Aurora Boringallus

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Old Detroit Wolverines	93	42	.690	—	773.1	518.0
Flint Hill Tornadoes	88	47	.650	5.4	720.8	526.5
D.C. Balk	84	50	.624	9	758.8	591.2
Peshastin Pears	83	52	.615	10.1	678.8	541.9
Kaline Drive	82	52	.613	10.5	718.6	570.9
Cottage Cheese	76	60	.562	17.3	760.0	684.5
Canberra Kangaroos	74	60	.551	18.8	693.7	637.2
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	73	62	.540	20.3	678.2	625.1
Haviland Dragons	72	62	.539	20.4	686.7	656.7
Bellingham Cascades	70	65	.521	22.9	576.5	554.0
Portland Rosebuds	64	71	.476	28.8	723.6	760.6

 

Old Detroit:  W 2, L 1; 15 – 13.  (108 PA, .218, .269, .396;  21 ip, 8 er, 3.43 ERA).  I didn’t think Wolverines hibernated, but these Wolverines seem awfully groggy all of a sudden.  I had to do some pretty severe allocating to get even a slightly winning result from the first three days. Buxton is at 0, as are the newly acquired Shane McClanahan and the newly promoted Nate Pearson. Sam Clay, who has profoundly demonstrated his tendency to hover around a 9.00 ERA, gets 100% due to somehow amassing 1.7 scoreless innings. And Luis Garcia the Nationals infielder was 100% allocated to OH because he somehow produced over .900 OPS. 

 

All these allocations will have to be reversed in short order, maybe this morning, burning one of my allocation moves in this extra long month of Septober, ending Oct 3.  Which would be fine, except the Tornados gained 0.6 games already, a pace that would put them just a hair in front of the Wolverines after Oct 3.  Also, …  

 

 

Flint Hill:  W 3, L 0; 26 – 14. (149 PA, .239, .315, .463;  24.7 ip, 17 er, 6.19 ERA)… two can play the sculpted allocations game, and the Tornados got far better results.  Frank Schwindel, the player Jamie started to put up for bid, then backed off, then started, then backed off, then paused… and finally put up for bid:  he led the Tornado offense, going 5 for 13 with two homers and a walk. He was allocated 100% to OH. Last night I listened to the M’s game, where I got to hear the Mariners’ two homers in their narrow victory: Mitch Haniger and Jerred Kelenic. Not JP Crawford nor Cal Raleigh. Nooooo. Had to be Flint Hilligans. (Hey! I like it:  Hilligans.  Like a cross between Gilligan and Hooligans.)

 

Thankfully the Hilligans couldn’t dodge quite as many of the line-drives opponents were spraying all over, and had to take on 14 runs to OD’s 13.  Also thankfully, the Hilligans have used 7 pitchers so far whereas the Woeverines have used only 5, so the Oldies have more penalty innings to shed as more pitchers appear.  But, still, it wasn’t supposed to be this close. 

 

 

DC: W 1, L 2; 7 – 13. (90 PA, .185, .267, .272;  13.4 ip, 8 er, 5.37 ERA).  The Balk probably couldn’t afford a slow start to this month, but they got one anyway, dropping 1.4 games in the standings. Newly-acquired Trevor Stephan made himself worse than useless, contributing 1.7 ip to the team’s inadequate supply, while donating 3 earned runs to the the opposition’s already ample production.  Asdrubal Cabrera’s 0 for 2 didn’t have as much impact, leaving the offensive heroics to pre-existing Balks. Adalberto Mondesi and Pete Alfonso made the Balk’s best use of the first three days of the month, each going 3 for 9 with three extra bases (Mondesi homered, and Alonso doubled and tripled) for spiffy 1.000 OPSes.  

 

 

Peshastin:  W 2, L 1;  23 – 18.  (76 PA, .302, 421, .524 — happy Edgar Martinez Month, so far!  16 ip, 9 er, 4.50 ERA).  Juan Soto did what the next Ted Williams is supposed to do:  go 4 for 8 with two homers and a walk (1.805 OPS).  But Jazz Chisholm pretty much matched him:  3 for 7 with two doubles, a triple, and a walk  (1.786 OPS), and he’s not supposed to be the next Ted Williams.  If not the Splendid Splinter, who is Jazz supposed to be?  

 

All that emulation of the great hitters will need better support from the pitchers if the Pears are going to make a meaningful late run in the standings.  The six relievers who apPeared as Pears did great:  8.3 ip, 0 er. But the two starters ( Ynoa and Peralta) only lasted a total of 7.7 innings while serving up 8 earned runs.  

