[Westheim]

Raccoons (70-73) vs. Crusaders (89-53) – September 9-12, 2058

The Crusaders led the season series 9-5 and could clinch the division while in Portland, which was never something I enjoyed witnessing, but the writing had been on the wall for months and it wasn’t like we had been anywhere close (again). Their #2 offense and #1 pitching was putting up quite the show and they were aiming for their third straight pennant.

Projected matchups:
Chance Fox (5-6, 4.89 ERA) vs. Milt Cantrell (10-9, 3.38 ERA)
Bobby Herrera (12-9, 3.25 ERA) vs. Joel Luera (15-6, 3.20 ERA)
Zach Stewart (11-11, 3.01 ERA) vs. Ben Seiter (18-5, 3.09 ERA)
Justin DeRose (2-5, 6.10 ERA) vs. Seisaku Taki (11-7, 3.19 ERA)

Only right-handed pitchers – again – coming up in this series. The Coons hadn’t met a southpaw starter since early August.

Game 1
NYC: 2B Lemke – RF Rodriquez – SS Z. Suggs – CF Zeiher – 1B Standard – LF S. Moore – C Reese – 3B Ale. Silva – P Cantrell
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – RF Puckeridge – C M. Chavez – LF Brassfield – 1B Starr – 3B Brobeck – CF Oley – P Fox

A 2-out single by Brassfield drove in Lonzo with an unearned run in the first inning, giving the Raccoons a 1-0 lead mostly owing to Alejandro Silva’s error at third base, not that it lasted all too long. Chance Fox was out of control, offered a leadoff walk to Jeff Standard in the top 2nd, and Justin Reese’s single and another walk to Silva loaded the bases. A four-pitch walk to Milt ******* Cantrell tied the game, and Bruce Lemke singled home a pair more before Tony Rodriquez and Zach Suggs made meek outs to end the inning. Utterly useless, Fox didn’t make it out of the fifth inning, getting yanked after 1-out walks to Suggs and Sean Zeiher to let Ricky Herrera wiggle out against Standard and Scott Moore. The score at that point was down to 3-2 New York thanks to Lonzo hitting a single and stealing his 52nd base in the fourth inning, after which Marcos Chavez singled him home from second base. The offense stalled there while Colby Bowen put two scoreless innings together in the sixth and seventh, but then Mike Goldfield got the ball and looked more like Fox than was necessary, offering three walks himself in two third of an inning while allowing a run on a pinch-hit single by Mike Seidman. Mike Siwik struck out Eric Cobb with the bags teeming to get out of that awful mess. Cantrell, who chose not to become a Raccoon for good reasons, went eight innings, and Kennedy Adkins put the Raccoons away without much fuss in the ninth. 4-2 Crusaders. Lavorano 2-4; Bowen 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K;

As the famous saying goes: When Colby Bowen is the best guy on your team, you can just as well stay home on the couch.

This L also provided mathematical elimination for the Coons for this year, but we had been spiritually eliminated in May, so whatever.

Game 2
NYC: 2B Lemke – LF Rodriquez – SS Z. Suggs – RF Zeiher – 1B Sevilla – CF V. Velez– C Seidman – 3B Ale. Silva – P Luera
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – LF Puckeridge – RF Martinez – 1B Starr – C C. Chavez – 3B Anderson – CF Morris – P B. Herrera

Tony Rodriquez went deep to right five pitches into the game, but it got way worse than that 1-0 deficit way soon. The third inning began with Herrera allowing a leadoff single to center to Luera, and Rodriquez reached with one out when Labonte threw away his potential double play grounder that would have ended the inning after the second inning had already come to a screeching halt for the Crusaders on a double play that Silva hit into. With two outs here, the Crusaders brought out the whip: Sean Zeiher doubled in two, Raul Sevilla singled home Zeiher, and Victor Velez also hit a sharp single before Seidman found Ben Morris’ glove in centerfield. 4-0 New York then in the middle of the third, although the three runs from that inning were unearned.

Herrera’s own single in the home half of the third inning led nowhere, and then we spent the middle innings watching him give up a leadoff hit in every frame, then painstakingly labor his way around it. Stuff wasn’t there, but at least he didn’t walk the bags full all the ******* time. I grumbled and suckled on my bottle of Capt’n Coma to somehow survive those last 18 games of the year.

