Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[MarkCuban]

Originally Posted by Questdog

If your intention was to clarify the concluding sentence of your previous post, I am still befuddled.

Culturally? Vancouver and Tijuana are closer culturally then?......and not so close geographically either. At least Vancouver and Portland are northern teams playing in the North Division, currently.



Phew! Only 72 games in the division is almost guaranteeing that at some point, a losing team will make the playoffs. And the other idea of 3 divisions is throwing competitive equality out the window. The clubs in the 4-team divisions have a much easier road to the playoffs than the teams in the other divisions. In real baseball, they did this with the NL Central being a 6-team division and the AL West only having 4 teams. I contemplated suing baseball as my Reds had to beat out 5 teams to win a division title, while the AL West teams only had to beat out 3 others. Ridiculous.....

P.S. I am starting a petition at www.uselesswebspacefiller.org to get the FL and CL to eliminate interleague play. You can offer your support by clicking the PayPal button and donating what you can afford ($50 suggested).

This is therapy for me -- I enjoy conversation. You are probably right, I was simply trying to start discussion. I did think your joke was funny.

I really enjoy reading this diary.

[Westheim]

Dear Mr. Cuban,

this is the third or fourth time that you - at length - describe your plans for ABL realignment. No such realignment is going to happen. Last time I suggested to set up your own league if this league is not to your liking. I will do the same again now.

Yours sincerely
´
R. Westfield
GM

PS: I would also really dig general schedule balance discussions to take place outside of my office. Chad is disturbed by all the people in here, and when he's disturbed he starts kicking children, and when the mascot kicks children, the Agitator will agitate again and I don't need any more grief than I currently have. For example, it's Bimbo Millions on line two...

[Westheim]

As rosters expanded, the Raccoons added a few more players. The pen was added to as we recalled Josh Gibson (who had pitched in ghastly fashion in AAA) and George Youngblood (more walks than strikeouts). Third-string (soon to be the fourth-string) catcher Tom McNeela was also added, batting a paltry .206 in St. Pete. Finally, Walt Canning and Jimmy Fucito were added to the roster.

Prospects listed: zero.

Raccoons (76-53) @ Bayhawks (72-57) – September 1-3, 2014

The Bayhawks looked seriously playoff-bound thanks to a productive offense (second only to the Crusaders’ in the CL) and … well, decent enough pitching, and a weak South helps as well. They were seventh in runs scored, but never mind crummy pitching, they had already taken the season series against the Raccoons, who had won only one game against them in the six previous contests.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (13-7, 2.77 ERA) vs. Jared D’Attilo (5-9, 3.85 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (14-6, 2.59 ERA) vs. G.G. Williams (4-4, 3.92 ERA)
Bill Conway (9-4, 2.30 ERA) vs. Reynaldo Rendon (11-5, 3.63 ERA)

G.G. Williams, a former Coons farmhand, is a left-handed pitcher, the only such starter they have. They also have another Coons farmhand to close games (Salvadaro Soure) and two big-league relievers for the Coons in the pen (Law Rockburn, Adam Riddle). And never forget Ron Alston, whose power was unimpressing this year (20 HR).

The lone win had been a Nick Brown start, but he had pitched badly and hadn’t gotten out of the fifth inning. Pat Slayton (anyone remember that guy?) picked up the win in relief then, his last for the Raccoons. Slayton by now has pitched in 40 games for the Pacifics, seeing employment as a part-time closer. NOW I know why they suck so hard!

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS Taylor – P H. Santos
SFB: 1B A. Young – 3B J. Rodriguez – LF Alston – CF Almanza – SS Ingraham – 2B A. Martinez – RF Mattera – C Lefebure – P D’Attilo

Batting cleanup for the Bayhawks was September call-up Chris Almanza, who had batted .258/.354/.463 in AAA this year, hitting a modest 13 home runs. He also was not a centerfielder. And in his call-up in 2013, he had batted .037; 1-for-27.

As far as Bayhawks outfielders were concerned, Ron Alston was out of the game quickly after an errant Hector Santos pitch struck him in the shin in the third inning. That was probably going to leave a bruise, but everybody saw that it was unintentional. Santos had opened the inning by walking the pitcher… The Raccoons’ offense performed at similar levels, missing the mark far and wide. They had a chance in the second inning when Taylor came up with runners in scoring position after D-Alex’ 1-out double, but popped out to third and Santos was soon reduced a rubble by D’Attilo. In the fifth, Cookie had a 2-out single through Adam Young, stole second base (#100!), advanced on a wild pitch, and then was still left on base by Sandy Sambrano. Young in turn paired up with Javy Rodriguez to hit back-to-back doubles to right in the bottom of the fifth, plating the game’s first run off Santos. The best a wildly ineffective Santos deserved for six messy innings was D-Alex’ game-tying solo homer in the seventh inning that took him off the hook. Top 8th, 1-out singles to Nunley and Murphy were surrendered by Tommy Wooldridge, with the real question being why the heck a potential beast of a closer (90 K this year) was out there in the eighth inning. Canning ran for Nunley at this point, but Wooldridge struck out Richards and Merritt (batting for Bednarski), and nobody scored. The Birds also had two on against Chris Mathis in the bottom 8th, but Armando Martinez hit into an inning-ending double play. The game went to extras, with the Coons having nobody on with two outs in the top 10th. Soure was in his second inning for the Bayhawks. Heck, send McNeela to bat for Constantino. Lo and behold, McNeela whammied a 1-2 pitch to deep right and outta here to break the tie! Angel Casas had the bottom 10th. Leadoff single by Dan Hoover, whoever the **** that was. Almanza grounded to third base with one out, where Jon Merritt bungled the ball. Zach Ingraham struck out. Armando Martinez took a full count walk, loading the bases, and Gabriel Ortíz, that Raccoons-hurting-happy ex-Crusader, singled into center softly enough to plate two and walk off the Birds. 3-2 Bayhawks. Carmona 2-5; McNeela (PH) 1-1, HR, RBI; Murphy 3-5, 2B; Alexander 2-4, HR, RBI;

The runs were unearned, which didn’t make Casas’ pitching any better. I don’t think there’s a new contract in the books for him…

By the way, the Crusaders won, because of course they did.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS Howell – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – 3B Merritt – LF Fucito – 2B Bergquist – C Torruellas – P Toner
SFB: 1B A. Young – 3B J. Rodriguez – LF Alston – CF Almanza – SS Ingraham – 2B A. Martinez – RF D. Garcia – C Lefebure – P G.G. Williams

The Coons got a headstart in the first inning on Rob Howell’s double and the following 2-run homer by Stan Murphy, his 19th on the year. While Martinez homered off Toner, who opened his day with a 4-pitch walk to Young and outside that also liked to pitch in Santos’ tracks, in the second inning, the Coons remained ahead 2-1 for the moment, but failed to tack on. Howell had hits his next two times up, and Bednarski drew walks both times, in the third and fifth innings. Murphy whiffed to end the third, and hit into a double play to end the fifth.

Power for the Coons continued to come from unlikely sources, too, with Jimmy Fucito homering in solo fashion in the top of the sixth. The extended lead didn’t live long, as a home run by Javy Rodriguez cut Toner back to one run right away in the bottom of the inning, and that was only one of three deep drives off him in the inning. Howell had his fourth hit and his third double in the top 7th, but was again left in scoring position. Of course this was all just a setup for things to go wrong in real ****ty fashion the bottom 7th, in which Martinez, Omarion Thompson, and Michael Lefebure all hit soft singles to right, left, and center, respectively, to tie the game. It didn’t stay tied for long, as Sugano and Sakellaris each issued a walk in the bottom 8th before Sakellaris also surrendered an RBI single to Ingraham that put the Birds over the top. Ron Richards came close to a pinch-hit homer in the top 9th, but remember, this was the park that hadn’t allowed Luke Black to homer like ever, and he fell about 12 feet short. 4-3 Bayhawks. Howell 4-4, 3 2B; Murphy 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Fucito 2-4, HR, RBI;

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS Canning – P Conway
SFB: 1B A. Young – RF Blanc – LF Alston – CF Almanza – SS Ingraham – 2B A. Martinez – 3B J. Rodriguez – C Lefebure – P Rendon

The Coons had three hits in the first inning and didn’t score because the first guy with a hit (Carmona) was caught stealing. While we took the lead in the third when Carmona tripled with one out and scored on Sambrano’s grounder to second base, the Raccoons’ offensive failures became more and more appalling. In the fourth, Richards walked, Bednarski doubled, but then Alexander popped out, Canning was walked intentionally, and the third out was grabbed from Conway, whom Rendon easily fooled three times. Conway would get minor revenge in the fifth, striking out Rendon with Martinez on second base. Armando Martinez had hit a leadoff double, the first Bird to reach scoring position.

Rendon did not make it past six innings and Law Rockburn faced Conway to start the seventh inning in what still was a 1-0 game. Conway, a salty 2-for-54 on the year, lined a double to left to slightly stun the Bayhawks. Cookie grounded to the side of the mound, but legged out Rockburn’s throw, and we had runners on the corners through Sandy Sambrano’s at-bat ending with a foul pop, but then came Nunley and found the gap for a 2-run double. Conway however turned sour as soon as he had enjoyed that hitting success and was raked for a leadoff triple by Ingraham in the bottom 7th and an RBI single by Martinez before getting two more outs. When Omarion Thompson pinch-hit in the #9 hole, Ron Thrasher took care of that. The Coons clawed back in the top 8th with two outs. Seeley hit a single to left, stole second base, and scored on Bergquist’s double to left, where Ron Alston’s range was not what it was years ago. The Bayhawks didn’t rise again against Thrasher and Casas, as the Raccoons’ salvaged at least one game in a depressing set. 4-1 Critters. Carmona 3-5, 3B; Nunley 2-5, 2B, 2 RBI; Murphy 2-5; Bednarski 2-4, 2B; Seeley (PH) 1-1; Bergquist 1-1, 2B, RBI; Conway 6.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W (10-4) and 1-3;

That Almanza thing might be something the Baybirds want to mull over again. He went 1-for-12 in this series.

Raccoons (77-55) vs. Indians (60-73) – September 5-7, 2014

The Indians were ninth in runs scored, but third in runs allowed in the league. While they were really not productive offensively, the Raccoons were still another 20 runs below them in offense. Also, they had handled the Critters well this season, holding a 6-5 advantage. They had a number of valuable offensive players like Juan Ortíz, Jong-beom Kym, and Clint Phillip either on the DL or ailing, so they could have an even harder time to score, though.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (12-6, 2.85 ERA) vs. Tom Weise (9-9, 4.10 ERA)
Hector Santos (13-7, 2.72 ERA) vs. Dan Lambert (6-12, 5.08 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (14-6, 2.64 ERA) vs. Alejandro Mendez (9-11, 3.01 ERA)

We get three right-handers, missing their lefty Chester Graham (9-8, 3.30 ERA) by one day, while the other southpaw Tristan Broun (9-9, 4.00 ERA) had left his last start with elbow inflammation and was unavailable as this series started, but was not on the DL and there was no real word on him that he was indeed NOT going to pitch on the weekend.

I’m up to shenanigans. Daniel Dickerson gets skipped on the off day and moves behind these three into the next game on Monday. We need somebody to pick up the slack on Tuesday (Gary Dupes lines up nicely with the date), and Brown will pitch Wednesday. What about Bill Conway? Did his hand get caught in a wood chipper? Not quite. But we’ll have a double header on the 12th with the Loggers, where Conway has a no-hit bid through six innings to pick up. I already hate the lineup for this game, however. It was one of those games where Cookie was missing, just before the All Star Game. Quebell’s in that lineup, but sneaking Cookie in for him won’t work out.

Game 1
IND: CF J. Wilson – RF A. Chavez – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – C Padilla – 3B Dawson – SS Mathews – LF Tanner – P Weise
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – P Brown

Off a shutout, Brownie got instant support when Carmona hit a leadoff jack in the first inning. I was really wondering where those power outbursts were coming from – not that I was minding them. The Coons had another scoring opportunity in the bottom 2nd, with Ron Richards hitting a soft leadoff single to left, followed by a hard Bednarski double to left. Two in scoring position, D-Alex up with nobody out, he ripped an RBI single to center, and Bednarski scored on Bergquist’s unfortunate double play. Still, up 3-0 after two! Not for long, though. John Wilson hit a 1-out triple in the third and scored on a wild pitch before Brown walked both Armando Chavez and Jong-beom Kym, who was nursing a mild back strain. The pitching coach hustled out to get him readjusted and Brown came back with a K to Santiago Guerra and an easy enough grounder to third from Dave Padilla. Phew.

Bottom 3rd, Cookie led off with an infield single and Sandy doubled over Chavez to deep right, but the ball came HARD off the fence and the third base coach threw Carmona an anchor at third base. Unbelievably enough, the Coons failed themselves to only one run as Nunley lined softly to Guerra, Murphy grounded out to short (that scored Cookie), and Richards grounded out to first. Too bad that Brownie just wasn’t right, either. Bednarski couldn’t get to a long fly by Chavez in the fifth and played it into an RBI triple, and Chavez also scored to get the Indians back to just a 4-3 deficit. The sixth saw three quick grounders off Brown and he somehow made it through the seventh despite another hit by John Wilson, but this had really not been a good start, and certainly not a follow-up on the shutout that was to be deemed worthy. He still was ahead, though, but insurance would certainly be welcome. Instead, Murphy stranded Cookie and Nunley in scoring position in the bottom 7th, and Sakellaris ****ed up colossally with Guerra and Padilla hitting hard singles off him to go onto the corners with nobody out in the eighth inning. Thrasher replaced him, ran a 1-2 pitch on Matt Pruitt, who then singled past a barely reacting Bergquist into rightfield to tie the game, and Joey Mathews’ double play grounder gave the Indians the lead. The bottom 8th saw Joel Davis walk Ron Richards leading off before serving up a real bean that Bednarski yanked for 410 feet to left, flipping the score back in the Coons’ favor, but that didn’t help Nick Brown’s W-L record, nor his mood, as he had already headed to the clubhouse to fill the pair of not-so-relieving Rons’ lockers with bees. 6-5 Raccoons. Carmona 2-5, HR, RBI; Sambrano 2-4, 2B; Bednarski 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI;

Nick Brown could have passed Kel Yates for 12th in career strikeouts, but he fell three whiffs short with this very sub-par outing.

This loss meant mathematical elimination from the playoffs for Indy.

Game 2
IND: CF J. Wilson – RF Tanner – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – C Padilla – 3B Mathews – SS Bowers – LF Baker – P Lambert
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Seeley – 2B Bergquist – C McNeela – P Santos

The Coons’ leadoff batter had opened with a homer on Friday, but on Saturday it was John Wilson’s turn to shoot a rocket off Hector Santos’ second pitch of the game to put the Indians up 1-0 instantly. Wilson now had a 17-game hitting streak and 18 homers on the season. Dan Lambert would maintain a no-hitter through three innings, but not that 1-0 lead. McNeela walked in the bottom 3rd, was bunted to second by Santos, and when Carmona grounded to Kym (who had left the Friday game early in discomfort), the second baseman tossed it well past Guerra for a 2-base error that tied the score.

Let’s talk about cocky base running for a bit. Sandy walked after the Kym error, putting our two speed demons at first and second. They took off for a double steal, and Padilla’s throw actually went to second base and was not very good, either. The runners were safe, but Nunley couldn’t get through. The Coons actually got a hit via a Bergquist single in the fourth, so that bid was over, and in the fifth it was Carmona to reach with another soft single. He stole second base while Sandy made an out, and when Nunley walked those two took off again and this time Padilla even threw the ball away completely! Cookie scored on the error, giving the Coons a 2-1 lead, and Nunley was starved at third base after Murphy struck out. I’d bet that Carmona would have taken off again if a leaping Tom Bowers hadn’t spoiled his line drive to shallow center and retired him in the seventh inning.

All the base running in the world – and five stolen bases certainly weren’t shabby – was for naught however when the team only lands two hits. Santos wouldn’t stay near-perfect forever, either, and a leadoff double by Mathews in the eighth spoiled the lead rather quickly, as he came in to score on a sac fly. Santos finished eight, but was done, and so his last hope was the bottom 8th, which Sandy opened with a single off Joel Davis. Nunley flew out to right, but Murphy singled, moving the go-ahead run to second base for a pair of left-handed bats against the right-handed Davis. Ron Richards flew out to Rowan Tanner in really deep right before Seeley walked. D-Alex hit for Bergquist with the bases loaded and two outs, and Davis had trouble with the strike zone now after the Seeley walk. The count ran to 3-1 upon which D-Alex was signaled that if he moved as much as a whisker, he was a dead duck - … err, coon. He listened, looked, and took ball four to force in the go-ahead run. McNeela struck out. Angel got the assignment to protect a 3-2 lead, whiffed Tanner, whiffed Kym, and whiffed Guerra to end the game. 3-2 Raccoons! Alexander (PH) 0-0, BB, RBI; Santos 8.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K;

Cookie is now one short of his early-career single-season best of 45 bags claimed. He’s also just short of 200 hits (a dozen short, actually), and also only four points short of Martin Ortíz in the batting title race.

It’s Sunday, and – surprise – here comes Tristan Broun. So we do get another left-hander this week after all.

Game 3
IND: CF J. Wilson – RF Tanner – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – C Padilla – SS Bowers – 3B Preto – LF Baker – P Broun
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – LF Fucito – 3B Merritt – SS Howell – C Torruellas – P Toner

A leadoff walk to Murphy came to bite Broun in the second inning. After Fucito doubled, Merritt plated Murphy with a grounder to short – which arguably was not the greatest way to go about runners on second and third and nobody out, but is usually all we can ever hope for, and all we got in that inning after Howell struck out and Torruellas rolled one over to Silvestre Preto.

Next, the Coons lost Jonny Toner right on the first play in the third inning. Josh Baker bounced a pitch to the third base side of the mound, Merritt wasn’t going to make a play on that, but Toner threw himself onto it and slung it over to first awkwardly. It looked bad from the outside even in real time, and the slow motion replay on the video board looked even worse. He came out of the game with an arm ailment of some sort (probably broken in six places as I know our luck), and we had to declare a bullpen day, but at least the pen was rested. Youngblood got us out of the third inning before the ball went to Constantino, who – with Dupes already planned in for Tuesday – was perhaps the likeliest stand-in for Toner in the double header on Friday. Constantino didn’t make a horrible impression in this game for sure, protecting a flimsy 1-0 lead over three shutout innings.

After Mathis and Sugano teamed up on the seventh, the Coons had their first slight shade of offense in the bottom of that inning. Murphy reached on an error (yep, that still counts as offense, somehow) and Fucito singled, putting two on with nobody out. Merritt struck out, Howell rolled into a fielder’s choice for the out at second base, and that brought up a .150 batting Torruellas. Yeah, no, not with three catchers. Nunley hit for him … and struck out. Sugano got another three outs in the top 8th before being hit for with Seeley in the bottom 8th. Seeley flew out to center, but Cookie singled to right. Sandy missed wildly on a run-and-hit, but Cookie was safe at second base anyway. Sandy grounded out, moving Cookie to third base, and with right-hander Dave Walk on the mound, Ron Richards hit for Bednarski, who was oh-fer anyway. Richards walked, which was not **** and still ****, except if maybe Murphy - … haha, no, he flew out to Rowan Tanner. Still up 1-0, Angel had been out four times this week and would not get the ball. Zack Entwistle was selected for the save opportunity, facing the 3-4-5 batters, all right-handers (with lefties, Thrasher would have gotten the ball). Entwistle lost Kym to a walk, but Kym was slow, hurt, and wasn’t run for, before hanging a golden sombrero on Guerra. Padilla hit into a double play to seal the sweep for the Critters. 1-0 Coons! Carmona 2-4; Fucito 2-3, 2B; Toner 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K; Constantino 3.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K; Sugano 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

In other news

September 1 – The Warriors lead the Buffaloes 8-1 after seven innings only to lose 9-8, allowing two in the eighth and six in the ninth.
September 3 – The Pacifics end the 23-game hitting streak of Pittsburgh’s Dave McCormick (.330, 6 HR, 26 RBI).
September 3 – The Canadiens and Falcons play scoreless ball for 12 innings before the Canadiens take a 1-0 lead in the top 13th on Melvin Dunn’s 2-out RBI double, only for their closer Pedro Alvarado to load the bases in the bottom 13th, drill Chris Puckett to tie, and allow a single to Cristián Gonzales to lose; 2-1 Falcons.
September 5 – The Crusaders lose 2B Jesus Ramirez (.256, 13 HR, 67 RBI) for a month with a knee sprain. He could be back in time for the playoffs, however.

Complaints and stuff

I will add another player or two after the minor league seasons end. Brock Hudman will come up for another few at-bats.

Shunyo Yano tossed a 4-hit shutout for the Cyclones this week. I still like to think the Cyclones would want Jonny Toner back. (Yano went 16-6 with a 3.50 ERA in ’13, but Toner looks like the real deal!)

Oh yeah, Toner. Everybody exhale. Things looked bad, but he got away with a mild shoulder strain. He will miss one or two starts, but he will return this season. How do we handle things from here? Well, we have Dickerson – Dupes – Brown for our set with the Titans to start the next week, then a day off. In Milwaukee, Conway has to pick up his no-hit bid in the opening semi-double-header, and Santos will get the start. After that’t there’s a gaping hole where Toner was, but Dickerson could also go on regular rest, so why not? Then Dupes on Sunday again. Not optimal, but at best we’re playing to keep the Elks behind us.

As far as players that can play right now are concerned, Ricardo “Cookie” Carmona certainly can play and he’s now only two points behind Martin Ortíz in the batting race. TIJ Will Newman is 20 points behind. Conway still leads the ERA race, with CHA Jorge Silva zooming in fast. A 34-year old right-hander with a career 4.31 ERA and wildly more losses than wins (108-141), Silva has failed to go eight innings only ONCE since the All Star Game, and had allowed only four earned runs in his last SIX starts, and seven earned runs in his last eight starts. He is not dominant in ANY way. His highest strikeout total in a game this year is seven, and only six in his hot stretch, but things are all falling into place for him, all the time.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (80-55) vs. Titans (64-74) – September 8-10, 2014

The Titans were well on their way to a losing record, despite having a firm grab of the Raccoons all year long, beating them 8-4 in the first 12 games. Right now they were ice cold, however, with a 5-game losing streak. Their offense ranked them seventh, their pitching was sixth, with only a -10 run differential, but bad luck had been a thing for them.

Projected matchups:
Daniel Dickerson (7-7, 4.18 ERA) vs. Chae-ku Lee (6-1, 2.78 ERA)
Gary Dupes (1-0, 5.06 ERA) vs. Ian Rutter (7-9, 3.78 ERA)
Nick Brown (12-6, 2.89 ERA) vs. Toshiro Uenohara (7-9, 3.56 ERA)

Three right-handers. Game three will be a rematch from Opening Day.

