The Balk show how it’s done… (are you listening, Woeverines?)

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Portland Rosebuds	101	53	.653	—	858.3	609.6
Old Detroit Wolverines	97	57	.633	3.1	771.1	580.5
Canberra Kangaroos	86	68	.557	14.7	703.1	630.6
Brookland Outs	84	69	.551	15.7	793.4	721.0
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	83	70	.545	16.6	816.8	750.5
Flint Hill Tornadoes	81	73	.525	19.7	728.4	686.4
Haviland Dragons	77	76	.501	23.3	739.5	730.6
Cottage Cheese	73	80	.480	26.6	730.4	757.4
Kaline Drive	72	81	.468	28.4	667.6	713.5
Peshastin Pears	72	82	.466	28.7	666.2	713.7
D.C. Balk	70	84	.456	30.3	663.8	731.5

Portland: W, 11 – 6. (60 PA, .380, .467, .560;  23.7 ip, 17 er, 6.46 ERA) One hundred wins wasn’t enough, somehow. They had to get 101. And this is the EFL — the Rosebuds have only 8 games left to play, but with the possibility of negative losses, they could get to 110.  The EFL record of 115 is probably safe, even though the ‘Buds seem to be accelerating as they near the end of the racetrack.  Much of this is due to Tommy Pham (2 for 3 with a triple and two walks Friday), about whom I will write more on another day when I can stand it.

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Here are their monthly winning percentages so far:

April:               .511

May:               .621

June:              .717

July:               .547

August:          .799

September:   .764

Usually the more you do of something, the more reliably your cumulative record will regress toward the mean.  Judging by their August and September performance,  the Rosebuds’ mean is very high.  We don’t know for sure how high, because they’ve only just now surpassed .650 on the season — and accelerating upward. They may be a .750 team!  So it’s only by the mercy of God that we are just a week away from the end of the season, or our fate at the hands of the Rosebuds would be utter humiliation.  Instead of the merely thorough humiliation we are getting now.

Old Detroit:  L, 2 – 7. (45 PA, .244, .311, .439; 10.7 ip, 9 er, 7.59 ERA).  When historians come to write about the historic 2018 EFL season, they will marvel at these numbers:

April:  3.63

May:  3.07

June:  3.43

July:  3.44

Aug:  3.14

Sep:  4.35

Those are the Wolverines’ monthly ERA’s.  After a season of wonderful, solid, predictable excellence — five months all within 0.30 of 3.35 — all of a sudden Wolverine pitchers are handing out a bonus run every game. Almost every one of them is infected. Except for Walker Buehler’s 1.80 September ERA, all my other starters range from 4.00 (Bumgarner — I probably should activate him) to 14.40 (Alex Wood, now demoted to the bullpen in LA).  If I could put those extra runs back in the toothpaste tube, the W’s would gain 2 games on the Rosebuds.  So, yeah, we’d still be behind.  But the race might not be over yet.

There is a silver lining for Wolverine fans.   Yesterday Madison Bumgarner, who has been benched all month for bad ERAs, got through 6 innings with 3 earned runs.  But in an amazing precision pas de deux, Andrew Heaney (who got activated a few days ago for having a relatively good ERA) completed 3 innings while allowing 6 earned runs. The whole team has been practicing hard to perfect this kind of synchronized pitching so I suppose I should take pride in their achievements.

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Canberra: “W”, 1 – 2.  (43 PA, .205, .279, .359;  3.3 ip, 1 er, 2.70 ERA).  The Kangaroos hit into three double plays Friday.  That’s almost exactly like erasing three hits.  It effectively turned that .638 OPS into .481. Maybe our players need a memo reminding them not to hit into double plays. Or, if this were a college campus we were running, perhaps every EFL player should go to a mandatory one-hour training on not hitting into double plays.  (Just don’t let our Commissioner know I suggested this.  He’ll require EFL owners to go to the training first.)

Brookland: L, 9 – 9. (42 PA, .385, .429, .769; 1 ip, 3 er, 27.00 ERA).  I am pretty sure a team triple chulk — even a small one — is counterindicated for teams attempting to push their way back into third place. But even though the Outs’ ERA was  exactly TEN TIME BIGGER than the ‘Roos, Brookland retook 0.3 games of lost ground in their race for third place. This was because they had 6 players OPS over 1.000, four of whom — Cron, K. Davis (2 hrs), Hicks and Schoop — reached 2.000 or better.  Huh. Apparently it ISN’T necessary to roll over and die once you fall more than a game behind another team.

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Pittsburgh: L 6 – 9.  (49 PA, .286, .388, .357; 0 ip, 4 er, infinite ERA).  Allegheny pitchers — well, Lou Trivino — surrendered earned runs at an infinite rate yesterday, but somehow Pittsburgh only suffered one loss. How does that work?  Maybe John can explain it. Or maybe it’s a philosophical problem down Phil’s alley.

