Huh

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Old Detroit Wolverines	72	43	.622	—	552.6	421.1
Portland Rosebuds	69	47	.599	2.6	590.1	476.9
Brookland Outs	67	47	.591	3.6	601.6	508.4
Canberra Kangaroos	62	52	.541	9.3	519.3	482.0
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	61	52	.539	9.6	587.8	553.7
Cottage Cheese	61	53	.531	10.4	580.9	544.4
Flint Hill Tornadoes	59	56	.512	12.6	517.8	502.3
Kaline Drive	59	56	.509	12.9	516.6	504.0
Haviland Dragons	58	57	.507	13.2	519.6	510.5
Peshastin Pears	54	62	.463	18.3	490.4	531.7
D.C. Balk	48	66	.424	22.7	479.4	561.0

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Old Detroit: W 6, L 0; 47 – 17.  (343 PA, .294, .359, .497; 83.7 ip, 29 er, 3.12 ERA) The W’s started August unbelievably hot at the plate, OPSing over 1.000 all four days. They’ve cooled off some since then, but that raw .855 OPS (.914 in the EFL after allocations) is miraculously high from the Old Detroit point of view.  Ohtani is OPSing 1.400 — that’s not a shocker. But Mallex Smith at 1.177? (I offered him in several trades earlier in the season… whew!) Austin Hedges at 1.131? Nick Ahmed at .994?  Kolten Wong at .974?  Maybe you can see why I still feel this is all tentative and precarious. That 3.12 ERA is pretty sweet, though, especially since it was relatively easy to subtract 5 ip, 5 er from that figure by leaving Clayton Richard inactive, dropping the team ERA most of the way to its 2.62 EFL level.  How are the two Iglesiases doing?  Jose is doing sort of ok: .296, .296, .4o7. But Raisel crashed badly in an early outing (0.3 ip, 3 er) and has had to work hard to get his ERA down to 13.50.

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Portland;  W 4, L 3; 30 – 24. (316 PA, .236, .326, .380; 75.3 ip, 31 er, 3.70 ERA). Mookie Betts is still doing his thing — .375, .500, .667. — but the rest of the lineup is mostly going through the doldrums, especially JT Realmut0 (1 for 23 for an .087 OPS). The pitching is better, with only Sonny Gray struggling over more than one inning (5.7 ip, 7 er).  Fortunately, his kinsman Jon Gray is his teammate now, and his 8 ip, 1 er brings the Gray ERA down to just under 5.50. Can the Rosebuds get back to their roots and recover their EFL lead?  Of course… except…

Brookland: W 6, L 2; 30 – 13. (318 PA, .224, .308, .356; 79.3 ip, 17 er, 1.93 ERA)… except the Outs are even hotter than the Wolverines. They’ve gained a half game on the W’s despite the 2 losses they seem to be carrying. (I am pretty sure I could show you how rounding errors account for this apparent anomaly). Clearly the Outs are riding their pitching during this surge. Bartolo Colon (5.14 ERA) is the only pitcher with an era above 3.38 in August.  Arrieta, Moronta, Oh, Peacock, Robertson and Rodon have contributed a combined 27 scoreless innings. This strikes me as almost as improbable as the W’s sudden hitting prowess.  So we have some interesting things to watch — can the W’s keep hitting so improbably? The ‘Buds regain their June/July form? Or the O’s keep pitching so improbably? One problem for the Outs: they don’t have any players who share the same last name.

