the Hall of Fame as a Scorpion, getting 99.2% of the vote. 4,476 career hits, too.

Guillermo Obando was a bit of a traveler, playing for nine different teams. He won four stolen base titles across both leagues. He was only a modest batter (103 OPS+ for his career), but still employed longevity and amassed 3,304 hits in addition to all the stolen bases.

Of course, “Cosmo” Trevino was on the Raccoons for a while, although he made the Hall of Fame as a Capital (like Obando). He won the stolen base title a whopping eight times, six with the Caps and two with the Raccoons, where he wound up at age 29. Serial .300 hitter and constant on-base threat, and one wonders where he could have wound up if he hadn’t aged comparably early, with his age 34 season not only being his last in Portland, but his last as a regular as well. He bopped around for a few more years, and still managed to compile 3,060 hits with all those scoops.