The EFL brings (most of) us together – The Official EFL Web Site

Look at today’s standings. What do you see?

While you are thinking about that, let me tell you a story: we had a little October surprise. The database blatantly Balked when we moved into October. It looked at the calendar, saw it was October, and insisted there needed to be a new month.

We reasoned with it. We said, “No, that would kick in pitching penalties, and liberate teams from the pitching and/or batting deficits, and deprive them of their surplus innings and/or PA, and have the season end at the beginning of a month when everything is wonky, without giving their rotations a chance to rotate. We humans think of this a Septober, or Octember, or in moments of Commissioner egotism, Mocktober.”

The database was unconvinced. “You can’t just make up stuff like that. Give me a new month!” And we said “How about if we just make September 33 days long?”

But the database was adamant.

Then we said, “Oh, look! There’s been another whole set of games. Huh! I guess everyone played doubleheaders on Sept 30! We’ll just add these stats into Sept 30.” And the database bought it!

Tomorrow we’ll tell the database September 30 was full of triple-headers. And the next day it’ll be quadruple-headers. And if there’s a glorious tie for the AL wild card, we’ll have quintuple- (or possibly even sextuple-) headers.

I have concocted a little spreadsheet to reverse-engineer your stats for Friday. It is untested, unofficial, and possibly unreliable. Use for entertainment purposes only.

Finding individual stats from Friday to highlight for your team is hit and miss, since it requires me to pore over box scores. Today I spent my available time concocting the reverse engineering spreadsheet. So you may need to supply your team’s individual highlights.

Note: I plead lack of time at various points in this post. This is because I have chore list I have to finish before we can leave this afternoon to go to Seattle, see my daughter and her family, and go to tomorrow’s Mariners game. If the M’s can win tonight, tomorrow’s game will be meaningful. Even if they lose, it might be meaningful (if the Red Sox also lose). So, anyway, sorry for the rush.

EFL Standings for 2021

EFL
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB	RS	RA
Old Detroit Wolverines	110	50	.688	—	923.4	621.8
Flint Hill Tornadoes	104	56	.651	5.9	879.0	640.7
D.C. Balk	98	61	.619	11.2	911.0	715.8
Kaline Drive	99	61	.618	11.3	853.7	671.5
Peshastin Pears	94	66	.585	16.5	807.8	692.7
Cottage Cheese	88	72	.551	22	886.2	817.3
Canberra Kangaroos	87	72	.548	22.4	838.6	773.1
Haviland Dragons	84	76	.526	26	830.2	815.0
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	84	76	.526	26	780.9	738.8
Portland Rosebuds	83	77	.518	27.3	878.3	853.4
Bellingham Cascades	83	77	.516	27.6	682.7	662.3

OLD DETROIT: “L”, 7 – 6. (50 PA, .341, .419, .409; 5.3 ip, 3 er, 5.09 ERA). Oldie batters went 15 for 44, with 6 free passes and only 3 extra bases (a Byron Buxton home run! Buxton is back to carry the Wolverines across the finish line! Look on, all ye, and despair.).

FLINT HILL: L, 2 – 5. (67 PA, .226, .269, .274; 1.3 ip, 1 er, 6.92 ERA) Flinty batters went 14 for 62 (I think), with four free passes and three extra bases. One of those extra bases was a Jarred Kelenic double, the one he hit with the bases empty, not the one he didn’t hit with two men on that would have won the game for the Mariners.

DC: W, 18 – 6. (46 PA, .444, .565, .899; 6.7 ip, 4 er, 5.37 ERA). A HUGE day in DC! Balkans went 16 for 36 at the plate, with 10 free passes and 16 extra bases. It was enough to regain third place… barely. I don’t know who the stars were, but there must have been plenty of them!

KALINE; DNP*, 4 – 6. (45 PA, .244, .311, .342; 5.3 ip, 4 er, 6.79 ERA). The Drive, having somehow played an extra game Thursday, officially took a day off Friday. They interrupted their lounging around to collect 10 hits in 41 ABs with 4 extra bases and an equal number of free passes. the Balk whizzed past them, retaking third place (barely). Ah, the glories of the EFL! The two are within 0.1 of a game of being tied, even though the Balk have played one fewer games (and will end with only 161).

PESHASTIN: “W”, 6 – 6. (38 PA, .219, .342, .281; 5.3 ip, 5 er, 8.49 ERA) The Pears are the loneliest team there could ever be, the loneliest team since the Wolverines (and Tornados). Look how the P’s are 5.2 games away from the Drive, and 5.5 from the Cheese. Except for the frontrunners, who chose loneliness as the price of a chance at glory, no other team is so shunned by its peers. Maybe that Pesties nickname I stuck on them early in the season has had unintended effects on Peshastin’s image. But it’s not like the Pears did anything decisive yesterday to change their situation. They went 7 for 32 at the plate with 6 free passes but only 2 extra bases. I don’t know who hit those extra bases…

(“Pears are the loneliest, Pears are the LONEliest, Pears are the loneliest team there could ever be!)

COTTAGE: W, 11 – 3. ( 42 PA, .371, .476, .714; 12.7 ip, 4 er, 2.83 ERA) Cheesy pitchers recovered from Friday’s 6.88 ERA to post a pretty 2.83 last night. Which went well with the toasted opponent side dish. Cheese batters worked 7 free passes and 12 extra bases to go with their 13 for 35 torching of opposing pitchers It was enough to boost the Cheese 1.4 games in the race for 6th place, giving them possession of the precious spot by 0.4 games.