Canberra: W 3, L 4; 30 – 39. (313 PA, .246, .313, .394; 59.3 ip, 37 er, 5.61 ERA).  The new standings are great news for the W’s and the O’s, bad news for the Rosebuds, but probably even more discouraging for the Kangaroos.  Canberra has been in the pennant race picture pretty much all season. They had drifted back to 6.2 games out by August 1 — but now, just 8 days later, they find themselves 50% further from the top. Can they pull themselves back into the race?  Paxton’s pitching well right now, as I type this Thursday evening, but has just lost a batter on a very questionable call… bases are now loaded with 2 outs in the bottom of the 6th)…

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Pittsburgh: W 5, L 2; 27 – 15. (241 PA, .241, .303, .406; 59.7 ip, 15 er, 2.26 ERA). The Alleghenys are running their offense pretty lean, with just barely enough PA’s to avoid replacements — if all the allocations were perfectly tuned.  They’re not — a replacement has taken 5 PAs for the A’s at shortstop.  Nevertheless, the Alleghenys ran down the Cheese while we were in the tunnel, and are breathing down the necks of the Kangaroos. JD Martinez is leading the August Allegheny offense with an awesome .462, .517, .885 line. His sidekick is Jurickson Profar (.280, .379, .600).  Adalberto Mejia is anchoring an amazing Allegheny pitching squad with 10 ip, 0 er. Dereck Rodriguez has produced 7 scoreless innings to, and Ryan Borucki 8 more in a series of relief appearances.

… Paxton just gave up 2 runs in the 6th, making it 4 earned runs in 5.7 innings..  Not good news in Canberra. There are still 2 Paxton runners on base… But the relief pitcher got the third out.

Cottage: W 3, L 5; 33 – 45. (263 PA, .230, .304, .443; 52.7 ip, 32 er, 5.47 ERA). Franklin Barreto’s August OPS is 2.500 — but that’s in only 4 plate appearances. Yasmani Grandal, with 26 PA’s and a 1.028 OPS featuring 3 homers.  But the rest of the Cheese hitters leave the team with only mediocre offense. Match that with disappointing pitching, in which only Yonny Chirinos has surrendered an earned run.  He pitched 5 shutout innings, but every other Cottage  pitcher — whether appearing for as little as 1.7 innings or as many as 12.7 — has surrendered at least one run. In fact, all but Jose Alvarado (in 3 innings) have coughed up at least 2 earned runs. In fact, other than Scott Alexander (2 er  in 3.3 ip) , all the rest have hand-delivered at least 3 earned runs… again, when they’ve pitched as few as 1.7 innings.  Here’s what the Cheese need to do: get at least one, and even better both, of their two Diazes into the majors. They were climbing the standings steadily until about July 24, when Yandy Diaz was sent to the minors. Isan Diaz has been there all along.  Correlation isn’t causation, blah, blah, blah — but it also isn’t causation unless it’s correlation, so… huh.

Flint Hill: W 3, L 3; 20 – 20. (213 PA, .219, .291, .328; 55 ip, 17 er, 2.78 ERA).  It’s hard to keep track of the Tornados.  They traded away 12 players for 10 players in the 17 days between July 22 and August 7.   They traded away an entire starting rotation (Paxton, Ray, Bieber, Archer, Gray) and acquired another one (Archer, Urias, Gausman, Sheffield, Espinoza). Every position on the field lost and/or gained a traded player. Put it all together and you get — .500 baseball, about what they’ve been doing all year. Maybe they should open the Barnes door a little wider: Austin has only 6 plate appearances, and Matt only 2 innings pitched.

Kaline: W 3, L 3; 18 – 22. (241 PA, .258, .311, .457; 59 ip, 33 er, 5.03 ERA)  Steve Pearce. Sigh. I traded him away last off-season in a desperate attempt to get some salary cap room for Ohtani.  It worked, but Pearce has been punishing me ever since.  This time it’s because he is the  August offensive leader for the Drive:  .333, .467, 1.333. That’s 4 homers there in that 1.333. 4 homers in 15 plate appearances.  On the other hand Brian Johnson — whom I could have had instead of Ryan Schimpf in return for Pearce and Jorge Soler — pitched 12 innings but allowed 9 earned runs so far in August. There’s been a little too much of that kind of pitching in Kaline this month.