Luera took a 5-hit shutout into the eighth inning before offering a walk to Labonte, a wild pitch, and a 2-out RBI single to Pucks led to his removal. Ben Lussier got Martinez on a grounder to short, though, so the Raccoons weren’t getting closer by a lot here. Instead, Rodriquez re-established slam range with a leadoff jack against Siwik in the ninth inning, his second home run on the day, and the 11th for the year. Lussier had a 1-2-3 ninth inning against Benitez, Brobeck, and Brassfield, boldly brought from the bench. 5-1 Crusaders. Puckeridge 3-4, RBI;

Pucks also stole a base. (is really reaching for good things to say)

Game 3
NYC: 2B Lemke – RF Rodriquez – SS Z. Suggs – CF Zeiher – LF S. Moore – C Reese – 1B Epperson – 3B Ale. Silva – P Seiter
POR: 2B Labonte – CF Oley – LF Puckeridge – C M. Chavez – 1B Brassfield – RF Martinez – 3B Brobeck – SS Benitez – P Stewart

Rodriquez, Zeiher, and Moore all hit singles off Stewart for a quick 1-0 lead in the first, and Stewart – spoiler alert – would never amount to much in terms of stuff either in this game, getting slapped around a bit for eight hits and three walks in six innings. He did hold a lead for a while, thanks to Marcos Chavez opening the bottom 2nd with a single and then a double-blast by Brass and Martinez that put the Coons 3-1 ahead, but by the sixth inning Stewart frittered that away again. Justin Reese slapped a leadoff single, and Gunner Epperson was smacked by a pitch. Sad outs by Silva and Seiter, who so far was 2-for-2 against Stewart in the game, brought the runners into scoring position, from where Bruce Lemke’s coy single to left-center both scored them to flatten the score at three. Rodriquez’ fly to deep center was chased down by Todd Oley to end the inning, while the Raccoons then had their own single and hit-by-pitch in the bottom 6th to put Brobeck and Benitez on with one out. Joel Starr batted for Stewart, walked in a full count, and thus filled the bases. Labonte whiffed, but Oley crucially shoved a ball through between Lemke and Epperson for a 2-out, 2-run single of our own, and that got rid of Seiter and gave a potential W back to Zach Stewart before Jameson Monk got Pucks to fly out to right.

After Ricky Herrera got around a Zach Suggs single to hold the 5-3 line in the seventh, Monk put Chavez on base in the bottom 7th and Brassfield bashed his second 2-piece of the game to extend the lead to 7-3. A Labonte triple and Oley’s single in the eighth added another run against Zachariah Alldred, who went on to load the bases before getting strikeouts from Brass and Ben Morris to escape the jam short of total annihilation. Up by five, the Raccoons sent out Goldfield for the ninth until the lead down to three on Scott Moore’s 1-out, 2-run homer to right-center and *deep*. Walters then collected the last two outs. 8-5 Raccoons. Oley 2-5, 3 RBI; Puckeridge 2-5, 2B; M. Chavez 2-3, 2 BB; Brassfield 2-5, 2 HR, 4 RBI; Benitez 1-2, BB;

The Crusaders could still clinch the division whilst in Portland on Thursday if they smothered DeRose (likely) and if the Titans lost to the Arrowheads (push).

Game 4
NYC: 2B Lemke – LF Rodriquez – SS Z. Suggs – RF Zeiher – 1B Sevilla – CF Epperson – C Seidman – 3B Ale. Silva – P Taki
POR: 1B Starr – SS Lavorano – RF Puckeridge – C M. Chavez – LF Brassfield – 3B Brobeck – 2B Bribiesca – CF Morris – P DeRose

Seisaku Taki got a bigger hand before the game than DeRose, who at least had the decency to disappear quickly, giving up a homer to Epperson in the second and then leaving two batters later with back soreness. Colby Bowen worked his way out of the inning, while the game was tied in the bottom 2nd when Brass tripled home Chavez and his leadoff walk. Brobeck struck out, but Arturo Bribiesca, of all people, whacked a 2-run homer over the fence in rightfield to give the Raccoons and Colby Bowen especially a 3-1 lead. Bowen had a quick third, then saw Epperson dink a leadoff double into the gap in left-center, while Seidman reached on an infield single, rolling a wheezer to a dead stop halfway between home and third. Alejandro Silva’s comebacker was pounced on by Bowen, though, and taken for a 1-6-3 double play, Epperson held, and now only the pitcher was in the way of a clean exit from a messy inning, and Pucks rushed in from rightfield on a looper Taki hit to the shallow outfield on the first pitch and made the snatch on the run.

