Today’s standings, followed by team summaries, in the reverse order of how well they did yesterday.

Standings after the Great Eclipse of 2024 (games of April 8)

Team	Wins	Losses	WPct	GB
Peshastin Pears	8.52	3.48	.710	0.0
Kaline Drive	7.34	4.66	.612	1.2
Canberra Kangaroos	6.24	5.76	.520	2.3
Haviland Dragons	5.43	6.57	.453	3.1
Salem Seraphim	5.35	6.65	.446	3.2
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	5.20	6.80	.433	3.3
Portland Rosebuds	4.90	7.10	.408	3.6
D.C. Balk	4.01	7.99	.334	4.5
Cascadia Glaciers	3.79	8.21	.316	4.7
Old Detroit Wolverines	2.92	9.08	.243	5.6
Flint Hill Tornadoes	2.78	9.22	.232	5.7

Old Detroit: W -0.09, L 1.09.

Monday was the day the Wolverines would turn the corner, escaping their early suffering when ace Blake Snell finally took the mound. Well, they turned a corner, all right. Snell got in his 72 pitches, good for 3 whole innings… and 3 whole earned runs. The Woeverines got plenty of plate appearances — 39 of them — replacing some replacements with .171, .256, .171 sub-replacements. Then they iced this execrable cake — correction: actually execrated cake — with a caught stealing and a GIDP. They had 3.01 wins to start the day (after 11 games), and now after 12 games they have 2.92. Yay for Blake Snell. He fits right in. The W’s are a millimeter out of last place, but now that Snell is back in action, we’ll cover that gap in the twinkling of an eye.

Portland: W 0.08, L 0.92

The Rosebuds did not repeat the Woeverine mistake of putting all their pitching eggs in one blakey basket. No, they sent out three highly touted pitchers: Mitch Keller, Luis Castillo, and Jesus Luzardo. This Three Aces approach worked much better than the one blakey bloke approach. Keller went 6 innings, allowing only 2 earned runs! Castillo went 5 innings, allowing only 4 earned runs. And Luzardo… well, he only went 4.7 innings, but did give up 7 earned runs. In total: 15.7 ip, 13 earned runs, and a 7.45 ERA that is even better than replacement (7.50 ERA). Plus, the ‘Buds hit better than the Woeverines (.190, .227, .286) and restricted themselves to 22 plate appearances, leaving at least 7 for their replacements to lift their offense a little bit closer to 2.5 rc/g. They forgot to get caught stealing or ground into any double plays, but maybe they’ll remember to check those boxes today. It’s harder than it looks to achieve at the Woeverines’ level.

Flint Hill: W 0.15, L 0.85

Whew! That was close. The Tornados almost got ejected from their … hmm, what’s the opposite of “prominent”? It’s gotta be a word that connotes visibility, but from an abyss rather than a peak. Let’s just say the T’s almost got ejected from last place. They hit poorly — .188, .235, .500 — but with that burst of power (mostly Juan Soto doubling and homering), it is pretty close to achieving replacement level. And besides, they only had 17 plate appearances, so their replacementworthiness was probably reinforced by maybe a dozen actual replacements.

(Julio v. Jose Watch Update: Julio Rodriguez went 0 for 4, a worthy effort. Jose Caballero went 1 for 3. But then he got caught stealing. And after that he hit into a double play. So Julio had the better day.)

Wisely, the Tornados avoided all risk of a pitcher inadvertently lifting the team into 10th place. The Top Tornado did not let any T-ball pitcher take the mound yesterday. Whatever pitching they got was replacement level all the way down. But I have some disturbing news for Tornado management: the way the Woeverines are playing, replacement level play will not come close to ensuring your grip on last place.

Salem: W 0.18, L 0.82

Aaron Ashby is clearly a Snell wannabe. But he’s a little sloppy about it. Instead of a neat 3 innings pitched, Ashby pitched 3.7. And instead of a tidy 3 earned runs allowed, Ashby clumsily allowed 4. However, the result of all that imprecision turned out to be providential, because the Seraphic batters showed none of the parsimonious discipline of the previous three teams, clobbering the ball over 54 plate appearances to the tune of .298, .370, .447! Trea Turner went 3 for 5! Sal Frelick went 2 for 3 with a walk and a hit by pitch!! James Outman had the nerve to hit a home run, and so did someone named DJ Stewart. The tragedy of it all: Ashby’s earnest effort to achieve woeverinian misery, marred by an offensive display of irrational exuberance.

