The same 5 EFL teams that won Monday won again on Tuesday. To the detriment of the Dragons’ lead.

Standings: Week 11, Game 2 (June 4. 2024)

Team	Wins	Losses	WPct	GB
Haviland Dragons	35.15	26.85	.567	0.0
Portland Rosebuds	34.34	27.66	.554	0.8
Canberra Kangaroos	33.47	28.53	.540	1.7
D.C. Balk	32.19	29.81	.519	3.0
Peshastin Pears	31.95	30.05	.515	3.2
Cascadia Glaciers	30.91	31.09	.499	4.2
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	30.18	31.82	.487	5.0
Flint Hill Tornadoes	29.01	32.99	.468	6.1
Salem Seraphim	28.92	33.08	.466	6.2
Kaline Drive	24.88	37.12	.401	10.3
Old Detroit Wolverines	17.39	44.61	.280	17.8

MLB 1.12 v. Haviland (-0.12)

So much for EFL solidarity. Every other team in the EFL is discreetly celebrating this morning. having gained on Haviland Tuesday as middling MLBers thumped the Dragons. Haviland hitters showed up in droves (as long a “drove” is less than 6): 10 of them compiled 39 PA into a .171, .256, .229 sub-replacement batting line. Aaron Judge went 2 for 3 with a walk but apparently hadn’t eaten a proper breakfast, since he only managed a double. Seth Lugo needed a better breakfast, too, so he could do better than 6 ip, 5 er.

Portland 0.60 v. Salem 0.40

Half the other teams’ celebrations are muted by the fact that they have now lost two days in a row. For most of the other half, today’s celebration is muted because they didn’t win as big today as they did yesterday. Both of these trends apply to Portland and Salem. Portland’s comparatively worse performance can be laid at the feet of the Rosebud hurlers, who hurled 11.7 innings, but surrendered 13 earned runs. The worst culprit was chulker Jesus Luzardo (4.3 ip, 9 er). Rosebud hitters strove valiantly to compensate, and largely succeeded: .261, .358, .457 in 53 PA.

Salem did much better than Monday. Ryan Pepiot pitched ok (6 ip, 3 er) but the biggest boost came from the offense (.250, .333, .625) led by Masyn Winn’s 3 for 3 with a homer, a walk, and a stolen base. Salem could have won the day, but their 7 hitters only amassed 18 PA — three of them only achieving 1 plate appearance a piece.

Canberra 0.99 v. Cascadia 0.01

For the second day in a row, Canberra came within a hair of a true 1.000 winning percentage. Kangaroo hitting was solid: .297, .372, .432 (albeit undermined a bit by getting caught stealing twice in three attempts). Kangaroo pitching was also solid: 7 ip 3 er, thanks to 2.3 scoreless innings in relief. These “merely” solid stats look lustrous compared to the swoon besetting the Glaciers: .121, .171, .242 hitting and 3.3 ip, 5 er. Ex-Wolverine Nate Pearson chulked (1 ip, 2 er) while Yuki Matsui infinitely chulked (0 ip, 3 er) to reduce the Glaciers to a few shavings of ice melting in the bottom of a paper cup on a hot rock in the outback.

Old Detroit 0.56 v. DC 0.44

The Wolverines didn’t dominate, of course: they are still the Wolverines. They did get 27 plate appearances (from 7 hitters), but they were weak efforts: .130, .259, .304, the big hit being Josh Bell’s triple, to go with his double. (Beware: Bell is batting .414, .455, 624 over his last 7 games. He keeps that up, and all bets are off!). Meanwhile Jared Jones was tossing 6 scoreless innings (against the Dodgers!).

If it hadn’t been for all the replacement PA the W’s are carrying, they might have emulated the Kangaroos. The Balk pitched poorly: 9.7 innings, 10 runs allowed — but luckily for them, 4 of those runs were unearned. They batted ok: .250, .318, .400 — but more importantly, with AMPLE plate appearances (44). But with a second day on the short side of the stick, DC is wondering whatever happened to the Wolverine Elevator.

Peshastin 0.54 v. Pittsburgh 0.46

The Pears pulled out the closest win of the day, with sparkling pitching (6 ip, 0 er) and loud hitting (.281, .343, .688). Former Wolverine Colin Rea anchored the pitching with 4 scoreless innings. Bobby Witt, Jr. and (technically) former Wolverine Ryan Mountcastle highlighted the offense, each smashing two home runs. Very exciting!

Even with all that great Pear play, Pittsburgh might have prevailed had Profar performed. But he didn’t, at least not much: only 1 for 4. The lineup still managed to assemble 61 PA going .254, .279, .407, thanks to the return to action of Luis Robert Jr.: 2 for 4 with a homer. Luis Gil pitched 6 shutout innings, nicely complementing Kyle Harrison’s 6 ip, 3 er.

Kaline 0.76 v. Flint Hill 0.24

Having had their own dissatisfactions with the Wolverine Elevator’s unreliability last week, the Drive are taking their frustrations out on the Tornados. Zack McKinstry was individually dominant (a triple and a homer in 4 PA), but otherwise Kaline’s output yesterday was solid but not in the abstract dominant: .265, .341, .500 from the plate, 6 ip, 3 er from the mound.

In the concrete context of yesterday, however, that was enough to take the wind out of the Tornados. The T’s sent six pitchers to the mound, got 10.7 innings out of them, at the cost of only 3 earned runs. (Chris Flexen was the anchor to that effort: 5 ip, 1 er, sort of the Josh Bell of pitchers yesterday). But ELEVEN Tornado hitters producing 40 plate appearances only managed a .125, .300, .125 slash line.