Last night after 11 pm as I drove my last “fare” home for Dad’s Taxi Service, I listened as the Mariners lost two pitchers to injury in a single inning, two pitches apart. They were just pitching and hurt themselves. No balls struck them, no hitters ran them down on the base paths, no one threw a bat at them. They just threw pitches and got hurt. The M’s lost James Paxton to the DL earlier in the day, then lost two relievers, including one they’d just brought up to replace Paxton on the roster.
Boy do the Woeverines know how they feel. It’s depressing to think your team is a giant maw grinding up pitchers. Depressing because your team sucks, and because of all the pain and discouragement you are inflicting on the people you ask to pitch for you. You cringe at the thought of dooming yet another young man in the prime of his life to climb out of the trenches and face the withering machine-gun fire. Only to lose again, and send for yet another replacement, each less ready than the last to face the enemy.
How gloomy. How discouraging. Is there anything in yesterday’s results to lift our spirits?
EFL Standings for 2017
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Cottage Cheese | 21 | 8 | .717 | — | 175.4 | 110.2 |
| Kaline Drive | 19 | 11 | .640 | 2.1 | 140.9 | 105.7 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 17 | 10 | .632 | 2.7 | 132.1 | 100.5 |
| Peshastin Pears | 18 | 12 | .609 | 3 | 129.5 | 106.7 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 16 | 11 | .587 | 4 | 129.6 | 108.6 |
| Haviland Dragons | 16 | 14 | .542 | 5.1 | 158.1 | 147.0 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 14 | 15 | .473 | 7.1 | 132.1 | 136.7 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 13 | 17 | .436 | 8.2 | 138.0 | 155.8 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 11 | 16 | .411 | 8.7 | 101.1 | 130.1 |
| D.C. Balk | 11 | 18 | .387 | 9.6 | 141.4 | 178.0 |
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Cottage: “W”, 4 – 5. (.250, .289, .389; 7.7 ip, 4 er). It’s nice to see the Cheese putting up fake wins. That means their momentum may be slowing, giving some other team(s) time to get their act(s) together to make a pennant race. Thanks, Cottage, for this small encouragement.
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Kaline: W, (-2) – (-8). (.200, .212, .292; 16.7 ip, 2 er). Thank you, O Wizard, for showing us how it’s possible to repent of our prior misdeeds and receive forgiveness. Our incompetent pitching can be expunged from the record, if we can get 6 pitchers to all have very good days on the same day! We can win, and rise from 4th to 2nd place in a single day, while scoring negative runs! What an inspiration you are! (But about those 6 pitchers: what if you only have 6 who are healthy enough to pitch, and only 2 of them have May ERA’s below 7.20 — counting the one who hasn’t taken the mound yet this month?)
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Flint Hill: L, 4 – 5. (.179, .226, .393; 0 pitching). Umm, what’s encouraging about these daily results, Mr. Tornado? Christian Arroyo’s homer? I guess the idea being there are quality players out there I never paid any attention to in drafts? So all I have to do is pay more attention? But why should I ruin more innocent players’ lives by paying attention to them?
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Peshastin: L, 1 – 5. (.136, .208, .159; 5.7 ip, 2 er). Jackie Bradley Jr’s Pear career is only 16 plate appearances old, and already he has one hit. A single. Plus two walks. His OPS for the Pears is .259. I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to spread pain to the Pears. Is it any consolation that the main guy I got out of that deal — Alex Wood — has a 7.20 ERA for the Woeverines so far?
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Pittsburgh: DNP, (-2) – (-2). (.237, .286, .553; 13.3 ip, 6 er). Cody Bellinger blasted two more homers yesterday, along with a single, in his five plate appearances. Another player I paid (almost) no attention to in the draft. So there are gems still to be found? Or at least, there were, before you found Bellinger?
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Haviland: W (-1), L 2; 2 – 7. (.172, .333, .276; 3.3 ip, 3 er). Hey! Now this is real encouragement: someone had a worse day than the Wolverines!
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Canberra: W, 12 – 5. (.432, .490, .636; 0 pitching). OK, I’m sorry. I apologize to the Chiefest of Calamaties for rejoicing in Dragon suffering. I should try to draw encouragement from others who are doing well. But this positive thinking approach requires me to observe someone doing well… and here they are! The Kangaroos, still rebounding from their close encounter with the EFL cellar, won yesterday by pounding the baseball all over the yard. Chris Davis went 3 for 3 with a homer and a walk. Billy Hamilton went 3 for 4 with a triple, 2 walks and 2 stolen bases. EWIE Mark Reynolds went 2 for 4 with a homer to continue his post-Wolverine renaissance — almost but not quite matching that other famous EWIE, Ryan Zimmerman! So at least I can tell my current fallen Woeverines that there is still hope for them, if they can just stay alive until they can escape from Old Detroit.