Game 1
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B T. Ramos – C Suda – RF R. Lopez – LF X. Williams – 3B Rentz – CF Thurman – P C.K. Lee
POR: CF Carmona – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – C Alexander – RF Seeley – 2B Bergquist – SS Canning – P Dickerson

Nobody in the Titans’ lineup had even 10 home runs, and only one player each had 60 RBI (Tony Ramos) or was batting over .300 (Jose Gutierrez). Mike Rivera was nine bases short of Ricardo Carmona for the stolen base title in the CL. Somehow, the Coons kept losing games to them, but at least in the series opener on this Monday that was pleasantly warm at 68 degrees in Portland and didn’t really evoke a feeling that winter was coming they pounced on Chae-ku Lee and bounced him after four innings. Lee allowed homers to D-Alex (a solo job in the second) and Richards (a 2-run shot in the third that came after Nunley’s 30th double this year), and was charged with five runs total. Dickerson threw five scoreless before everything went wrong at once, Canning missed a very playable grounder by Jose Gutierrez into a leadoff single in the top 6th, Tony Ramos added a bloop single, and “Quasimodo” Suda rung Dickerson’s bell with an RBI double to deep left. Xavier Williams plated two with a single and suddenly this was a ballgame again, a 5-3 ballgame to be precise.

After Canning’s leadoff single off Ricardo Rocha in the bottom 6th, Fucito hit for Dickerson, but lined out to Rivera. Cookie singled, and Nunley walked, however, bringing up Stan Murphy with the bases loaded, which with one out was a perfect recipe for disappointment. And Murphy didn’t disappoint, trudging back to the dugout with a very disappointing strikeout. As did Richards. The ****ing trades I do…

Onwards with misery, George Youngblood faced two batters to start the seventh, walking Marcos Baez and giving a single to Rivera. Zack Entwistle replaced him, got a bunt from Gutierrez and threw to third base, and well too late to get the speedy Baez, or then anybody. Bases loaded, nobody out, which the Titans’ own ragdoll lineup converted into a run-scoring double play by Ramos (better than Murphy, still) and a ****ty pop to short by Suda. Entwistle issued a leadoff walk to Rodrigo Lopez in the eighth inning which Thrasher had to wipe away somehow, but at least we were spared another Angel explosion and he sat down the Titans 1-2-3 in the ninth. 5-4 Coons. Carmona 3-5; Richards 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Alexander 2-3, BB, HR, RBI;

His three hits bumped Cookie Carmona’s average up to .348 and into the lead in the batting race by a single point compared to Martin Ortíz.

Game 2
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B T. Ramos – C Suda – 3B Holley – LF X. Williams – RF R. Turner – CF Thurman – P Rutter
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – 1B Merritt – 2B Bergquist – P Dupes

Gary Dupes was wildly not a worthy replacement for Jonny Toner, despite starting the game with three shutout innings. Suda and Rob Holley hit 1-out singles in the fourth inning that Dupes made so much worse with eight straight balls to the left-handers Williams and Ray Turner. Thurman drove in a pair before a K to Rutter and Rivera’s groundout at least kept the damage to three runs. The Coons were meanwhile content with sending up the bare minimum of batters through four innings, with three walks drawn, all dissolved in some form of double play. Cookie walked and was doubled off twice, first on a Sambrano grounder, and then when Sandy fell asleep on a hit-and-run. Alexander ended the no-hit bid with a 2-out double in the fifth, but that was still not enough to make an impression on Ian Rutter. Dupes didn’t make it through six, again walking Xavier Williams and allowing a single to Turner. Sugano kept the damage to one run. But the Titans could be happy with what they had, because it was easily enough to end their 6-game losing spell. The Raccoons amounted to only one more hit, a Ron Richards single, before quietly dissipating on a cold Tuesday – winter in fact was coming. 4-0 Titans.

Danny Margolis joined the roster off the DL after this horrible game.

Game 3
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B T. Ramos – C Suda – 3B Holley – RF R. Lopez – LF X. Williams – CF Thurman – P Uenohara
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – RF Fucito – SS Taylor – P Brown

Nick Brown hadn’t lost in seven starts, but couldn’t remove people in 2-strike counts for his dear life. His stuff was lacking so badly that Kel Yates, watching from some place called Drummondville, felt pretty good about keeping his 12th place in career strikeouts over the weekend – and Brown was only three K short!

Suda doubled in one of those 2-strike counts to open the second inning and easily scored on another 2-strike single by Rodrigo Lopez. There wasn’t that much hard contact off Brown outside the Suda double, but the lack of bite was overly depressing. Offensively, the Raccoons resembled a handful of hollow nuts that only got into scoring position on a walk and a bloop in the fifth and scored on Palmer Taylor’s sac fly to tie the score at one. Brown struck out Gutierrez in a full count to start the sixth inning to finally move into the tie for 12th place. Bottom 6th, Cookie opened with a single and swooped second without bothering about Sandy, who eventually reached on a Ramos error, a glitched pickup that allowed runners onto the corners with nobody out. Nunley struck out, but the only mid-season addition that didn’t deserve outright dissolution in acid, Ron Richards, wonked a 3-run homer to give Brownie a 4-1 lead. He managed to go another inning, whiffing Williams and Randy Porter in the process, but was hit for with Jon Merritt in the bottom 7th. Merritt lined out to second base in a recent string of hard luck just going on, and when Cookie walked and tried to take another bag, Suda threw him out. Sugano pitched a quick eighth before Sakellaris was assigned the save opportunity in the ninth inning, still up by three and with three right-handers up starting with Suda. Angel had been out more than half the days since last Monday and would get another day of rest with the semi-double-header on Friday. Sakellaris made two outs in six pitches before Lopez singled his way on and he walked Williams. Zachary Thurman struck out, however, and the series went to the Coons. 4-1 Brownies! Alexander 2-2; Brown 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, W (13-6);

Raccoons (82-56) @ Loggers (51-87) – September 12-14, 2014

The miserable Loggers, ninth in runs scored and well last in runs allowed, were 1-13 against the Raccoons in 2014. This was the last set, which I was regretting. They had also placed some of their best batters on the DL by now, with Mike Rucker, Justin Dally, and Dan Jones all unavailable. What was left to put in the lineup looked a bit like the leftovers of a flea market discarded roadside.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (10-4, 2.26 ERA) vs. Brian Patrick (10-13, 5.75 ERA) *
Hector Santos (14-7, 2.70 ERA) vs. TBD
Daniel Dickerson (8-7, 4.19 ERA) vs. Bruce Morrison (5-18, 4.78 ERA)
Gary Dupes (1-1, 5.73 ERA) vs. Adam Euteneuer (3-20, 6.92 ERA)

The series opens with a continuation of a game that was suspended in July after six scoreless innings. Bill Conway has a no-hitter going that he is going to pick up. It’s still unclear how they will sort their rotation the rest of the way and whether they send guys on short rest or pick a spot starter. Any which way, it’s unlikely they can find a left-hander to throw at us.

When the suspended game actually was restarted, the Loggers gave away a glance at a troubled franchise as they sent Bruce Morrison to resume his effort from back then, despite having to pitch on three days’ rest.

The Raccoons’ 13-1 record against the Loggers means that they can top their franchise best of 15 wins against a CL North opponent, achieved against the … 2012 Crusaders. Yes, actually.

Game 1 (resumed game from July; * indicates replacement)
POR: 2B Sambrano – SS Howell – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – LF Richards – 1B Merritt* - C Alexander – CF Seeley – P Conway
MIL: 2B J.J. Rodriguez – LF Knowling – CF Enriquez* – 1B Roncero* – 3B Kingsley* – SS O. Sandoval – RF(CF) Hodgers – C O. Castillo – P B. Morrison

Play resumed with the top of the seventh inning with singles by D-Alex and Seeley. In other circumstances someone would have hit perhaps for Conway, but not now. He popped up a terrible bunt that killed off the offense swiftly before Sandy grounded to second to end the inning. Just as quickly as any offense, the no-hitter evaporated with a 2-out bloop single by Eric Kingsley in the bottom of the inning. Richards opened the top 9th with a single to right, the perfect excuse to insert Cookie Carmona as pinch-runner (Carmona had missed the original contest with a nagging back injury). Cookie stole second right away, and even took third base on Orlando Castillo’s throwing error that ended up with Victor Enriquez. Merritt rolled a single through Kingsley to score him. Conway came up with two outs and we deemed him fresh and good enough to save his own **** against the Loggers’ lineup that was as impressive as that of a community college’s softball team. Bad idea. Zach Knowling hit a leadoff triple in the bottom of the inning, and Conway wasn’t going to save that one. The run scored, we had extra innings. A new lead was on the board quickly, though. Sandy hit a leadoff double in the 10th, facing Jose Ramos, and scored on Rob Howell’s single to right center. This time, Angel Casas got the ball for the save – and Nick Gilmor hit a leadoff triple. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!! The maniacal screams from the suite – clearly audible in a scarcely visited park on a Friday afternoon – scared Angel enough to get his **** together: the next three batters all struck out. 2-1 Coons. Bednarski 2-5; Carmona 1-1; Merritt 1-2, RBI;

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – 1B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – C McNeela – SS Taylor – 2B Bergquist – P Santos
MIL: SS O. Sandoval – C Leach – LF Knowling – CF Enriquez – 2B Roncero – RF Gilmor – 1B Pace – 3B D. Jennings – P Patrick

While the still-not-fixed middle of the order for the Raccoon neglected to do anything with Cookie and Sandy on base and nobody out in the third inning, the Loggers took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the frame when Brian Patrick hit a lucky double and then scored on Foster Leach’s ****ty bloop that fell between Bednarski and Bergquist. Bednarski was certainly guilty of many things, but at least he loved to pounce on a team that was lying comatose on the ground. When it was his time to bat again in the fourth inning, he romped a 3-run homer that ran the Coons’ lead to 7-1. How come? Well, Taylor had hit a 1-out double, before the Loggers went error, walk, and error on the Coons’ 8-9-1 batters. Sandy had a hit, Nunley got on, and then came Bednarski’s shot with two outs.

What should have been an ample lead for Santos to cruise home on was in the gravest danger even in the fourth inning. The Loggers ran four straight 1-out hits off him, as Victor Enriquez, Silvestro Roncero, Nick Gilmor, and Tim Pace tightened the noose – except that while Enriquez scored on Gilmor’s hit, Roncero was thrown out at home on Pace’s single, and the Loggers fudged themselves out of the inning, despite another hit, to only score two on five base knocks, and those two, plus change, were shaken out of Troy Charters right away in the top 5th. Bergquist hit a 2-run homer, and Nunley contributed an RBI double that chased home Sandy Sambrano, who, five innings in, sat on four base hits. But Sandy didn’t get another hit, and Santos was knocked around sufficiently hard that he almost would have been yanked in the fifth inning, in which the Loggers scored another two runs. He got the third out there on a difficult play made well by the otherwise not very defensively adept Richards, and lived through six to tell his horror story. The bullpen was wonky here and there, but the Loggers never crossed home plate again. The Coons added a late run driven in by Taylor. 11-5 Raccoons. Sambrano 4-5, 2 RBI; Nunley 3-5, 2B, RBI; Taylor 3-5, 2B, RBI; Seeley 1-2, 2B;

Cookie was replaced in a double switch mid-game, which seems odd, but he’s playing every day and we have enough legs around here.

We actually added four more for Saturday, as with the conclusion of the minor league season we called up Brock Hudman.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 3B Nunley – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – SS Howell – C Margolis – P Dickerson
MIL: RF Hodgers – C Leach – LF Knowling – 2B Roncero – 1B C. Martin – SS O. Sandoval – CF Gilmor – 3B J.J. Rodriguez – P Euteneuer

Cookie doubled and scored on two groundouts in the first inning, letting the Loggers stare into the abyss of a 16th loss at the hands of the Raccoons, which had never happened to any team before.

Top 3rd, Margolis walked to get going. Dickerson bunted him over, and then Cookie singled, putting runners on the corners with one out. Cookie then took off on his own and swiped his 48th bag of the season, but it was for nothing as Sandy and Nunley both struck out against the negligible Euteneuer. As punishment, Victor Hodgers singled home J.J. Rodriguez with two outs in the bottom of the inning, tying the score. But there was still, for the Loggers, the Euteneuer problem. He gently touched Murphy with a pitch to start the fourth before walking Richards on four pitches. Bednarski singled to left, loading them up with no outs. Rob Howell, who had been nothing but useless since coming back, hit a ball hard to third base, where Rodriguez touched the bag and then got Howell at first for a run-scoring double play. Margolis was walked intentionally and the Loggers brought up Dickerson, one strike, two strikes, -clank- and a liner to left for an RBI single. But all offensive heroics weren’t good enough for Dickerson, who opened the bottom 4th with singles to Knowing and Roncero before walking Corey Martin and Sandoval. Nick Gilmor’s 2-run double to right flipped the score in favor of the Loggers, 4-3, and also flipped Dickerson from the mound. Entwistle came in and struck out Rodriguez and Euteneuer to put an end to things … - except that those were only two outs. Hodgers hit a gapper to right center, nobody had a chance to get there and it fell for a 2-run double, as the Loggers hung a 5-spot on Dickerson, and six runs in total.

When D-Alex hit for Youngblood in the top 6th, he represented the tying run with one out. Bednarski had walked, and Margolis had singled. Euteneuer remained in the game, but walked D-Alex in a full count, his fifth free pass on the day. Cookie grounded to Roncero at second base, but at least legged out Sandoval’s return throw to stay out of a double play, instead being credited with an RBI groundout. Sandy – in a struggle now – popped out. Nick Gilmor hit his second leadoff triple of the series in the bottom of the same inning, and this time he scored, extending their lead to 7-4. This was off Chris Mathis.

The tying run was up AGAIN in the top 7th, and with nobody out. Nunley singled, Murphy walked, Euteneuer was still allowed to continue. Richards fouled out, but the Loggers had it comin’. Euteneuer missed generously twice against Bednarski, then had to come in, and came in right where the music played: long shot, big shot, deep left, gone, and a brand-new ballgame! The Coons’ pen wobbled a bit in the bottom 7th before Thrasher restored order, and we went tied into the ninth. Jose Ramos walked Murphy to get going, prompting a PR appearance from Walt Canning. Richards struck out, but Bednarski singled, with Canning stopping at second base. Seeley hit for Howell, falling to two strikes quickly before hitting a liner up the rightfield line. Victor Hodgers was zooming over, but the ball dropped just in time, bounced fair by at best one foot, and made for the corner! Canning was in, but Bednarski had had to wait for the ball to drop and could only reach third base on the double. Margolis was next, with runners on second and third, and was so far unretired on the day. This did not change: Margolis lined pitch to left center for a 2-run single, as the Coons reached double digits for the second time in as many games. Leadoff man Leach reached in the bottom 9th against Casas on a full count walk, but that was as much as Angel would give them. 10-7 Raccoons. Carmona 2-6, 2B, RBI; Bednarski 3-4, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Seeley (PH) 1-1, 2B, RBI; Margolis 3-3, 2 BB, 2 RBI; Thrasher 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, W (3-3);

Sweet sixteen! Also, fourteen straight against Milwaukee. They haven’t beaten us since May 7 in a spot start by Pat Slayton. The loss then was Thrasher’s, however. The winning runs then were driven in by … Gabriel Caro. That’s a pitcher.

Poor Loggers…

They’re morons, though. For Sunday, they went back to Bruce Morrison (5-18, 4.74 ERA), who threw 29 pitches on Friday, then on three days’ rest.

Game 4
POR: CF Carmona – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS Taylor – 2B Hudman – P Dupes
MIL: RF Hodgers – C Leach – CF Enriquez – 2B Roncero – 1B C. Martin – SS O. Sandoval – LF Alires – 3B J.J. Rodriguez – P B. Morrison

Making it seventeen would be hard for the Raccoons. Dupes had nothing at all, walked Roncero and Martin to start the second inning, then immediately gave up a moonshot to Oscar Sandoval that put the Loggers 3-0 ahead. Dupes was also the only Raccoon with a hit the first time through the order, flipping a 2-out single in the third. Cookie also singled, but Nunley fouled out to leave them on. The pitching just wouldn’t get better for Dupes, who allowed another run in the bottom 3rd when the first two Loggers reached, and even a double play couldn’t bail him out, the run scoring on a passed ball. Dupes faced three batters in the fifth inning, retired absolutely nobody with Leach walking ahead of back-to-back doubles by Enriquez and Roncero, and was replaced by Constantino, who didn’t do anything tangible to stop a rout in progress when he allowed an RBI single to Corey Martin right away. That made it 7-0 Loggers. The Coons had to console themselves with Cookie’s 200th hit of the season, a leadoff single in the sixth, which Nunley dissolved with a double play. The Coons also had Bednarski and D-Alex in scoring position to start the seventh inning, and still didn’t score. The Loggers in turn touched up Sakellaris for two runs in the bottom 7th, knocking three straight hits at the start of the frame. They enjoyed the one that ended their 14-game, 4-month drought against the Raccoons, I guess. Sakellaris was charged with another run after a leadoff walk in the eighth, which Thrasher allowed to score. Morrison was cruising to a shutout until he ran out of steam in the ninth inning and walked Sandy Sambrano in a long at-bat with two outs. Kevin Cummings replaced him, blasted away Brock Hudman, and the Loggers had their consolation game. 10-0 Loggers. Carmona 2-4; Richards 1-2, 2 BB; Bednarski 2-4, 2B;

I don’t think we’ll see much of Gary Dupes the rest of the season.

In other news

September 8 – WAS RF Victor Sarabia (.324, 10 HR, 46 RBI) has been diagnosed with a torn labrum. In addition to the rest of the 2014 season he could also miss a significant portion of the 2015 season.
September 9 – SFB 3B Javier Rodriguez (.303, 5 HR, 67 RBI) has suffered an intercostal strain and could miss most of the remaining regular season. The Bayhawks think that he would be available for the playoffs, however.
September 9 – Richmond’s Shaun Babineau (3-7, 4.57 ERA) and Ray Kelley throw a combined 1-hitter against the Blue Sox. The Rebels win 4-0, the only hit conceded to the Blue Sox being Chris Kendall’s leadoff single in the seventh inning.
September 12 – Tijuana’s Manuel “Doom” Rojas (12-8, 4.12 ERA) 3-hits the Falcons in a 6-0 shutout.

Complaints and stuff

Last Coon to win the batting title? David Brewer, 1995, his first Critters season. Back then when you got an players entire peak years for $9M. Today you get perhaps 350 innings, if we’re lucky, from Dickerson, and they’ve not been good, either.

Carmona and Ortíz are currently tied in the race. Thankfully home runs are not an official tie-breaker. Cookie is far and away of Mike Rivera (back 10 SB) and third-place TIJ Craig Dasher (18) in swiped bags.

Still in first in ERA is Bill Conway, who otherwise had not a good game. But he’s a third of a run ahead of Jonny Toner in the CL race, and leads all of the majors by almost .2 runs. Toner will not miss another start; he should be able to slide in behind Santos next week, which would give him the Thursday game. CHA Jorge Silva’s run ended this week, as both the Thunder and Condors hung four runs apiece on him. The eight runs total was the sum of what he conceded from July 25 to September 3!

Pitching prospect Jeff Magnotta, our 2012 top pick, was moved up to AAA to take the spot of Dupes for the last two weeks of the minor league season, but came out of his first start with a hurting elbow. Turns out it is “only” elbow tendinitis, but around the front office we were scared for a few days.

In injury news that didn’t make the front page, Warriors MR Dan Nordahl (4-3, 1.93 ERA, 2 SV) has been diagnosed with a stretched elbow ligament that might take up to a year to fix.

ABL CAREER STRIKEOUTS

1st – Tony Hamlyn – 3,837 (active)
2nd – Martin Garcia – 3,783
3rd – Woody Roberts – 3,313 (HOF)
4th – Aaron Anderson – 3,225
5th – Carlos Castro – 3,198 (HOF)
6th – Javier Cruz – 3,164
7th – Chris York – 3,103 (active)
8th – Carlos Asquabal – 2,995 (HOF)
9th – Arnold McCray – 2,900 (HOF)
10th – Bastyao Caixinha – 2,844 (HOF)
11th – Kisho Saito – 2,800 (HOF)
12th – Nick Brown – 2,775 (active)
13th – Kelvin Yates – 2,773 (active)
14th – Robbie Campbell – 2,763
15th – Pancho Trevino – 2,732 (active)

Finally, where do Cookie’s 48 stolen bases this year rank in terms of single season loot? Years ago, Yoshi Yamada, who was the starting shortstop that year mostly for comedic value, stole 54 bases and then tied for third place with Andres Serna, behind Andres Serna (55) and Moromao Hino (58). Since then, Javy Rodriguez has stolen 60 bases in the 2006 campaign. Cookie is probably too far off to challenge that, given that there’s only 20 games left. Right now, he’s tied for 15th, but only two more bags would already give him a tie for 10th, also with another Serna season.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (85-57) @ Indians (62-81) – September 15-18, 2014

Last dance with the Indians, in this case a 4-game set in Indy, to solve the season series, which so far stood at 8-6 in favor of the Furballs. The Indians had dropped four straight games, and overall ranked 11th in runs scored and third in runs allowed in the CL. Pitching sure was not everything. You might remember the Raccoons being 11th in runs scored for the longest time. They were now 10th, one single run ahead of the Arrowheads.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (13-6, 2.83 ERA) vs. Tom Weise (10-9, 4.04 ERA)
Bill Conway (11-4, 2.28 ERA) vs. Dan Lambert (6-13, 5.05 ERA)
Hector Santos (15-7, 2.86 ERA) vs. Tristan Broun (9-11, 4.00 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (14-6, 2.61 ERA) vs. Alejandro Mendez (10-12, 3.23 ERA)

We get one of their two southpaws, Broun, while missing Chester Graham (9-9, 3.29 ERA).

From 2005 through 2013, the games between these teams have been split exactly 50:50. If the Raccoons win at least two in this set (sounds doable, but …), they will have a winning decade against a team that was thoroughly middling to awful for most of the last ten years.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – SS Taylor – P Brown
IND: CF J. Wilson – SS Matias – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – LF M. Pruitt – RF G. Morán – C Malone – 3B Dawson – P Weise

The Coons loaded the bases in the first inning on Sandy getting nicked, a Richards double, and a Murphy walk, only for Alexander to hit hard to Ryan Dawson for a double play. The Indians also loaded the bases in the bottom 2nd without getting anything. Matt Pruitt singled in a 1-2 count, Gonzalo Morán was hit in an 0-2 count, and Dawson walked before Weise hoppled out to Murphy to end proceedings. Brown struck out nobody the first time through and didn’t look like he was gonna get one today.