 

 

Kaline: W 1, L 1; 8 – 6.  (117 PA, .243, .308, .411;  33.3 ip, 10 er, 2.70 ERA).  The Drive almost matched the Pears pace here in early Septober.  The gap between them has doubled since August!  But it was only 0.2 games after Aug 31; it’s a 0.4-game chasm now.  The Drive got homers from Aaron Judge, Hunter Renfroe, Michael Conforto, and two from Akil Baddoo.  Two from Baddoo!  That has a ring to it.  

 

The Jesse Chavez the Drive picked up Thursday is indeed the venerable Jesse Chavez, now 38 years old, who debuted in 2008 for Pittsburgh’s Pirates. I thought he was finished when he put up a 6.88 ERA last year. But he’s back.  His ERA over 23 innings this year is 2.74. His ERA over 1.0 innings this month is 0.00.  I should have picked up Chavez last spring instead of the the even more super-annuated Oliver Perez who has been playing in Mexico since May… if he’s still playing at all. 

 

 

Cottage:  W 0,  L 3; 5 – 12. (100 PA, .153, .260 .188;  31.7 ip, 16 er, 4.54 ERA). They say they universe bends toward justice, but the Cheese might say the universe is just bent. The Head Cheese outbid all three Tigers fans for Matt Manning, with no visible remorse.  At the time, at least. 

 

Manning’s first debut appearance as a Cheese went like this: 3.7 ip, 8 er — which I believe comes to an ERA of 19.63. (That appearance was Thursday afternoon, before our draft. Did the Head Cheese already know about Manning’s mangled innings?)

 

On the other hand, Good Mitch Kellar made another of his rare appearances, twirling 6 shutout innings (of which 3 counted for Cottage per his 50% allocation), and Shohei Ohtani and Sean Manaea each turned in 7 ip, 2 er.  Still the Cheese lost three straight all in one update, and it has to hurt a little. 

 

 

Canberra:  W 2, L 1; 14 – 14. (67 PA, .290, .343, .435;  17.7 ip, 6 er, 3.05 ERA). 67 isn’t enough PA for 3 games, and 17.7 ip also comes up short.  But, as the Kangaroos demonstrated so far in September,  you can still do well if the IP and PA are good enough.  Wander Franco’s 7 PAs were good enough, producing a homer, a double, and a walk. Vlad Guerrero’s 8 PA were good enough, as that noted singles hitter rapped out 4 singles.  Jake Odorizzi’s 5 innings were good enough — only 1 er) — and so was the Captain’s fifth choice of a pitcher:  Jackson Kowar completed 6 innings with 0 earned runs (two unearned).  But Ryan already knew about Kowar’s work; it was done on Sep 1.  

 

Now, if the ‘Roos can increase the volume of playing time they get without harming its quality, they can make some noise in Septober. 

 

 

 

Pittsburgh:  W 1, L 1; 9 – 7. (66 PA, .254, .273, .524;  40.5 up, 20 er, 4.46 ERA). Someday.  Someday Dave will figure out a way to update our standings constantly, with the outcome  of every PA, so we can see the moment one EFL team passes another.  I bet it often goes Team A, Team B, and back to Team A.  

 

Something like that happened while we were in our shorter-than-usual beginning-of-the-month tunnel this month.  Pittsburgh passed the Dragons. They were still 0.6 back, in 9th place, on the morning of Sep 1.  Now, on the morning of Sep 4, they are 0.1 games up. What did the trick?  

 

Was it one of the A’s four homers (Swanson, Christan Vazquez, Muncy, or Plawecki)? Was it the triple Muncy hit — much rarer and more exciting than another of his routine homers? Was it Logan Webb getting through 7 innings with one earned run? Or Luke Weaver, with his 6 innings and one earned run? 

 

Speaking of Luke Weaver — at 11:34 pm last night, with 26 minutes until the allocation deadline, Mark offered me Luke Weaver in a trade. I was tempted – Weaver had already done those 6 sparkling innings — but I turned it down at 11:43. Will I come to regret it?  Not if Austin Allen suddenly begins to live up to his potential.  But if the Tornados run the Wolverines down?  

 

 

 

Haviland:  W 0, L 2; 6 – 9.  (88 PA, .205, .250, .325; 17.7 ip, 16 er, 8.14 ERA).  Boy, with these raw materials to work with, the first three days in September could have been a lot worse for the Dragons.  The Dragons did have two pillars to build on: Brendad Rodger (5 for 12 with a double, a homer and a walk) and Kyle Schwarber (5 for 14 with a double and a homer).  Domingo Tapia, acquired in the draft, wasn’t exactly a pillar — he only threw two innings — but he was at least a solid building block (0 er).  Beyond that it had to be a matter of making the best use of flawed piece — not only 0 fers rom Lowe, Heim and Cronenworth, but chulks from Joe Barlow (triple), Justin Topa (triple+) and AJ Puk (infinite: 0 ip,  2 er). . 

