The main development in the EFL pennant race was the passing of another day. The top two teams have only 11 left to play. Baseball is America’s pastime, and sure enough, time is passing.
EFL Standings for 2021
EFL | ||||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
Old Detroit Wolverines | 105 | 46 | .694 | — | 875.0 | 580.4 |
Flint Hill Tornadoes | 99 | 52 | .656 | 5.8 | 840.5 | 602.9 |
D.C. Balk | 92 | 56 | .622 | 11.2 | 847.8 | 661.4 |
Kaline Drive | 93 | 57 | .617 | 11.9 | 795.2 | 627.1 |
Peshastin Pears | 91 | 59 | .606 | 13.5 | 757.5 | 617.6 |
Canberra Kangaroos | 81 | 67 | .549 | 22.2 | 787.1 | 726.8 |
Cottage Cheese | 82 | 68 | .545 | 22.6 | 821.9 | 765.6 |
Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 81 | 69 | .539 | 23.6 | 743.0 | 686.5 |
Haviland Dragons | 79 | 71 | .526 | 25.5 | 765.1 | 751.3 |
Bellingham Cascades | 77 | 73 | .514 | 27.2 | 636.9 | 619.8 |
Portland Rosebuds | 74 | 76 | .491 | 30.7 | 790.6 | 816.7 |
OLD DETROIT: W, 10 – 9. (38 PA, ..380, .421, .694; 1.7 IP, 2 ER, 10.59 ERA) The Wolverines are suffering from a late season starting-pitching drought. In times like these, relievers can help by locking down a few innings to keep the replacements to a minimum. Three Oldie relievers tried to do this, but they just made things worse. Nate Pearson went 0.7 ip, 1 er. Craig Kimbrel went 1.0 ip, 1 er. Sam Clay, bless his heart, went out there in the bottom of the tenth with a ghost runner on second, who promptly stole third. Clay intentionally walked the next batter, then uncorked a wild pitch, losing the game for the Nats without retiring anyone, but also without surrendering an earned run.
Set a target of 9 runs, the Wolverine hitters set to work. Tommy Edman dug the hole a little deeper, going 0 for 5. But everyone else accounted for multiple bases. Marcus Semien hit homer #41. All 6 remaining batters hit doubles, Austin Riley slashing 3 of them, and Carlos Correa adding 3 singles to go 4 for 5. It was just enough to nail down the team’s 105th win.
FLINT HILL: L, 2 – 6. (48 PA, .182, .229, .295; 4 ip, 2 er, 4.50 ERA). Jamie sent me a note early this morning with a self-contradictory message: “No words.” It was very early, before 6:00 AM, when he sent that. He gave no explanation. Was he asking me to do today’s update with no words? Impossible. I am left to guess, and here’s my guess:
Jamie was speechless over the W’s ability to overcome a 9-run deficit, whereas the Tornados couldn’t climb out of a 6-run hole. This is because so many famous Tornados went 0 for the day: Gallo, Bregman, Bichette, Goldschmidt, Haase, Kelenic, Lowrie. Mitch Haniger (2 doubles in 4 AB, plus a walk) and Keibert Ruiz (3 for 5) were the only guys having really good days.
But the Tornados should take heart. They only lost 0.1 games in the standings, and only 1 of their last dozen games to play. It’s not good, but speech should be possible.
DC: L, 5 – 12. (19 PA, .294, .368, .353; 5.3 ip, 7 er, 11.89 ERA). The Balk still have 14 games to play, having somehow slipped back off the pace after having caught up their 7-game deficit. But those extra games may not be a boon if the thin performance from yesterday is going to be typical from here on out. The hitting line is solid with that nice OBP, but it’s only 5 batters (although Myles Straw did go 3 for 7 with a double). The ptching line was crippled by Triston McKenzie’s discouraging 4.3 ip, 7 er outing. It will be a challenge to get back to 10 games behind — or to hold off the charging Drive!