For the fifth, Cameron Argenziano appeared in relief. I wasn’t keen on a full 6-man rotation for the rest of the season anyway, and using him for a few innings here and then skipping him to potentially pitch in this spot the next time through if DeRose wasn’t able to would tighten things up a bit. In the event, he made a mess, giving up leadoff hits to Lemke (single) and Rodriquez (double). Suggs hit a sac fly, Zeiher shoved another single, and somehow Rodriquez and the tying run were frozen on third base on Sevilla’s bouncer to Brobeck and then Epperson striking out, so the Raccoons remained up 3-2 in the middle of the fifth. Lonzo was on base and caught stealing in the bottom 5th, and Argenziano continued to escalate in the top of the sixth. Seidman hit a leadoff single, reached scoring position on a wild pitch, and then Argenziano gave up a single to right to Taki, and Pucks overran the ball for extra bases. Bravo got out of the inning, then departed with a leadoff single by Suggs in the seventh, which sugged. Neal Hamann was bombarded with pinch-hitters, of whom Jeff Standard reached base with another single, but he rung up Seidman for the third out of the – nah, Chavez fudged the ball, it rolled away far, and Seidman reached base on the uncaught third strike to load the ******* bases. I glugged half a bottle of Capt’n Coma, including the dead worm, while the Raccoons exited Hamann and brought on Tanizaki, who was met by another pinch-hitter, Scott Moore, got ahead in the count, 1-2, and then allowed a howler down the rightfield line for a 2-run double before Taki flew out to end the ******* inning.

The last two innings were delivered by Brobeck, who got five outs before he got whacked for a run on Velez’ double and Seidman’s RBI single. There was no counter strike by the Critters in the late innings, and the Titans lost to the Indians after all, so while the Raccoons disappeared into the night calmly and collectively, the Crusaders celebrated their division title on the field while I kept drinking away the pain. 6-3 Crusaders. Lavorano 2-4; Puckeridge 2-4; Brassfield 2-4, 3B, RBI; Bribiesca 2-3, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; Bowen 3.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K;

Raccoons (71-76) @ Knights (77-69) – September 13-15, 2058

The road to oblivion went through Atlanta, where the Knights were still in a 3-way battle for the South title, and currently led the division by half a game, so they would have appreciated any additional lying-down-and-taking-it the Raccoons had to offer. Atlanta ranked first in the CL in runs scored, but also allowed the third-most runs with a troubled rotation and patchy defense. The season series was even at three. There was a pile of injuries for them, too, with position players Willie Acosta, Marco Nieto, Nick Fox, and Jon Alade all on the DL along with reliever David Hardaway.

Projected matchups:
Ramon Carreno (6-13, 4.63 ERA) vs. Vic Harman (15-9, 4.28 ERA)
Chance Fox (5-7, 4.96 ERA) vs. Enrique Ortiz (12-13, 4.86 ERA)
Bobby Herrera (12-10, 3.20 ERA) vs. Jeremy Fetta (9-10, 3.50 ERA)

Where have all the southpaws gone? Not to Atlanta.

Game 1
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – LF Brassfield – RF Martinez – 1B Starr – CF Oley – C C. Chavez – 3B Anderson – P Carreno
ATL: CF Nork – 2B Wheeler – LF Abercrombie – C Almaguer – 1B Callaia – 3B Triplett – RF Mayes – SS Moya – P Harman

Harman retired the Raccoons in order the first time through on Friday, striking out three of them, while Carreno at least waited until the bottom 3rd until he blew up. Joaquin Moya’s leadoff single and Harman’s bunt began the inning, and then Carreno issued walks to Dan Nork, Jeff Wheeler, and finally Pedro Almaguer to force in a run. Gaudencio Callaia was nice enough to ground out to first base to strand a full set of runners. Harman’s perfect game ended at ten batters because he nailed Lonzo, and an error by Doug Triplett also put Brassfield on base, but Martinez and Starr made weak outs and the no-hitter remained intact.