Haviland: W 0.26, L 0.74.

The Dragons hit like they wanted to stay underground in their comfy lair: 41 PA, .184, .244, .184, nicely sub-replacement. I suppose Ezequiel Tovar was the star: he went 2 for 5. But Spencer Turnbull is playing his own game: 6 ip, 0 er. Can he talk the hitters into adopting his overachieving approach? He might want to start with Aaron Judge, who was unable to be content with going 0 for 4. So he threw in a GIDP.

DC: W 0.48, L 0.52

The Balk evidently got queasy yesterday about possibly being associated with the three teams in the muck at the bottom of the pennant race. Their batters went a little crazy: 31 PA, .360, .467, .440. Alex Verdugo led the attack, going 3 for 4 with a double and a walk. DC also got a LOT of pitching. Triston McKenzie’s 5.7 innings sparkled: 0 earned runs. Graham Ashcraft took a different approach: 5.7 ip, 5 er. Reese Olson outdid Ashcraft: 4.3 ip, 6 er. and Juse Cuas triple chulked: 2/3 of an inning, 2 earned runs. Altogether that comes out to a replacement-like 7.31 ERA.

Kaline: W 0.50, L 0.50.

The Wizard of Whidbey is a person of integrity. He says he prefers to be in the middle of the standings, and yesterday he performed in a perfectly middling way. Not middling for the 2024 EFL — the Drive were too good for that. But middling in the sense that the Drive could have served as the hypothetical mean MLB team. They batted .286, .364, .393, with brilliance from Johan Rojas (3 for 4 with a double) perfectly balanced with a clutch of 0-fers. Any excess quality from the hitters was nicely negated by Tyler Holton and Albert Alzolay combining for 1.7 innings and 2 earned runs.

Pittsburgh: W 0.52, L 0.48

If the Alleghenys were striving for perfect mediocrity, they came close but could not match the Drive’s mastery of the craft. The Allegheny hitters under-achieved for that goal, going .194, .268, .306. The Allegheny pitchers were downright good, however, compiling a 3.54 ERA over 12.7 ample innings, featuring Jose Berrios; 6.7 scoreless innings against the hapless Mariners. Zack Eflin put everything back close to balance with his 5 ip, 5 er snellian performance.

Canberra: W 0.89, L 0.11

Now we find ourselves amid some truly dangerous company: teams with ambitions to win, and apparently the brains to make it happen amid the general apocalyptic conditions prevailing in the EFL. First among these intimidating teams come the Kangaroos, who amassed a slightly slender 26 plate appearances, but got hits from all 6 batters. Brandon Nimmo led the way, going 4 for 4 with two home runs and a walk, doing a lion’s share of the work to compile a MASSIVE .417, .462, .875 team batting line! Only 2 pitchers appeared, each pitching 1 inning, and one of them allowing an earned run.

Peshastin: W 0.98, L 0.02

The Pears followed a formula similar to the Kangaroos. Peshastin got even fewer plate appearances (only 18), but made spectacular use of them: .333, .444, .733. Brandon Marsh went 2 for 4 with a homer. James Paxton covered 6 innings for the Pears, allowing only 2 earned runs, as Peshastin extended their lead over the Drive to 1.2 games. With the Drive shifting into a lower gear, and the Kangaroos still a ways off (and not really gaining yet), the Pears may be in for a long tenure in first place.

Cascadia: W 1.08, L -0.08

Finally, we come to the scariest thing I’ve seen in the EFL for a long time: an expansion team, named for notoriously slow moving — literally glacial — ice, which probably for the first time in its management’s entire life, played one game and got more than one win. Having tasted this EFLian elixir, will they be hooked, insatiable, ravenous?

They did it this with 9 innings of excellent pitching, the work of three pitchers who do not have anything like the reputations of those Rosebuds who stank. Abreu, Shuster, and Assad, between them, only gave up 2 earned runs for that beautiful 2.00 ERA.

And then there were the hitters –23 plate appearances is a little short, but you’ll gladly take it if it comes with a .333, .391, .619 slash line, driven most prominently by Elly De La Cruz’s 2 homers and a stolen base as part of a 3 for 4 day.

The Glaciers have glaciated both the defending champion Wolverines and the formerly greatest-EFL-roster-of-all-time Tornados. They are the rubble at the bottom of EFL valley. Our history may be your future, unless someone denies them more sips of the EFLian elixir, and stops the advance of the Glaciers