KALINE: W 2, L (-1); 7 – 2. (30 IP, .333, .400, .556 — Happy Edgar Martinez Day! 11.3 ip, 3 er, 2.39 ERA). On a day when most of the league lost, and no one else won by more than 1 run, the Drive had a great day. Yuli Gurriel of the phantom tag of 3rd base followed that up with a 3 for 4 day to lead the Driven offense. John Means tossed 6.7 shutout innings. Kaline gained an entire game on DC in the race for 3rd place.
PESHASTIN: DNP, (-3) – (-3) (38 PA, .206, .263, .412; 11 ip, 7 er, 5.73 ERA). Jazz Chisholm cracked two homers — but that was 6/7ths of the team’s total extra bases, leaving the Pears losing runs on a day off. BUT the team came up with 11 innings pitched! They were not exciting innings, but they cut the team’s pile of replacement innings by about 40%, meaning each inning pitched on this off-day slashed almost 0.3 runs allowed off their total. So the Pears added 0.001 to their winning percentage and subtracted 0.1 from their games behind.
CANBERRA: “L”, 6 – 5. (24 PA, .176, .417, .235; 2.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 era) The Kangaroos finally slipped past the Cheese into that coveted 6th-place pivot spot in the lineup. They did two things especially well.
First, they took 6 walks and a HBP to produce an OBP .241 points better than their batting average, the biggest isolated OB rate in the EFL, almost twice that of the #2 team (Portland).
Second, they accumulated 2.7 scoreless innings, more than twice as many as the second place team (Bellingham).
The database wasn’t impressed, saddling the ‘Roos with a loss, but… well, it’s not like the database is stupid, it’s just that it has a particularly specialized form of intelligence, rigid, without nuance, etc. Here’s the consolation: even the database noticed the ‘Roos gained 0.1 games on the first place team, even though the W’s also won.
COTTAGE: L, 2 – 6. (35 PA, .176, .171, .324; 16.3 ip, 10 er, 5.52 ERA). The Cheese, on the other hand, were the only team to have a negative isolated OB rate, due to earning 0 free passes while hitting a sacrifice fly. Which, in the EFL, doesn’t guarantee that a run scored! But, in this case, it did apparently score a run, to go with Yandy Diaz’s homer to account for the 2 runs the Cheese scored. All three — three! I would LOVE to have three starters in one game. I barely have 3 starters total — all struggled, the best being Matt Manning at 5 ip, 3 er, and the worst being Sean Manaea at 5 ip, 4 er, with Robbie Ray right there at 4.3 ip, 3 er.
But in this race, where Cottage in 7th place is only 0.4 games out of 6th, with Canberra having 14 games left and the Cheese 12, there is plenty of time for things to change…
PITTSBURGH: L, 2 – 5. (10 IP, .111, .200, .111; 13.6 ip, 8 er, 5.29 ERA)... especially when you notice the Alleghenys are still within reach of 6th place, only 1.4 games out. That’s after a truly skeletal offensive performance, with only 3 batters, only one hit (a Luis Robert single) and one free pass (a Luis Robert HBP). Nothing is more skeletal than only 1 hitter actually hitting, unless it’s those .111s in the slash line.
Nothing was skeletal about Allegheny pitching. Allegheny/Mariner Tyler Anderson was great: 7 ip, 1 er. So was Anthony Bender in his more limited role (1.3 ip 0er). On the other hand, Vladimir Gutierrez was a little bit gross (3.3 ip, 5 er), as was Cody Pence (2 ip, 2 er).
HAVILAND: L, 2 – 8 (23 PA, .174, .174, .304; 11 ip, 9 er, 7.36 ERA) There was a lot of rough pitching in our league yesterday. In Haviland, it took the form of two struggling starters (Jesus Luzardo, 4 ip, 5.5 er; AJ Alexy 3.3 ip, 4 er) making a bigger mess than three solid relievers (combined 3.7 ip, 0 er) could clean up. And it’s not like they got much help from the Dragon offense, in which Yoshi Tsutsugo’s home run was the only highlight.
