Hyped Arrivals Kelenic and Kaline

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Flint Hill Tornadoes	26	12	.686	—	166.2	111.3
Peshastin Pears	25	11	.683	0.5	156.8	106.8
Old Detroit Wolverines	25	13	.655	1.2	211.5	150.5
D.C. Balk	21	10	.684	1.3	163.0	111.2
Haviland Dragons	25	13	.650	1.3	177.6	135.3
Kaline Drive	24	14	.630	2.1	173.3	134.7
Portland Rosebuds	18	18	.514	6.6	183.7	178.8
Canberra Kangaroos	16	15	.507	6.8	166.2	164.5
Cottage Cheese	18	19	.489	7.5	205.1	217.6
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	16	18	.480	7.7	161.1	166.0
Bellingham Cascades	15	19	.439	9.1	134.2	160.8

 

 

Flint Hill: W,  6 – (-3). (34 PA , .219, .265, .500;  20 ip, 4 er, 1.80 ERA).  Those 20 outstanding innings came from just four pitchers.   Julio Urias had the best day: 7 ip, 1 er.  Teoscar Hernandez was the star hitter (for all of baseball, according to Baseball Reference, which lists him as #1 for hitters for May 12), going 2 for 3 with two homers and a walk.  The guy I’ve been kicking myself all month for not drafting, Tyler Naquin, went 0 for 2, as a very small sign from God that mercy is not entirely extinct in the universe.  

 

 

 

Peshastin: “L”, 2 – 1.  (34 PA, .156, .206, .219;  3.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  Sometimes it almost seems like a team’s pitchers were pitching to their own hitters.  Three Pear relievers covered about 40% of a game.  Scale that up to 100%, and those relievers’ 2 hits allowed become 5 – the exact number hit by Pear hitters.  The 1 walk becomes 2 (again, matching the Pear offense). Pear pitchers struck out 3, one short of the 4 that would have congrued with Pear batters striking out 10 times. And those 0 runs allowed would have fit nicely with the team’s .415 OPS, although the mercy circuit in Dave’s computer blew itself out awarding the Pear 2 runs scored.

 

 

 

Old Detroit: “W”, 7  – 8.  (29 PA, .333, .379, .444; 1 ip, 3 er, 27.00 ERA).  The other day I celebrated not knowing for whom Duane Underwood Jr. pitched, making him as mysterious as a Mr. Underhill checking into the Prancing Pony.  Of course, in the Lord of the Rings, it only took one evening for Mr. Underhill to disastrously reveal his true identity. So it comes as no shock that Mr. Underwood might do the same:  1 ip, 3 er.  A fat triple chulk, demonstrating without even needing to look it up that Mr. Underwood pitches for the Pittsburgh Pirates.   

 

Fortunately for Mr. Underwood, Carlos Correa was there to break out of a slump and lead a strong offense with 3 singles and a walk in four plate appearances – somehow only the 16th best hitting performance of the day, according to Baseball Reference, even though he cost his team(s) zero outs. 

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Speaking of hyped prospects having trouble panning out: Ke’Bryan Hayes and Nate Pearson show up on the MLB prospect list at #s 9 and 10; which I think makes them #s 1 and 2 on the MLB injured prospect list.  Yes, I know, Pearson pitched the other day, but he pitched so poorly he put his fans on the psychological injured list, pining for his return to the pines. 

 

 

 

DC: “L”, 6 – 4.  (33 PA, .276, .364, .448; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). These frontrunning teams are having trouble with integrity of results. 4 of the 5 solidly top-tier teams have mock wins or losses. (I guess we could call them Mock wins or losses, since I created them to deal with EFL’s quirks.) The Balk pretended to lose a game even though they hit well and even their tiny bit of pitching was scoreless. Bryce Harper went 3 for 5 with a double, and Ryan McMahon went 3 for 7 with two doubles to lead the Balkan way. 

 

 

 

Haviland: “W”, 7 – 8.  (43 PA, .405, .419, .548;  no pitching).  Amed Rosario went 4 for 5 with a double, an outcome Baseball Prospectus ranked 7 places higher than Carlos Correa’s perfect day.  If we added one base and one out to Correa’s day would it have been a better day?  Actually, sacrifice hits at random times in the game lower a team’s expected runs created.   

 

Even if the out for a base is a good trade, is Rosario’s day better even though the Dragons have him allocated 100% on the bench?

 

Also, if we want to channel Charlie Steiner again, we could say “All ten Dragons had a base hit except Ramon Laureano” over and over, which is true as long as we realize Maikel Franco’s only safety was a Steiner hit (ie, a walk). 

