Our database has force-marched our teams through 2 games, even though there was only 1 game in MLB on Thursday before a full slate yesterday. More evidence of the injustice of things: MLB team were, on average, saddled with only 1.067 games, while we had to somehow cover 2 games with only 1.067 days of stats.
Some of us felt this injustice that more keenly than others. In fact, SOME of us have profiteered on the pain of OTHERS of us.
For shame! Have you no decency? Not to mention mercy, like the EFL Commissioner had yesterday (see below)?
MLB 1.1, Kaline 0.9
Our league leaders take on the MLB on our behalf this first week of the last 11, and did remarkably well considering the severe disadvantage of playing with barely over half the stats we need. But, of course, the Drive are built for this, with LOTS of active players, hardly any injuries, and the swarming strategy in the Wizard’s allocations. Fourteen batters amassed 73 plate appearances! And they hit creditably: .292, .329, .446, albeit with only 1 homer (by Willi Castro, of all people) and 1 triple (by Ildemaro Vargas). Peter Lambert was the only identifiable pitcher, but he was great: 6 ip, 1 er. There are some replacement innings clogging things up, but those will surely disappear beneath the Driven Swarm.
Cascadia 1.5, D.C. 0.5
Cascadia sent 13 men to the plate for 55 PA, at a pace almost as good as Kaline’s: .255, .309, .451. Wilyer Abreu slugged two homers of his own, and Elly De La Cruz went 4 for 5 with a home run. However, the Glaciers could not match Drive pitching, only getting 1 scoreless inning from Cam Booser.
But that was better than what the Balk got from debutant Gage Jump. The best-looking deb pitcher in last month’s draft had another rough day: 3 2/3 ip, 3 er, 7.30 ERA indelibly recorded in the team’s Week 17 stats. Balkan hitting was about as good as the Glacial version: .250, .333, .417 — but came on less than half the number of PA (27) from only 7 batters. Tyler Soderstrom did hit a dinger to prevent Balkan homerlessness.
Portland 1.4, Flint Hill 0.7
Yesterday at 2:56 P.M. Dave and I got a plaintive note from Flint Hill management, asking for a 30-minute extension on the 5:00 allocation deadline because “I’m in a cabinet meeting until 5 and forgot to do it before 8 when it began.” There was no explanation about why it was impossible to do his allocation in a nine-hour cabinet meeting with people he didn’t really know very well anyway. Hadn’t he just composed and sent us an email amid the hustle and bustle of the cabinet meeting? You KNOW he’d spent a cumulative hour or more staring out at the famously gorgeous Point Loma seaside view. Couldn’t he have used that time more responsibly?
But then I considered Jamie’s sorry state: alone, “like the monk on the road who knows precisely how vulnerable he is, who takes no comfort among death-forgetting men and who carries his vision of vastness and might around in his tunic like a live coal which neither burns nor warms him, but with which he will not part.” (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 275). Even more (p)oignantly, Jamie had to leave the league trophy representing all his EFL vastness and might in Oregon because, he said, it wouldn’t fit in his luggage.
So I had pity and granted him his extension, even though it’s a terrible precedent to set, and I’ll have to do it now anytime someone is in a similar state (ie, resembling California) without the EFL trophy. But I felt it was my only humane choice, since it was too late to get him a tunic with a bigger pocket.
Not that it did him much good. The excellent work of two relievers (Anthony Nunez and Taylor Clarke, of neither one of which i have ever heard, but they still managed to combine for 3 scoreless innings) was undone by a small Royal Chulk by Kyle Hart (1/3 ip, 4 er — a duodecal chulk!). The hitters didn’t stink, but there were only 8 of them, only taking 41 PA at a modest .222, .293, .444 clip — despite Spencer Steer’s 2 homers.
