We talk about power hitters, but pitchers have a superpower hitters lack. Fielders maybe, but not hitters. Brandon Pfaadt made this clear to me yesterday.
Standings
| Team | Wins | Losses | WPct | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Haviland Dragons | 90.89 | 59.11 | .606 | 0.0 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 90.39 | 59.61 | .603 | 0.5 |
| Peshastin Pears | 80.83 | 69.17 | .539 | 10.1 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 78.98 | 71.02 | .527 | 11.9 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 73.95 | 76.05 | .493 | 16.9 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 73.85 | 76.15 | .492 | 17.0 |
| Salem Seraphim | 72.88 | 77.12 | .486 | 18.0 |
| D.C. Balk | 67.32 | 82.68 | .449 | 23.6 |
| Cascadia Glaciers | 65.73 | 84.27 | .438 | 25.2 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 60.74 | 89.26 | .405 | 30.2 |
| Kaline Drive | 56.29 | 93.71 | .375 | 34.6 |
Please forgive me for recapping these results in an improper order. The key event, the one that explains today’s big fat insight, happened in the Tornado/Wolverine matchup.
The mammals had been dominating the week. Even after the Kangaroos and Wolverines had been slowed down a bit on Friday, the top three teams for the week were:
Wolverines: 4.47 – 0.53
Dragons: 4.30 – 0.70
Kangaroos: 4.29 – 0.71
We could still think in terms of the dawning of a new geological era — the Age of the Mammals — even though the Dragons were mixed in there. After all, a distinctive mark of mammaldom is warmbloodedness. And there is no animal more warm-blooded than a dragon, which makes them sort of honorary mammals.
But all that is gone now. The top three in the Week 25 standings today are:
Alleghenys: 4.60 – 1.40
Balk: 4.49 – 1.51
Dragons: 4.47 – 1.53
Rocks, rule violations, dragons. Not a mammal in sight! They’ve fallen. The mammals have fallen! And they’ve almost dragged the Draggins down with them.
And it’s all one man’s fault. One pitching man.
Flint Hill: 1.77 [2.30 – 3.70] v. Old Detroit: (-0.77) [3.70 – 2.30]
Everything was going great for mammals in the EFL. On Saturday the Wolverine mammals hit like mighty beasts: .395, .425, .579. Colt Keith (a mammal himself!) led the way, going 3 for 4. Or maybe it was Victor Robles (also a mammal!) (2 for 5, 2 doubles, 2 stolen bases). Even the slothish mammal Josh Bell went 2 for 3. The W’s were on the way to another huge W.
Until Brandon Pfaadt took the mound. Mr. Pfaadt, a mammal but evidently disloyal to his genus, massively chulked: 1.7 ip, 8 er. One player, not doing his job for just 5 outs, undid all that great work by a dozen Wolverine hitters, spread out over 23 outs. Only a pitcher who allows batter after batter to reach base safely – or a fielder who makes a dozen errors in a single game, but they never do that! — can singlehandedly negate so much great work.
That opened the door to disaster. Naturally, disaster waltzed right in, in the form of Tornados who hit pretty well themselves (.308, .349, .513) with Donovan Solano (who I had all along thought was a mammal!) going 4 for 5 with 3 doubles.
The mammals might have survived even so, but the T’s had another Trick: outstanding pitching, and LOTS of it: 20.3 innings pitched, 3 earned runs allowed. Joe Musgrove ( I’m pretty sure musgroves are mammals!) led the way with 6 shutout innings.
Portland: 1.04 [1.75 – 4.25] v. Canberra: (-0.04) [4.25 – 1.75]
Clearly the W’s big Pfaadt L was a disaster. But perhaps mammaldom could have been saved if the Kangaroos could hold their ground. Mammals are tough, but also cute, and part of what makes them cute is their empathy. They are affected by others’s pain. Disasters (including Tornados) are not empathetic. They never even notice others’ pain. This gives them the kind of impervious relentlessness our Tornados showed against the W’s.