 

 

 

Kaline: W, 6 – 0.  (55 PA, .333, .345, .407; 11.4 ip,  1 er, 0.79 ERA).  Willson Contreras led a solid Drive offense, going 4 for 5 (all singles, #24 on BR’s list for the day). Aaron Judge and Jonathan Schoop both were also almost perfect at 3 for 4 (#s 32 and 36 on the day). Max Fried pitched well over 6 ip, allowing 1 earned run, and got tons of scoreless relief.  The Drive earned an honest win, which cut the gap between them and the top 5 tier almost in half to a mere 0.8 games.  The Drive are now closer to the third place Wolverines than the W’s are to the first place Tornados.  The Drive also added 50% to the chasm separating them from the seventh place, now up to a vast 4.5 games.  I think Drive deserves the same honesty from us as they showed by submitting a true win:  

 

 

 

 

Portland:  W (-1), L 1:  (-4) – 3.  (43 PA, .128, .186, .282;  12 ip, 8 er, 6.00 ERA).  It would have been 11 earned runs had Jon Gray not benefited from timely errors.  The database — its mercy circuit in smoking tatters — was not amused at this dodgy business,  and penalized Portland plenty with a lost win and a won loss. Of the 10 Portly hitters, six recorded 0-fers spanning 26 plate appearances, the other four scattering 5 hits over 16 at bats.  Tyler O’Neill’s hit was a home run.  The Rosebuds fell 1.1 games further behind the fraternal Tornados, but did manage to hang on to inherit the top spot in the grounded tier 

 

 

 

Canberra:  W, 4 – 3.  (36 PA, .235, .278, .324;  11 ip, 3 er , 2.45 ERA).  Casey Mize pitched well (6 ip, 2 er) and got good backing from 4 relievers to secure a real win despite relatively feeble offense.  Kyle Tucker wasn’t feeble. He homered and singled in his 4 trips to the plate.  This the ‘Roos emerged clearly (if narrowly) above .500 and only 0.2 games behind the Rosebuds. 

 

 

 

Cottage:  L, 1 – 5.  (30 PA, .143, .200, .250;  14.3 ip, 6 er, 3.78 ERA).  Taijuan Walker had another good game (7 ip, 1 er) to bring his May ERA down to 2.25.  Andrew Heaney stumbled (5.3 ip, 5 er), clearly still under the influence of the Wolverines’ miasma.  Of the Cheese’ 4 hits, 3 were doubles, but that’s a paltry amount of offense to spread over 9 innings. 

 

 

 

Pittsburgh:  W, 11 – 3. (41 PA, .273, .415, .667; 5.7 ip, 1 er, 1.58 ERA).  Here’s another team sucking offense out of the game with its pitching, but concentrating the pain on others by not correspondingly reducing their own offense.  Domonic Smith led the bombardment, going 3 for 4 with a double, and Moustakas, Altuve, Muncy and Vaughn homered.  Furthermore, the Alleghenys added 8 walks to their 9 hits to just overwhelm their opposition. Other than the Tornados (who took over first place) and the Drive (who forced the top tier to recognize Kaline’s membership in their august number), the Alleghenys were the only team in the EFL to end the day closer to first place than they started it. 

 

 

 

Bellingham: L, 3 – 7.  (34 PA, .258, .324, .258;   3.6 ip, 2 er, 5.00 ERA). Mediocre offense and pitching doomed the Cascades.  Justin Dunn was the pitching culprit (3.3 ip, 2 er), and most of the lineup fell short on the hitting side.  Rhys Hoskins (#40 per BP), Tim Anderson (#42), and Kevin Newman (#67!!) all went 2 for 5, with Hoskins adding a bit of luster with his walk, half of the team’s total. 

 

 

 

 

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Flint Hill Tornadoes	26	12	.686	—
Old Detroit Wolverines	25	13	.655	1.2
Boston Red Sox	22	16	.579	4
New York Yankees	20	16	.556	5
Toronto Blue Jays	19	16	.543	5.5
Tampa Bay Rays	19	19	.500	7
Baltimore Orioles	16	21	.432	9.5

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
D.C. Balk	21	10	.684	—
New York Mets	18	13	.581	3.2
Philadelphia Phillies	20	17	.541	4.2
Canberra Kangaroos	16	15	.507	5.5
Atlanta Braves	17	19	.472	6.7
Miami Marlins	16	20	.444	7.7
Washington Nationals	13	19	.406	8.7

 

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Chicago White Sox	21	13	.618	—
Cleveland Indians	20	14	.588	1
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	16	18	.480	4.7
Kansas City Royals	16	19	.457	5.5
Bellingham Cascades	15	19	.439	6.1
Minnesota Twins	12	22	.353	9
Detroit Tigers	12	24	.333	10

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
St. Louis Cardinals	22	15	.595	—
Milwaukee Brewers	20	17	.541	2
Cincinnati Reds	17	17	.500	3.5
Cottage Cheese	18	19	.489	3.9
Chicago Cubs	17	19	.472	4.5
Pittsburgh Pirates	15	21	.417	6.5

 

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Haviland Dragons	25	13	.650	—
Kaline Drive	24	14	.630	0.8
Oakland A’s	23	15	.605	1.7
Houston Astros	20	17	.541	4.2
Seattle Mariners	18	19	.486	6.2
Texas Rangers	18	20	.474	6.7
Los Angeles Angels	16	20	.444	7.7

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Peshastin Pears	25	11	.683	—
San Francisco Giants	22	14	.611	2.6
San Diego Padres	21	16	.568	4.1
Los Angeles Dodgers	20	17	.541	5.1
Portland Rosebuds	18	18	.514	6.1
Arizona Diamondbacks	17	20	.459	8.1
Colorado Rockies	12	24	.333	12.6