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Flint Hill: “W”, 6 – 6. (43 PA, .289, .326, .474; 4.3 ip, 2 er, 4.15 ERA).  Austin Meadows got traded twice this summer, I think it was: from the Pirates to the Rays and, essentially, from the Rosebuds to the Tornados (although the Rays and Pirates were tangled in that one, too).  Meadows had been very slightly a disappointment — maybe — in Pittsburgh.  But last night Meadows made the Rays (and Tornados) look awfully smart: 3 for 3 wit a double and a stolen base.  (Jonathan Loaisiga, on the other hand, wasn’t seen as such a blessing in the Flint Hill front office. At 9:31 last night I got an urgent instruction from Flint Hill to “bench Loaisiga.”  Why? I wondered.  Here’s why: he tossed 0.3 innings Friday and surrendered 2 earned runs.  Unfortunately the benching won’t take effect until Saturday.

Haviland: “W”, 4 – 7. (31 PA, .207, .258, .448; 6 ip, 4 er , 6.00 ERA).  The Dragons are hovering around .500 — just above at the moment.  They were 76-76 with a .503 winning percentage Friday morning.  After a rough day they are now down to .501. But because they got their 153rd game in, they were recorded Saturday morning as being 77-76, which looks like a win.  But Friday they were really about 76.4 – 75.6,  whereas Saturday morning they were 76.7 – 76.3.  They’d be under .500, I guess, except Lourdes Gurriel went 3 for 4 with two homers.

Cottage: L, 7 – 8.  (32 PA, .357, .438, .464; 0.3 ip, 0 er).  Cottage accumulated 6.7 innings of replacement pitching Friday, bringing their total to 8.0.  They probably also acquired some replacement hitting: they have 33 replacement PAs this month. Ironically (or coincidentally, whichever it is, although I suspect it’s ironic that I don’t know the difference better considering how Word Crimes is one of my favorite songs and my wife is an English professor), the Cheese have 36 unused PAs.

Kaline: “W”, 8 – 8 (7.8 – 8.1). (64 PA, .327, .403, .582;  1 ip, 1 er, 9.00 ERA).  What a fine offensive performance those Drive produced Friday. Eight hitters OPSed 1.000 or better, topped by Yulieski Gurriel’s 3 for 4 with two homers. This proved crucial in holding off those Pesky Pears!

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Peshastin: “W”, 5 – 6. (40 PA, .250, .325, .472; 1 ip, 1 er, 9.00 ERA).  The Pears matched Drive pitching perfectly, but didn’t have a Yulieski Gurriel to lift their ok hitting up into Edgar Martinez Day range.  Thus they lost 0.2 games in the race for 9th place.

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DC: W, 5 – 2. (28 PA, .296, .321, .407; 6.7 ip, 2 er, 2.70 ERA).  Even though

* they are in last place, and the closest team in the league to earn a REAL win Friday was in first place over 30 games distant in the standings; and

* they didn’t get enough innings pitched (short by a minimum of 0.3 innings) to avoid replacement; and

* they would have to be extremely lucky to avoid replacement PAs, since the minimum required for each batting position is 3.1 PA per game, or 27.9 overall;

Still the Balk made their mark Friday by really and truly winning their game and creeping 0.2 games closer to the first place Rosebuds. (Yes, Wolverines, it is possible to move closer to the Rosebuds. Although you need the heart and talent of the Balk to do it…)

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Boston Red Sox	105	49	.682	—
Old Detroit Wolverines	97	57	.633	7.6
New York Yankees	94	59	.614	10.5
Tampa Bay Rays	86	67	.562	18.5
Flint Hill Tornadoes	81	73	.525	24.1
Toronto Blue Jays	70	84	.455	35
Baltimore Orioles	44	109	.288	60.5

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Atlanta Braves	86	68	.558	—
Canberra Kangaroos	86	68	.557	0.1
Philadelphia Phillies	78	75	.510	7.5
Washington Nationals	77	77	.500	9
New York Mets	72	82	.468	14
D.C. Balk	70	84	.456	15.8
Miami Marlins	60	93	.392	25.5

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Cleveland Indians	85	68	.556	—
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	83	70	.545	1.6
Minnesota Twins	71	82	.464	14
Detroit Tigers	62	92	.403	23.5
Chicago White Sox	61	92	.399	24
Kansas City Royals	53	101	.344	32.5

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Chicago Cubs	89	64	.582	—
Milwaukee Brewers	88	66	.571	1.5
St. Louis Cardinals	85	69	.552	4.5
Brookland Outs	84	69	.551	4.6
Pittsburgh Pirates	77	75	.507	11.5
Cottage Cheese	73	80	.480	15.6
Cincinnati Reds	66	89	.426	24

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Houston Astros	96	57	.627	—
Oakland A’s	93	61	.604	3.5
Seattle Mariners	84	69	.549	12
Haviland Dragons	77	76	.501	19.3
Los Angeles Angels	75	79	.487	21.5
Kaline Drive	72	81	.468	24.3
Texas Rangers	65	88	.425	31

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Portland Rosebuds	101	53	.653	—
Los Angeles Dodgers	85	69	.552	15.5
Colorado Rockies	83	70	.542	17
Arizona Diamondbacks	79	75	.513	21.5
San Francisco Giants	72	82	.468	28.5
Peshastin Pears	72	82	.466	28.7
San Diego Padres	62	92	.403	38.5