[Westheim]

Raccoons (74-62) @ Crusaders (67-68) – September 8-11, 2064

Trying to track down the Titans would require the Raccoons to go to New York next and not suck there. The Crusaders had no offense, scoring the second-fewest runs in the CL, and decent, but abandoned pitching, with a -12 run differential. The Critters were 6-5 ahead on the season series with seven games to play. Outfielder Bryant Box was the only DL absence for New York.

Projected matchups:
Angel Alba (11-10, 4.19 ERA) vs. Erik Lee (7-11, 3.61 ERA)
Jarod Morris (8-5, 3.42 ERA) vs. Jeff Kozloski (9-13, 3.47 ERA)
Josh Elling (13-6, 3.67 ERA) vs. Josh Barcellona (8-6, 3.72 ERA)
Tyler Riddle (14-9, 2.90 ERA) vs. Ryan Musgrave (9-13, 4.21 ERA)

All the New York starters were right-handers, and we were missing Ben Seiter (14-11, 3.34 ERA), who had pitched on Sunday, which was always a good point to start from.

Game 1
POR: RF Corral – 3B V. Morales – 1B Starr – 2B Monck – LF Kozak – C Burkart – CF Maldonado – SS Aoki – P Alba
NYC: LF Jose Alvarez – RF A. Romero – SS O. Sanchez – C M. Nieto – CF Thore – 2B Jes. Alvarez – 1B Cline – 3B Heiden – P E. Lee

The Coons had a chance in the second inning when Lee filled up the bases only to strike out Alba to leave the triplet of runners stranded, while Alba then began the bottom 2nd by nicking Coby Thore, who stole second, advanced on Jesus Alvarez’ groundout, and scored on Jake Cline’s sac fly to left. New York had no actual base hits in the early innings, while the Coons would bring up Alba with two outs and a scoring opportunity again in the fourth inning, then with Burkart and Maldonado on base. This time Alba singled over the head of Omar Sanchez, and Burkart came around to score the tying run. Lee threw a wild pitch to advance Maldonado and Alba into scoring position, but then whiffed Corral to end the inning. Rich Monck would give Portland the lead an inning later, however, striking his 25th homer of the season with Joel Starr on base to give Alba a 3-1 lead.

Alba retired the bottom third of the order in the Crusaders’ half of the fifth, but then struggled after retiring Jose Alvarez to begin the sixth. Alex Romero singled to right, Omar Sanchez legged out an infield single with those pesky legs of his, and Marco Nieto worked a walk. Thore tied the game with a 2-run single to right-center and knocked out Alba all in one go, and since there were only useless pieces of **** to pick from in the Raccoons bullpen, nobody was particularly surprised when Alex Cruzado waved around another three runs after that with his ******* inability to handle a Jesus Alvarez grounder, which became an infield single, a bases-loaded walk to Cline, and another sac fly hit by Steven Heiden, before David Milian and Jose Alvarez finally made the last two outs of the 5-run inning. Next up in being useless was Victor Herrera, facing two left-handers to begin the bottom 7th and putting them both on base with a walk to Romero and a Sanchez double to right. New York added one more run in the inning, which had to be finished by Carrillo. Nesbitt took the ball in the eighth, retired ******* NOBODY, and departed after Cline’s triple and two walks to Heiden and Belchior Fresco. McDaniel replaced him, gave up a bases-clearing double to Jose Alvarez on his first pitch, singles to Sanchez and Nieto, a homer to the other Alvarez, and then still couldn’t finish the ******* inning, which continued with Ryan Harmer until the Crusaders had scored a ******* 9-spot. 16-3 Crusaders. Maldonado 2-4;

(wrinkles pokey black nose)

Game 2
POR: RF Corral – 3B V. Morales – 1B Starr – 2B Monck – C Burkart – CF Maldonado – LF Valencia – SS Gardner – P Morris
NYC: LF Jose Alvarez – 2B Jes. Alvarez – SS O. Sanchez – 1B Fresco – C M. Nieto – CF Thore – RF Cline – 3B Heiden – P Kozloski