Top 4th. Murphy led off with a single to left before D-Alex hit a hard one to deep right, but the fence held onto it: the ball hit less than six inches below the top of the wall, holding Alexander to a double, but the Coons had runners in scoring position with nobody out. Nunley got a disinterested 4-pitch walk to load the bases and set up a double play which Palmer Taylor would hit into after Bednarski’s fly to left at least scored Murphy for the first run of the game. The lead, which should have been that much bigger, didn’t hold up, as Matt Pruitt homered off Brown in the bottom of the inning, but the 1-1 tie in turn was also soon broken. Brown hit a leadoff single to right in the fifth, Sandy singled, and Richards doubled to center to plate his pitcher, 2-1. Murphy’s usual pathetic grounder to a middle infielder was not played well by Kym, who was in discomfort still and officially listed as day-to-day, and all paws were safe for an RBI infield single. D-Alex had an RBI single, 4-1, but Nunley struck out and Bednarski grounded to third, where Dawson threw the ball well past Santiago Guerra for a run-scoring error. First base was open to put on Taylor, bringing up Brown, who had opened the inning with a single, with the bases loaded and two outs. He grounded up the middle, past the immobile Kym, and into center for another run – that one knocked out Weise. Brown was a mere shadow of olden times, and mainly made it to the eighth because he generated poor contact with his sinking stuff, but he hardly fooled anybody. The Indians got two on in the eighth which was the call to remove him. Entwistle held on. 6-1 Brownies! Richards 3-4, 2 2B, RBI; Murphy 2-4, BB, RBI; Alexander 2-5, 2B, RBI; Brown 7.1 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, W (14-6) and 2-4, RBI; Entwistle 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Ricardo Carmona had a ghastly 0-for-5, putting him three points behind Martin Ortíz.

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – 3B Nunley – RF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – LF Seeley – 2B Bergquist – SS Taylor – P Conway
IND: CF J. Wilson – RF Tanner – 2B Kym – C Padilla – 3B Mathews – 1B Shank – LF Phillip – 3B Dawson – P Lambert

The miserable Indians sure didn’t know how to treat a league ERA leader with respect. John Wilson opened with a solo homer in the first inning, and that was only a mild taste of what was to come for Conway, who would go on to face 11 batters in an ERA- and moral-crippling third inning that opened with Ryan Dawson singling on an 0-2 pitch, a bunt, two walks to load the bases, and then single upon single upon single until Lambert finally made the third out with seven runs across in the inning, six earned – Mr. Alexander had found it necessary to contribute with a passed ball. The Raccoons had yet to log a hit in the game, which Nunley and Richards did with singles to start the fourth inning. Murphy walked to load them up. This time they scored the three runs that were on with singles by Alexander and Seeley, plus a Bergquist sac fly. Conway was hit for with McNeela with two down, and his potential ERA title was now very much in question.

Not in question at all was the outcome of this hell of a game. While Chris Mathis did some nice to look at long relief and the Coons got another run in the fifth inning, they then stalled. Josh Gibson was ripped for two runs in the seventh, putting the game well out of reach, and run-scoring hits by Nunley and Richards in the top of the ninth of course came well too late. 10-6 Indians. Nunley 2-4, BB, 2B, RBI; Richards 3-4, 2 RBI; Fucito (PH) 1-1; Mathis 2.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K;

Cookie had another oh-fer, only drawing a walk and stealing his 49th base en route to scoring in the fifth inning. I decreed a day off for him on Wednesday against Tristan Broun to get him mentally reset.

The CL ERA thing is a real race now with Conway just two points ahead of horse number two, Jonny Toner, and another two points ahead of Jorge Silva. Also in the mix, Curtis Tobitt, ten points behind, and theoretically, although no one dared to watch him much by now, Nick Brown, 18 points off in fifth place.

Game 3
POR: CF Sambrano – 3B Merritt – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – LF Fucito – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – SS Canning – P Santos
IND: CF J. Wilson – RF Tanner – 2B Kym – 1B S. Guerra – C Padilla – 3B Mathews – LF A. Chavez – SS Bowers – P Broun

Broun wouldn’t see a batter in the left-handed batters’ box in this game, and for the longest time couldn’t care less. Early on, the Raccoons’ hitting display was nothing but pathetic, and the Indians in turn took a 2-0 lead in the third inning on another John Wilson homer, his 21st. Maybe they should not bat him leadoff. Tom Bowers had drawn a walk ahead of the dinger. Like Brown on Monday, Santos couldn’t strike anybody out, and merely lingered in the game.

The Furballs were in something remotely resembling action in the top of the sixth then. When Murphy singled and Fucito doubled, they had the tying runs in scoring position with nobody out, but would be casually limited to Danny Margolis’ RBI groundout before Bergquist failed, Canning was ignored, and Santos struck out, the seventh coontail on Broun’s belt. Santos only had one through five innings and managed to get to four strikeouts over seven, the end of the line for him. He was still eligible for a win however, depending on the Raccoons’ performance in the top 8th. Fucito drew a leadoff walk that got Broun removed from the game, with Joel Davis, a right-hander, allowing a single to Margolis. Ron Richards hit for Bergquist, prompting an appearance from lefty Anthony Bryant, who got Richards on an easy fly to center. The Indians then sent right-hander Jason Clements after Canning, but the Raccoons had long arranged for Nunley to bat – and strike out. D-Alex hit for Santos, faced lefty Kyle Lamb, and singled to left, but not well enough to score Fucito. Bases loaded, two outs, full count on Sandy, who then ticked a ball to left, and it escaped between Bowers and Dawson! Single to left, Fucito scored, Margolis scored, score flipped! Merritt lined out hard to Dawson, but the Coons were up 3-2. Sakellaris and Thrasher teamed up for a perfect eighth, and the plan had been to leave Thrasher in to face the first guy in the bottom 9th, lefty Rowan Tanner, but Morán hit for him, a right-hander, so Angel Casas got into the ninth from the start. Morán grounded out to Angel. Jong-beom Kym ran a full count before grounding out to Brock Hudman at second base, and Guerra went down swinging. 3-2 Critters. Hudman 1-1; Margolis 2-5, RBI; Alexander (PH) 1-1; Santos 7.0 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, W (16-7) and 1-3;

By the very tip of their claws…… The Coons out-hit the Indians 11-2 in a near-fiasco.

Game 4
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – P Toner
IND: CF J. Wilson – RF Tanner – 1B S. Guerra – C Padilla – LF M. Pruitt – 3B Mathews – 2B Preto – SS Bowers – P A. Mendez

Always red-faced Mendez had reason to be mad at his team. Through six he allowed solo home runs to Alexander in the second inning and Murphy in the fourth inning, but also managed to strand whole flocks of Raccoons, three in the fourth (when Toner came up with two outs and grounded out to Joey Mathews) and two more in the fifth, with a double play in the sixth. But his team was not really helpful in trying to stave off defeat, netting only two hits off Jonny Toner in the same stretch of innings, and one of those was a 2-out triple for Mendez himself in the third inning. Their third hit was a 2-out single by Dave Padilla in the bottom 7th – on Toner’s *60th* pitch! Matt Pruitt singled on the very next pitch, putting the tying runs onto the corners, but Toner struck out Mathews to end the inning. Bottom 8th, leadoff triple by Silvestre Preto, defeating Bednarski and his circuitous approach. Toner was unimpressed, got Tom Bowers on a hard grounder to third, Clint Phillip on a foul pop, and took John Wilson’s grounder himself. Toner batted for himself in the ninth to enter the bottom of the inning on 83 pitches, with Tanner up first. He grounded out to Murphy, Guerra whiffed, and Padilla rolled out to Nunley – the Indians were dealt with in 92 pitches! 2-0 Raccoons! Carmona 2-5; Murphy 2-4, HR, RBI; Alexander 2-4, HR, RBI; Nunley 2-4, 2B; Toner 9.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, W (15-6) and 1-4;

That is the unbelievable FIFTH shutout this season for Jonny Toner!

Raccoons (88-58) @ Condors (71-75) – September 19-21, 2014

The Condors had nursed a winning record for a while but recently had fallen back. They were much the polar opposite of the Indians and the Raccoons, ranking in the top 3 in offense in the CL, but also in the bottom 3 in pitching, with a mediocre defense. They had a good core in the middle of the order with Will Newman, Ezra Branch, and Ryan Feldmann, all 27 or younger, and all with about 20 homers now, and had run the Raccoons around a bit this year, holding a 4-2 edge in the season series. Unless we can sweep them, we will lose the season series for the first time since 2004!

Projected matchups:
Daniel Dickerson (8-7, 4.54 ERA) vs. Michael Colvard (5-14, 4.21 ERA)
Nick Brown (14-6, 2.77 ERA) vs. Blaine Barnard (13-9, 3.86 ERA)
Bill Conway (11-5, 2.59 ERA) vs. Ethan Knight (4-4, 5.12 ERA)

Another southpaw lurking on Sunday in Ethan Knight, a 27-year old rookie who’s been up and down this year. He already started against the Coons in the Condors’ 9-1 rout on May 27, but only lasted four innings after walking everybody and their mother. Not that it helped the Raccoons ANY.

If Dickerson fails again, Graham Wasserman will be recalled from the job in the fish sticks factory he had to take up to not starve in the offseason, and get his remaining turns. Not that I expect much from Wasserman, who just won’t pan out as hoped, but it’s not wrong to give the kid a look.

Game 1
POR: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – C McNeela – SS Canning – P Dickerson
TIJ: 3B Dasher – SS Eroh – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – C Roland – 1B McDermott – 2B Lafon – P Colvard

The Raccoons took a 1-0 lead in the third after Ron Eroh’s throwing error put Dickerson on base and Carmona drove him in with a single to center. However, Dickerson had next to nothing to fool batters and while he survived that nasty middle of the order the first time through, the second time he ran the gauntlet, in the fourth inning, he surrendered a 1-out triple to Ezra Branch, who was then singled in by Ryan Feldmann, tying the score. Cory Roland flew out to center, with Feldmann trying to take second base, but Cookie threw him out there for an unusual 8-5 double play. The top 5th saw the Coons put two on when McNeela legged out an infield single, Canning also found a single somewhere, and Dickerson bunted them over. Then McNeela fell asleep on Carmona’s grounder to Roland Lafon, and once Sambrano struck out, the Coons had stranded another pair in scoring position. Another chance materialized soon to probably get butchered. Richards drew a leadoff walk in the sixth, and Lafon dropped Murphy’s awful pop for an error. Matt Nunley came up, hit a ball to deep center, and past Feldmann by mere inches! That thing was in, the runners went, but because the play was so close, only Ron Richards scored on the double, 2-1. And then Bednarski got four wide ones, McNeela struck out, Seeley batted for Canning and struck out, and Merritt batted for Dickerson and rolled one over to Lafon, who was glad for sure to erase his error with minimal damage.

The Coons then got four outs from Mathis, one from Youngblood, and another one from Sakellaris, who was supposed to also pitch the eighth, but his spot came up with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth inning. Murphy had walked, there had been two overly soft singles, and right-hander Jose Sanchez was in a real pickle. D-Alex hit for him, walked, which forced in a run, but Carmona flew out to left to strand three in a 3-1 game. That lead – which once more should have been so much bigger, but had not been enlarged due to the constant and omnipresent dumb****ery on this team – didn’t survive contact with Zack Entwistle, who surrendered a leadoff single to Alfonso Gonzales in the bottom 8th, a double to Craig Dasher, and the runners scored on consecutive sac flies, tying the score.

Top 9th. Dave Shannon grazed Sandy Sambrano in the slightest fashion with his second pitch. At 1-0, Sandy took off in what was supposed to be a hit-and-run, but Ron Richards missed the pitch completely … as did Gonzales behind the dish. Sandy was safe at second, but Richards’ following deep drive to right was caught by Branch, only allowing Sandy to move to third with one out. Of course the Raccoons failed. Of course they did. Murphy got four wide ones, Nunley popped out, and Brock Hudman grounded out to second base. The game went to extras, and the 11th started with Sandy on base to get going again. Again the hit-and-run, and this time Richards singled to right, putting runners on the corners with nobody out against middling Brian Gilbert, a right-hander. He lost Murphy to a 7-pitch walk, loading the bases, and Nunley … struck out. GODDAMN **** IT, YOU ****ING ****HEADS!!!

Brock Hudman’s pointy ears were ringing, and he hit a ball to right center that was caught, but deep enough to allow Sandy to tag and score the go-ahead run. Fucito hit for Tom Constantino, walked, and Seeley grounded to Lafon, ending the inning with another three runners stranded. Angel Casas survived a deep drive to center that Cookie caught before slamming into the wall, and sat them down 1-2-3 in the bottom 11th. 4-3 Blighters. Richards 2-5, BB; Hudman 1-2, RBI; McNeela 2-4; Alexander (PH) 0-0, 2 BB, RBI; Mathis 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K; Thrasher 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K;

FIFTEEN MEN LEFT ON BASE. FIFTEEN.

What’s “liquor store” in Spanish??

Game 2
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – RF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – LF Seeley – C Alexander – 2B Hudman – P Brown
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 2B Lafon – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – LF W. Newman – C Roland – 1B Jaeger – SS Eroh – P Barnard

Brown continued to get to two strikes rather frequently, but couldn’t remove any batter the first time through. The first Condor to strike out ended up Dasher, ending the third inning. Offensively, things remained dull for the Critters, the early highlight being Nick Brown’s 1-out double in the third inning that didn’t lead to anything. Things didn’t get better in the middle innings, with Carmona caught stealing in the sixth after reaching on an infield single, which cost the Coons the go-ahead run when Ron Richards TRIPLED, only to be stranded by the hideous Murphy and his grounder to short. Bottom 6th, the ground opened. Blaine Barnard grounded to short, where Sambrano bungled the ball and put the pitcher on with an error. When Dasher bounced to Brown, he tried to turn two, but nobody could come up with his throw, and the Condors had two on after two errors. Lafon walked in a full count, loading the bases, and now the big bats were coming up. The Condors scored two unearned runs on Ezra Branch’s single past Murphy and Feldmann’s sac fly before Newman hit into a double play. The Raccoons failed their way to the conclusion of the game, never threatening again. 2-0 Condors. Carmona 2-4; Richards 2-3, 3B; Brown 7.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, L (14-7) and 1-2, 2B;

This was Brownie’s first loss since July 30 against the – wait for it – Condors. I gotta get back to my old ways of handling this kind of ****. I gotta start randomly shooting some of the suckers.

Cookie remains three points behind Martin Ortíz as neither of them has a good week, but Cookie’s is certainly worse.

Game 3
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – RF Richards – 1B Murphy – LF Fucito – 3B Merritt – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – P Conway
TIJ: 3B Dasher – 1B M. Herrera – LF W. Newman – RF Branch – CF Feldmann – C Roland – 2B Lafon – SS Valles – P Knight

Cookie reached 50 stolen bases with a leadoff single to left center and a successful swipe, but was also stranded at second base. Conway however continued his implosion with a ****ing bloop single by Dasher to start the bottom 1st, followed by a triple by Mike Herrera, who had his first plate appearance of the year. Newman hit a sac fly, and not only was Conway down 2-0 after one, but he was also as good as out of the ERA race. Conway allowed another run in the third inning, negating the run scratched out by Cookie with another soft single and Ron Richards’ 2-out double in the top of the same inning. The top of the fourth inning started with Jimmy Fucito hitting a single and Merritt walked. Danny Margolis hit a soft line to right, over Lafon, and his single loaded the bases with nobody out. Bergquist, who more and more did not appear like being the second baseman of the future, or even near-present, hit one hard to Lafon, who elected to fire home for one out. This sounded good, really, for the Condors, given that Conway was batting .051 and was a guaranteed out, and then the Coons would make two outs by the time he was gone, without a run scoring. Unfortunately, Knight spoiled the plan – he lost Conway in a full count, pushing home the Coons’ second run! Cookie was up with the bases loaded and one out, grounded to Melvin Valles, and only his speed bailed him out as he out-ran the return throw and stayed out of the double play by two whiskers. The tying run scored. Sambrano grounded out to Valles, ending the inning.

The Coons stranded two more in the sixth against Troy McCaskill before Conway was torn open by Branch, who hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning, giving the Condors a new lead, 5-3. Conway walked Feldmann and was yanked. Josh Gibson found out of that inning, then found trouble in the seventh, which Sugano relieved. Sugano faced three batters, issued a walk in the eighth, and got two double plays, one to end the seventh, and another one in the eighth. And yet, it was all for nought. The inept offense failed to produce anything, and the Raccoons went down almost silently. They had the tying run up in the ninth after a pinch-hit single by Walt Canning, but Scott Vigil struck out Ron Richards to end the game. 5-3 Condors. Carmona 2-5, RBI; Canning (PH) 1-1; Richards 2-5, 2B, RBI; Margolis 2-4;

In other news

September 15 – Vancouver’s SP Rod Taylor (13-11, 3.64 ERA) erases 16 Loggers via the strikeout and shuts them out on three hits in a 5-0 Canadiens victory.
September 16 – SFW INF Jamie Wilson (.306, 15 HR, 66 RBI) will miss up to two weeks with hamstring tendinitis.
September 17 – SFW LF/RF Jose “Dingus” Morales (.348, 23 HR, 72 RBI) has a field day in the Warriors’ 8-1 rout of the Gold Sox, going 5-for-5 with 5 RBI, including an RBI triple and a grand slam. He lacks the double for the cycle.
September 18 – Heading for Tommy John surgery, PIT SP Miguel Rodriguez (17-6, 3.52 ERA) figures to be out until late in the 2015 season.
September 19 – OCT 1B Oliver Torres (.284, 0 HR, 53 RB) has his 2,000th career base hit in a 5-2 Thunder win over the Indians. Torres has a pair of doubles off Chester Graham in the game, the first one being the milestone. The 37-year old Torres spent most of his career between the Aces and Warriors, and won batting titles with the former in 2003 and 2005, leading the CL in OPS in both years despite hitting single-digit home runs. 52 doubles and 172 walks in 2003 perhaps did help. For his career, he’s a .307/.437/.419 batter with 38 HR and 718 RBI, plus 155 SB.
September 19 – MIL RF/LF Zach Knowling (.265, 8 HR, 46 RBI) requires surgery to fix a tear in his labrum and is out for the season. He might be available come Opening Day.
September 20 – Another milestone is reached, as LAP 1B/3B Dennis Berman (.283, 17 HR, 84 RBI) swats his 300th career home run, a solo shot in a 7-6 loss to the Capitals. The homer comes off Colin Baldwin. The 38-year old Berman, who has spent his entire career in the Federal League, mostly for the Cyclones, is a .283/.366/.443 batter with 1,427 RBI to accompany the 300 home runs, but has never led the league in home runs. He led the league in doubles in 2007.
September 20 – The Warriors claim the FL West with a 4-1 win over the Rebels (which also eliminates the Rebels in the East), ranking a whopping 15 games ahead of the Scorpions. It will be the eighth playoff appearance for Sioux Falls, and the second consecutive since an 11-year drought that started in 2002.
September 20 – Overtime is logged in Denver, as the Cyclones and Gold Sox take 16 innings to determine a winner. Three hits off Denver’s Rick Gillespie in the 16th help the Cyclones to a 4-3 win.
September 21 – ATL 1B Gil Rockwell (.301, 43 HR, 102 RBI) breaks the single-season home run mark by Raúl Vázquez with a solo homer off the Canadiens’ Dustin Burke.

Complaints and stuff

Only one pitcher has ever thrown more than five shutouts in a single season, and he did it twice. David Burke, who also leads the career shutout category with 35, tossed six shutouts in 1977 and another eight in 1982. 35 shutouts are a word. Kisho Saito and Nick Brown COMBINED only amount to 34. Still, Burke is not in the Hall of Fame, because the second half of his career was … not so good.

As we’re on pitchers, Bill Conway’s sudden demise has left only two horses in the CL ERA race for the Coons, and one is the unlikely Nick Brown, who by now solely survives on generating poor contact. That is a legit survival pack, but it’s prone to just give out at times. He’s third with his 2.68 ERA, trailing OCT Curtis Tobitt (2.60), and of course Jonny Toner (2.48), who is just a gold nugget to hold onto.

Cookie has the stolen base title bagged with Mike Rivera in a deep slump and down by a dozen, but Cookie had his own struggles this week, batting a paltry 7-for-29. Yes, for some guys, .241 is considered paltry. One walk, one strikeout. Two bases to reach 50 for the year.

Make sure to attend Saturday's game against the Crusaders, who by then will have won the division at a 99% probability, because we have Nick Brown Bobbleheads ready to go for *everybody* in attendance. It might be Conway or Santos on the mound, but don't miss out on this great opportunity! Nick Brown's career might be winding down, but this figurine will bobble on your shelf forever!

Maud makes me do those pitches from time to time. I'm no good at selling stuff. I had to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy with my lemonade stand when I was eight.

[Westheim]

Raccoons (89-60) vs. Aces (75-73) – September 22-24, 2014

The season series between these two teams was still up for grabs, with the Raccoons holding a 4-2 advantage. The Aces had survived longer than usual in the South, but now, for all intents and purposes, they were out of the running. Turns out, a bottom 3 pitching staff is just as playoff-unworthy as a bottom 3 lineup, which the Raccoons infamously had groomed in 2014. The Aces were fourth in runs scored.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (16-7, 2.85 ERA) vs. William Hinkley (8-10, 3.43 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (15-6, 2.48 ERA) vs. Jimmy Young (5-8, 4.55 ERA)
Graham Wasserman (0-0) vs. Jaquan Wagoner (9-11, 3.79 ERA)

These are three right-handers. We decided to give Graham Wasserman two starts as the season was winding down, despite a very mixed AAA campaign with a 4.49 ERA and lots and lots of walks for a 24-year old, taking what would be Dickerson’s spot in this series. Dickerson’s not shelved, but I think that we are in no hustle to give him three more starts this season, which is what he would have gotten in his current slot.

Turns out we sold high on Raúl Hernandez mid-season, who has dropped only 10 points of average in Las Vegas, but resorted to hitting all-singles and hardly ever walking.