Atlanta got Mike Mayes and Moya to the corners with fourth-inning base hits against Carreno, but the Knights didn’t score because Harman was used to bunt Moya to second base for the second out, and Nork popped out to Richard Anderson. Top 5th, and Todd Oley led off with a single to center, then was caught stealing. Cortez Chavez then singled to center, and was doubled up by Anderson’s 6-4-3.

Carreno couldn’t get through six innings even with 106 pitches on the odometer, allowing a 1-out single to Mayes in the bottom 6th before departing and having Hamann clean up behind him. The Coons at least attempted to take him off the hook in the seventh, even if only with two outs, as Starr and Oley went to the corners on a pair of singles. Pucks batted for Chavez – but struck out. Instead, the Raccoons drowned in the bottom 8th, when Tanizaki, Goldfield, and Rios pooled together to allow five hits and three runs as the Knights zoomed into the distance. 4-0 Knights. Oley 2-3;

Game 2
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – LF Puckeridge – RF Martinez – 1B Starr – CF Oley – 3B Brobeck – C Stanton – P Fox
ATL: CF Nork – 1B Wheeler – LF Abercrombie – C Almaguer – 3B Triplett – RF Callaia – 2B E. Miller – SS Moya – P En. Ortiz

Dan Nork and Jeff Wheeler went to the corners with singles and Josh Abercrombie’s sac fly gave the Knights a real quick lead against Fox in the first, but the Raccoons came back right away. Starr and Oley got on base with singles against Enrique Ortiz in the second inning, and while Matt Stanton was down 0-2 with one out, he then shot a ball up the rightfield line for a score-flipping, 2-run double…! He was of course left on base after his 1-out double, and Kyle Brobeck suffered the same fate two innings later. The middle innings were largely uneventful apart from that, which also meant that Chance Fox was either abducted or suddenly pretty good, and astonishingly, the latter was the case. The Knights were stuck on their two hits from the first inning, and he got a few strikeouts in here and there and ran his 2-hitter through six innings while nursing the 2-1 lead.

Top 7th, Stanton took Ortiz to left now for a 1-out single. Fox was called on to bunt and laid down a nice one to Ortiz’ off-side. Ortiz got into Almaguer’s way and played it anyway, then threw the ball short of first base to the point where it almost hit Fox in the back as he was dashing up the line. Wheeler had no chance to contain that missile, either, and the Raccoons had a pair in scoring position after the throwing error. All that was needed now was a well-placed single, and Labonte… struck out, and Lonzo… struck out……

At least Fox pitched seven and a third innings on 98 pitches, and after Nork singled off Siwik, Lonzo started a 6-3 double play on Jeff Wheeler’s grounder to complete the eighth inning. Maybe we could even still get an insurance run – the ninth inning actually started with Todd Oley zinging a triple to centerfield. Brobeck struck out, Stanton walked, Brass struck out, and Labonte … finally hit a ******* RBI single, 3-1. Lonzo flew out to strand a pair, but Walters turned the Knights away in three batters in the bottom 9th. 3-1 Coons. Oley 2-4, 3B; Stanton 2-3, BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Fox 7.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, W (6-7);

Fox’ performance was enough for the bobbleheads on BNN to rave about this bright young prospect (cough!!) and named him Starter of the Day.

They’ve obviously never seen him pitch for real.

Game 3
POR: 2B Labonte – SS Lavorano – RF Puckeridge – LF Brassfield – 1B Starr – C M. Chavez – CF Oley – 3B Brobeck – P B. Herrera
ATL: CF Nork – 2B Wheeler – LF Abercrombie – C Almaguer – 1B Callaia – 3B Triplett – RF Mayes – SS M. Kempf – P Fetta

Lonzo singled and stole his 54th base in the first inning, but was left stranded [more on that below], but Starr walked and scored on Chavez’ double for a 1-0 lead in the second inning; the lead didn’t last, because Triplett and Mayes opened the bottom 2nd with singles against Herrera, and Triplett scored on two groundouts, including Fetta fending off the K at 0-2 and instead grounding out to Lonzo to get the tying run across and take himself off the hook. Dan Nork flew out to end the inning, but socked a double his next time up, driving home Matt Kempf to grab a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning.