 

 

 

Bellingham:  W 0, L 2; 6 – 10.  (122 PA, .216, .264, .378;  23 ip, 11 er, 4.30 ERA).  The Belles didn’t scrimp on hitting.  122 PA is by far the most of any EFL team.  However, the usual problem with having so much playing time on the field is you get your team’s worst right along with its best.  If the Cascades could have separated the best 61 PA from the worst 61, the two lineups would look like this:

 

Best 7 hitters,  61 PA:  .278, .329, .537.    Worst 8 hitters, 61 PA: .158, .213, .226.  

 

Bellingham’s actual allocations, driven in part by the need to cover all the positions,  resulted in a .233, .273, .370  effective slash line over 77 PA. 

 

On the pitching side, the Cascades have surplus innings, although nowhere near twice as many as they needed.  Still, it would have been nice to have avoided Devin Williams’ sextuple chulk: 0.7 ip, 4 er.  Instead, the kindly Cascade management team allocated all the pitchers to 100%, taking on all of Williams’ sextuple chulk.

 

 

 

Portland:  W 2, L 1; 23 – 7. (94 PA, .337, .372, .539;  32.4 ip, 8 er, 2.22 ERA).  Once again the team with the worst record had the best day — the best 3 days, in this case — in the EFL, gaining 1.1 games on the league leaders.  Harrison Bader led the way: 6 for 11 with 2 homers  (1.636 OPS). Corey Seager (4 for 8 with a double and a walk, 1.180 OPS), Nick Solak (4 for 8 with a double, 1.055 OPS), and Luis Urias (5 for 12 with two doubles and a walk, .929 OPS) were the main supportiung cast for the offense.

 

Of the seven Rosebud pitchers, six smelled like it. Best was former Wolverine Anthony DeSclafani (6 ip, 0 er).  Second best was former Wolverine Eric Lauer (7 ip, 1 er).  Four other pitchers combined for 15.3 ip, 3 er.  That leaves Matt Harvey.  Harvey completed 4 ip with an earned run for every inning. But he did all that pitching for the Pendleton Pansies, since the Rose King had sent him to the minors to start the month. 

 

 

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Old Detroit Wolverines	93	42	.690	—
Flint Hill Tornadoes	88	47	.650	5.4
Tampa Bay Rays	85	50	.630	8.1
New York Yankees	78	56	.582	14.6
Boston Red Sox	78	59	.569	16.1
Toronto Blue Jays	71	62	.534	21.1
Baltimore Orioles	41	92	.308	51.1

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
D.C. Balk	84	50	.624	—
Canberra Kangaroos	74	60	.551	9.7
Atlanta Braves	71	63	.530	12.6
Philadelphia Phillies	69	65	.515	14.6
New York Mets	67	67	.500	16.6
Miami Marlins	56	79	.415	28.1
Washington Nationals	55	78	.414	28.1

 

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Chicago White Sox	78	57	.578	—
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	73	62	.540	5.1
Bellingham Cascades	70	65	.521	7.7
Cleveland Indians	67	64	.511	9
Detroit Tigers	64	72	.471	14.5
Kansas City Royals	60	74	.448	17.5
Minnesota Twins	58	76	.433	19.5

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Milwaukee Brewers	82	54	.603	—
Cottage Cheese	76	60	.562	5.6
Cincinnati Reds	72	64	.529	10
St. Louis Cardinals	69	64	.519	11.5
Chicago Cubs	61	75	.449	21
Pittsburgh Pirates	48	87	.356	33.5

 

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Kaline Drive	82	52	.613	—
Houston Astros	79	55	.590	3.1
Oakland A’s	74	61	.548	8.6
Seattle Mariners	73	62	.541	9.6
Haviland Dragons	72	62	.539	9.8
Los Angeles Angels	67	68	.496	15.6
Texas Rangers	47	87	.351	35.1

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
San Francisco Giants	86	49	.637	—
Los Angeles Dodgers	85	50	.630	1
Peshastin Pears	83	52	.615	3
San Diego Padres	71	64	.526	15
Portland Rosebuds	64	71	.476	21.7
Colorado Rockies	62	73	.459	24
Arizona Diamondbacks	45	91	.331	41.5