(Saturday’s news late on Sunday evening)
In past ice ages, who benefited?
Well, ice, of course. They’re called “ice age” for a reason.
But also the mammals who out-adapted the lizards who used to rule the world.
Plants and mountains sort of came out even. Not individual species of plants so much as the plant kingdom in general. And there have always been mountains. They’ve been around practically forever. Ice ages added some mountains as the glaciers bulldozed the surface around. But by the same token, they leveled some mountains, too, by scraping away at them.
Kaline 0.9, Salem 0.2. Kaline leads the series, 2.7 – 0.3.
The Drive may be immune to ice ages, as they are an intangible concept. On the other hand, “drive” differs from “pressure” or “movement” because it implies intent. If your car is moving while you are awake and in control, it is being driven. But if you are unconscious at the wheel — or if there is no one at the wheel 1 –it is just moving, even if it ends up in the same place.
Our Drive don’t appear to be moving at random. Random movement can’t produce the eons over which the Drive have led our standings. They were out in front of all of us again Saturday, even more than they did Friday — in fact, by the most they have since June 26.
This didn’t happen by accident. They compiled 66 PA in a single day: an astonishing number they reach with regularity. All those PA produced an Edgar Martinez Day: .304, .409, .571. Four homers provided key framework for their success (Henry Bolte, Jac Caglianone, Willi Castro, Dominic Smith). It was enough for a big win even though only one pitcher produced only 1 inning at the cost of only 1 earned run.
Seraphim are depicted in mammal form in our mammalian art, although I don’t know of any evidence that they are actually mammals. In this ice age, they seem to be clearly non-warm blooded. Their pitchers could not rouse out of their torpor enough to even walk to the mound. Their batters are not entirely torpid: they batted 47 times and had a better-than-replacement effect: .250, .298, .386.
Cascadia 0.5, MLB 0.5. Cascadia leads the series, 1.6 – 1.4.
We’ll know we’ve entered an Ice Age if the Glaciers can ever find a way to get past the Drive. This is a hard week to make progress, since this is the Glaciers’ turn to face the relentless, faceless, golem MLBers. 2 Glacial batters were kind of sluggish Saturday, turning a giant berg of 59 PA into a respectable-but-not-overwhelming .232, .271, .446 slash line. Three homers spruced things up (Nico Hoerner, Ronald Acuna Jr,, Javier Sanoja). Yoshinobu Yamamot allowed 3 earned runs in 8 innings, Walker Buehler did the same more efficiently in 4 1/3 innings and four other pitchers amassed 7 1/3 more innings at the cost of 2 er for a daily ERA of 3.65.
Not bad, but only good enough to stay even with exactly average performances by exactly average MLBers. Their implacability is their ice-age-proofsuper power.
Canberra 1.2, Flint Hill (-0.2). Canberra leads the series, 2.8 – 0.2.
The Kangaroos are mammals. And their stunning rise is the kind of thing that goes with advancing ice ages. The ‘Roos were in 10th place as recently as June 23, and in 8th place continuously from June 24 to the All-Star break on July 12 when they were 12.4 games out of first, 8.4 games under .500. Saturday the ‘Roos moved into 5th place, 3 games over .500, and only 7.8 games out of first. In a span of 15 games they gained 11.4 games on .500 and 4.6 games on first place. In the process they ose 3 places in the standings.
The ‘Roos have 51 games left in the season. If they keep up this pace, they’ll be at least 6 games up in first place, 36 games above .500 , and at least 9 places higher in the standings.
Yesterday was typical of this explosion of mammalian influence. Ten Kangaroos batted, using 43 plate appearances to go a ridiculous .278, .452, .919. There were four home runs (Kevin McGonigle, Luke Kaeschall, and two by Ceddane Rafaela). ‘
There were no marsupial pitchers. But that didn’t stop the ‘Roos from romping over the Tornados, stealing two-tenths of one of the wins the T’s had in hand. Even though the Tornados hit very well, too (44 PA, .302, .318, .558) with three home runs of their own (Spencer Jones, Geraldo Perdoma, Chase DeLauter). And even though the T’s got 12 1/3 innings of pitching! (But they allowed 11 earned runs, which didn’t help matters any from the Tornado point of view).
Peshastin 0.8, Portland 0.2. Peshastin leads the series, 2.1 – 0.9.
Ice ages aren’t good news for either Pears or Rosebuds, but at least this week our two plant species got to have their owns series, relatively insulated from the suddenly colder weather. Or so one would think, but the Pears suffered from some frost damage to their offense (.39 PA, .147, .256, .147). The Pear pitchers were unaffected by any cold weather, four of them combining for 7.3 ip and 2 er.
The story for the Rosebuds was pretty similar: weak offense (26 pa, .136, .231, .136) — no extra base hits, either! Rosebud pitchers may also have been pinced by the chilly weather: 5 2/3 ip, 3 er.
Old Detroit 1.3, Pittsburgh (-0.3). Old Detroit leads the series, 2.7 – 0.3
Lucas Erceg had another bad day for the Wolverines Toledo Mud Weasels: 1 ip, 0 er. But the other two Old Detroit relievers covered 1 2/3 scoreless innings. And that was all that was needed, as eleven W hitters took 46 plate appearances, and produced .375, .444, .775 offense. The W’s had FIVE home runs: Wyatt Langford, Randy Arozarena, but also the usually overlooked Freddy Fermin. Hunter Goodman blased the other two.
The Alleghenys were the victims this time. Their seven batters only managed 27 PA of .200, .29, .280 offense. Connor Prielipp got through 5 1/3 innings while allowing 3 earned runs for a 5.09 ERA. This lowered their altitude enough to allow the Kangaroos to leap over them into 5th place.
Haviland 1,0, DC 0.0. Haviland leads the series, 2.9 – 0.1.
The Dragons challenged our “Coming Ice Age” approach to Saturday’s results. Dragons are not mammals. They have scales rather than hair.. They are not warm-blooded.
BUT: on some days they go well-beyond warm bloodedness to become fire-breathing.
Haviland’s ten hitters sharing 34 plate appearances producing .273, .294, .394 is closer to “respectable” than it is to “fire-breathing.” But Noah Shultz putting up 5 strong innings with 1 earned run does sound pretty cool.
In a good way.
DC wasn’t in as happy a place, even though Shane Baz shone: 6 1/3 ip, 1 er. Daniel Susac and Tyler Soderstrom both shone a little bit, each hitting a single and a double. But that was mostly it for the .34 Balk’s plate appearances and .212, .206, .273 slash line.
—