The news about the fall of the Wolverines hit the Kangaroos hard, as it would to any mammal. But the Rosebuds are not mammals. They are plants. Cruel plants, in that they draw you in with their beauty and then stick their thorns in you. As they did to the vulnerable ‘Roos Saturday.
Canberra did not have a bad day. They hit ok (.275, .341, .375). They pitched well, thanks to Nick Martinez’ 6 ip, 1 er. But they got sliced up by the ‘Buds, who had a Happy Edgar Martinez Day (.357, .463, .554). Despite pitching unimpressively (14 ip, 9 er), the cruel flowers got more than a win against the Kangaroos, who were (I’m not making this up) distracted while sending condolences to Wolverine management. (The condolences were not about Brandon Pfaadt, but they were still condolences.)
The Rosebuds not only won, they cut the Dragons’ lead over them by almost 2/3.
Haviland: 0.17 [4.47 – 1.53] v. Peshastin: 0.83 [1.53 – 4.47]
As I mentioned, the Dragons aren’t technically mammals, but they do share warm-bloodedness, which I have linked here to empathy. Dragons don’t traditionally let their grasp of people’s feelings deflect their cruel intentions, but that may have happened in this case. Otherwise it’s hard to explain how Dragons could lose in an athletic contest against Pears.
But lose they did. The Dragons batted ok — .273, .333, .485 — not bad for empathetic beings observing the sufferings of Wolverines and Kangaroos. But they couldn’t muster more than token, 2/3 of an inning effort at pitching. So the Pears were free to roll around the bases, going .343, .419, .600. Peshastin sealed their win with fine pitching: 13 2/3 innings, 6 earned run — even though Valente Bellozo had an off-day (5.3 ip, 3 er).
Pittsburgh: 0.75 [4.60 – 1.40] v. Kaline: 0.25 [1.40 – 4.60]
The Alleghenys, of course, have hearts of stone. With tragedy happening all around them, they were implacable. Well, maybe not their hitters — there was some reason they went only .183, .269, .233. But the one Allegheny pitcher was a one-man wrecking machine. In Jose Berrios’ case, he wreaked his wreckage by being excellent: 7 ip, 1 er.
The Drive incorporeal, and showed it while hitting .273 .429, .455, not a bit deflected by others’ suffering. Their manager, however, is a certified Wizard, and thus human, and thus humane, and thus too moved by others’ suffering to even send more than one pitcher out there, or make him pitch more than 2/3 of an inning (scorelessly). That wasn’t enough to contain the stony-hearted Alleghenys.
Salem: 0.66 [1.51 – 4.49] v. DC: 0.34 [4.49 – 1.51]
Have I been unfair to the Seraphim? No, they are not mammals. But might they be moved mightily by mammalian suffering? Look– they could barely move their bats, going only .172, .219, .276. And they could hardly lift their arms, pitching just 2 innings and allowing 3 earned runs. A 13.50 ERA is only a dim echo of the W’s Pfaadt 42.50 Saturday ERA, but it does resonate.
But the Seraphim still won the day! This is because the Balkans batted even worse (.114, .162, .114) and couldn’t even pick up a ball on the mound. But of course! DC is officially incorporeal: the Balk. But I have occasionally called them Balkans, and Balkans are actual human beings! So of course empathy courses through their veins.
And here is a scintilla of hope: we have snuck humans into the Week 25 list of leaders, disguised in their incorporeality cloaks as mere rule violations.
Cascadia: 0.71 [2.42 – 3.58] v. MLB
If any EFL team can match the stoniness of Allegheny hearts, it might be the icy-hearted Glaciers, who, undeflected by empathy, went out there and gave the MLB a sound beating. Not with bats, mind you, their hearts aren’t stones, so they melted enough to go easy at the plate: .182, .294, .295. But Chris Flexen clearly was undeflexed: 5 shutout innings kept the MLB away for another day.