The Raccoons remained sleepy, even with singles by Brass and Oley in the sixth inning. The pair was stranded on the corners when Brobeck flew out to Mayes. Labonte hit a 1-out single in the seventh, but was caught stealing. Herrera held out for seven innings without getting any help. Rios and Sencion had a scoreless eighth, but the Raccoons were still a run short when they entered the ninth against Ruben Mendez, and brought up the bottom of the order. Oley grounded out, Brobeck singled, but there was nothing else that could be gained here. Jesus Martinez pinch-hit and struck out, and Labonte grounded out to Wheeler to lose the game, the series, and the season series. 2-1 Knights. Lavorano 2-4; B. Herrera 7.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, L (12-11);

In other news

September 9 – Miners LF/RF/1B Salvatore Rodrigues, who led the FL in hits as a Pacific in 2054, and who played just 22 games for the Miners before suffering a career-ending concussion, announces his retirement. Rodrigues, age 27, batted .314 with 79 HR and 544 RBI in a career started as a 19-year-old, and was an All Star four times. He won a Platinum Stick in 2054.
September 9 – The Rebels’ INF/LF/RF Alex Murillo (.275, 0 HR, 12 RBI) isn’t even in the lineup in their 4-0 loss to the Blue Sox, but ruins the looming no-hitter by NAS SP Coby Strutz (16-7, 3.20 ERA) with a 2-out single in the eighth inning after entering the game in a double switch. No shutout for Strutz either, as MR Jimmy Dingman (3-3, 2.63 ERA, 3 SV) is then brought on to finish the game.
September 10 – The Pacifics’ 1-0 win over the Stars is sponsored entirely by a solo home run by LAP OF/1B/2B Jake Cline (.273, 4 HR, 50 RBI).
September 13 – The Rebels beat the Warriors, 4-3 in 14 innings. The Warriors make four errors and all but one of the Richmond runs are unearned.
September 15 – San Francisco infielder Xavier Reyes (.298, 5 HR, 59 RBI) will miss the rest of the regular season at least after spraining his ankle. He was tied for first place in stolen bases at the time of the injury.
September 15 – The Bayhawks, undeterred, chew down the Loggers to win 11-8 in 14 innings. From the #8 spot in the San Francisco lineup, OF/3B/2B Chris Tomko (.297, 10 HR, 54 RBI) has four hits, a game-tying home run in the ninth inning off Milwaukee’s Brett Lillis jr. (3-2, 3.34 ERA, 2 SV), two doubles, and three RBI. The Loggers go 5-for-8 in stolen bases, while the Bayhawks make no attempt at one.

FL Player of the Week: LAP RF Matt Diskin (.329, 23 HR, 84 RBI), raking .375 (9-24) with 4 HR, 6 RBI
CL Player of the Week: CHA RF/LF Danny Ceballos (.393, 5 HR, 59 RBI), batting .552 (16-29) with 2 HR, 6 RBI

Complaints and stuff

The Reyes news broke over night, so unless Perry Pigman or Matt Kilday then rallied from nine bags down in the last two weeks, Lonzo had a share of the stolen base title assured and could win it outright with just one more base taken. Yeah, the closest competition all suffered injuries to fall by the wayside this year, but he still stole those 53 bases all with his own hindpaws. Reyes was put in the bin right in the first inning on Sunday then, when Lonzo took #54 for the year, and #565 for his career. That puts him just five bases behind Rich de Luna for sixth all-time, so maybe it will still happen this year; a dozen games left to make it work!

And that is basically all the encouragement I can still cough up here. About the best news is that the season will soon be over.

Zach Stewart is still hanging around a top 3 finish in ERA this year. He’s currently just five points off Thunder pitcher Aaron Harris, sitting third with a flat-3 ERA.

Monday will be off. After that there’s a 9-game homestand with the Falcons, Loggers, and Indians, then a 3-game set in Elk City to finish the season.

Fun Fact: Lonzo did not get an RBI all week long and still ties for the team lead with 60.

(sad GM noises)