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Portland: W, 10 – 4. (.382, .417, .706; 10.7 ip, 5 er). Again, from the depths of the EFL standings — from right in my own neighborhood — a team overcomes! All you need is a hitter OPSin 4.000 (Paul Goldschmidt, 3 for 3 with 2 homers and a walk) and some competent relievers who can shut out the opposition for 4.7 innings after your starter delivers up a sparkling 7.50 perfect replacement for six innings. Which is nice and very uplifting, I’m sure, except my two competent relievers were otherwise occupied yesterday. One was on the DL. The other was on an undercover assignment.
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Old Detroit: L, 6 – 7. (.250, .325, .528; 4.7 ip, 3 er). Francisco Liriano tossed away our chance to get a win by coughing up 3 earned runs in 3.7 ip — a nice replacement-level 7.36 ERA, but at a zillion times the cost. Stealth starter Shane Greene (who got named our 6th starter in the scramble to assemble a healthy “rotation” before the allocation deadline) snuck in a scoreless inning. But that will only draw the attention of the pitching demons, who will find him sooner or later.
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D.C.: W, 10 – 5. (.452 .521, .643; 3 ip, 0 er). ALL around me, teams are succeeding. They score runs in bunches (eight Balks OPSed at least 1.000 yesterday). They limit the damage the other team does. Even Sam Dyson can turn in a scoreless inning once in a while, lowering his season ERA to 13.03. Surely some of their magic dust will rub off on the W’s as they push their way through the crowd toward last place?
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Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2017
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| New York Yankees | 18 | 9 | .667 | — |
| Baltimore Orioles | 18 | 10 | .643 | 0.5 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 17 | 10 | .632 | 0.9 |
| Boston Red Sox | 15 | 14 | .517 | 4 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 15 | 16 | .484 | 5 |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 11 | 16 | .411 | 6.9 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 10 | 19 | .345 | 9 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Washington Nationals | 20 | 9 | .690 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 14 | 15 | .473 | 6.3 |
| New York Mets | 13 | 15 | .464 | 6.5 |
| Miami Marlins | 12 | 16 | .429 | 7.5 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 12 | 16 | .429 | 7.5 |
| Atlanta Braves | 11 | 16 | .407 | 8 |
| D.C. Balk | 11 | 18 | .387 | 8.8 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 16 | 11 | .587 | — |
| Minnesota Twins | 15 | 12 | .556 | 0.8 |
| Detroit Tigers | 15 | 13 | .536 | 1.3 |
| Chicago White Sox | 15 | 13 | .536 | 1.3 |
| Cleveland Indians | 15 | 13 | .536 | 1.3 |
| Kansas City Royals | 10 | 18 | .357 | 6.3 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Cottage Cheese | 21 | 8 | .717 | — |
| Chicago Cubs | 16 | 13 | .552 | 4.8 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 15 | 14 | .517 | 5.8 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 14 | 14 | .500 | 6.3 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 15 | 15 | .500 | 6.3 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 13 | 16 | .448 | 7.8 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Houston Astros | 20 | 10 | .667 | — |
| Kaline Drive | 19 | 11 | .640 | 0.8 |
| Haviland Dragons | 16 | 14 | .542 | 3.8 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 15 | 16 | .484 | 5.5 |
| Seattle Mariners | 13 | 17 | .433 | 7 |
| Texas Rangers | 13 | 17 | .433 | 7 |
| Oakland A’s | 12 | 17 | .414 | 7.5 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Peshastin Pears | 18 | 12 | .609 | — |
| Colorado Rockies | 18 | 12 | .600 | 0.3 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 18 | 13 | .581 | 0.8 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 16 | 14 | .533 | 2.3 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 13 | 17 | .436 | 5.2 |
| San Diego Padres | 12 | 19 | .387 | 6.8 |
| San Francisco Giants | 11 | 19 | .367 | |
You know, you sound an awful lot like that gloomy guy from Salem that used to hang around this league. From about 2011-2016. He was always feeling bad for ruining so many budding MLB careers by simply drafting them. He even wrote laments – a level to which you have already sunk, I believe. I guess our league must always have its Eeyore.
Hmmm. And did the league used to have a guy whose team was lodged at or near the top of the standings, who tended to be annoyingly cheerful all the time? Who seemed to have trouble summoning empathy for the sufferings of others?
A family systems theorist is probably nodding knowingly somewhere. “Of course” he’s saying to himself. “Systems, once stable, tend to always fill their key roles somehow.”
I’d better enjoy the view from 2nd place while it lasts. My best pitcher is on the DL, though there is still Fulmer. Zunino got sent down; that should help. Replacement innings at C wd b an improvement. The Drive has never been this high before after opening day. Our quest has always been for middle-ocrity. And who knew recent acquisition, Gamel wd do this well. Enjoying it for now.