CANBERRA: L, 0 – 4. (26PA, .160, .193, .160; 3.3 ip, 1 er, 2.73 ERA) The Kangaroos matched the Cheese ERA, but did in in about 1/4 the volume of innings. The ‘Roos hit better than they did Thursday … but Thursday’s line was .088, .162, .147. So, yeah: Friday it was all the way up to 4 for 25 with one free pass and no extra bases. This collapse does not thrust the Kangaroos into being among the lonely. (I think there’s a song with “among the lonely” in it, but I can’t come up with it just now). (Nah, I think it goes “only the lonely.” ) The Kangaroos have a buddy now, just 0.4 games and 0.003 percentage points off, as they prepare to enter the long, dark offseason.

HAVILAND: L, 8 – 10. (32 PA, .370,.469, .408; 7 ip, 7 er, 9.00 ERA) Dragon pitchers continued draggin’ the team down with awful ERAs. After Thursday’s wretched 10.3 ip, 11 er performance, Friday’s Dragon hurlers cut the earned runs allowed by four — but mostly by cutting the innings by 3.3. On the other hand, Haviland hitting did bounce back, at least in terms of getting on base. Five Dragons worked free passes, although there was only one extra base hit (a double) while the team went 10 for 27 at the plate.

PITTSBURGH L, 1 – 2. (23 PA, .182, .174, .318; 12.3 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA) I hope Mark will let us know who the pitchers were that gave him 12.3 scoreless innings last night. I don’t have time to look them up. On the other hand, the Alleghenys continued their struggle to get men to the plate. And last night the men who got to the plate struggled to do anything. They went 4 for 22 with three extra bases and no free passes (as far as I can tell.)

PORTLAND: W, 10 – 9. (39 PA, .378, .485, .964; 21.7 ip, 12 er, 4.98 ERA) I am assuming — running very short on time now, can’t go look — that some good pitcher wasn’t allocated yesterday to account for how 9 runs were allowed. But even with all those runs leaking, the Rosebuds continued their barrage at the plate, going 14 for 37 with 1 free pass and 10 extra bases.

BELLINGHAM: “W”, 6 – 7. (40 PA, .250 .325, .444; 0.7 ip, 2 er, 25.71 ERA). I wondered whether this reverse-engineered result was right. It was certainly POSSIBLE that the Cascades only got 2/3 of an inning of awful relief. So I checked — and sure enough, Brusdar Graterol provided exactly that to the Dodgers last night. I did not double check every other Bellingham Belle — again, no time today — but getting this one confirmation of an improbable stat was comforting.

As is, no doubt, the friendly presence of Rosebuds to the Cascades as we all approach the sunset of this season.

Four pairs of teams, eight teams out of 11 with a traveling companion into the dark winter… not too bad for an 11 team league.

Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021

AL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Old Detroit Wolverines	110	50	.688	—
Flint Hill Tornadoes	104	56	.651	5.9
Tampa Bay Rays	99	61	.619	11.1
New York Yankees	91	69	.569	19.1
Boston Red Sox	90	70	.563	20.1
Toronto Blue Jays	89	71	.556	21.1
Baltimore Orioles	52	108	.325	58.1

NL East
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
D.C. Balk	98	61	.619	—
Canberra Kangaroos	87	72	.548	11.2
Atlanta Braves	86	73	.541	12.4
Philadelphia Phillies	82	78	.513	16.9
New York Mets	77	83	.481	21.9
Miami Marlins	65	95	.406	33.9
Washington Nationals	65	95	.406	33.9

AL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Chicago White Sox	92	68	.575	—
Pittsburgh Alleghenys	84	76	.526	7.9
Bellingham Cascades	83	77	.516	9.5
Cleveland Indians	79	81	.494	13
Detroit Tigers	76	84	.475	16
Kansas City Royals	74	86	.463	18
Minnesota Twins	71	89	.444	21

NL Central
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Milwaukee Brewers	95	65	.594	—
St. Louis Cardinals	90	70	.563	5
Cottage Cheese	88	72	.551	6.9
Cincinnati Reds	82	78	.513	13
Chicago Cubs	69	91	.431	26
Pittsburgh Pirates	60	100	.375	35

AL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
Kaline Drive	99	61	.618	—
Houston Astros	93	67	.581	5.8
Seattle Mariners	89	71	.556	9.8
Oakland A’s	86	74	.538	12.8
Haviland Dragons	84	76	.526	14.7
Los Angeles Angels	76	84	.475	22.8
Texas Rangers	59	101	.369	39.8

NL West
TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
San Francisco Giants	106	54	.663	—
Los Angeles Dodgers	104	56	.650	2
Peshastin Pears	94	66	.585	12.4
Portland Rosebuds	83	77	.518	23.2
San Diego Padres	78	82	.488	28
Colorado Rockies	74	85	.465	31.5
Arizona Diamondbacks	50	110	.313	56

1 Comment

Mark Weinert says:

October 2, 2021 at 4:31 pm

Since you asked, my pitchers with the great performance yesterday were the most unlikely of all. Crowe threw a 6-inning one-hitter and Megill and 5-inning one-hitter. Trivino added another relief inning. If they’d done that a few more times maybe I’d be compared to the Rosebuds.