The Rosebuds didn’t pitch all that great, either: a mere 1 2/3 ip, at the cost of 2 earned runs. But their 8 hitters, in their 35 PA, went .310, .429, .517 — a slightly undersized Edgar Martinez Day, featuring home runs by Brandon Valenzuela and Sam Antonacci, and a 3 for 4 day by Jung Hoo Lee. (Note the international richness of that crew of sluggers: Korea, Italy and surely a guy named Valenzuela has to come from Venezuela, right?)
Pittsburgh 1.7, Peshastin 0.3
There wan nothing either poignant or oignant about Pittsburgh’s performance yesterday. Only 1.067 days to amass 2 days of pitching stats? No problemo: three Allegehny starting pitchers all had successful days, compiling 17 innings with only 3 earned runs allowed, Jake Bennett leading the way with 6 scoreless frames. Nine batters could not chase away all the replacements, but they did well with what they had: 39 PA, .273, .385, .424 — despite getting no home runs.
That was more than enough for the Alleghenys to beat the Pears. Te Pears batted as well as the A’s (.268, .362, .488) and in over 20% more volume (47 PA) among 33% more player appearances (12). And they pitched well, too — also holding opposing hitters to 3 earned runs. But, alas, they compiled fewer than half the number of innings (8), so their ERA was more than twice as high (3.38) BEFORE you add in 6 innings of replacements.
Canberra 2.0, Old Detroit 0.0
Here’s proof of the hermetic seal between the Commissioner’s Office and his EFL team: despite the depth of the mercy the Commissioner showed to the Tornados, the Wolverines got crushed between four forces, leaving them battered and beaten on the cellar floor.
We’ve already looked at one of these forces: the huge win by the Rosebuds. Below I’ll discuss another one: the even bigger win by the Dragons — with whom the W’s imagined they were competing for 9th place.
The third force was the Kangaroos. Somehow they got 4 pitchers out there to cover 13 innings — almost two games’ worth — at the cost of only 5 earned runs. Reid Detmers got well over the All-Star Break, or something: 6 ip, 0 er. Two others combined for 6 more innings and 1 earned run, putting the K’s in position to survive Nick Davila’s Mariners-killing quadruple chulk: 1 ip, 4 er. And the Kangaroo hitters did similarly well: 12 of them appearing 53 times and going .267, .358, .422, sparked by a Harry Ford (he’s in the big leagues now?!) home run.
The fourth fatal force was the Wolverine “offense.” 10 batters appeared, putting together 35 plate appearances — and going a microscopic .147, .171, .176. AJ Ewing got all the team’s extra bases when he hit a double, his only hit in 5 ABs. Munetaka Murakami slugged his way to a walk, accounting for all the team’s free passes. Chase Meidroth singled twice, hogging 40% of the teams hits and 33% of their total bases.
It’s all so sad – because the Wolverine pitching staff had a great day. Roki Sasaki went 5 2/3 innings without an earned run. Three relievers added 2 2/3 more innings for only 1 earned run. All that good work got smothered under a blanket of 5 2/3 replacement innings and most of a game’s worth of replacement hitting. Maybe we can still dig out from under that.
Haviland 1.9, Salem 0.1
Dave crowed yesterday about the two home runs Francisco Alvarez hit in Thursday’s lone MLB contest. Corbin Carroll and Bryce Eldridge homered yesterday,,, and that’s about it for the good news in Salem. Besides the 12 PA, ,250, .308, 1.000 produced by those three sluggers, the rest Seraphim of the team went 37 PA, .250, .314, .297. And the pitching was worse: 9 ip 8 er in total, mostly due to Spencer Miles’ 4 ip, 6 er stinker.
The Dragons were opportunistic. They produced a solid 47 PA at a .238, .319 .476 clip, with homers from Ty France and Joey Ortiz, and 3 doubles and a single in 6 PA from Curtis Mead. Landen Roupp went 7 scoreless innings, and Troy Melton chased away all but 1 1/3 of replacements with his own fine 5 2/3 ip, 1 er performance. This not only sank the Seraphim, it waylaid the Wolverines.