Jose Alvarez made it 16 unanswered runs across games by socking a leadoff jack off Morris in the bottom 1st on Tuesday, but the Raccoons got four straight singles from their 5-thru-8 batters in the second inning to tie the game and have Morris crash into a 6-4-3 double play to kill the inning with the bags still loaded. Corral hit a leadoff double in the third before being stranded on base, while Morris dorked out walks to Jesus Alvarez and Sanchez, who did the double steal, but both would have scored anyway on the pair of singles that Fresco and Nieto hit before Thore grounded out and Cline whiffed to end the inning. Singles by Burkart and Maldonado to begin the fourth inning got the Critters absolutely nowhere, but Steven Heiden took Morris deep in the fourth to extend the Crusaders’ lead to 4-1.

Jose Corral at least learned that you couldn’t trust the remaining **** muppets on the team to do anything and hit a homer of his own in the fifth to take one run out of the Crusaders’ lead again, a pointless exercise with a pointless pitcher on the mound. Morris fudged another three 2-out runners on base in the bottom 5th, Cline singling home Nieto, 5-2, and then was quietly disposed of once more. Burkart and Maldonado had another pair of leadoff singles in the sixth, only for Valencia to blunder into a double play. Joe Gardner hit a 2-out RBI single for an odd surprise, but Kozak then lined out to first as pinch-hitter. The Coons had no runners in the seventh, Maldonado was forgotten after drawing a walk in the eighth, and in the ninth came up against Jason Rhodes, who allowed a pinch-hit single to Pablo Novelo, but apart from that retired the Critters without much fuss. 5-3 Crusaders. Corral 2-5, HR, 2B, RBI; Burkart 3-4, 2B; Maldonado 3-3, BB; Gardner 2-3, RBI;

Maybe next year? The Titans had so far won a pair from the damn Elks to double their lead to four games.

Rich Monck got a day off after an oh-fer.

Game 3
POR: RF Corral – 3B V. Morales – 1B Starr – LF Kozak – CF Maldonado – C Arellano – SS Aoki – 2B Novelo – P Elling
NYC: LF Jose Alvarez – RF A. Romero – SS O. Sanchez – 1B Fresco – C M. Nieto – 2B Jes. Alvarez – CF Bucher – 3B Heiden – P Barcellona

In a rather odd game, Vic Morales managed to be on both ends of a 6-4-3 double play grounder, the Crusaders were caught stealing three times (Romero alone twice), and Arellano was also directly responsible for all the runs in a 3-1 score by the stretch with his 2-run homer in the second inning, then a throwing error that waved a Crusaders run across in the sixth, and finally an RBI single to plate Maldonado in the seventh after Maldonado singled and stole a base. Not a whole lot happened outside of Arellano’s shenanigans and the Crusaders’ baserunning blunders until the top 8th when Morales and Starr hit a pair of singles to begin the inning. Kozak grounded out to move them into scoring position, Maldonado was walked intentionally, and that brought back Arellano, the Destroyer, who destroyed Barcellona’s line for good with a starter-dismissing, bases-clearing double to extend the lead to 6-1.

Elling went eight innings on 107 pitches, and Victor Herrera managed to throw baseballs for three outs without giving up five runs in the bottom 9th, which was such a thrill. 6-1 Coons. Morales 2-4; Arellano 3-4, HR, 6 RBI; Elling 8.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, W (14-6);

Conversely, the Titans lost on Wednesday, so the gap was back down to three.

Game 4
POR: RF Corral – 3B V. Morales – 1B Starr – 2B Monck – LF Kozak – C Burkart – SS Novelo – CF Moreno – P Riddle
NYC: CF Jose Alvarez – 3B O. Sanchez – 1B Fresco – 2B Jes. Alvarez – SS Spehar – C J. Morales – LF A. Romero – RF Heiden – P Musgrave

The season finale would have seen the Raccoons go in order the first time through if not for a Sanchez error on a Novelo grounder in the third inning. By then the Crusaders were already up 5-0, having beaten in Riddle’s numb skull in the bottom 2nd with singles from their battery, and then with two outs Jose Alvarez’ go-ahead RBI single, Sanchez drawing a walk, and Belchior Fresco hitting a grand slam to dead center. Riddle pitched one more inning before being dismissed, needing over 60 pitches for three ****** frames.