BELLINGHAM: “L”, 5 – 4. (39 PA, .242, .359, .364; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Bailey Falter didn’t. He got that scoreless inning. That modestly solid batting line was mostly thanks to Alcides Escobar ( 3 for 6), Hanser ALberto (2 for 3 with a double) and Kyle Farmer (2 for 5 with a home run). Austin Hedges’ single was the onluy other hit… and if you are counting on Austin Hedges to carry your offense, you are in a bad spot. Still, the Cascades got a real win.
PORTLAND: W, 3 – 0. (24 PA, .263, .391, .632; 2 ip, 1 er, 4.50 ERA). The offense was thin but spectacular, with homers from Gary Sanchez and… well, see if you can guess who the other one was. No, not Eric Lauer, he’s a pitcher. Another ex-W with u’s and a’s in his name. The Rosebuds’ owner did post, late, comments on his own team yesterday. Check them out. Their “great month” continues, and has brought them back to the brink of being less than 30 games out
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
AL East | ||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
Old Detroit Wolverines | 105 | 46 | .694 | — |
Flint Hill Tornadoes | 99 | 52 | .656 | 5.8 |
Tampa Bay Rays | 93 | 58 | .616 | 11.9 |
Boston Red Sox | 86 | 65 | .570 | 18.9 |
Toronto Blue Jays | 84 | 66 | .560 | 20.4 |
New York Yankees | 84 | 67 | .556 | 20.9 |
Baltimore Orioles | 48 | 102 | .320 | 56.4 |
NL East | ||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
D.C. Balk | 92 | 56 | .622 | — |
Canberra Kangaroos | 81 | 67 | .549 | 10.9 |
Atlanta Braves | 78 | 70 | .527 | 14.1 |
Philadelphia Phillies | 76 | 74 | .507 | 17.1 |
New York Mets | 73 | 77 | .487 | 20.1 |
Miami Marlins | 64 | 86 | .427 | 29.1 |
Washington Nationals | 61 | 89 | .407 | 32.1 |
AL Central | ||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
Chicago White Sox | 85 | 65 | .567 | — |
Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 81 | 69 | .539 | 4.2 |
Bellingham Cascades | 77 | 73 | .514 | 7.9 |
Cleveland Indians | 73 | 76 | .490 | 11.5 |
Detroit Tigers | 73 | 78 | .483 | 12.5 |
Kansas City Royals | 69 | 82 | .457 | 16.5 |
Minnesota Twins | 65 | 85 | .433 | 20 |
NL Central | ||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
Milwaukee Brewers | 91 | 59 | .607 | — |
Cottage Cheese | 82 | 68 | .545 | 9.3 |
St. Louis Cardinals | 80 | 69 | .537 | 10.5 |
Cincinnati Reds | 78 | 73 | .517 | 13.5 |
Chicago Cubs | 67 | 83 | .447 | 24 |
Pittsburgh Pirates | 56 | 94 | .373 | 35 |
AL West | ||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
Kaline Drive | 93 | 57 | .617 | — |
Houston Astros | 89 | 61 | .593 | 3.5 |
Oakland A’s | 82 | 68 | .547 | 10.5 |
Seattle Mariners | 81 | 69 | .540 | 11.5 |
Haviland Dragons | 79 | 71 | .526 | 13.6 |
Los Angeles Angels | 72 | 78 | .480 | 20.5 |
Texas Rangers | 55 | 95 | .367 | 37.5 |
NL West | ||||
TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
San Francisco Giants | 97 | 53 | .647 | — |
Los Angeles Dodgers | 96 | 54 | .640 | 1 |
Peshastin Pears | 91 | 59 | .606 | 6.2 |
San Diego Padres | 76 | 73 | .510 | 20.5 |
Portland Rosebuds | 74 | 76 | .491 | 23.4 |
Colorado Rockies | 70 | 79 | .470 | 26.5 |
Arizona Diamondbacks | 48 | 101 | .322 | 48.5 |