Riding the Merri-go-Round

Portland: “W,” 1-4 (53 PA, .173, .185, .250; no pitching) These are the days you wish never happened (if you are Portland) and the days you dream about (if you are everyone else). 7 of the Rosebuds 13 batters didn’t record a hit, another 4 only got one hit, and two recorded 2 or more hits. The silver lining for Mark is that they still have a “W” next to their name after such a crummy day. The bad news is they will have another day where they have an “L” next to their name even though they outscored their opponent. 

Flint Hill: W, 8-3 (36 PA, .250, .368, .563; 2.7 IP, 0 ER, 0.00 ERA) Without Xander Bogaerts, who is hitting .405 with a 1.290 OPS this month, we would not have won our game today. But we did. Now we are 2 games behind the bad guys. 

Old Detroit: W, 2-(-4) (48 PA, .119, .229, .286; 15.3 IP, 5 ER, 2.93 ERA) I feel badly that yesterday I used Old Detroit’s write-up to talk about other teams, so today I will talk about his team. Like Portland, the Wolverines had 6 of their 13 batters go hitless yesterday, and the other 7 got only one hit. That’s not a surprise when you see their offensive line. But their pitching saved the day! One would have thought that the OD pitching staff was demoralized after their own player (Schwarber) hit a game winning HR off of another OD player (Iglesias) but they were able to keep it together and eke out a win. 

Pittsburgh: “W,” 2-4 (39 PA, .171, .256, .286; 2.7 IP, 0 ER, 0.00 ERA) To be honest, I really like a world where the Wolverines and the Alleghanys try to outdo the other in offensive ineptness. I, for one, do not find such a battle offensive at all! So keep it up. The Alleghanys had 7 of their 11 batters go hitless, and the other 4 were able to scrape together a few singles, but that was about it.

Haviland: “W,” 7-9 (39 PA, .229, .308, .371; 8.7 IP, 8 ER, 8.31 ERA) Why not add in the other historically dominant franchise to the thoroughly mediocre battle that occurred and yesterday and will hopefully continue on throughout the rest of the season. 4 of the Dragons were hitless, and another 4 had one hit (all of them doubles), which is good enough to score some runs, but the pitching just wasn’t enough. In fact, it was far from enough. Although, if the Dragons want something to be happy about, their FIP was nearly 12, so I guess their pitchers did well to keep it at only 9 runs allowed. 

Canberra: W 2, L 1; 12-(-3) (43 PA, .500, .561, .667; 18.7 IP, 5 ER, 2.41 ERA) I think I’ve pinpointed what happened to all the other teams’ offensive stats today – Canberra decided to hoard them all for themselves. The Kangaroos pounded out 18 hits, though only 2 of those were anything more than singles. You read that right – 16 of his 18 hits were singles. To make matters worse for the rest of us, and incredible for them, they also tossed nearly 19 innings of very good pitching. The team gained 1.5 games on Portland, to put them into a tie with the Dragons for 5th place. What a day!

Kaline: W 2, L (-1); 20-6 (61 PA, .462, .541, .885; 1.3 IP, 0 ER, 0.00 ERA) If you know Tom, he would not be one to gloat over his day. But it’s something worth gloating over. Just moments after celebrating the day the Kangaroos had, the Drive decided to show us all what a really good day looks like. They had 24 hits, of which 10 were extra bases. It doesn’t matter if you get no pitching at all when you score 20 runs in one game. Even better, the Drive were led by Omar Narvaez, the Mariners’ catcher. Maybe one of the balls landed in Tom’s front yard? Kaline, like the Kangaroos, gained 1.5 games on the leader, and made sure the Pears were bypassed by not one, but two teams in one day.

Peshastin: W, 6-1 (36 PA, .258, .361, .516; 7.7 IP, 1 ER, 1.17 ERA) The Pears had 5 players OPS over 1.000 on their way to a convincing victory. Joey Gallo hit a HR, which isn’t that rare, but he also walked while not striking out the entire game, which is extremely rare! In the month of July he has struck out 20 times compared to 6 walks. 

Cottage: L, 2-14 (50 PA, .200, .280, .311; 8.3 IP, 11, ER, 11.88 ERA) Yikes. It seemed as though the Cheese pitchers had heeded the command of their skipper to pitch better after the All Star break. They really were cruising along until last night, and then, well, it’s scary to look at. Logan Allen and Dylan Cease decided to throw batting practice while the Cheese hitters decided they would rather go home early than try to match the offensive outburst from the other team. 

Bellingham: L, 3-8 (28 PA, .227, .320, .455; no pitching) It seems that Bryce Harper has finally found a bat worthy of producing the type of stats he should be producing based on how much he is being paid. Last night he continued his hot streak, getting two hits (2B and HR) and earning 2 walks. The rest of the team was listless, kind of like Bryce was for the first 80 games this season. 

Brookland: L, 8-9 (38 PA, .324, .395, .676; no pitching) Brookland is one of the hottest hitting teams this week, consistently pounding the ball night after night. Last night they amassed 11 hits, 7 of them for extra base hits. The sad part is no one showed up to pitch, so they pulled some guy out of the stands, who had to set down his beer and borrow a glove. He only gave up 9 runs, which is better than some of the other rostered guys who threw last night. But not good enough to get a win, even though they scored 8 runs. 

DC: W, 9-2 (37 PA, .300, .432, .533; 9 IP, 1 ER, 1.00 ERA) One of the benefits of being at the bottom is getting to watch everyone else, see what they do, and do the good things while not doing the bad things. And look! The Balk did exactly that – excellent hitting combined with excellent pitching (a claim only he and Canberra can make after last night) and it turned into a bonafide win. Not to show everyone up too much, but to rub it in just a little, DC had three players (Chapman, Holt, and Gennett) OPS over 2.000.