Game 1
LVA: LF J. Garcia – RF Zackery – SS B. Burke – 1B Bovane – 2B H. Jones – 3B Marrero – CF McCullough – C R. Hernandez – P Hinkley
POR: CF Carmona – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – RF Bednarski – 2B Bergquist – SS Hudman – P Santos

Things went south quickly for Santos, who had Kevin McCullough reach on an infield single, his first hit of the season, before Hernandez reached on Nunley’s wild throw to first. Hinkley batted with two outs, but snipped a ball into rightfield for a 2-run single. But after that early setback, Santos got to return the favor with a 2-run single of his own in the bottom of the second inning. The difference was that Santos was batting with the bases loaded and nobody out, and the four previous Raccoons had all singled as well. Santos’ 2-run single flipped the score to 3-2 and left two in scoring position, but the Coons got only one more run on Carmona’s groundout. That was not the last bases-loaded situation the Coons created with nobody out. Hinkley didn’t have much at all, and Santos opened the fourth with a single that was soon imitated by Cookie and Nunley to fill the sacks. Hinkley’s day was over after he lost Richards to a run-scoring walk and Murphy pushed home another run with a groundout. Ramón Martinez allowed another run on Alexander’s groundout, 7-2, but Santos was almost toppled in the top 5th. He issued a walk, then fell to a homer, Brent Burke’s ninth this season. The Aces put two more on, and Ricardo Marrero was pretty much his final batter unless he ended the inning with runners on second and third, and Marrero popped out. It had also started to rain in the inning, but soon stopped. Santos got through the sixth, but that was it for a rather not pretty start. Also not pretty: Ron Sakellaris’ outing in the eighth. Raúl Bovane hit a leadoff jack to get the Aces to 7-5, and he also allowed a single and a walk with two outs to bring in pinch-hitter Geoff Struck, who struck out against Sugano, who was brought in specifically for him. The Coons rallied decisively against right-hander Michael Sieben in the bottom of the eighth. Canning led off with a single, Cookie also singled, both pulled off a double steal, and then Nunley and Richards hit consecutive doubles to throw three runs onto the board and reach double digits. Gary Dupes got the assignment for the ninth inning with a 10-5 lead and to something to prettify that ghastly 8.40 ERA, but it was not meant to be. After Jaime Garcia grounded out, Rusty Zackery walked, Brent Burke flew out to deep left, and where Raúl Bovane hit Dupes’ 19th pitch, nobody would ever catch it. His second homer (and 25th this year) knocked out Dupes, Josh Gibson came in and allowed two singles, and we ACTUALLY had to bother Angel Casas, who came in to quickly strike out PH Brent Woods to end the game – FINALLY. 10-7 Raccoons. Carmona 2-5, RBI; Nunley 3-3, 2 BB, 2B, 2 RBI; Bergquist 3-4, 3B; Canning 1-1;

Kevin Wanless and the rest of the Crusaders scratched past the Condors in a 4-3 win this Monday, thus formally ending the Raccoons’ season – the Crusaders have clinched the North.

Cookie stole two bases in this game, reaching 52 on the year, which puts him two off the franchise record by otherwise dismal Yoshi Yamada from 2005. Martin Ortíz remains two points ahead in the batting race.

Gary Dupes (9.19 ERA) was removed from the roster. There’s no point on flying him cross country with the way he is stinking it up.

Game 2
LVA: 3B R. Avila – RF Zackery – SS B. Burke – 1B Bovane – 2B H. Jones – LF J. Garcia – CF Flack – C R. Hernandez – P J. Young
POR: CF Carmona – SS Sambrano – RF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – LF Fucito – C McNeela – 2B Bergquist – P Toner

After a silent start to the game, the Raccoons hammered Jimmy Young for four extra-base hits in the third inning. Cookie opened with a double, Ron Richards homered, and Murphy and Nunley also hit doubles for a 3-0 lead for Jonny Toner. Not much happened until the sixth inning, with Toner putting on four of six leadoff batters for the Aces, but not allowing any of them to score. Bergquist hit a leadoff single in the bottom 6th, stole second base, and was then doubled in by Carmona – but Cookie was in obvious discomfort at second base and waved for the trainer. He came out of the game, replaced by Seeley. Jason Seeley would whack a 2-run homer in the eighth inning, and by then we already were pretty certain that Cookie’s season was over. The Aces scored two unearned runs off Constantion, and mainly a throwing error by McNeela, in the ninth inning, but at least Constantino pulled through and kept the top studs in the stall. 6-2 Coons. Carmona 3-4, 2 2B, RBI; Seeley 1-1, HR, 2 RBI; Richards 2-4, HR, 2 RBI; Nunley 2-4, 2B, RBI; Bergquist 3-4; Toner 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 8 K, W (16-6);

Cookie has a lat strain – no way he’s coming back this year. He has the stolen base crown, but the batting title is now for Martin Ortíz to contest against a .345 mark rather than a player that can fight back. Ortíz is a point ahead right now.

In the ERA race, Curtis Tobitt one-upped Jonny Toner’s seven shutout innings with eight shutout innings of the Loggers. The difference between them is 12 points of ERA.

Game 3
LVA: 3B R. Avila – RF Zackery – 1B Bovane – CF Kelsey – 2B H. Jones – LF J. Garcia – SS Marrero – C R. Hernandez – P Wagoner
POR: CF Sambrano – 3B Nunley – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – RF Bednarski – SS Taylor – 2B Bergquist – P Wasserman

Raúl Bovane left the game with an injury in the first inning, also after hitting a double, but Wasserman got around John Kelsey for a clean maiden inning, in which he struck out Rusty Zackery. The Coons in the bottom 1st required zero hits to load the bases, if you were willing to ignore the hit that Stan Murphy took by a fastball. That came after walks to Nunley and Richards and before D-Alex poked at a 3-1 pitch, but at least he managed to have it fall into left for an RBI single. Wasserman came to bat in the inning and made the final out after a Bednarski walk, Taylor single, and Bergquist sac fly had run the score to 4-0. But the Aces got to Wasserman quickly than anybody liked to see (except maybe the Aces). They scored a run in the second, and in the third inning they just ripped him. He allowed five hits, two walks, and was walloped for four runs and just couldn’t get the final out. He was removed without completing the inning, with Raúl Hernandez retired for the third out by Entwistle. Two and two thirds, five earned runs. What a debut! Is Dupes on holidays yet?

The Coons loaded the bases in the bottom 4th. Taylor hit a leadoff single, and Merritt and Sambrano drew walks off the consistently erratic Wagoner. Nunley singled to right on a 2-2 pitch to spare Wasserman at least the loss, as the single tied the score at five. Ron Richards hit something that looked like a slam off the bat, but fell down on the track – and there into Jaime Garcia’s glove. It was a sac fly, though, giving the Coons a slim 6-5 lead before Murphy failed them out of the inning. The Coons then scored a 3-spot in the fifth off Garret Purifoy. D-Alex led off with a tremendous moonshot to right center, 7-5, and then Taylor and Bergquist got on. Merritt had stayed in the game at first base and found the gap with a double, plating both, 9-5.

Merritt had been left in the game mainly to get two innings from Chris Mathis – which worked well – in the slot that had just been passed to end the fourth inning, but also because I hated Murphy’s face. It worked less well for Ricardo Marrero, who was beaned by Mathis and had to leave the game, but that was the only runner the right-hander allowed. Behind him, Josh Gibson got four outs, Thrasher got two, Sakellaris got three, and only Gibson allowed another runner on a single. 9-5 Coons. Alexander 3-4, BB, HR, 2 RBI; Taylor 2-3, BB, RBI; Merritt (PH) 2-2, BB, 2 2B, 2 RBI; Entwistle 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, W (3-2); Mathis 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K;

Raccoons (92-60) vs. Crusaders (105-47) – September 26-28, 2014

First in runs scored, second in runs allowed. Can we please make this quick and painless? There’s at best the season series to quabble over, which so far is trending to the Coons, 8-7.

Projected matchups:
Nick Brown (14-7, 2.68 ERA) vs. Colin Sabatino (15-9, 4.88 ERA)
Daniel Dickerson (8-7, 4.43 ERA) vs. Paul Miller (13-8, 3.62 ERA)
Bill Conway (11-6, 2.76 ERA) vs. Kevin Wanless (14-6, 3.85 ERA)

Right-right-right. Nick Brown Bobbleheads on Saturday, which is I guess all that everybody’s after at this stage.

It would be nice to shut down Martin Ortíz, who’s batting .348 now, three points ahead of the frozen Cookie.

Game 1
NYC: CF Brissett – SS J. Ortega – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Manfull – 2B Caraballo – 3B Tolwith – C Durango – P Sabatino
POR: CF Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Richards – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – LF Seeley – 2B Bergquist – SS Canning – P Brown

In a fine display of why the Raccoons were more than a dozen games out in the North, Colin Sabatino, a rather meager pitcher for a team bidding to win 110+ games, cruised through the Coons’ lineup on just 22 pitches to start the game, facing the minimum nine batters in three innings. It wasn’t until the bottom of the fourth that Nunley found a hole between Francisco Caraballo and B.J. Manfull to sneak a ball through for a single, but then Murphy found a hole on the left side, and D-Alex found a hole in Caraballo’s glove for the third single, this one scoring Nunley for the first run of the game. Jason Seeley found shallow center with a liner for another RBI single, putting the Coons up 2-0 before Bergquist struck out.

Brownie had managed to stave off damage through four innings despite three walks and a hit, but Aaron Tolwith started the top 5th with a single to center. From there, the inning deteriorated into carnage. Ron Richards was hurt on a tumbling grab on Eduardo Durango’s drive to right center, and the Crusaders would pick apart the Coons’ infield with consecutive 2-out infield singles by Amari Brissett and Jorge Ortega, but Ortega pulled something legging out his single and was replaced by Miguel Salinas (Fucito filled in for Richards). One run scored before Brown struck out Martin Ortíz, who had yet to reach base. Brownie made it through seven innings on 111 pitches, striking out both Durango and Sabatino in exhausting full count battles before getting Brissett to ground out to Canning in his last frame, as he maintained a 2-1 lead. The Critters stranded pairs of runners in the sixth (partially unearned after a Manfull error) and seventh in gross neglect when it came to securing an insurance run. Promptly the bullpen ****ed it up. Thrasher came in, sucked, allowed a single to Salinas and walked Ortíz before Entwistle got Stanton Martin, but walked Manfull. PH Drew Lowe prompted an appearance by Sugano, who surrendered a sac fly to right, tying the score. The Crusaders put Brissett on with a 2-out single in the ninth against Angel Casas, but Brissett was caught stealing and as the offensive failures continued, Angel struck out the side (including the Martin Brothers) in the 10th. Like that would be enough to get a win… Instead, Youngblood was run over in the top 11th, allowing the first two batters to reach base on a hard single by Manfull and a walk to Nick Hedglin, who had replaced Caraballo at second base earlier. Those two scored on a Durango single to left, and the Raccoons faced Alex Ramirez in the bottom 11th, a finesse right-hander that was hardly hittable, allowing 38 hits in 58.2 innings while also whiffing a bit over nine per nine. D-Alex led off with a bloop single before Merritt hit for the miserable Youngblood and struck out. Bergquist somehow walked, and Brock Hudman’s ****ty grounder was at least not good enough for two. That left Bednarski in the #9 hole with the runners in scoring position and two outs. A strike, a ball, another strike, a chop and a bouncer to left – THROUGH BETWEEN … and here comes Bergquist around third giving his all coming to home plate and sliding in SAFE!! SAFE!! JASON BERGQUIST SAFE AT HOME!!

I would have preferred Keith Ayers safe at home five years earlier, but at least the Crusaders stupid champagne grins in the dugout froze. Tied game, and while Sandy singled, Nunley wouldn’t, and we played on. The Coons were out of left-handers, but they weren’t out of Constantinos, who allowed a single to Ortíz (ARGH!!) in the top 12th. When Kevin Bond hit a ball up the leftfield line, Ortíz was sent from first base with two outs, but found himself cut down at home by Fucito’s throw and Hudman’s relay to end the inning. Fucito led off the bottom of the inning with a single, but the stupid Murphy hit into a stupid double play. Constantino was exploded for good in the 13th inning, allowed two runs on four singles, including one with two outs by Ortíz. ****ING ****, CONSTANTINO!! You had ONE JOB!!

Bottom 13th. Merritt led off with a single to left before Bergquist grounded to Salinas – who failed to make a play. Tying runs aboard for Hudman, with lefty Ken McKenzie starting to sweat. Hudman bunted the runners into scoring position, but Bednarski resorted to his usual useless non-existence as an offensive factor and struck out against the southpaw. Sambrano flew out to right. 6-4 Crusaders. Murphy 3-6, 2B; Alexander 2-6, RBI; Taylor (PH) 1-1; Bednarski 1-2, BB, 2 RBI; Brown 7.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K; Casas 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K;

… and there goes another chair. I threw it against the wall long enough to break it.

Game 2
NYC: CF Brissett – SS J. Ortega – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Manfull – 2B Caraballo – 3B Bond – C Durango – P P. Miller
POR: 3B Nunley – CF Sambrano – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – 1B Murphy – LF Seeley – SS Taylor – 2B Hudman – P Dickerson

Dickerson didn’t allow any hits the first time through the order, but boy did things change the second time through. Between the fourth and fifth innings, the Crusaders ripped him for seven hits and five runs. It started innocently enough with a B.J. Manfull homer in the fourth, but in the fifth they just didn’t stop whacking the empty shell someone had accidentally placed on the mound. The home team did not much at all, causing some patrons to bobble their little Nick Brown effigies rather aggressively.

Dickerson was excused from further proceedings after the fifth, with Youngblood taking over with the sole intention to make it much worse. The Crusaders got an unearned run on a Taylor error, but Youngblood absolutely refused to deny any Crusaders a success at the plate and was yanked with two down and the bases loaded and the left-hander Ortíz batting for the RIGHT-hander Mathis to come in – and he got the pop that ended the inning. Mathis’ relief was very temporary. Stanton Martin and Kevin Bond both raked him with homers in the seventh, with Bond’s counting for two, more than negating the two runs the Raccoons had scratched out in the bottom of the inning on Sandy walking, stealing, scoring on Bednarski’s double, and some not completely useless outs. Mathis left with a man on and two outs, and when Thrasher entered he insisted on loading the bases with two walks before striking out Ortíz. By the eighth inning and a 2-run homer off Caraballo’s bat that victimized Josh Gibson the Raccoons were being routed out of their own park so hard that even a 5-run outburst in the bottom 8th in which four runs were unearned after two grievous errors by Caraballo and Ortíz didn’t get the Raccoons even remotely close to a comeback. The Crusaders swatted a fifth home run in the ninth inning, Sakellaris serving one up to Brissett. 12-8 Crusaders. Alexander 2-5, 2B, 3 RBI; Taylor 2-3, BB; Margolis (PH) 1-1; Bergquist 1-2, RBI;

Not even in the same ballpark. The Raccoons had 11 hits, of which Alexander’s double was the only one for extra bases. The Crusaders homered five times and hit three doubles along with seven singles to really show who was boss in the North.

With Richards perhaps gone for the year, we sent a late callup to 24-year old Keith Chisholm, our 2010 fifth-rounder, who had performed in rather pedestrian fashion in AAA this year, batting .229 with eight homers. He had been significantly worse than in 2013. But with two starting outfielders down, there will be enough at-bats for him to make the plane ticket worthwhile.

Someone, please kill me, I can’t stand another game like this. Nope, here it comes. Aaackk!!

Game 3
NYC: CF Brissett – SS J. Ortega – LF M. Ortíz – RF S. Martin – 1B Manfull – 2B Caraballo – 3B Salinas – C Durango – P J. Martin
POR: 1B Merritt – CF Seeley – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – LF Fucito – C Margolis – 2B Bergquist – SS Hudman – P Conway

And it was Jaylen “Midnight” Martin (20-6, 2.71 ERA) who came rather than the average Kevin Wanless.

The Crusaders’ middle of the order quite impressively visualized just how empty Bill Conway’s tank was. The first two times through the order, Ortíz both times reached with two outs, with a walk in the first and a single (grumble) in the third. Stanton Martin would then whack a 2-run homer, followed by a Manfull double, each time. The Coons had scratched out a run when Jaylen Martin had balked Jason Seeley from second to third to enable a Nunley sac fly in the first inning, then loaded the bases in the bottom 3rd with mostly nothing. Hudman reached with a soft single before Conway’s bunt was misplayed by Jaylen Martin to put him on base as well. Merritt then walked exploiting a tight strike zone. Nobody out and the tying runs on base, the Raccoons had their chance to shine and didn’t sell themselves short, calmly sticking a front paw into a bear trap when Seeley plated a run with a groundout, Nunley struck out, and Bednarski … struck out.

The Crusaders continued to hit Conway with their boots on, but the Raccoons’ defense also contributed fantastically well. The Crusaders had two infield singles and drew advantage from a Margolis error (just when I thought I might like that ugly brat) to knock Conway from the game. He had allowed ten hits and five runs, all earned, in 4.2 innings before Sugano relieved him to face Durango, and when Durango had cranked a 3-run homer to right, Conway’s line closed at seven runs and a 3+ season ERA. Sugano allowed a single to center to Jaylen Martin before Brissett hacked himself out. Top 6th, Ortega with the leadoff walk, stealing second base hardly contested by McNeela, and then Ortíz hit an RBI single to continue the Crusaders cruel ownership of the ragdoll Raccoons. Despite (or because of?) Entwistle relieving coming in, the Crusaders went on to have their NINTH multiple-run inning of the series, whacking hard singles until three more were on the board. Down 11-2, the Raccoons were hardly visible, so they hard had they been stomped into the ground. The attendance continued to boo them relentlessly and began to shower the field with paper cups. Someone even found a Nick Brown bobblehead left over in the stands the previous day and threw that at Jason Seeley. When Bednarski hit a completely meaningless home run in the bottom 8th, the booing intensified with obscenities sprinkled in (and not just from the GM’s office high over the first base line). 11-3 Crusaders. Taylor (PH) 1-1; Hudman 3-4, 2B;

In other news

September 23 – Los Angeles’ Dennis Berman (.282, 17 HR, 85 RBI), who just joined the 300 homer club last week, is out for the season after becoming entangled with an opponent on the bases. Berman suffers a hamstring strain in the altercation.
September 23 – NAS SP Kevin Clayton (12-15, 5.24 ERA) has damaged elbow ligaments and needs major reconstruction surgery. He could miss all of the 2015 season.
September 24 – The Gold Sox get crushed by the Miners in a 20-7 rout. PIT LF Lowell Genge (.239, 2 HR, 25 RBI) has four hits, scores four runs, and drives in five, missing the cycle by the triple. Steve Butler (.320, 32 HR, 109 RBI) plates six runs.
September 27 – TOP OF Bill Adams (.274, 23 HR, 87 RBI) has his season end early after breaking a rib.
September 28 – The Canadiens have an 11-run inning in a 13-3 creaming of the Indians,

Complaints and stuff

Less than 25,000 were at the park on Saturday, which means the couple hundred Daniel Hall bobbleheads left over from long ago now have … no, no, Chad! Chad! They won’t all fit in here. Tell Maud to rent a storage and leave a path to the booze cabinet for me. – That’s where Slappy is sleeping on the floor.

Curtis Tobitt was rolled up on the weekend, leaving Jonny Toner with a 31-point lead in the CL ERA race – over a non-Raccoon (goddamn “Midnight” Martin). Nick Brown is 25 points back in second place. Toner might get two more starts since I can’t stand any more of Bill Conway, Daniel Dickerson, OR Graham Wasserman. That means our rotation for next week goes Santos – Toner – Chad – Brownie – The Druid – Santos – Toner. Ample chance for Jonny to get pulverized.

The only support Cookie got against Martin Ortíz was also Brownie. He never won the ERA title or any “countable” competition, except leading the CL in WHIP twice (2004, 2009), and of course his most prized possession, that 2009 Pitcher of the Year award. Wouldn’t it be funny if he wound up with the ERA title after being reduced to memories?

Would he turn in the 2009 Pitcher of the Year award for Keith Ayers to be called safe at home?

Back then when we actually played on the same continent as the ****ing Crusaders.

Not much else to say, except that I hope that you made your October plans in due time and didn’t invest any hopes in this forsaken pack of losers. Now excuse me, I have some more booze to “investigate”.

[Westheim]

I was about to produce the final week tonight but there's been too much failure and too many extra innings (LOTS OF EXTRA INNINGS) and I can't finish the week - I'm dead tired and can't keep my eyes open. See the conclusion of the season here tomorrow afternoon (morning in the US)...

(snooze)

[Westheim]

Ron Richards’ season was indeed over with an ankle sprain, so playing time in the last week would be pretty much shuffled.

Raccoons (92-63) @ Canadiens (86-69) – September 29-October 2, 2014

There were four more left with the ugly Elks, whom we were 8-6 ahead of this season, and against whom we had won the season series the last five straight years. They ranked sixth in runs scored and fourth in runs allowed in the league, with a +56 run differential that was just not enough to compete even against “normal” teams like the Raccoons, without even getting into whatever it was the Crusaders were.

Projected matchups:
Hector Santos (17-7, 2.85 ERA) vs. Samuel McMullen (14-7, 3.40 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (16-6, 2.39 ERA) vs. Rod Taylor (13-13, 3.70 ERA)
Graham Wasserman (0-0, 16.88 ERA) vs. Dustin Burke (7-13, 4.35 ERA)
Nick Brown (14-7, 2.64 ERA) vs. Hunter Park (12-8, 2.90 ERA)

McMullen is their only southpaw and he goes in the opener. Unless the Titans find a beggar with raw talent somewhere between now and Friday, McMullen will be the last southpaw starter the Raccoons see this year – of just 24, not even one per week.

No more Dickerson in 2014. Bill Conway will start the Titans series afterwards, and Santos and Toner will go again. None of them is even at 200 innings yet, so it’s not like we’re burning them. The only Raccoon that is already over 200 innings in 2014 is Nick Brown (218.1).

After the Crusaders series we have a pretty badly beaten bullpen, but we would not call on reinforcements. Santos was expected to make it at least to the seventh, and we can patch from there.

Game 1
POR: CF Sambrano – 3B Merritt – 1B Murphy – RF Bednarski – LF Fucito – C Margolis – SS Howell – 2B Bergquist – P Santos
VAN: SS Lawrence – RF E. Garcia – 1B Gilbert – LF Cameron – 2B Madison – 3B Suzuki – CF Luxton – C M. Torres – P McMullen

In an odd and oddly disturbing game, the Coons took a 1-0 lead in the top 1st on Stan Murphy’s 21st home run, but the Elks tore up Hector Santos for five runs in the first two innings, and all driven in by the top two guys in their order. Jaylin Lawrence had a single in the first and scored on Enrique Garcia’s home run, and in the bottom 2nd there was a man on with McMullen to bat and two out, McMullen singled, and Lawrence wrecked another sub-par and non-fooling Santos pitch for a 3-run homer, both Elk shots going to right and well outta here. So, Santos very much wasn’t going to make it seven, but at least he kept the Raccoons within slam range through five while they did absolutely nothing. Top 6th, there were singles by Fucito and Margolis before Rob Howell reached on Ray Gilbert’s error, and all that with two outs. Bergquist was the tying run – you might wish for different personnel in that spot – and somehow managed to draw a bases-loaded walk that shoved home a run. Santos was quickly hit for, but Matt Nunley grounded out on the first pitch and the generously offered chance was blatantly wasted, like so many this season. Too many to count, too many to cry over every single one of them. The Raccoons never mattered again, and lost a real silent one. 5-2 Canadiens. Fucito 2-4;

Our top two drove in nobody and went 0-for-9.