The Raccoons then had their first base knock, a Monck single after leadoff walks to Morales and Starr in the top 4th, which loaded the bases for Kozak, who struck out, of course. Bruce Burkart slapped home two runs with a double to right, Novelo added an RBI single, but the inning ended with an 8-2 double play on Jorge Moreno’s fly to Heiden, which saw Burkart thrown out at the plate in a denied sac fly attempt, keeping the score at 5-3. The Coons made up another run in the top 5th, though in a rather costly way when Corral tweaked his back on a swing for a 1-out double. Tallent ran or him and scored on a Morales knock.

Monck and Burkart singles started to build a threat in the sixth inning, and Novelo’s scratch single loaded the bases with one out. Maldonado batted for Moreno, but hit a comebacker for a force play at the plate. Aoki then batted for Sensabaugh, who had thrown a scoreless inning against all odds, ran a full count, and then hit a bouncer up the middle that hit the lip between infield grass and dirt rather awkwardly and thus got away from Jesus Alvarez for a 2-run, score-flipping single. Whatever ******* works… The inning then ended with a K by reliever Eric Matthews on Randy Tallent. Nesbitt, Carrillo, and Hall would then nurse the flimsy 6-5 lead through eight innings, with only Hall allowing a bloop single. A tack-on run was not in the cards for the Portlanders, though, and so the 6-5 lead sooner or later wound up with Jon McGinley. Corey Boyd and David Milian were retired easily before Sanchez singled with two outs. Fresco grounded out to Monck to end the game. 6-5 Raccoons. Morales 2-3, BB, RBI; Monck 2-4; Burkart 2-4, 2B, 2 RBI; Novelo 2-4, RBI; Aoki (PH) 1-1, 2 RBI;

The Titans were off on this Thursday, so the gap was now 2 1/2 games.

Another gap opened up in rightfield once Luis Silva informed us that Jose Corral would miss at least a week with a sore back, so we were now suddenly not only without a functioning pitching staff, but also without a leadoff batter.

Raccoons (76-64) vs. Indians (71-69) – September 12-14, 2064

The Raccoons were largely listless against the Arrowheads again this year, trailing the season series 9-6 ahead of this final set of games. Indy was largely average in most stats, fifth in runs scored and seventh in runs allowed especially, with a +14 run differential (Coons: +42 even after soiling themselves in New York). With Blake Sparks, Alex Gomez, and Orlando Ramos the Indians were missing a bunch of regulars, though. This included Jim White, who still had half of a 4-game suspension to serve and would not be allowed to face his former team until Sunday.

Projected matchups:
Chance Fox (10-9, 4.66 ERA) vs. Roger Pritchard (9-6, 4.55 ERA)
Angel Alba (11-11, 4.33 ERA) vs. Kelly Whitney (5-7, 4.40 ERA)
Jarod Morris (8-6, 3.61 ERA) vs. Mike DeWitt (8-11, 3.38 ERA)

Southpaw Sunday, and not only that, but also another left-hander to begin the series; only Whitney was right-handed. Who needs Jose Corral? (pathetic chuckle)

(proceeds to hide head in a bucket of chicken nuggets)

Game 1
IND: CF E. Ramirez – 3B M. Martin – LF McInnis – 1B Starwalt – C Atencio – RF B. Johnston – 2B M. Weber – SS DeRosia – P Pritchard
POR: 3B Morales – SS Novelo – CF Kozak – 2B Monck – C Burkart – 1B Starr – LF Valencia – RF Tallent – P Fox

Chance Fox started the first inning with a walk to Eddy Ramirez, who scored on singles by Matt Martin and Vinny Atencio, then also walked Mike Weber to begin the second inning. Philip DeRosia singled, but Pritchard bunted into a double play and Fox somehow extricated himself from the inning before the score was flipped with back-to-back bombs bashed by Starr and Valencia in the bottom 2nd, not that this kept Fox from sucking further. Martin struck a leadoff double in the third and Fox walked Danny Starwalt, but with runners on the corners Atencio popped out and Bryan Johnston lined out to Starr to end the inning. And those damn leadoff batters kept reaching: Weber singled in the fourth, but was left on third base, and Martin singled again in the fifth inning, although that runner never made it off first base as Fox struck out two and then got Atencio on a grounder.

