No one answered my quiz yesterday, so I am keeping the prize: Mark Vientos. Of course, he injured himself within a couple of hours of being touted as a prize, which naturally undercut people’s interest. Especially as Vientos is likely out for the season, which marks him as a true Wolverine through-and-through. It would be a shame to remove him from his natural habitat while he’s injured.

However: in my 4 decades of teaching, I don’t think I ever gave a quiz and had no one answer it. I’m flummoxed. I don’t know what to do. Should I give in to the terrorists and cancel the quiz? Should I give everyone an F on the assignment? Or should I just flunk everyone on the spot? Any suggestions are welcome.

MLB 0.7, Kaline 0.3. MLB leads the series, 2.6 – 1.4.

The Drive refused to pitch. Why bother? They had 15 hitters ready to go! They made 57 PA’s, Ben Rice homered twice, and even Willi Castro hit a home run. What could go wrong?

Well… they could bat .196, 281, .412 despite the three dingers.

MLB 0.6, Cascadia 0.4. MLB leads the series, 3.1 – 0.9.

Maybe some of the Drive’s sluggishness is because they are not getting enough pressure from the Glaciers. Cascadia probably thought they were doing plenty to pressure the Drive yesterday,with Jesus Luzardo and Cam Booser combining to pitch 8 2/3 innings while allowing only 1 earned run. The hitting wasn’t spectacular (45 PA, .293, .356, .390) but it looked good enough to get a win. But it didn’t. Why not?

Perhaps because, like yesterday, the Glaciers got burnt by having made wrong choices while trying to fine-tune playing time allocations. Luisangel Acuna got two more PA at AAA Walla Walla, where is single and stolen base helped the farm team. Even bigger this time: Nolan Schanuel went 4 for 4 with two doubles and a walk for the Walla Walla squad, too. The players playing in Cascadia for the big league team were left with a .200, .250, .257 slash line.

Another data point for the Wizard’s Swarm strategy.

Flint Hill 0.9, MLB 0.1. Flint Hill leads the series, 3.7 – 0.3.

Flint Hill got 6 excellent innings, 5 from Janson Junk (for 1 earned rnun) and one scoreless from Hunter Gaddis. They were not overflowing with offense, getting only 8 men to the plate and for 33 PA, and slashing .185, .303, .407. Home runs by Chase DeLauter and Jordan Walker helped build a dominant win.

MLB 0.7, Peshastin 0.3. MLB leads the series, 3.3 – 0.8.

The Pears pared the pitching all the way down to zero. They almost got away with it, sending 9 men to the plate for 34 PA and belting out a .261, .500 .565 slash line, with 11 free passes (7 walks, 4 HBP) and home runs from familiar sources: Juan Soto and Junior Caminero. Unfortunately, taking on 7 full innings of replacements delayed the delivery of most of the win the Pears earned until their live pitching erases all those replacement innings.

DC 0.5, MLB 0.5. DC leads the series, 2.7 – 1.3.

The Balk mostly did their Balking at the plate yesterday: two too many batters balked at batting, leaving D.C. with only 7 hitters. The ones that showed up were rather balky, too: going only 24 PA at a .091, .167, .227 pace. Patrick Bailey got one of the two hits, and made it be a home run — plus he took a walk — to account for half the team’s batting average, 2/3 of the teams’ OBP, and 4/5 of the team’s total bases. Bailey was famously an early first round pick in the Rookie Draft a few seasons ago; this kind of offense was probably what the Balk brain trust had in mind.

Salem 0.7, MLB 0.3. MLB leads the series, 2.9 – 1.1.

The Seraphim pulled themselves together Thursday and stuck most of a loss on their MLB foes. Gavin Williams (7 ip, 2 er) and Aaron Ashby (1 scoreless inning) picked up Anthony Kay, who maybe didn’t really need it ( 5 1/3 inning, 2 er), to produce a daily ERA of 2.71. Seraphic hitters had a good day, too: 35 PA, .290, .371, .419, with a homer, a single, and two walks from Bryce Eldridge.

MLB 1.0, Pittsburgh 0.0. The series is tied, 2.0 – 2.0.

Merrill Kelly tried to help Pittsburgh beat the MLB — he REALLY tried, pitching 7 innings and allowing only 1 earned run to score. But two things decisively hindered him, dumping the Alleghenys back into seventh place and surrendering their lead in their series against MLB:

• having to pitch half of those innings in the minors due to his 50% allocation this week, and
• the A’s weak offense: 38 PA, .121, .211, .152. Ozzie Albies’ double and walk count as the offense’s highlight of the day,

MLB 0.8, Canberra 0.2. Canberra leads the series, 2.1 – 1.9.

Is Reid Detmers going through a slump? Or have I not noticed some recent Determs gems? Yesterday was not a gem: 4 ip 5 er, Logan Henderson did better ( 5 1/3 ip, 3 er) and three relievers added 3 1/3 scoreless innings, but the resulting daily 5.71 ERA was still a significant weight for the ‘Roos to carry. Especially while the offense was committing 35 PA to a .100, .229, .233 slash line, in which the highlight was Austin Wells’ home run and walk in 5 PA.

Haviland 1.0, MLB 0.0. Haviland leads the series, 3.5 – 0.5

You don’t have to dominate from both the mound and the plate to take an entire win. But if you only get one inning of shutout pitching, as the Dragons did yesterday, you’d better be ready to go all Edgar Martinez Day from the plate, as the Dragons also did yesterday. Their 7 hitters managed 29 PA and a .375, .483, .542 slash line. Of those 7, four got two hits, and Jake Bauers made one of his a home run, and also walked.

MLB 1.0, Old Detroit 0.0. Old Detroit leads the series, 2.1 – 1.9.

Old Detroit left the door wide open for the Dragons to climb to 9th place and shove the W’s back to 11th, producing ineffective pitching (3 1/3 ip, 3 er) and hitting (38 PA, .188, .297, .281. Randy Arozarena hit a home run and walked twice to provide some glimmer of winning ability in two losing causes (the W’s and the M’s).

MLB 0.7, Portland 0.3 . Portland leads the series, 2.1 – 2.0

Griffin Canning didn’t spoil the “Buds'” bid for a win. He went 4 2/3 innings at the cost of only 2 er, a 3.83 ERA for the outs he covered. Some relievers would have helped. If only the offense had been bigger! More players (than the five who batted), more PA (than 15), and more hitting (than the .200, .200, .467 they put out there.) Bobby Witt Jr’s home run added the only spiff to an otherwise featureless offense.

MLB 6.4, EFL 4.6. EFL leads the series… barely: 22.3, MLB 21.7.