Haviland: W 4, L 2; 29 – 18. (242 PA, .255, .355, .490; 59 ip, 21 er, 3.20 ERA).  The Dragons have had a good opening week in August. Bryce Harper has been his old self : .367, .457, .767.  Yasiel Puig (1.081) and Steven Souza (1.014) have brought their good bats to the plate. Avila, Sano, and Soto have been chipping in at over .900 OPSes.  And the pitching has been great, other than Taylor Williams’ sextuple chulk (0.7 ip, 4 er). Take that out of the Dragon’s pitching stats, and their August ERA drops to 2.62 — which happens to be exactly the Haviland August ERA through August 8. They’re no dummies there in Haviland.

Peshastin: W 5, L 2; 32 – 21. (317 PA, .266, .315, .515; 49 ip, 11 er, 2.02 ERA).  The Pears, I presume, are gearing their draft planning toward having a pick in the middle of the draft, given how their team keeps floating up toward the .500 surface.  This isn’t how the book tells you to do a rebuild, but the Pears are resourceful. If the trio of Gallo (1.386), Diaz (1.185) and Baez (1.121) keep it up, .500 is attainable before the end of the month. And with the highest ERA in the pitching staff being only 5.40 (Wade Miley – no surprise there), the pitching is there for a late season surge, too.

DC: W 4, L 3; 24 – 28. (347 PA, .273, .340, .389; 72 ip, 29 er, 3.62 ERA).  The Balk lead the league in something!  It’s Sacrifice Flies for the month of August, with 3. If they left Kyle Barraclough (2 ip, 7 er) and Alex Wilson (2.7 ip, 4 er) inactive, they’d almost lead the EFL in team ERA with 2.42. A rotation of Bundy, Carrasco, Clevinger, Cobb, and Musgrove would have a 1.88 ERA.  Meanwhile, Andrew Benintendi would lead the B’s in offense with his 1.200 OPS for the month … except utility player Isiah Kiner-Falefa outdid him with a 1.203 OPS!

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AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Boston Red Sox	81	34	.704	—
New York Yankees	71	42	.628	9
Old Detroit Wolverines	72	43	.622	9.5
Flint Hill Tornadoes	59	56	.512	22.1
Tampa Bay Rays	57	57	.500	23.5
Toronto Blue Jays	51	62	.451	29
Baltimore Orioles	35	79	.307	45.5

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Philadelphia Phillies	64	50	.561	—
Atlanta Braves	62	49	.559	0.5
Canberra Kangaroos	62	52	.541	2.3
Washington Nationals	58	56	.509	6
D.C. Balk	48	66	.424	15.7
New York Mets	47	65	.420	16
Miami Marlins	47	69	.405	18

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Cleveland Indians	63	50	.558	—
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	61	52	.539	2.1
Minnesota Twins	53	60	.469	10
Detroit Tigers	47	68	.409	17
Chicago White Sox	41	73	.360	22.5
Kansas City Royals	35	79	.307	28.5

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Brookland Outs	67	47	.591	—
Chicago Cubs	66	48	.579	1.4
Milwaukee Brewers	66	51	.564	2.9
Cottage Cheese	61	53	.531	6.8
St. Louis Cardinals	60	55	.522	7.9
Pittsburgh Pirates	59	56	.513	8.9
Cincinnati Reds	50	65	.435	17.9

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Houston Astros	73	42	.635	—
Oakland A’s	68	47	.591	5
Seattle Mariners	65	50	.565	8
Kaline Drive	59	56	.509	14.4
Haviland Dragons	58	57	.507	14.7
Los Angeles Angels	58	58	.500	15.5
Texas Rangers	51	65	.440	22.5

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Portland Rosebuds	69	47	.599	—
Arizona Diamondbacks	64	52	.552	5.4
Los Angeles Dodgers	63	52	.548	5.9
Colorado Rockies	60	54	.526	8.4
San Francisco Giants	57	58	.496	11.9
Peshastin Pears	54	62	.463	15.7
San Diego Padres	45	71	.388	24.4