In between, however, the Raccoons had packed three runs on the board, as Kozak had drawn a leadoff walk from Pritchard to begin the bottom 4th. He scored on Burkart and Starr singles, Pritchard’s wild pitch moved those two into scoring position, and then Valencia got them home with a single to right-center. The inning ended with meek outs from Tallent and Fox, but Morales narrowly missed a leadoff jack to left to begin the bottom 5th. Him and Novelo settled for a pair of doubles and knocking out Pritchard from a 6-1 game. Monck then socked a homer off Melvin Guerra to get to 8-1. This was the score through five, and the Raccoons then took some regulars off their legs for the second half of the game as Monck, Morales, and Kozak all were replaced with roster chaff.

Fox pitched only one more inning, going 6-for-6 in putting leadoff batters on by drilling Johnston, who came around to score on two singles by DeRosia and Ramirez. Herrera then got four outs before Harmer was beaten around for three long drives, two hits, and a run in the eighth. Rich Read then created a save opportunity by being beaten around for a Starwalt single and Atencio longball in the ninth. McGinley held up, surprisingly. 8-5 Coons. Campos 1-1; Starr 2-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Valencia 3-4, HR, 3 RBI; Maldonado (PH) 1-1;

The Titans beat the Loggers, 9-6, so the gap didn’t budge on Friday.

Game 2
IND: CF E. Ramirez – 3B M. Martin – C Atencio – 1B Starwalt – RF Vaughn – 2B M. Weber – LF B. Johnston – SS Cirelli – P Whitney
POR: C Burkart – 3B Morales – 1B Starr – 2B Monck – LF Kozak – CF Maldonado – SS Aoki – CF Campos – P Alba

Last time Alba had been out the Coons had lost by a baker’s dozen, and Martin and Atencio hit singles off him in the first inning, but were left on base. Morales doubled for the Coons in the bottom 1st, and Starr reached on an error. Monck brought in Morales from third base with a groundout, which marked his 100th RBI of the year, before Kozak slapped a 2-run homer over the cheap end of the fence in left, 3-0. All runs were unearned.

Whitney then throttled the Raccoons’ offense after that, but Alba managed the lead well and gave up only one more base hit through the end of five innings, but then was taken deep for a solo homer by Nick Vaughn in the sixth. Alba went on and completed seven innings, allowing another hit to Eddy Ramirez in the seventh, before McDaniel secured three outs from the four lefty sticks in the 5-6-7-8 slots in the eighth inning. The Coons then finally put an earned run together in the bottom 8th, which they began with just three knocks on the day. Randy Tallent drew a leadoff walk from Whitney before Novelo singled and Burkart hit an RBI double. Morales popped out, Starr walked, and Monck blundered into a double play to keep the score in save range and with McGinley not getting the ball for the third straight day. Instead we sent out Jesse Dover. He retired Chris Lovins, Ramirez, and Martin in order. 4-1 Coons. Burkart 2-4, 2B, RBI; Novelo (PH) 1-1; Alba 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, W (12-11);

Jason Brenize suffocated the Loggers on this Saturday, so again the Raccoons did not gain any ground on the Titans.

Game 3
IND: CF E. Ramirez – 3B M. Martin – C Atencio – 1B Starwalt – LF McInnis – RF Vaughn – 2B M. Weber – SS Jim White – P DeWitt
POR: 3B Morales – C Arellano – 1B Kozak – 2B Monck – LF Valencia – SS Novelo – RF Tallent – CF Moreno – P Morris

Atencio homered to right-center for an early 1-0 Indians lead on Sunday, but Morales narrowly missed the fence again with a fly to left to start the bottom 1st. He settled for a double and scoring on Arellano’s subsequent single to center, tying the game just fine.