Martin Ortíz had a 5-hit day against the ridiculous Loggers, smashing two doubles and three singles for four RBI in a 14-run rout. It’s not just us, but Cookie can kiss the batting title goodbye, now down eight points.

Game 2
POR: 3B Nunley – CF Seeley – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – LF Sambrano – 2B Bergquist – SS Hudman – P Toner
VAN: SS Lawrence – RF E. Garcia – 1B Gilbert – LF Cameron – 2B Madison – 3B Suzuki – CF J. Medina – C Dunn – P R. Taylor

Rod Taylor came in with 263 strikeouts for the season, dwarfing really everybody on the Raccoons roster, and yet in the first two innings he issued five walks and struck out none. The Raccoons, **** as they are, managed to score one run only, and that was initially an unearned one when Sandy took a leadoff walk in the second, stole a base but made it to third on Melvin Dunn’s misdirected throw to center, then came home on Brock Hudman’s groundout. Only then did Taylor embark on a walk spree, issuing free bases to Toner, Nunley, and Seeley, before he found some idiot to hit at a pitch. That was of course Bednarski, grounding out in a 2-0 count.

But maybe this could be one of those games where a run would be enough because Jonny Toner would tell the Elks to fork the hell off. He drilled Enrique Garcia in the first inning, so that was not a good sign, but in fact the next Elk to reach didn’t get on until the fifth inning, and then it was Mitsuhide Suzuki getting brushed by another pitch. The Coons would load the bases again in the sixth inning, and again starting with nobody on and two out. Hudman singled to right, Toner singled to center, and Nunley singled to right again – Taylor had not issued a walk since that to Seeley in the second inning, but had struck out three, and next it was Seeley. Jason lined a pitch over Steve Madison into right center and deep enough for two runs to score on the single. Bednarski came up, and for once also through. Taylor’s 0-1 was tattooed and drilled to left, high, deep, gone – the Coons were up by half a dozen.

Just in time to cut down on any remote joyful emotion, not only did the Elks break up Toner’s no-hitter right out of the gate in the bottom of the sixth, no, they also had to knock three straight hits off him, plating a run, with the second run in form of Jaylin Lawrence cut down at home plate by Bednarski when Garcia singled to right. Garcia was caught stealing, and Toner got out of a mess with only one run conceded. Toner would make it into the eighth, in which he retired Juan Medina and Melvin Dunn with no fuss, but when the Elks sent a left-handed pinch-hitter in Chris Pali, Toner was relieved by George Youngblood in a 7-1 game. There would be two more lefties after that (Lawrence and Garcia at the top of the order) and Youngblood removed them all, plus Ray Gilbert to end the game. 8-1 Raccoons. Bednarski 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; Murphy 3-5; Sambrano 3-4, BB; Toner 7.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, W (17-6) and 1-3, BB;

Unless Jonny Toner allows about nine earned runs in no innings pitched in the season-ender on Sunday, he should have the ERA title wrapped up, so we get at least that. Also, the win assures the Raccoons of second place in the North in 2014.

Game 3
POR: 3B Nunley – CF Seeley – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – 2B Sambrano – LF Chisholm – SS Canning – P Wasserman
VAN: CF K. Evans – RF E. Garcia – 1B Gilbert – LF Cameron – 3B Suzuki – SS Lawrence – 2B Tellez – C M. Torres – P D. Burke

The Coons pounced on Burke for four runs in the first inning. The first three Critters all singled, Murphy walked to force home the first run, Miguel Torres helped out with a run-scoring passed ball, and Sandy brought home the last two with a single to right center before Keith Chisholm in his first major league start hit into the inning-ending double play. That was the signal – we were off to the races: which pitcher could melt down faster? Because Wasserman soon was victimized by the Elks as well, with Kurt Evans hitting a hard leadoff double in the bottom 1st before Garcia hit a real moonshot to cut the 4-0 gap in half. Top 2nd, the Raccoons had Nunley on with a 2-out walk, Seeley hit an RBI double, and Bednarski drove home Seeley with a single, 6-2, but the Elks pulled those two runs back in the bottom of the inning. Those two runs were unearned after Nunley’s shocking throwing error against Burke’s bunt, but circus wasn’t over yet. The Coons had Sandy on to start the third inning, and he stole second base, his third bag in the series. Chisholm singled, putting runners on the corners, before Canning and Wasserman both struck out. Nunley grounded to short, but there was Lawrence missing the ball completely for a run-scoring error. That was it for poor Burke, who was removed for D.J. Fulgieri, who got a pop to short from Seeley to end the inning at 7-4. It didn’t take long for Wasserman to follow him to the showers. He was bailed out of the third with a double play, but in the fourth the Elks would just keep hitting away at him relentlessly and tied the game with ease.

The Coons took an 8-7 lead in the fifth inning on Frank Yeager’s wild pitch, which chased home Canning. It was not the first pitch astray thrown by Yeager, who had already beaned PH Tom McNeela, who had to be run for with Rob Howell after getting obliterated by a fastball. The Raccoons left runners on the corners before Constantino came in for the bottom 5th and retired absolutely nobody. He walked Mitsuhide Suzuki, allowed singles to Lawrence and Cesar Tellez, threw a wild pitch, walked Miguel Torres, and then was victimized by useless Walt Canning when he couldn’t get to an easy grounder by Eric Paull. Two runs in, bases loaded, nobody out, and down 9-8. All runs scored against Manobu Sugano, with Kurt Evans hitting an RBI single, and Ray Gilbert plating two with another single, 12-8. The next inning saw no Raccoons on base, but another wild throwing error by Nunley, leading to another unearned run with Josh Gibson trying to just get this ****ing game over with. The Elks were also having fun with Nunley; Chris Spindler drilled him to start the eighth inning, but Jason Seeley soon punished him with an RBI triple to center. He scored on Murphy’s groundout, but it was too late to gain momentum. Or any self-respect. 13-10 Canadiens. Seeley 3-4, BB, 3B, 2B, 2 RBI; Bednarski 3-5, RBI; Gibson 2.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K;

Four more games. Only four more games. Only four more games and I will be able to lay down and not move for six months. Only four more games.

One more by Brownie!

Game 4
POR: 3B Nunley – CF Seeley – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – 2B Sambrano – SS Taylor – LF Chisholm – P Brown
VAN: CF K. Evans – 3B Suzuki – 1B Gilbert – SS Madison – C M. Torres – RF J. Medina – LF E. Garcia – 2B Lawrence – P Park

Matt Nunley jacked on the first pitch of the game, his first home run after the All Star break. For the Coons, **** luck definitely continued as the Elks would get their first three batters in the game on base on two bloop singles and a full count walk, but were held to one run once Steve Madison struck out and Miguel Torres hit into a double play. Fortunately, Nick Brown was around for long enough to know that he had to take care of **** himself if he wanted to end the season with a W. Sandy led off the second inning with a single, stole his 30th base, Chisholm walked, and then Brown was not asked to bunt with one out. He singled cleanly to left, plating Sandy with the go-ahead run. Nunley singled to load the bases, Seeley failed, but Bednarski managed to single in two for a 4-1 lead in the second inning. Much of that was Brownie’s merit, but the baseball gods shrugged and if they couldn’t starve him in a 1-1 game forever, they would just send rain. That rain started in the third inning and quickly picked up the pace, forcing a delay of over 45 minutes before the inning was out. Brown had thrown only 38 pitches beforehand, so was of course continuing and might even make it through five if things wouldn’t –

For the time being, the Coons knocked out Park in the fourth inning, adding two muddled runs with sloppy play by the Elks, a wild pitch, another hit batter… but of course one thing was constant: with a man on third (Bednarski after an RBI double and the wild pitch) and one out, Murphy would not get a runner home. He grounded out to Suzuki at the hot corner. Bottom 4th, leadoff single up the middle by Gilbert. Madison walked, uh-oh. Passed ball charged to Dylan Alexander. Uh-oh. Brown struck out Torres and Medina, had Garcia at 2-2, and then the miserable butcher lined a 2-2 pitch up the leftfield line for a 2-run double. Brown buckled, but didn’t break. He retired the next four Elks to qualify for a win, pending insufficient incompetence by the bullpen this time around.

Chris Mathis’ second pitch to Ray Gilbert was almost a homer in the bottom 6th, but Seeley made the catch on the warning track. Bit too high, not deep enough, also a crosswind that didn’t help. Nine outs to get – and this was also for the sixth straight season series! And the Critters tagged on – even if they were unearned – some runs in the seventh. A Suzuki error got them rolling, putting on Jon Merritt, Nunley singled, Jason Bergquist hit for Seeley against left-hander Beau Barnaby and hit an RBI single to left, and then Bednarski hit a double to plate another run. Here came a former Raccoon to replace Barnaby, left-hander Luis Beltran, not-so-proud owner of a 5.81 ERA, and gave up the two Critters still on base on a hard hit by Stan Murphy. The last few innings would be uneventful, with Youngblood, Sakellaris, and Casas turning in scoreless innings. 10-3 Brownies! Nunley 4-5, BB, HR, RBI; Bergquist (PH) 1-2, RBI; Bednarski 4-5, BB, 2 2B, 4 RBI; Murphy 2-5, 2 RBI; Sambrano 3-5, BB, RBI;

Raccoons (94-65) vs. Titans (70-89) – October 3-5, 2014

The Titans were 40 games out by now and trying to stave off the Indians to at least save fourth place in the league. The offense, that had supposed to be the stronger part of the roster, had failed them completely and just a few days ago had even fallen behind the Raccoons’ (so the Coons were not in the bottom three anymore), while their pitching had amounted to barely league average. But they had kept the Raccoons at an arm’s length, dominating the season series at a 9-6 rate, so a tie was the best the Raccoons could still achieve.

Projected matchups:
Bill Conway (11-7, 3.03 ERA) vs. Ramón Jimenez (7-15, 4.79 ERA)
Hector Santos (17-8, 3.01 ERA) vs. Melvin Andrade (6-13, 4.76 ERA)
Jonathan Toner (17-6, 2.34 ERA) vs. Paul Kirkland (9-12, 3.51 ERA)

We would not get to see John Alexander in this series, who was on the DL with a sprained thumb.

Sunday might be the last game of 38-year old Jon Merritt’s career, and he will get the start at third base then, even though there’s no left-hander anywhere close for the Titans.

Game 1
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B T. Ramos – C Suda – 3B Holley – RF R. Lopez – CF S. Stevens – LF Thurman – P R. Jimenez
POR: CF Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – 2B Bergquist – LF Chisholm – SS Hudman – P Conway

Conway’s September had been about as bad as can be, and after retiring the first five Titans in this game, he allowed a single to Rodrigo Lopez, then walked Simon Stevens. Zachary Thurman had him in a 3-0 count, then grounded out to Nunley to end the second inning. Conway was hit by Jimenez in the bottom 2nd, which was probably not going to make him any better, then issued a leadoff walk to Jimenez in the third, which was also about the point the rain from Vancouver reached here. Quickly we were under a rain delay that lasted an hour and change.

The Raccoons didn’t matter until the fourth inning, which Bergquist led off with a double to deep left. Chisholm walked, and then Hudman lined a ball over Mike Rivera, who had stolen his 40th base of the season off Conway before the rain delay. The ball found the gap for an RBI double, the first run in the game. There was something in batting Conway with runners in scoring position and nobody out that I didn’t like. His .050 average this season and .110 career average probably had something to do with that. But he had not looked worse after the rain delay than before, so maybe he had five in him as well. But before we could check on that, Conway struck out, Sandy walked, and Nunley hit into a ****ing two-piece. Conway in fact got through five, then even started the sixth – and collapsed. Tony Ramos singled, he walked “Quasimodo” Suda, and there was a mess in progress. Zack Entwistle replaced him and extinguished the Titans in blazing fashion, striking out Rob Holley and Simon Stevens around Lopez’ soft fly to left that was right to Chisholm. Conway still wouldn’t get the W, which was thrown away by Nunley, who committed his third 2-base throwing error of the week, this one in the seventh inning on Jose Gutierrez’ grounder with two outs that should have stranded Thurman on second base against Chris Mathis – but didn’t. Youngblood struck out Ramos to at least keep the game tied at one, and while the Coons only amounted to a hit batter (Murphy) and a double play (D-Alex) in the bottom 7th, the Titans had two on again versus Sakellaris in the top of the eighth. Thrasher came into the dire spot and struck out Xavier Williams to end the inning. Chisholm singled in the bottom 8th, Taylor hit for Hudman – and into a double play. So much ineptitude led to extra innings, where Thrasher was on 4 K when Suda took him deep in the top of the 10th. Murphy drew a 1-out walk against Valentim Innocentes in his second inning in the bottom 10th, but Fucito hit a high bouncer to third – but the Titans just barely missed ANOTHER double play. Fucito remained on first and was the tying run with two outs. Bergquist singled, moving him to second base, which brought up Chisholm, who was a left-hander countering Innocentes and was unretired in the game. First pitch, hit to right, hard grounder, past Bob Hall and here comes Bergquist to score – we’re tied!

Of course Palmer Taylor was of no greater use than a stapler and popped out, and Angel Casas had to work around a Murphy error to survive the top 11th. Danny Margolis had come into the game in a double switch earlier and had been close to walking off the Coons in the ninth with a drive to deep right that had however ended up the first out. He also made the first out in the 11th, before Sandy grounded to 41-year old Bob Hall at second base, and Hall pulled a Nunley and threw the ball away, sending the winning run to second base. The pitcher was Toshiro Uenohara, a.k.a. the Titans’ Opening Day starter. Uenohara dug in, got Nunley on a grounder to short and Bednarski on a crap fly to right.

Rob Holley’s 2-run homer put Angel Casas on the hook in the top 12th, despite striking out six in his two innings. Uenohara was still around in the bottom 12th, issuing walks to Murphy and Merritt to start the inning. The Coons didn’t advance further until Uenohara drilled the useless Taylor to load the bases with two outs for Margolis. That count ran full and was Uenohara perhaps due to be replaced? He lost Margolis, forcing home a run and bringing up an 0-for-4 Sandy Sambrano, who didn’t wait around when the Titans stuck with Uenohara and chipped the first pitch to center. It’s in! It’s in and we’re tied! And now it gets by Marcos Baez! An error by Baez! The Raccoons walk off!! 5-4 Blighters. Bergquist 2-6, 2B; Chisholm 3-4, 2 BB, RBI;

Oh dear.

Jaylen “Midnight” Martin tossed a 4-hit shutout to end his regular season, ending the campaign with a 2.60 ERA. Brownie was ruffled on Thursday and will not function as a buffer anymore, so we gotta pull Toner on Sunday before he gets close to that 2.60 mark.

Also, the Raccoons were assured the #22 pick in next year’s draft after this game.

Game 2
BOS: SS M. Rivera – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B T. Ramos – 3B Holley – RF R. Lopez – C T. Robinson – CF E. Mathews – LF X. Williams – P Andrade
POR: SS Sambrano – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – CF Seeley – C Margolis – LF Chisholm – 2B Bergquist – P Santos

Santos definitely looked like the tank was empty after 200 innings, which he reached when Rob Holley made the second out in the third inning, but which came after a huge 2-run homer by Tony Ramos. Bednarski returned the favor in the bottom of the inning with his 23rd dinger of the season, but Santos soon coughed up another one, a solo shot by Eddie Mathews – the first career homer for the 26-year old September callup. Santos reached 200 K by erasing Andrade to end that inning.

With the Pacific winter at the doorstep, we had the third straight day with a rain delay once the skies opened in the fifth inning. Santos returned after a delay over 45 minutes, and got out of the inning with two 1-pitch at-bats, but he was clearly toast … and the third consecutive starting pitcher for the Coons killed off by nature without logging an out in the sixth inning in as many games. Santos remained on a 2-1 hook, with the Raccoons plainly refusing to be even remotely useful. They did get two on in the bottom 6th when Murphy doubled and Seeley walked, but Margolis grounded out and Chisholm whiffed against Aurelio Hernandez to keep them in scoring position. Bergquist then came up with a leadoff single in the bottom 7th. Constantino had already tossed two innings and bunted him over, Sambrano grounded out to short, but Nunley found a hole on the right side for a game-tying RBI single. Hernandez remained in the game, Rob Holley put on Bednarski with an error, and then Murphy grounded a 1-2 pitch up the middle and through between Rivera and Gutierrez to drive home Nunley with a single, the go-ahead run was in! Merritt hit for Seeley, but grounded out, keeping it at 4-3.

That lead stood up for about five minutes. Constantino surrendered a leadoff single to Gutierrez in the top 8th and was instantly yanked for Sugano, but the Titans countered with Suda hitting for Ramos. Suda grounded a 1-1 pitch to third, Nunley to first … and well past first. His FOURTH atrocious throwing error for two bases in a week … and it was only Saturday. Just when I was at a point where I had almost forgotten Ricardo Martinez…

Bottom 9th, Sandy hit a 1-out single to right, then stole second base, just barely outpacing Nunley’s errors with his sack output this week. And Nunley came up with Uenohara on the mound again. Of course he countered him well enough to be expected to be of some use. A walk was not necessarily within the definition of usefulness, and ****ING BEDNARSKI hit into a double play to send the game to extras, where Josh Gibson hit the leadoff batter in the 10th AND the 11th inning(!!) and STILL escaped punishment. But the pitching situation by now was so bad, the Raccoons had to send Daniel Dickerson to the pen to warm up with the 11th just having begun and got his first relief appearance since 2005. And a Nunley error, this time of the clumsy variant, in the top 12th. Howell, somehow having arrived at short, made an error in the 13th as the team collectively failed to lose the game, but Dickerson somehow snuck through on groundballs. Things got worse for the Coons, who brought Dickerson up with runners on second and first and one out in the bottom 13th. There was almost no bullpen left behind Dickerson, and Sandy was in a slump and could not be counted on to get a hit with two outs. Nope, let Dickerson swing and hope for - … oh, a double play. Well, that’s new at least. Murphy made an error in the 14th that still didn’t lead to all-out collapse. In fact, Dickerson went FIVE SHUTOUT INNINGS while continuously being sabotaged, and it JUST WASN’T ENOUGH TO GET A ****ING WIN.

Ron Thrasher was in for the 17th, walked the bases loaded and somehow escaped when Tom McNerney grounded out to Rob Howell. Howell was also asked to bunt in the 18th and moved Murphy to second base while making the first out. There was not much in terms of pinch-runners left on a once-long bench, but Danny Margolis wore an 0-for-7 yoke and Torruellas hit for him against right-hander Ricardo Rocha. Torruellas was batting .130 and had mostly been forgotten until McNeela had been bruised earlier in the week and he had moved back up to be the #3 catcher (of 3…). He singled to right, but Murphy had had a bad read and had to halt at third base, giving the Coons runners on the corners with one out and another green rookie up in Chisholm. Chisholm clanked a 2-1 pitch to right. Uh, that’s a nice fly there. Going, going, GONE!!!! 7-4 Blighters. Murphy 3-7, BB, 2B, RBI; Torruellas (PH) 1-1; Chisholm 2-7, BB, HR, 3 RBI; Constantino 5.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K; Entwistle 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K; Gibson 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K; Dickerson 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K;

(wakes up in the middle of the night) Are they - … are they still playing? … Nah. It’s dark in the park.

Thank goodness.

The South was still undecided, with the Bayhawks 1 1/2 gams up on the Thunder. Huh? The Bayhawks have a makeup game with the Aces left which has been scheduled for Monday. Given that, the season might actually stretch until Tuesday, should it come to a game #163.

Game 3
BOS: CF S. Stevens – 2B J. Gutierrez – 1B T. Ramos – C Suda – 3B Holley – RF R. Lopez – SS Rentz – LF X. Williams – P Kirkland
POR: SS Sambrano – 3B Merritt – RF Bednarski – 1B Murphy – C Alexander – CF Seeley – LF Chisholm – 2B Bergquist – P Toner

The grand finale! For the season in general, Jon Merritt in particular, and listen dearly, you little ****s: whatever you do, do it the **** in regulation!

Toner had two runners on base in the first inning after singles by Stevens and Ramos, but wiggled out of that when Suda popped out and Holley whiffed. Sandy and Merritt got on base with a walk and single, respectively, in the bottom 1st and Murphy’s groundout brought home at least the lead runner for a 1-0 lead. Like Santos before, Toner logged his 200th K of the season when he struck out the opposing pitcher, which happened to end the top of the second. Keith Chisholm continued his unlikely heroics from last night (late, late night) with a 2-run homer in the bottom 2nd, and the Raccoons scratched out another run after that when Bergquist hit a bloop single, stole second base, advanced on a passed ball, and scored on Sandy’s groundout; 4-0 after two!

Toner wasn’t exactly dominant and had a wild bout or two early on, which raced up his pitch count. In the sixth inning, bad luck was added to the mix and the Titans strafed him for three hits and two runs, the latter being scored on a 2-out double by Tommy Rentz. Toner finished the inning, but that was it for him this season, the pitch count exceeding 110 in the last at-bat with Marcos Baez. When the pen took over in the seventh it initially looked a lot like an instant meltdown would take place. George Youngblood appeared to face PH Mike Rivera, who singled on the first pitch, also the only pitch Youngblood was allowed to throw in the game. Sakellaris replaced him and the Coons pulled off a double play in strike-out-throw-out fashion when Stevens swung over a 3-2 fastball and D-Alex gunned down Mike Rivera (a paltry 40 stolen bases!). Instead, it was the Titans’ pen to go up in flames in a 5-run seventh inning for the home team. Ricardo Rocha came already into the game with a 6.57 ERA and was savagely abused by the Coons, starting with a leadoff walk by Jon Merritt. Bednarski singled, Murphy singled, Merritt scored and drew an ill-advised throw, moving the trail runners to scoring position. D-Alex whiffed, and then the Titans walked Seeley intentionally to get to Chisholm. Before Rocha could get that saving double play, he balked in a run, then fell to Chisholm’s single to right. Aurelio Hernandez kept crumbling upon replacing Rocha, with Jimmy Fucito also driving in a run as well as Sandy. The inning ended when the Titans tagged out Fucito at third base on that single.

