The Seven-Story Mountain

EFL Standings for 2016

Haviland: W 2, L (-1); 12 – 3. (.375, .444, .688;  7.3 ip, 2 er). Last year the Pears traded some key good player away to the Dragons in July. I forget who that was, but it ended up sinking the Wolverines’ chances. This year the Pears traded Trevor Story to the Dragons — and Story just went 2 for 3 with 2 homers and a walk.  Sinking the Wolverines’ chances again.  You’d think this pattern would, over time, enrich the Pears and the impoverish the Dragons.  I’m waiting.

Old Detroit:  DNP,  2 – (-2).  (.344, .364, .563;  6 ip, 1 er). Just before bed last night I checked the W’s numbers from yesterday’s games. The first really good day of the month!  It felt good to expect to gain on the Dragons in the morning’s standings.  Little did I know the Dragons were already lying in wait to snatch my ice cream cone.

Portland: DNP, 0 – 0. (.273, .333, .394;  5 ip, 2 er).  Do you see the trend? The Dragons have outstanding hitting and pitching.  The Wolverines got very good hitting and pitching, but still lost ground in the standings. Now here come the Rosebuds with only middling hitting and fair pitching… and they lost ground even worse. AND their Salvador Perez dealt the final blow to the Mariners last night, sending them to their 4th straight loss and another date with .500.

Pittsburgh: L, 4 – 7.  (.179, .258 .464; 1.7 ip 1 er).  The trend continues, bringing the Alleghenys in with crummy pitching and hitting.

Canberra:  L, 5 – 6.  (.353, .353, .824;  1.7 ip, 2 er).  Here the trend stops — sort of. Kangaroo pitching was twice as bad as the A’s, but the hitting was twice as good.  There wasn’t enough of either one to cover an entire game, though.sss). The  Pears hit like the Dragons but pitched like the Alleghenys, sort of.  Still, they padded their lead over the hated Cheese by 0.3 games, so it has to be counted as a good day.

Peshastin: (.370, .414, .852; 0.3 ip, 0 er).  I ran a little experiment.  With Trevor Story in their lineup, the Pears would have hit .370, .414, .852  — the best hitting line of the day in the entire EFL.  Without Story, they drop to .333, .360, .625:  outstanding to a Wolverine, but merely good to most people.   Oh well.

Cottage:  L, (-1) – 3.  (.162, .200, .405;  6 ip, 2 er).  The Cheese sort of stank at the plate, but tried to make up for it with volume: 44 plate appearances on a Thursday’s light MLB schedule!  It didn’t really work.

Flint Hill:  DNP, (-1) – (-6). (.174, .269, .217;  22 ip, 5 er). The Tornados adopted side B of the Cheese’ approach:  a modest amount (26 plate appearances) of crummy hitting, and a lot of great pitching.

Kaline: W, 12  – 4.  (.360, .500, .600;  9.7 ip, 4 er).  James Paxton went 8 strong innings for the Drive, just like he did for the Mariners, completing the first 7 in 58 pitches and leaving the game ahead, 3- 2.  In both games a reliever stank it up, allowing 2 earned runs.  But in the Drive’s game, the team had already tacked on 9 insurance runs, led by former M’s Brad Miller (2 for 3 with a homer and walk) and Michael Saunders (2 for 4 with a double and a walk). So Paxton got the win with Kaline, but not Seattle.  Good job, Kaline!  You’re a better team than the M’s right now.

DC:  L, 2 – 7. (.217, .217, .304;  6.3 ip, 4 er.)  The Twins have gone on a tear lately, winning three in a row and 6 of 10 and leaving the Balk in 40th place, almost a game behind the Braves. This is one thing about the EFL — it’s a lot harder to run off win streaks (and losing ones, too) to change the race in a hurry. So that power resides unilaterally with our MLB competitors.