Runners then became rather scarce and were usually not making it very far on base as the innings briskly passed. Morris held the Indians to three hits and struck out eight through six innings before abruptly being taken deep again by Matt McInnis in the seventh, giving Indy a 2-1 lead on two homers and just four total hits. DeWitt went into the bottom 8th before walking Kozak. Robert Ponce de Leon then walked Monck, but Melvin Guerra retired Valencia and Novelo to quell the littlest rally attempt, while Morris hung around long enough to give up another ninth-inning homer to Atencio. Hall replaced him for the last two outs required to complete nine innings, while the Indians had Cody Kleidon up in the bottom 9th, where he offered a leadoff walk to Tallent. Burkart batted for Moreno, but flew out. Starr struck a double from the #9 spot, though, and now the tying runs were in scoring position for Morales, who got ahead 3-1 before swinging and slapped a single past Jim White to plate Tallent and get Starr and the tying run to third base. Arellano popped out, and Kozak struck out to render the whole exercise moot. 3-2 Indians. Morales 2-5, 2B, RBI; Monck 1-2, 2 BB; Starr (PH) 1-1, 2B; Morris 8.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 10 K, L (8-7);

In other news

September 12 – Falcons INF Jared Duhe (.268, 4 HR, 59 RBI) was done for the year after rupturing finger tendons.
September 12 – The Gold Sox beat the Stars, 3-2 in 12 innings – with all runs scoring in the 12th inning.
September 14 – The season of veteran SFW SP Ricardo Montoya (18-5, 2.23 ERA) ends with a shoulder strain. Montoya was atop the FL in wins and second to DAL Alex Quevedo in ERA at this point.
September 14 – The Thunder take 12 innings to beat the Falcons, 2-0.
September 14 – The Buffaloes beat the Rebels, 15-5, scoring a dozen unchallenged runs to begin the game, ten alone in the second inning.

FL Player of the Week: PIT C Nick Dingman (.272, 23 HR, 68 RBI), bashing .455 (10-22) with 3 HR, 12 RBI
CL Player of the Week: ATL OF Jake Evans (.259, 24 HR, 86 RBI), hitting .500 (10-20) with 3 HR, 8 RBI

Complaints and stuff

Despite Nick Dingman’s best efforts, the Miners were eliminated from playoff contention on Sunday.

If it was any consolation, the Titans also lost on Sunday, so the 2 1/2 lead never budged in either direction on the weekend.

The race for the division contains two horses and three pairs of two guys in a horse costume each, continuing to fall down:
BOS (81-63) – IND (3), NYC (3), POR (3), SFB (3), TIJ (3), VAN (3) – .493 – 86.7% (+6.2%)
POR (78-65) – VAN (4), ATL (3), BOS (3), MIL (3), NYC (3), OCT (3) – .522 – 13.2% (-5.1%)
IND (72-71) – NYC (4), BOS (3), CHA (3), LVA (3), MIL (3), VAN (3) – .501 – 0.1% (-1.0%)
NYC (71-71) – IND (4), MIL (4), ATL (3), BOS (3), OCT (3), POR (3) – .531 – 0.1%
MIL (70-71) – NYC (4), VAN (4), IND (3), POR (3), SFB (3), TIJ (3), CHA (1) – .493 – 0.0% (-0.1%)

Monck is the only CL player to 100 RBI so far, with Casey Ramsey at 97. With Fidel Carrera on 87 in third place, it was unlikely that another challenger would get involved unless through the power of a Player of the Week performance. In homers, Boston’s Eddie Marcotte was up to 28 and Carrera in between at 27, while Monck was ten points out in the batting title race at this point, the leader now being Scott Laws of the Bayhawks after a hot week and previously not qualifying.

The Coons will play four games at home with the Elks to begin next week, which was likely gonna end our season for good, and then go on a weekend trip to Oklahoma City. After that there were three more home sets before we would conclude the season in New York.

Fun Fact: Jason Brenize (14-5, 1.71 ERA) led all ABL players with 9.3 WAR so far this season.

And yet he would not win a Triple Crown because his team would only score for the other starters. This was Brenize’s third straight season bidding for a sub-2 ERA. He won the Triple Crown in 2062 with a 22-5, 1.79 ERA, 252 K season, but took home only wins and strikeouts titles last year with a paltry 1.98 ERA.

Kind reminder that as recently as ’59 as a rushed 22-year-old he got whacked around for a 12-16 record and 3.59 ERA and struck out just 159 batters.