A 7-run lead wasn’t enough to just put in Tom Constantino and wait for the outs to fall. Nope, Constantino allowed a leadoff single to Ramos, who was bundled up in Suda’s double play, and then Constantino still managed to load the bases with a Rob Holley single and two walks to Lopez and Rentz. Sugano had to come in and got Marcos Baez to foul out to Murphy, ending this nightmare inning. Instead, Chris Mathis would throw the final pitches of the season, retiring the side in order. The park closed for the winter once Jose Gutierrez flew out to Keith Chisholm. 9-2 Critters. Sambrano 2-4, BB, 2 RBI; Merritt 2-4, BB; Bednarski 2-4; Canning 1-1; Seeley 2-3, 2 2B; Fucito (PH) 1-1, RBI; Toner 6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, W (18-6) and 1-2;

(hums) Jonny-Jonny To-ner …! We’re gonna have so much fun with that kid!

Until his arm falls off.

In other news

September 30 – Atlanta’s Jimmy Raupp (.295, 22 HR, 69 RBI) really has an enjoyable day, figuring big in the Knights’ 20-5 rout of the Falcons. He has five hits and a walk, with two homers, two doubles, and eight runs batted in. In the same game, INF Wade White (.331, 4 HR, 39 RBI), who had come over to the Knights from the Aces mid-season, has two hits for a 20-game hitting streak.
October 1 – Capitals and Blue Sox play 15 innings in Washington. The Blue Sox score two in the top 14th, but the Capitals come back with an equal amount before walking off in the next inning on outfielder Tommy Ward’s single.
October 3 – WAS CL Juan Jimenez (1-5, 4.53 ERA, 23 SV) blows a 7-5 lead against the Miners, who score three runs in the top 9th and then hold on to an 8-7 win to clinch the FL East over the same Capitals. It will be the Miners’ fifth playoff appearance, with the most recent one in 2012.
October 4 – ATL INF Wade White (.332, 4 HR, 39 RBI) has his hitting streak killed off at 23 games with a hitless game against the Aces – his former team.
October 4 – SFW CL Arturo Lopez (6-7, 2.34 ERA, 44 SV) saves his 300th game in a 3-2 win over the Stars.
October 5 – The Bayhawks rout the Condors, 10-3, to seal the South against the Thunder. This will be the fifth playoff appearance for the Bayhawks and their first trip to the postseason in this millennium after winning the World Series in 1999.
October 6 – RIC SP Shaun Babineau (5-9, 4.58 ERA) will miss a significant bunch of the 2015 season rehabbing a torn ACL. He might not make it back before the All Star game.

Complaints and stuff

Teams by regular season wins (* = won World Series):

117 – 2004 Titans *
113 – 1991 Capitals *
112 – 2001 Warriors
112 – 2014 Crusaders
110 – 2012 Thunder
108 – 1996 Raccoons
108 – 2000 Thunder *
108 – 2001 Thunder
107 – 1986 Stars
107 – 2003 Titans
106 – 1979 Cyclones
106 – 1990 Capitals *
106 – 2002 Titans *

This is the Raccoons’ tenth second-place finish in the North, the third in four years, and the fifth in eight years, which encompasses one playoff appearance. We haven’t finished in the second division since 2006, the last year of our 10-year journey through darkness, which was preceded by 12 straight years of finishing in the first division from 1985 through 1996.

Above I mentioned that the Titans came to Portland 40 games out; did you know that the Raccoons have NEVER finished 40 games out in the North? There’ve been miserable teams, but none finished 40 games out. We did get up to 39, though. Twice.

Also, the last two years we finished 15 games behind the Crusaders both times. That’s more games behind than we were in 2006, when a 77-85 record was only good enough for fifth place, but also only 13 games behind the 90-72 Indians, who went to the World Series (and got massacred).

567 runs allowed is out second-lowest total ever, behind only the 2009 team, which conceded only 558 runs, but also couldn’t push Keith Ayers across home plate.

Sandy stole five bags this final week to tie Craig Dasher for third place in the Continental League. The Raccoons wound up leading the league in stolen bases with 99. It was the only offensive category in which they even broke the top 4, except for strikeouts.

There was a player development update filed by Calderón this week. Let’s just say every fifth day we’ll play a very expensive and very useless $3.2M banana next year, because Dickerson’s latest impression look like whatever condition he has now, it’s terminal.

There were better news about Nick Brown, who Calderón found was making better use of the fringes of the strike zone after he had lost velocity and had much better control over the slightly cooled off heat. Mathis, Margolis, and Nunley all were certified of having made some progress in some areas, and Margolis might be the backup catcher come Opening Day. Jeff Magnotta got a thumb up in terms of control. In turn, 2013 top pick Andy Bareford had his potential slashed to pieces.

Like that comes as a surprise; a position player taken by the Coons in the first round that becomes an accountant by the time he’s 30. You know Steve from Accounting? Second-round pick in ‘88.

[Questdog]

A 40-23 finish is very promising for next year!

Has anyone ever won 100 and finished 2nd?

[Westheim]

Triple digit wins and no playoffs happened in consecutive seasons in 2000 and 2001.

The 2000 Bayhawks won 102 games, but still finished six behind the Thunder. The following year, the sad Loggers won 102 along with the Titans, but lost the tie-breaker game.

Always the Loggers. Poor Loggers.

+++

Odd fact: the last Raccoon to lead the CL in ERA? Jong-hoo Umberger (2008) - he also led the majors overall in ERA, which Jonny didn't achieve this year;

Odd fact #2: the last Raccoon to finish inside the top 3 in all pitching triple crown categories? Nick Brown (2009-10) - he had two out of three categories in the next two seasons, too, each time lacking wins; he has *19* top three finishes in the triple crown categories and *never* led *any* category!

Pitchers that beat out Nick Brown for first (and maybe second) place in any category that Brownie finished in the top three in a given year:

6 - Rod Taylor
4 - Curtis Tobitt
3 - Antonio Donis
3 - Pancho Trevino
3 - Kel Yates
2 - Jorge Chapa
2 - Martin Garcia
1 - Aaron Anderson
1 - Juichi Fujita
1 - Tony Hamlyn
1 - Bob King
1 - Jaylen Martin
1 - Takeru Sato
1 - Tyler Sullivan
1 - Jonathan Toner

[Westheim]

2014 ABL PLAYOFFS

Just like the previous 37 ABL seasons, the 38th edition would also finish with two rounds of best-of-seven playoffs. There’s nothing like a proven formula!

In the FLCS it will be the Miners against the Warriors. The 90-72 Miners are the #3 seed overall, but pumped out the most runs by any Federal League team, 782 in total, over 4.8 runs per game. They had not only one, but two players with a .300 clip, 30 dingers, and 100 RBI in the middle of their order, with SS Tom McWhorter (.312, 32 HR, 111 RBI) and 1B Steve Butler (.331, 38 HR, 120 RBI) striking fear in the hearts of pitchers. But while the team was high up in runs scored and the power department, they hadn’t been on base much overall, ranking merely 7th in OBP. They were down one outfielder, as William Waggoner was still on the DL and was not available for the FLCS at least. A harder hit however was the absence of their ace Miguel Rodriguez (17-6, 3-52 ERA), who was out until well into the 2015 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery a month ago. Their pitching and defense had only been average to begin with, but the absence of Rodriguez cast a light on the not-so-pretty depths of their rotation. Behind Fred Dugo (11-9, 3.37 ERA) and Jeremiah Bowman (18-8, 3.03 ERA), ugly ERA’s around five were to appear. The bullpen was acceptable at the end, but middle relief was another issue, with hardly a reliever with an ERA better than five outside of the eighth or ninth inning.

Opposing them was the #2 seed, the 99-63 Warriors. They had led the Federal League in pitching with the least runs conceded, and the best rotation and bullpen by ERA. Tony Hamlyn (21-6, 2.67 ERA) was almost 40 years old and was really hoping for his third ring, but there was really no co-ace to him. The remaining rotation was competent, but not fear-striking. The bullpen was, however, with 14 wins and 45 saves between their four best relievers, Arturo Lopez, Matt Ruffin, Marcos Bruno, and Ken Harris. They were all right-handers, however. They could have had a fifth murdering right-hander, but Dan Nordahl was on the DL until next season. Offensively, they had a well-mixed bunch, with five 15+ HR players, four players to hit .300, and really the only thing they didn’t have offensively was a guy to terrorize teams on the base paths – they had finished the season in the bottom three in stolen bases. The lineup was anchored on LF Jose “Dingus” Morales (.351, 27 HR, 83 RBI), with lots of protection around him.

Between these two teams, the Warriors appear to have the clear edge. They won more games, they were much healthier, and they also were not threatened to suffer from opposite handedness too much. Three of the Warriors’ four playoff starting pitchers were left-handers, and the Miners had barely gone better than .500 against southpaws. The Miners’ pitchers were all right-handed, and with Morales, Jamie Wilson (who was DTD to start the series), and D.J. Fullerton, the Warriors had three dangerous left-handed batters with power to hurt them. Warriors in five!

In the CLCS, the 89-73 Bayhawks were the bottom seed for the 2014 playoffs, their first postseason appearance in 15 years. They had a top three offense, except for a lack of speed on the bases, although much relied on the two left-handers in the middle of the order, LF Ron Alston (.312, 25 HR, 95 RBI) and 1B Adam Young (.309, 25 HR, 110 RBI). Nobody else had double-digit home runs, and only one other qualifying batter had hit .300 for them. Those two had to carry them, and far. The Bayhawks’ pitching was very much a mixed bag. They had finished t-7th in runs allowed, with a wobbly defense and the third-worst rotation. All their starters were right-handed, and while Milt Beauchamp (19-11, 3.44 ERA) had almost won 20 games, his ERA was the best among his peers. This were better in the bullpen, with sharp peak relievers at the back end in Salvadaro Soure (7-6, 3.11 ERA, 39 SV), who came over from Dallas mid-season, and ex-Indian Tommy Wooldridge, as well as veterans, including the well-travelled Ryosei Kato, who was 42 and could still fling it, and had already been part of the 1999 Bayhawks that won the World Series!

15 years in the making, the San Francisco playoff story might end up being a short one. They can well expect to get mauled by a towering 112-50 Crusaders team that blazed through its division, playing .759 or better in every full month past June. A 13-9 April was the low point of their season. They led the league in runs scored (by A LOT), and finished second to the Raccoons in runs allowed, with a +218 run differential. They did not have much speed, but they outpowered everybody, almost hitting a home run per game, an unheard-of feat. Their rotation was second to the Coons’, but they had the best pen. Only pointing to the middle of their order and LF Martin Ortíz (.350, 29 HR, 117 RBI), the newly-minted batting champion, RF Stanton Martin (.314, 29 HR, 114 RBI), who stayed mostly healthy for once, and 1B B.J. Manfull (.269, 20 HR, 95 RBI) shortchanges the rest of an awesome lineup, from which there will be one absence in the CLCS, as Francisco Caraballo, their second baseman, will be hurt for another week. Their rotation is headed by Jaylen “Midnight” Martin (22-6, 2.60 ERA), who led the league in wins, with three powerful right-handers behind that. The bullpen relies on a previously wonky Micah Steele (5-2, 1.67 ERA, 43 SV) as closer, but he sure sparkled this season. No, the Crusaders are heavy postseason favorites.

A good-luck Kato here or there, the Bayhawks (who went 4-5 against New York in the regular season) are in trouble. The CLCS might turn into a rout.

The Crusaders are the defending champions, with five titles in total. They make their ninth playoff appearance. The Bayhawks won the 1999 title, but make only their fifth playoffs. The 1978 champions Warriors make their eighth appearance, while the Miners are also in their fifth playoffs, and have never won the championship, one of six teams such afflicted.

+++

2014 LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

Bayhawks @ Crusaders … 4-2 … (Bayhawks lead 1-0) … SFB Ron Alston 3-3, BB, HR, RBI;

Miners @ Warriors … 3-4 … (Warriors lead 1-0) … PIT Tom McWhorter 3-5, 2B, RBI;
Bayhawks @ Crusaders … 5-3 … (Bayhawks lead 2-0) … SFB Adam Young 4-5; SFB Dave Garcia 3-3, 2 2B, RBI; SFB Jasper Holt 1-2, 2 RBI;

Miners @ Warriors … 0-2 … (Warriors lead 2-0) … SFW Bill Thomas 2-3, 2 RBI; SFW Fernando Cruz 7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K, W;

Crusaders @ Bayhawks … 8-1 … (Bayhawks lead 2-1) … NYC Amari Brissett 4-6, HR, 2 RBI; NYC Jesus Ramirez 3-4, BB, 2B; NYC Miguel Salinas 3-4, 2 RBI;

Warriors @ Miners … 7-10 … (Warriors lead 2-1) … SFW Jerrod Luckert 3-4, HR, 2 2B, 3 RBI; PIT Dave Carter 4-4, 3 2B, 5 RBI;
Crusaders @ Bayhawks … 9-3 … (series tied 2-2) … NYC Jorge Ortega 3-5, 2B, RBI; NYC Miguel Salinas 3-5, 2 RBI;

Warriors @ Miners … 6-5 … (Warriors lead 3-1) … PIT Tom McWhorter 3-5, 2B;
Crusaders @ Bayhawks … 3-0 … (Crusaders lead 3-2) … NYC Stanton Martin 3-4, 2 2B, RBI;

Warriors @ Miners … 2-3 … (Warriors lead 3-2) … PIT Bartholomeu Pino 2-3, 3B, RBI; Steve Butler walks off the Miners with a home run off Arturo Lopez

Bayhawks @ Crusaders … 6-14 … (Crusaders win 4-2) … SFB Mohammed Blanc 3-4, BB, 2B; NYC Jorge Ortega 3-5, RBI; NYC Stanton Martin 3-4, BB, 2B, 3 RBI; NYC Jesus Ramirez 2-5, 3 RBI;

Miners @ Warriors … 6-7 (11) … (Warriors win 4-2) … PIT John Hudson 3-5, 2 2B; PIT Bartholomeu Pino 3-5, RBI; PIT Dale Moore (PH) 1-1, HR, 3 RBI; SFW Jose Morales 2-4, HR, 2B, 3 RBI; SFW Gil Gross 3-5, 2 2B, 3 RBI; SFW Adam Zuhlke 2-2; the Warriors use reliever Marcos Bruno to bunt Zuhlke to second base for the second out in the bottom 11th before Barry Summers singles to score Zuhlke and send the Warriors to the World Series

+++

2014 WORLD SERIES

After taking a snooze in the first two games against the Bayhawks, the Crusaders’ middle of the order woke up on the west coast, and are in full swing mode now. They also got back Francisco Caraballo, which only makes the lineup more dangerous – all bad news for the Warriors.

There are good news for the Warriors, too. The Crusaders’ middle of the order is alternating left-handers and right-handers, but at the top and bottom, their lefty-heavy. The Warriors still have three left-handed starting pitchers, so there’s an edge for them. Also, they are 1-for-1 in World Series against the Crusaders, who were they opponents in the 1978 edition, the only time the Warriors won the title.

The Crusaders’ rotation remains right-handed throughout, which places more pressure on the Warriors’ three left-handed batters to come through, and D.J. Fullerton and Jamie Wilson were completely irrelevant in the FLCS. Crusaders in at most six!

Warriors @ Crusaders … 2-14 … (Crusaders lead 1-0) … NYC Amari Brissett 3-6, 2B; NYC Martin Ortíz 3-4, BB; NYC Stanton Martin 3-4, BB, HR, 5 RBI; NYC Jesus Ramirez 2-4, BB, 4 RBI; NYC Eduardo Durango 2-5, 3 RBI; NYC Jaylen Martin 8.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, W; Stanton Martin hits a grand slam off Bartolo Ortíz in the eighth inning.

Warriors @ Crusaders … 6-9 … (Crusaders lead 2-0) … SFW Jamie Wilson 2-4, BB, HR, 2 RBI; NYC Martin Ortíz 3-4, BB, RBI; NYC Jesus Ramirez 2-4, HR, 2 RBI;

Crusaders @ Warriors … 3-12 … (Crusaders lead 2-1) … SFW Ivan Flores 2-4, 2 BB, 3 RBI; SFW Jose Morales 3-5, BB, 2B, RBI; SFW Adam Zuhlke (PH) 1-1, 2B, 2 RBI; SFW Jaime Kester (PR) 1-1, 2 RBI;

The Warriors trail 3-2 in the middle of the eighth inning and look pretty much done before erupting for TEN runs on Sergio Alvarez, Aurelio Garcia, and Alex Ramirez.

Crusaders @ Warriors … 2-6 … (series tied 2-2) … NYC Amari Brissett 2-4, HR, RBI; SFW Gil Gross 3-4, HR, 2B, 4 RBI;

Double-whammy for the Warriors, who lose SP Jimmy Boswell after one inning to injury, but overcome that hurdle, yet they also lose “Dingus” Morales to a hamstring strain, making the final best-of-three even harder for them.

Crusaders @ Warriors … 7-1 … (Crusaders lead 3-2) … NYC Jorge Ortega 3-5; NYC Martin Ortíz 3-4, BB, RBI; NYC Francisco Caraballo 4-4, BB, 2 RBI; NYC Jaylen Martin 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 8 K, W;

De-dingused, the Warriors amount to only four hits to get their backs turned against the wall. 39-year old Tony Hamlyn gets the ball in their elimination game.

Warriors @ Crusaders … 1-3 … (Crusaders win 4-2) … NYC Miguel Salinas (PH) 1-1, BB, RBI;

Tony Hamlyn pitches seven shutout innings with a 1-0 lead before singles fall in for the Crusaders in the eighth and he is washed away in a flood of runners. The Warriors can’t hold on, and lose the game.

2014 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS
New York Crusaders
(6th title)

+++

What happened in Portland? Mike Bednarski nipped on some booze, then rode his unicycle into a parked car down his street and banged up his wrist. No fatalities reported on the roster this offseason yet, but I heard that Jonny Toner and Cookie Carmona plan to go free-handed tandem-paragliding in polar bear territory in Alaska.

[Questdog]

Seems like too many ex-Portlandites on the playoff rosters......

[Westheim]

Well, you wheel and you deal, and it always bites you.

But don't forget that we turned "Dingus" into Cookie, Bergquist, and whatever it is that we have in Gary Dupes. The rest are mostly relievers that come and go.

That Morales gamble in 2011 might well be the best move I made in the last ten years. If Morales had clicked and swatted the Coons back to the playoffs for under a million, it would have been a win, and the way we flicked him for Cookie Carmona is quite definitely a win. Signing "Dingus" cost the first round pick, but what more than Cookie can you wish for? PLUS Bergquist, who might at least be serviceable while we shove Sandy from corner to spot. PLUS Mike Bednarski - who was acquired for the fourth prospect in that deal, Mike Cook, who has yet to do much for the Aces.

Beats the Ron Alston deal in 2008, which turned meager Ryan Miller, coming-and-going Sharpie, and Jimmy Oatmeal into Ron Alston, who was great in '08 and '09, but not so great in '10 when the Raccoons actually made the playoffs.

Although that Bill Conway trade doesn't look shabby, either (at times, at least). He came over from the Rebels for Ricardo Martinez, who was GHASTLY for them 2011-12 and hasn't been in the majors since. Career .255/.295/.388 batter with *that* glove.

[Westheim]

Winter was coming, and with it the offseason. While my heart was frozen by the Crusaders’ World Series title, the wagon had to keep rolling here.

The Raccoons had a record budget to play with in 2015, getting an increase from $26.8M to $28.6M, besting the previous high of $27.6M in 2013. Looks like someone in Mexico has gotten a clue as to how you need to run a franchise. The league average budget is $25.95M, the median budget is $25.6M. The Raccoons are t-7th with the Stars in terms of money available. The Crusaders meanwhile continue to get richer, increasing their budget to $43M, far ahead of the Cyclones ($34.5M), Thunder ($33.5M), and Warriors ($33M). In the CL North, we are third behind the Elks ($29.6M), but now ahead of the Titans ($28.2M), Indians ($19.4M), and Loggers ($16.4M). The Loggers bring up the rear of all teams. Also along with them and the Indians in the bottom five are the Knights, Wolves, and Falcons.

But before we will all get excited for all the coins that can be thrown around, there are a few points to make.

As we are on money well spent (or rather not), both Daniel Dickerson and Ron Sakellaris executed their player options for 2015, which was not a surprise, and was going to cost us the princely sum of $3.94M, mainly for the former, who was clearly on his last paw.

The financial implications will be as such that we can probably spend $2M to $3M this offseason, but we already know that we can’t find the thing the team would benefit most from, an offensively effective shortstop. Impact players at short are rare, and the Tom McWhorter types are popping up once, maybe twice in a generation.

Our arbitration and free agent group is quickly explained. The latter has Rob Howell, Jon Merritt, and Angel Casas. Angel gets no love, and no compensation. He will still be looking for a huge payday and I have my doubts whether he’s still worth a huge payday. Then again, we don’t really have closers on stock. Do you sign one (for a huge payday…) or do you go with Ron Thrasher, eat the walks, and find a left-handed reliever somewhere else? You don’t want walks from your ninth inning guy!

Merritt will be 39, and he hasn’t been overwhelming. That $6.25M contract netted us a borderline-great first year, two good ones after that, then one in which he missed over 120 games with injuries, and finally this last season, where he took a backseat to Matt Nunley and didn’t figure in the mix much in the second half at all. Overall, I think, it was a good signing.

Howell can go where the pepper grows, and the arbitration class consists of Santos, Richards, Bednarski, and a whole host of relievers. Obviously you hold on to everybody in that class except Vega. It’s been a ridiculous side story for the last decade-plus, but I think it’s time to end it. His control was also atrocious in AAA, and we’re done here.

[Westheim]

Around the North, the Titans had a few significant departures in terms of free agency, most notably Tony Ramos, their first baseman, but the most important free agent of the North was batting champion Martin Ortíz of the Crusaders. I don’t care who gets him, but if he’s out of their #3 slot, that’s already a win for everybody else.

The Raccoons were going to offer arbitration to Rob Howell in an attempt to get that extra draft pick, but would not offer arbitration to ancient Jon Merritt. Howell aside, we would try to avoid as many arbitration cases as possible. There was a case to be made for significant extensions to Ron Richards and Mike Bednarski, who were both under team control for only one more season. None of them are elite batters. Spilling millions on them could become a major mill stone around our neck. Bednarski has been here for two years and overall failed to even reach an .800 OPS. Ron Richards was the only mid-season acquisition that was not a giant disappointment, slightly improving on the .840 OPS he had with the Aces. Stan Murphy’s OPS with the Coons was a grisly .700, Howell’s was .671 as he recovered late, but in the summer he was atrocious, batting in the .210s for a long time.

Regardless, I wasn’t keen on spilling millions on either Richards or Bednarski. Richards had a track record of really low batting averages, with his overall batting average in 2014 of .276 being the high point of his career at age 29. The miserable Aces had not even allowed him to start regularly for many years, and he had never had more than 50 RBI before 2014. Raw power was certainly there, but the overall package was dangerously prone to a really dark and really long season of .220/.290/.390 …

For 2015, the Raccoons were hardly in a spot to be choosers, however. The most prudent move was to keep them both for 2015 and see how they’d do during the season. We were not in a position to bid on Martin Ortíz anyway, and he was already 34, so the poor team that was bound to throw $15M over five years at him was due for some harsh disappointment in the second half of the contract.

So it’s Richards, Carmona, Bednarski in the outfield. Seeley can stick around as a backup. Maybe Fucito would make a semi-decent right-handed backup. Murphy and Nunley are on the corners, D-Alex behind the dish. Sandy figures to start somewhere, and he’s not a great shortstop; not a shortstop you want to start 150 games. He might start at second base and cover most other positions to give the other regulars days off, with Bergquist starting at second base whenever Sandy is occupied elsewhere. Margolis might have won the backup catcher’s job already. So we need a starting shortstop and another backup. Thanks to Sandy we are very flexible for that last bench spot, but maybe an infielder for the left side, a SS/3B, would be good to have.

We don’t need a starting pitcher. Brownie, Toner, Santos, Conway, Dickerson. We’re full. No need even for Graham Wasserman, who broke his thumb in early November when he tried to wrestle a microphone from an intrusive reporter that had encroached on his fishing trip. I feel like that Wasserman saga will end badly one day. But well, that’s the rotation and there’s nothing to be done about that. The pen depends a bit on … things.

+++

Angel Casas’ campaign to rebuild value had not been a great success at all. His first half had been a ridiculous nightmare, with struggles unseen with him before. April had been most cruel, May still awful, and his ERA had been over four until the All Star break. He had a run of six weeks without allowing an *earned* run before allowing two in his last game of the year against the Titans. He finished with a 2.76 ERA, his worst season mark in his career. His debut season at age 21 aside, it was *by far* the worst ERA of his career. Only once more had he had an ERA over two.

We knew it, Angel knew it – and with a uncertain winter ahead of him, our little Mexican friend got incredibly cold feet and was very receptive to another 1-year extension. And this time, he signed for half the price compared to 2014, inking a $500k deal for 2015, with another $55k in incentives. This will be his age 32 season, so that BIG contract will probably never come together for him.

So that keeps the backend of the bullpen in order. Ron Thrasher might however get the assignment in the ninth inning if the opposition brings up left-handers.

We also came to terms for 1-year deals with most of our arbitration cases. Zack Entwistle signed for $500k, Ron Richards signed for $675k, Manobu Sugano agreed to $300k, Tom Constantino took $290k. Finally, Josh Gibson signed a $271k contract.

There were three exceptions. One was the aforementioned Sergio Vega, who did not receive an offer. Another exception was Mike Bednarski, who was not going to sign a 1-year contract and desired a long-term deal, but he wasn’t going to get it (and much less so in the 7-yr, $12k range). I wanted no part of that, and we instead took him to arbitration, where he was awarded the princely sum of $1,125,000 for the 2015 season. The Coons had offered $925k. That one hurt.

And then there was Hector Santos. Winning 17 games in 2014 were good enough for a long-term extension to be offered to him, despite him being the worst qualifying starting pitcher on the team in terms of ERA. There was a bit of ringing for numbers, but by the first days of November, the Raccoons were able to announce a 7-year extension with Hector Santos for $10.8M. He will get $800k in 2015, $1.25M in 2016 (the last year he would have been under team control), and $1.75M a year from 2017 through 2021. There are also substantial incentives involved. Despite this, I think we made a great deal here!

Rob Howell refused arbitration and filed for free agency, making the Critters eligible for a supplemental round pick.

The Santos contract is by far the longest-running deal on the books now. In fact, we will have a substantial amount of free agents after the 2015 season.

And as we are on expensive extensions to key players…

+++

November 5 – NYC LF Martin Ortíz (.295, 296 HR, 1,335 RBI) signs a 2-yr, $7M extension with the Crusaders.
November 12 – The Canadiens acquire left-handed MR Orlando Valdez (11-7, 3.08 ERA, 4 SV) from the Scorpions, who receive two prospects.
November 16 – TOP SS Tyler Gray (.285, 21 HR, 170 RBI) carelessly chops off a finger of his throwing hand while cutting onions. The finger is reattached successfully, but it will take a long time to recuperate from this. The Buffaloes expect him to be out until the second half of the 2015 season.

+++

****.

+++

2014 ABL AWARDS

Player of the Year: PIT SS Tom McWhorter (.312, 32 HR, 111 RBI) and NYC LF Martin Ortíz (.350, 29 HR, 117 RBI)
Pitcher of the Year: LAP SP Brad Smith (21-4, 2.33 ERA) and NYC SP Jaylen Martin (22-6, 2.60 ERA)
Rookie of the Year: SAC 3B Jason LaCombe (.343, 1 HR, 55 RBI) and POR 3B Matt Nunley (.285, 8 HR, 53 RBI)
Reliever of the Year: SAC CL Helio Maggessi (8-1, 0.89 ERA, 37 SV) and VAN CL Pedro Alvarado (5-3, 1.11 ERA, 50 SV)
Golden Gloves (FL): P TOP Ian Norman, C LAP Errol Spears, 1B RIC Alberto Rodriguez, 2B WAS Ieyoshi Nomura, 3B SAC Jason LaCombe, SS DAL Armando Rodriguez, LF TOP Bill Adams, CF DEN Roberto Pena, RF DEN Bill Hiscock
Golden Gloves (CL): P MIL Adam Euteneuer, C MIL Foster Leach, 1B LVA Raúl Bovane, 2B CHA Steve Best, 3B OCT Jesus Soto, SS OCT Erik Janes, LF NYC Martin Ortíz, CF IND John Wilson, RF NYC Stanton Martin
Platinum Sticks (FL): P SAC Juichi Fujita, C RIC Jamal White, 1B PIT Steve Butler, 2B LAP Dennis Berman, 3B NAS Antonio Esquivel, SS PIT Tom McWhorter, LF RIC Winston Jones, CF DAL Hugo Mendoza, RF SAC Pablo Sanchez
Platinum Sticks (CL): P MIL Gabriel Caro, C IND Dave Padilla, 1B SFB Adam Young, 2B LVA Howard Jones, 3B OCT Jesus Soto, SS ATL Devin Hibbard, LF NYC Martin Ortíz, CF TIJ Ryan Feldmann, RF SFB Ron Alston

Jonny Toner finished even behind Alvarado in Pitcher of the Year voting.

I love how Adam Euteneuer won a Gold Glove while being beaten and beaten and beaten to a 4-22, 6.75 ERA finish.

[Westheim]

As usual, the Raccoons were left looking for a shortstop. Rob Howell had not been it in 2014, Walt Canning had not been it before that, Palmer Taylor was not much of anything. Problem here: there weren’t many shortstops that were worthwhile batters. Finding a slick-fielding shortstop was not that much of a trouble, but I would prefer someone to bat more than .210/.260/.300 …

Well, we could try to shake things up in some way. Maybe we could get a top notch shortstop for an expensive corner outfielder and a starting pitcher (probably not Dickerson). Just how many top notch shortstops were there?

Well, there was Tom McWhorter, once taken a spot ahead of Jimmy Oatmeal in the draft, the best shortstop in the game, who had signed a long-term deal with the Miners and was their career toy, so that was that. The Thunder probably had two top shortstops to pick between, Emilio Farias and Erik Janes. Farias was the older one, but had the more impressive batting profile. Basically Cookie Carmona with a tad more power and a notch less speed, but basically he was Cookie Carmona with an even better glove at a premium defensive position. Janes was 24, three years younger, and was the best defensive shortstop among the group here. He was more of an OBP guy with a bit of power, but unfortunately no speed.

Brent Burke in Las Vegas and Devin Hibbard in Atlanta had had their best offensive seasons in 2014, but both were already in their latter 20s, so it was not a 100% certain thing that they were going to be elite offensive players rather than having just a one-off premium season. Neither was an attractive trade target.

So, will it be Walt Canning as starting shortstop? That would be awful. There was one more player, on the Wolves, D.J. Ruggeri. D.J. is for “Dylan Jagger”, I have heard, but he refuses to confirm that. He was going to be 28 on Opening Day, and had only played two full seasons in the majors so far, and his 2013 season had been much better than the 2014 campaign. He was a good defender around the infield.

But I’m always skeptical of players that only make the major leagues at age 26. That is why I didn’t go after Gil Rockwell earlier this year. Rockwell didn’t make the majors until he was 25, but didn’t stick until he was 27. He only hit 18 home runs that year, then suddenly hit 41 and 44 in the last two seasons.

The Wolves weren’t too keen to deal Ruggeri anyway. The Thunder were not too averse to talk about Erik Janes, but they had a problem – they were overbudget, and Janes made only $632k. It was not easy to construct a deal they liked. Well, they liked a deal for Cookie Carmona…

So, the Raccoons had just over two million bucks available as the hot phase of the offseason started – and just couldn’t get a shortstop for that money or any fraction of it.

+++

November 28 – The Miners sign CL Tommy Wooldridge (69-50, 2.40 ERA, 246 SV) to a 3-yr, $4.66M contract. The 35-year old right-hander appeared for the Titans and Bayhawks in 2014.
November 28 – The Loggers trade RF/CF Nick Gilmor (.258, 11 HR, 90 RBI) to the Indians for SP Chester Graham (77-86, 4.47 ERA) and cash.

+++

The only players not on the 40-man roster that we protected leading up to the rule 5 draft were utility player Ricky Moya in AA and SP Chris Brown in AAA. Moya is 24 and should probably do better to merit protection, and Brown has RIDICULOUS walk issues, offering 115 free passes in AAA last year, and he’s even 25, but you can bet on Dickerson moving to the DL at some point during the year, and between Wasserman and Dupes there’s not much fun to be had.

Nothing happened to the Raccoons in the draft. We didn’t take anybody, nobody was taken from us, and only 11 players overall were drafted. Our 2010 supplemental rounder Dan Moon, who was a part in the trade for Richards and Entwistle with the Aces, was drafted from them by the Stars, and that was as close as this draft came to us.

[Westheim]

I did something in early December that was probably a mistake. We will find out in the next few years.

Graham Wasserman had cost an arm and a leg and probably more to acquire from the Stars 18 months ago (even though we managed to sneak Craig Bowen into that package), but he had gotten beaten up in AAA for two years, in 2014 even with a really advantageous BABIP. It was not so much about the two really, really rotten major league starts in September. It was the fact that he had been battered in AAA for two straight years. The overall package might have been enough for a #19 prospect ranking before the season, but I was sure that that wasn’t going to hold up anymore, and also that he was not as great a future starting pitcher as that rank would indicate would be possible.

Then there was the shortstop thing. It was impossible to find the right fit. There was Erik Janes on the Thunder, and they were principally willing to talk, but they were also really eager to talk about Cookie Carmona, and that wasn’t going to lead us anywhere nice.

I managed to combine those two issues in a trade with the Cyclones for 24-year old INF Ronnie McKnight. He was not an elite batter. He was probably going to be a decent, above average, left-handed batter. It was hard to say much, since while he had a batting average over .400 in the majors, he had been completely blocked by veterans on that team and had only gobbled up 44 at-bats over the last two seasons. But where we expected McKnight to shine was the defense. He had an elite glove at shortstop and was probably a future Gold Glover. He could also slide in at second and third base with little issue. He didn’t have experience at first, but he could do that, too, I’m sure.

McKnight had just turned 24 in November, and he would be under team control through 2020, not having accumulated close to full year of service time yet. This is not his first trade, and far from it. Originally drafted in the first round of the 2009 draft by the Warriors, McKnight was dealt three times in 2010, including twice in a week in late July, before landing in Cincy.

This also means we’re done with Palmer Taylor, who was a left-handed bench piece. With only two right-handed batters in the starting lineup vs. right-handed pitching next year (Bednarski, Murphy; with Taylor hitting for neither), use for Taylor was limited. Walt Canning in turn got an extra life as a bench player (and probably platooning with McKnight) since he covers the left side of the infield and bats right-handed. Bergquist is also on the bench, also batting right-handed. Margolis might be the backup catcher, also batting right-handed. Seeley is still around (the Cyclones wanted him initially, but I coaxed them out of the idea) and bats left-handed, but again, one lefty bench piece is nice and well, but we don’t need two, especially with our lineup. There is still an open roster spot which could be held by Jimmy Fucito, but I might long for something more potent and less hacking-prone. A Bobby Quinn type o’ guy! That would be swell.

In a perfect world, we’d find a good defensive centerfielder, switch-hitter, pinch-running capabilities. I said it before: Cookie has great range, but sometimes he seems to have a bit of trouble picking up balls early enough, and his arm is okay, but not very strong. If we could shift him to left late in close games and bring in a Santiago Trevino caliber player – with a some form of stick.

I had Calderón compile a list of what I longed for, but the results were not to my liking. Either the players on the list were too young and too hot a prospect to be acquired (like San Fran’s Dave Garcia), or they were rule 5 picks with all the strings attached (like Oklahoma’s Eric Dennis), or they resembled Santiago Trevino TOO much.

Now having found a shortstop on the cheap, we might want to look for a qualified sixth starting pitcher that has an option to be stashed in AAA at the start of the season. We still have more than $2M to play with since the deal with the Cyclones was salary-neutral.

+++

December 3 – Deal between the Raccoons and Cyclones: the latter receive 24-yr old SP Graham Wasserman (0-0, 14.21 ERA), while leaving the Raccoons with 24-yr old INF Ronnie McKnight (.432, 0 HR, 7 RBI in 44 AB).
December 3 – The Bayhawks sign 35-yr old ex-CIN SP Juan Garcia (125-137, 4.44 ERA) to a 1-yr, $2.04M contract.
December 3 – The Cyclones console themselves with former Indian RF/1B Juan Ortíz (.271, 323 HR, 1,336 RBI). The 37-year old veteran signs a 2-yr, $4.16M deal.
December 4 – Elite slugger 1B Steve Butler (.322, 167 HR, 732 RBI) signs a 6-yr, $22.32M contract with the Titans where he will replace the departed Tony Ramos. Butler, 30, spent his career with the Miners so far.
December 5 – The Bayhawks pick up another former Cyclone in CL Ian Johnson (71-68, 2.34 ERA, 433 SV), who will receive $1.4M over two years.
December 6 – The Crusaders add to their bullpen; while 30-year old righty Helio Maggessi (34-27, 2.40 ERA, 119 SV) has yet to be assigned a role, he will sure contribute for his $1.66M salary for 2015.
December 7 – The Knights deal 25-yr old RF Will McIntyre (.274, 6 HR, 78 RBI) to the Bayhawks for 27-yr MR Ian Tharp (15-3, 2.72 ERA, 3 SV) and relief pitching prospect Gary Ledford, who is unranked but promising.
December 7 – Career Aces INF Howard Jones (.266, 21 HR, 309 RBI) joins the Cyclones on a 4-yr, $7.8M contract.
December 8 – Ex-BOS 1B Tony Ramos (.295, 87 HR, 642 RBI) signs a 1-yr, $770k contract with the Scorpions.
December 8 – The Titans add to their rotation with the addition of 30-yr old SP Johnny Krom (77-59, 4.01 ERA), who nevertheless struggled the last two years and has to be content with a 1-yr, $720k deal.
December 10 – As the winter meetings begin, the Loggers trade SP Gabriel Caro (65-80, 4.20 ERA) and cash(!) to the Bayhawks in exchange for three prospects, including #6 SP Chris Sinkhorn.
December 11 – The Knights trade for the Blue Sox’ SP Felipe Ramirez (31-32, 3.68 ERA), parting with 2B T.J. Hilderbrand (.253, 16 HR, 132 RBI) and a prospect.
December 11 – SP Blaine Barnard (15-10, 3.98 ERA) is sent from the Condors to the Warriors after his rookie season, with two prospects heading to Tijuana.
December 12 – 33-year old LF/RF Johnny Crum (.295, 59 HR, 438 RBI) is sent from the Knights to the Stars, with the Knights receiving two pitchers in 25-yr old MR Adam Harper (7-6, 4.19 ERA, 4 SV) and a prospect.
December 13 – The Scorpions trade SP Tim Winston (60-60, 3.83 ERA), whom they only acquired mid-season from the Rebels, and cash to the Warriors, and receive two prospects in return.
December 14 – The Loggers part with 30-yr old 1B/2B Silvestro Roncero (.282, 19 HR, 189 RBI), who is sent to the Blue Sox for 27-yr old SP Jason McDonald (14-14, 4.43 ERA).

+++

Tids and bits: Sergio Vega got a 2-yr, $424k deal with the Thunder (good for him!), the prospect in the Johnny Crum deal was rule 5 pick Dan Moon, Vic Flores also joined the Knights on a 1-yr, $316k deal, Tomas Castro found a $326k gig with the Stars, and the Hall of Fame ballot is out!

[Westheim]

The Raccoons didn’t really do much in the latter half of December and over the holidays. I watched the market, which contained a lot of pitching, but also lots of end-of-thirties that were going to be overpaid by some fool. Meanwhile I kept sitting on about $2.3M without a way to spend them. There was certainly the odd upgrade that could be done to the roster, but…

Well, there was the long relief / emergency start spot that was held by Tom Constantino. He had at best been serviceable, but certainly not inspiring, and his four starts in place of Dickerson in 2014 had resulted in a 7.08 ERA. That was certainly something that could be improved on. There was a fine line, however, between decent starting pitchers and guys that were willing to swallow a long relief assignment while waiting for Dickerson to strain something while clipping his toe nails.

… which is the point where I have to hand it to Jon Merritt that he took the backseat to ROTY Matt Nunley like a veteran that knew his time was up and also like a professional, and had not gone mouthing off even once. We’ve seen things go the other way with other players.

Dylan Alexander was certainly not the answer when it came to a perfect fit for a primary catcher. He was a career .804 OPS batter, but was prone to long and deep slumps. His defense was good, and his catching was appreciated by the entire staff. You could probably do better – but not with a free agent. The market had been thin to begin with, and at best held backup material. Looking for a good offensive catcher with high contact abilities and at least some power and above-average catching yielded only two results among employed catchers, and the Crusaders were sitting on one of them. The other was Dave Padilla in Indy. The 26-year-old Colombian right-hander had an unusual mix of abilities since he was quick to steal the odd base here or there, something hardly seen from ABL catchers, but his arm was not very strong. It was not a great overall package, and while he had slightly out-OPS’ed D-Alex in 2014, for his career he was a markedly weaker batter.

Nah, this one wasn’t going to work out.

There was still a roster spot open for either an infielder or outfielder and it was probably the time to look at options for a luxury bench piece that could be rotated into the lineup regularly at whatever position would be the one in question. Preferrably the player in question would be around for only the 2015 season. We have so many free agents coming up after that season, that a clean cut might be called for then. A switch-hitter would be amazing.

Calderón beat that switch-hitting thing out of my head real quick and managed to return only a rather short list of players that even remotely fit into the bizarre mold of requirements I had cast. The guy should be able to play the outfield corners and perhaps also first base. Contact was required, as well as some power. No defensive victim, either! The options were definitely limited, and none of the players was quite the answer – if he was even acquirable. I had been interested in free agents, but there wasn’t much that could be done with the available free agents. Players like Tijuana’s Will Newman we considered impossible to acquire already and Calderón also made sure to inform me that I was basically looked for another Mike Bednarski, which slammed the brakes on the operations a bit.

Bednarski. That’s one of the guys that keeps annoying me…

Well, maybe there was ONE option … a 35-year old Luis Reya on the Pacifics. He had spent almost a decade on CL South teams until 2011, and could still swing it. He had never hit more than 15 home runs in a year, but he had hit around 50 extra base hits regularly in recent years. He still played a competent corner outfield, despite diminished range, but had no experience at first base. A left-handed batter, Reya hardly struck out, but also didn’t walk much, and he had negligible speed on the base paths. Nobody’s holding him at first base because he’s not going anywhere.

Reya was very affordable at $960k for the coming season, after which he’d depart for free agency. Not all boxes were ticked in his case, but it was the best match for a dangerous bench bat that we could find.

+++

December 21 – The Indians announce the signing of ex-DAL MR Jarrod Morrison (32-26, 2.53 ERA, 64 SV). The 29-year old righty receives $1.81M over three years.
December 23 – The Crusaders keep spending on the bullpen, adding ex-DAL/SFB CL Salvadaro Soure (58-59, 2.11 ERA, 341 SV) for 3-yr, $6.72M to an already formidable array of relievers.
December 24 – The Canadiens lock up 30-year old southpaw SP Dave Butler (76-84, 4.02 ERA) for $7.52M over four years. Butler spent his career with the Knights so far.
December 25 – Former Stars SS/2B Armando Rodriguez (.291, 63 HR, 750 RBI) signs a $4.16M contract over three years with the Capitals. It could be the last contract for the 37-year old right-hander.
January 1 – The Crusaders add 37-yr old veteran C Jose Paraz (.270, 247 HR, 975 RBI) on a 1-yr, $1.76M contract. Paraz spent most of his career for their division rivals, the Indians.
January 2 – The Raccoons acquire 35-yr old LF/RF Luis Reya (.291, 106 HR, 751 RBI) from the Pacifics, parting with 30-yr old MR Ron Sakellaris (30-24, 3.32 ERA, 12 SV) and 21-yr old AA RF Daniel Price.

+++

Sakellaris is a very competent late-inning reliever, but the Pacifics were either keen on the usual suspects or some quick glue for their bullpen in shambles. I heard, right-handed relievers come in many variants and flavors and can usually had for cheap even in good condition this time of the year. Plus, the deal only adds $220k of salary to our books, and we still have $2M to blow.

Price was a supplemental-rounder taken in the 2011 draft that doesn’t look like he’s going to pan out, and that entire draft looks like one of those horror stories that just won’t end. We traded top pick David Tingley in the package for Stan Murphy to the Pacifics five months ago – which didn’t work out, either – and the rest of the haul is just a complete mess. Chris Brown in round 2 is the only guy that has even made it onto the 40-man roster so far, and that was more of a “eh, well, why not” move.

We’re now more or less set when it comes to batters. Richards, Cookie, Bednarski; Nunley, McKnight, Sandy, Murphy; D-Alex; Reya, Seeley, Canning, Bergquist, Margolis. Now we just have to replace Sakellaris.

What else? Matt Pruitt joins cousin Jonathan in Salem on a $236k deal.

It would be due time for an updated draft history, but I won’t be able to produce it this offseason due to time constraints. I haven’t mentioned it in a good while, but on-and-off I’m still playing World of Tanks (the only online game of any color I ever stuck to, really) and there’s an event going on that requires grinding, grinding, and more grinding. I hate it already. The good news is that I will have my annual World Series vacation starting on the 26th of next month and by then eventing will be over, I will be thoroughly fed up with WoT in particular and people in general, and I might produce the draft history at the time of the 2015 draft then – except that Civ VI comes out on the 21st. Umm, ya.

I am trying hard to win the lottery, believe me...

+++

Finally, the Hall of Fame voting results were announced on January 6, and the Hall gets one new inhabitant this year. It’s not Neil Reece, who’s campaign nevertheless keeps gaining momentum…!

2015 ABL HALL OF FAME VOTING RESULTS

OCT SP Aaron Anderson – 1st year – 93.8 – INDUCTED
NYC SP Anibal Sandoval – 1st year – 70.5
POR CF Neil Reece – 5th year – 68.2
MIL 2B Jim Stein – 2nd year – 58.8
OCT SS Bob Grant – 2nd year – 53.6
SFB CL William Henderson – 4th year – 38.3
BOS LF Jose Martinez – 8th year – 29.5
??? 2B Masaaki Matsumoto – 1st year – 14.0
DAL C Rob James – 1st year – 13.0
OCT CL Jimmy Morey – 1st year – 5.5
??? SS Zak Davidson – 1st year – 3.9 – DROPPED
??? C Urbano Cicalina – 1st year – 3.2 – DROPPED
WAS CL Jesus Longoria – 2nd year – 1.3 – DROPPED
??? MR Lawrence Bentley – 1st year – 1.3 – DROPPED
VAN CF Luis Arroyo – 1st year – 0.3 – DROPPED

“???” players without a listed team have yet to declare for a certain team to be depicted on the Hall of Fame plaque.

Aaron Anderson takes over the alphabetical lead of the Hall from Alfonso Aranda, who was also inducted as a Thunder. The Thunder now have four Hall of Famers, joining the Scorpions atop the team rankings.

Neil Reece’s case will face a hard challenge next year. We’ll have around 20 players entering the ballot in 2016, including the odd slam dunk case like recently-dethroned career strikeouts leader Martin Garcia. Cases can be made for lots of players. Only one former Raccoon will enter the ballot, as Juan Barrón will be up for election as a Falcon, and Barrón was only in Portland for one year, 2008. It doesn’t look like anybody will enter the ballot as a Coon in the forseeable future, but then that’s not much of a surprise, given that most candidates’ career fully encompassed the 1997-2006 timeframe…

[Westheim]

There was not a whole lot going on in the last three months leading up to the season. There was no way to improve the Raccoons in any major way anymore. Well, maybe an upgrade over Daniel Dickerson was possible, but Dickerson wasn’t going to go anywhere with his track record and contract.

Well, there was one exception. The trade of Ron Sakellaris meant that there was an opening in the pen for a 7th/8th inning role for a right-handed pitcher. More of the seventh inning, really, since Zack Entwistle was about all I wanted from a setup reliever.

So all those years we had no money, and now we have money and couldn’t find anybody. It’s a strange situation. We have a lot of players who make the minimum and occupy significant roles, f.e. two guys in the starting lineup, and, oh, the reigning ERA champ.

So much money will go into the player development, although there isn’t much worth noting to develop. The last two years we have traded a lot of semi-meaningful prospects, and the drafts have been poor for a long time. On the other hand, we can go nuts in the international free agent signing period in July again. We blew $500k on SP Danny “Nails” Arguello in 2013, which meant that we couldn’t do much in 2014, and Arguello will start the season in Aumsville as an 18-year old.

I don’t even quite know what I am complaining about. Looks like it will be a strange season. On the other side of it, we will have nine free agents: Dickerson, Murphy, Bednarski, Conway, Reya, Richards, Bruno, Casas, Entwistle are up for free agency. They make a total of about $11.4M this year. The only proper contracts remaining for 2016 and beyond are with Brownie, D-Alex, Santos, Sandy, and Thrasher. The team might look very different next season.

+++

January 8 – One day after his 41st birthday, ex-WAS SP Randy Farley (211-176, 4.03 ERA) signs a 2-yr, $3.88M contract with the Bayhawks.
January 8 – Meanwhile, the Bayhawks’ former SP Reynaldo Rendon (72-66, 3.77 ERA) signs with the Stars. The 30-year old right-hander gets $14.28 over five years.
January 9 – Ex-MIL CL Jose Ramos (39-29, 3.91 ERA, 62 SV) inks a 3-yr, $4.2M contract with the Scorpions.
January 23 – Ex-POR/DEN OF/3B Joe Cowan (.245, 53 HR, 389 RBI) and the Miners come to terms at 2-yr, $1.7M for the 32-year old left-handed batter.
January 31 – The Raccoons re-sign 39-yr old former Warrior MR Marcos Bruno (57-54, 2.95 ERA, 94 SV) on a 1-yr, $650k contract.
January 31 – The Titans sign former Cyclone RF Jose Silva (.294, 89 HR, 587 RBI) to a 5-yr, $7.3M contract. Rumor has it that the 32-year old Silva is already ailing so hard that he can only get through the season on persistent painkiller prescriptions.
February 3 – The Crusaders continue to throw money at every player they care to get, signing 31-yr old ex-SFW SP Fernando Cruz (88-108, 4.06 ERA). The left-hander receives $23.33M over seven years.
February 3 – Veteran 1B/2B Oliver Torres (.307, 38 HR, 721 RBI) inks a 2-yr, $2.48M deal with the Cyclones. Torres, 37, was with the Thunder the last few years.
February 7 – 30-yr old ex-DEN/POR SS/1B Rob Howell (.274, 15 HR, 275 RBI) inks a 1-yr, $486k contract with the Warriors.
February 27 – The Bayhawks sign ex-NYC CL Micah Steele (40-40, 2.76 ERA, 193 SV) to a 1-yr, $740k contract.

+++

Bruno will be 39 at the end of January. It looks questionable from the outside, I agree. But he was not only the best option available, he is also a perfect option for the Raccoons.

Bruno pitched for the Raccoons from 2001 through 2009, with the 2005-2009 years seeing him utmost dominate batters, with a worst ERA of 2.36 in that period. He struck out 10+ per nine every year, up to 12.6, walked few and was hardly ever taken deep. As soon as he left Coon City in 2010, things went south. He had a 4.01 ERA in ’10 with Indy, then two 3-something campaigns in Indy and Washington, before running up a 4.87 ERA with the ’13 Capitals. He missed some time last year, but produced a 1.98 ERA with the Warriors while dropping under 10 K/9 for the first time since 2003.

His velocity is markedly down from his hey-days, when he could touch 100 mph. He throws more around 93 now. But the slider is still as venomous as ever and he has sink that generates grounders galore. The reason he struggled in Indy and Washington were high BABIP’s, with a .320+ BABIP in all but one of the four years. The worst BABIP he had in Portland was .310 in his rookie season, when he ran a 4.46 ERA (also walking 6.6 per nine), and the 2010-11 Indians and 2012-13 Capitals were among the worst defensive teams in their leagues in the seasons in question. And the Raccoons just hauled in a shortstop that will happily gobble up Marcos’ grounders.

There was some quabble over the uniform number to be assigned to Bruno. He wanted #37 back, which had since been used by Bill Conway, and not only did I have to contend with these two in my office, but also Maud, who took Bruno’s side for financial reasons (the eleven Conway fans would certainly buy a new shirt with the new number!), and Slappy who was highly averse to any kind of labor and refused to iron another number onto Conway’s uniforms. Chad sat on the couch with the mascot head and nodded constantly, agreeing with everybody. In the end, Conway kept the number, because I can’t afford to alienate Slappy, who knows all the liquor stashes around the premises.

Marcos Bruno is SO OLD, he’s one of the view remaining players whose birth predates the ABL.

+++

Jon Merritt’s career is in fact NOT over! He signed a $306k contract with the Rebels in early March. Should have offered him arbitration, I guess. But the chances were for him to take us to arbitration, and we just have no room for him on the roster.

What else? Ex-Coons that signed minor contracts included Freddy Rosa ($266k with the Knights), Michael Palmer ($234k with the Stars), Raul Hernandez ($226k with the Elks), Kenichi Watanabe ($438k with the Warriors), Logan Taylor ($250k also with the Warriors), Mark Thomas ($258k with the Cyclones)

[Westheim]

2015 PORTLAND RACCOONS – Opening Day Roster (first set shows 2014 numbers, second set overall; players with an * are off season acquisitions):

SP Nick Brown, 37, B:L, T:L (15-7, 2.70 ERA | 183-108, 2.84 ERA) – the flash is gone with Nick Brown, who came back from injury with much less velocity, stuff, and most notably strikeouts. Mastering the groundball still carried him to a third-place finish in the ERA race in the Continental League, but how many more Opening Day assignments will he have ahead of him?
SP Jonathan Toner, 24, B:R, T:R (18-6, 2.36 ERA | 23-11, 2.65 ERA) – here was a pleasant breakout season if there ever was one as Jonny Toner – while snubbed for Pitcher of the Year – won 18 games and the CL ERA title while striking out 205 and pitching five shutouts. One might have great fun for a long time with him, although there are concerns over his long-term health since he’s been dealing with shoulder and elbow woes since high school.
SP Hector Santos, 26, B:S, T:R (17-8, 3.07 ERA | 43-36, 3.63 ERA) – reached 200 K for the first time in 2014; his stuff is elite and paired with great control, as he walked only 29 batters in 202 innings, for a mildly obscene K/BB ratio of almost seven. His issue is the long ball – whenever someone manages to hit his hammers, they usually hit it real hard. He led the league in home runs allowed in 2013 (30!), and still gave up 20 last season.
SP Bill Conway, 29, B:R, T:R (11-7, 2.95 ERA | 46-52, 3.88 ERA, 2 SV) – Conway was a bit of a surprise story in 2014, leading the CL in ERA before collapsing in September; when he’s not overachieving on a ridiculous level, he’s a bit more of a mundane right-hander; also an extraordinarily poor hitter.
SP Daniel Dickerson, 37, B:R, T:R (8-8, 4.43 ERA | 154-133, 3.40 ERA, 1 SV) – the signing of this grizzled veteran with the unfortunate injury history was a gamble in the first place, and while Dickerson managed 128 more innings in 2014 than in 2013, when he literally dropped in his second start of the season, the results were still wildly disappointing; he’s been relegated to the back of the rotation because nobody wanted a piece of his ludicrous $3.2M contract.

MR Tom Constantino, 29, B:R, T:R (5-7, 4.24 ERA | 13-21, 4.96 ERA, 1 SV) – ordinary right-hander, capable of long relief, but he was bruised badly when he made four starts in place of Dickerson early in 2014, which did most of the damage to his ERA.
MR Marcos Bruno *, 39, B:R, T:R (2-0, 1.98 ERA | 57-54, 2.95 ERA, 94 SV) – still armed with a venomous slider, Bruno rejoins the Raccoons with high hopes of a productive seventh-inning assignment for the veteran, mindful that none of the other late second tours of duty for right-handed relievers among long-time Coons have ever brought much joy (Martinez, Lagarde, Huerta…).
MR Chris Mathis, 28, B:R, T:R (3-1, 2.63 ERA, 1 SV | 7-2, 3.41 ERA, 2 SV) – some only get good enough at age 27, as Mathis excelled after a mid-season callup and never went away again with a K/9 over nine and a K/BB over eight. His 2014 ERA was three runs higher, but we sure hope he has actually turned a corner.
MR Manobu Sugano, 30, B:L, T:L (2-4, 1.91 ERA | 11-7, 2.36 ERA, 6 SV) – was almost perfect in being used almost exclusively against nasty left-handed batters in 2014, while also leading the majors in appearances with 80, pitching 61.1 innings. Since coming over from Japan, Sugano has struck out 70+ in all of his three seasons, but has also walked 30+ in each year, which is his main problem; he generates exceptionally poor contact usually.
SU Zack Entwistle, 29, B:R, T:R (3-2, 2.48 ERA, 4 SV | 27-34, 3.39 ERA, 54 SV) – acquired mid-season from the Aces along Ron Richards, Entwistle slides into the setup slot for the 2015 season after Ron Sakellaris has been dealt away. Entwistle had a 1.57 ERA with the Raccoons and struck out 74 batters in 76 innings in 2014.
SU Ron Thrasher, 27, B:L, T:L (4-3, 2.69 ERA, 4 SV | 15-13, 2.41 ERA, 9 SV) – blessed with an executioner’s stuff, but saddled with a drunkard’s control, Thrasher – like Sugano – has struck out 70+ in every full season, while missing 30 walks only once (in 2011). He drives hitters of all handednesses crazy, however, making him a great choice for setup duties or a closing assignment against mean left-handers, which will be a secondary job for him in 2015 with Angel Casas not knowing whether to go drunk or broke.
CL Angel Casas, 32, B:S, T:R (1-2, 2.76 ERA, 42 SV | 18-21, 1.77 ERA, 410 SV) – after missing almost all of 2013 with an injury, Angel had a horrendous first six weeks in 2014, and while he recovered well in the second half of the year, there are doubts over his ability going forward. He knows it, too, and he actually makes only 50% of his 2014 salary after signing another 1-year deal, as these 1-year deals get increasingly cheap...

C Dylan Alexander, 30, B:L, T:R (.259, 17 HR, 61 RBI | .271, 84 HR, 315 RBI) – not a bad defensive catcher, not a bad offensive catcher, but we would sure wish he could come through more often.
C Danny Margolis, 24, B:R, T:R (.262, 1 HR, 7 RBI | .262, 1 HR, 7 RBI) – made his major league debut after Raúl Hernandez had been traded and has yet to do anything to greatly annoy management; very strong arm, even for a catcher.

1B Stanley Murphy, 35, B:R, T:R (.258, 21 HR, 78 RBI | .291, 243 HR, 995 RBI) – Murphy was not any more effective than his predecessor Adrian Quebell in driving in runners, and batted a very sub-par .700 OPS after the mid-season trade with the Pacifics. In addition to that, his defense isn’t much, he’s older, more expensive, and will depart via free agency after the season.
1B/LF/2B/CF/RF/SS Sandy Sambrano, 27, B:S, T:R (.265, 0 HR, 59 RBI | .274, 7 HR, 205 RBI) – Sandy combines versatility with a steady singles bat and great speed; he has amassed 144 stolen bases already. Since the outfield has seen the addition of Ron Richards, he gets moved in to play the majority of the games at second base, but he might see frequent use elsewhere to give people days off.
SS/2B/3B Ronnie McKnight *, 24, B:L, T:R (.412, 0 HR, 2 RBI | .432, 0 HR, 7 RBI) – since we couldn’t get an elite offensive shortstop, we took steps to acquire an elite defensive shortstop, Concie Guerin-style. McKnight has only 44 major league at-bats, but the scouting report looks good enough.
3B Matt Nunley, 24, B:L, T:R (.285, 8 HR, 53 RBI | .271, 8 HR, 57 RBI) – Rookie of the Year Matt Nunley enters his sophomore season unchallenged at the hot corner, where he played strong defense before coming apart in September for no discernible reason.
2B Jason Bergquist, 25, B:R, T:R (.249, 3 HR, 29 RBI | .243, 3 HR, 32 RBI) – nobody quite expected Bergquist to replace Yoshi Nomura in production, but after a strong April (in which he won ROTM honors), he quickly degraded to basically replacement level and in the end saw little playing time, which is something that will continue this season.
3B/SS Walt Canning, 29, B:R, T:R (.230, 1 HR, 17 RBI | .253, 7 HR, 72 RBI) – not much of a batter or shortstop, Walt Canning wins a roster spot mainly by merit of batting right-handed, which had him stay on the roster at the expense of Palmer Taylor.

RF/LF Ron Richards, 29, B:L, T:L (.276, 26 HR, 90 RBI | .252, 59 HR, 233 RBI) – one of many mid-season acquisitions to spark the offense, Richards was the only one that didn’t significantly reduce his output upon arrival, batting roughly at the same rate as he had in Las Vegas. He is a considerable home run threat but lacks speed and will sometimes not get a basic double because of his slow pace. His defensive range is also limited and he is a prime candidate for late-inning defensive substitution.
LF/CF/RF Ricardo Carmona, 23, B:L, T:R (.345, 6 HR, 60 RBI | .326, 9 HR, 136 RBI) – the Jose Morales bonanza a few years ago has already worked out when you look at this young Panamanian pony, racing along the beach and gnawing through opposing pitchers. Cookie won the CL stolen base title for the second time in as many full seasons in the Bigs and also made a charge for the batting title, ultimately falling short against Martin Ortíz. Only 23 years old, he has already stolen 111 bases. The only thing is that his defense in center is not what Neil Reece offered in his prime, but we are totally happy with the package as-is.
RF/LF Mike Bednarski, 28, B:R, T:R (.292, 23 HR, 88 RBI | .279, 92 HR, 395 RBI) – Bednarski put up his best single-season OPS in 2014 with a .837 mark, but still was the source of constant disappointment, one of the forerunners of team-wide RISP futility. Luis Reya is breathing down his neck.
LF/RF Luis Reya *, 35, B:L, T:L (.303, 9 HR, 82 RBI | .291, 106 HR, 751 RBI) – acquired from the Pacifics princely from Ron Sakellaris, Reya gives the Raccoons overall a very experienced and potent bat off the bench, and Mike Bednarski in particular somebody to watch and push him.
LF/RF/CF Jason Seeley, 28, B:L, T:R (.263, 5 HR, 38 RBI | .238, 17 HR, 105 RBI) – if nothing else, the mildly talented Seeley is persevering, and now that he has run out of options might be able to stick to the roster for more than two weeks at a time. Yet, his track record with the bat doesn’t hit at future success. A free swinger that hits few home runs and strikes out a lot, Seeley leaves much to be desired.

On disabled list: No major league players, but A SP Roger Kincheloe (our 2014 top pick) and A MR Enrique Morales will be on the minor league DL until at least late June with elbow woes.

Otherwise unavailable: Nobody.

Other roster movement:
MR George Youngblood, 29, B:L, T:L (1-0, 2.89 ERA | 6-1, 3.90 ERA, 2 SV) – waived and DFA’ed; while all our left-handed relievers have their control issues, Youngblood’s walks and strikeouts are almost even and he just can’t be relied on.
MR Josh Gibson, 29, B:R, T:R (1-0, 4.32 ERA | 14-9, 3.76 ERA) – waived and DFA’ed; was useful as middle reliever for a year or two, but has not shown the ability to get people out either in Portland or St. Pete in 2014.
C Tom McNeela, 26, B:L, T:R (.167, 1 HR, 1 RBI | .243, 1 HR, 13 RBI) – waived and DFA’ed; middling defensively, not a real game changer offensively, and waived on Opening Day for the third year in a row. Over the last three years, he’s had 91 AB and 1 RBI.
RF/LF/1B Jimmy Fucito, 26, B:R, T:R (.295, 2 HR, 5 RBI | .268, 4 HR, 16 RBI) – waived and DFA’ed; not much of a defender, and certainly not much of a batter.
2B/SS/3B/1B/RF Palmer Taylor, 31, B:L, T:R (.255, 1 HR, 19 RBI | .245, 4 HR, 45 RBI) – optioned to Alley Cats; if a 31-year old utility player still has options, it’s probably a first indicator of lackluster skill. Showed a rather poor bat in 2014, and we sacrifice our second super utility player for a more balanced bench, giving Walt Canning (who would not have options) the nod to stay on the roster.

Opening day lineup:
(Vs. RHP: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – LF Richards – 1B Murphy – 3B Nunley – RF Bednarski – C Alexander – SS McKnight – P Brown)
Vs. LHP: CF Carmona – 2B Sambrano – 1B Murphy – LF Richards – RF Bednarski – 3B Nunley – C Margolis – SS Canning – P Brown

Looks like we open the season against a left-hander in Chester Graham. Whether Danny Margolis actually gets the Opening Day assignment is still not decided on the management level, since I know my boys and this might turn into an issue of hurt feelings before the Crusaders can build a 12-game lead.

OFF SEASON CHANGES:

There weren’t that many, really. Most of the changes in personnel had already occurred in the middle of the 2014 season and just stuck through the winter. Jon Merritt and Ron Sakellaris are the primary Critters to leave the team, and when your primary departures are a backup infielder (as veteran as he might be) and a reliever, then it was a calm winter. The uninspired offseason saw the Raccoons add 1.1 WAR eventually, mediocre enough for 10th of all teams.

Top 5: Crusaders (+8.3), Canadiens (+7.8), Knights (+5.5), Pacifics (+4.2), Capitals (+4.0)
Bottom 5: Miners (-4.0), Loggers (-5.5), Bayhawks (-5.5), Wolves (-6.0), Falcons (-6.1)

PREDICTION TIME:

Last year I guessed that the Raccoons would be irrelevant – which ultimately was true – but I didn’t quite imagine how irrelevant you can be while you win 97 games. It was the first time ever we won 90+ games and finished more than five games out of the division winner. Also, the Loggers, Indians, and Titans were completely meaningless for the overall proceedings, just as anticipated.

This year, there’s still no hope for the Loggers. The Indians and Titans have a few interesting young players, but it’s not enough by far. The Elks are improved, but not dramatically, and the Raccoons are mostly just a year older. Even if they could replicate the 97-65 finish, with the way the Crusaders kept adding to the roster, the Raccoons would still finish far out. Realistically, there are enough question marks to aging and/or ailing pitchers and the overall offensive production – which was embarrassing again in 2014 – that the Raccoons should be expected to drop back a bit. I see them more in the 90-72 area, and again 15 games out or more.

PLAYER DEVELOPMENT:

The Raccoons system has been ravaged by promotions to the big league roster just as well as through trades, which ultimately proved futile. Last year, we ranked 16th among the 24 teams, with ten prospects ranked in the top 200. 12 months later, the Coons are down to 22nd place with their farm, with lots of players having dropped off the ranks for one reason or another. The following players were ranked for the Raccoons last year but no longer are: #19 Graham Wasserman (traded), #46 Vic Mercado (traded), #56 Tony Viera (traded), #100 Edgar Hernandez (traded), #116 Jason Bergquist (service time), #150 Ernesto Lozano (traded), #188 Gary Dupes (inept), and #199 Danny Margolis (service time);

47th (new) – A SP Ricky Martinez, 20 – 2011 international free agent signed by Raccoons
91st (+23) – AAA SP Jeff Magnotta, 21 – 2012 first round pick by the Raccoons
149th (new) – A SP David Tucci, 23 – 2012 ninth round pick by the Condors, signed as minor-league free agent
163rd (new) – INT OF Ricky Cruz, 19 – international discovery by the Raccoons (Juan Calderón)
168th (new) – AAA MR Francisquo Bocanegra, 25 – international discovery by the Wolves, signed as minor-league free agent
192nd (new) – AA CF Alex Duarte, 21 – 2011 eighth round pick by the Raccoons

No, I can’t draft. Stop asking.

The top 5 overall prospects this year are DEN SP Tommy Weintraub, NAS 1B John Muller, NYC 2B Tony Casillas, TIJ SP Andrew Gudeman, and SAL OF Justin Quinn (last year’s #1).

Next: first pitch.