EFL at Easter

EFL Standings for 2017

Cottage: W 1, L 1; 7 – 5.  (.238, .311, .749; 10.7 ip, 2 er).  This weekend’s heroes:  Schoop (1.375 OPS), Austin Barnes (1.250), Max Kepler (1.250), and Addison Russell (1.000).  Bryce Harper took the weekend off (.125, .222, .125).  Mike Trout was only slightly off: .333, .500, .333.  The Cheese are ineligible for resurrection.  They’re already plenty surrect. Desurrection would be the remedy in their case.

Haviland: W 3, L (-1); 21 – 6. (.351, .489, .676; 22 ip, 6 er). Anthony Rizzo is back:  3 for 7 with  doubles, three HBP and a stolen base — a sweet 1.314 weekend OPS.  Zach Cozart (1.958) and Steven Souza (1.13) were better, of course, and Neil Walker (1.250, without any walks) was almost as good. So Haviland’s seen a Rizzorection, but the Dragons are also ineligible for a true resurrection since they haven’t been buried since they last won a title.

Peshastin: W 2, L 1; 18 – 13.  (.320, .378, .613; 10.3 ip, 6 er).  The Pears didn’t get much pitching, but at least their hitters performed at a championship level, with seven batters at or above a 1.000 OPS.  The leader this time was Khris Davis (4 for 9 with 2 homers).  Seth Smith has also been a revelation this year (1.302 OPS this weekend, .997 for the season so far). I thought he was washed up. So I guess there’s been a Smithsurrection; maybe it will extend to the entire team.

Flint Hill:  W 1, L 1; 7 – 13.  (.226, .273, .290;  1 ip, 0 er).  The Tornadoes are not animate, so they can’t be resurrected. But they do stand up pretty tall, so they are generally surrect. Especially, right now, Logan Forsythe (yes, a EWIE) who went 5 for 7 with a double the last two days. Perhaps he can bring other Tornadoes along with him, making it a cosurrection.

Kaline: W 1, L 1; 6 – 9. (.181, .241, .370;  15 ip,  6 er). Unenviable offense, unless it’s a Wolverine doing the envying.  Enviable pitching from almost any perspective, keynoted by James Paxton’s third straight scoreless start, totaling 21 innings, 22 k’s, 4 walks, 8 hits.  Paxton unsurprisingly leads the Drive in FIP at 1.40.  In a close second place is Liam Hendriks, at 1.56 — which in his case translates to an ERA of just 9.82. (Makes me wonder about BP’s FIP statistic.)

Pittsburgh: W 2, L 0; 11 – 2. (.261, .354, .420;  27 ip, 4 er).  There once was a time when the W’s would have days like this. Marco Estrada almost pulled a Paxton: 7 scoreless innings in Marco’s case.  Five guys OPSed over 1.000 on the weekend, led by Jose Altuve (.571, .700, .857) — well, not precisely Altuve, of course, his lifetime Wolverine batting stats feature no plate appearances.  It is a bit of a consolation from a Wolverine persepective to note Brandon Drury’s 1 for 8 with a double, for a .375 OPS.  He had been flying awfully high for the Alleghenys. It’s nice to see him desurrect a little.

Portland:  W 3, L 0; 14 – 9.  (.250, .338, .412;  20 ip, 6 er).  This is a solid line for a team already among the leaders. But Portland, surprisingly, is not among the leaders. Yasiel Puig had a nice weekend (4 for 5 with a homer and two walks ) as did Brad Miller (3 for 5 with a triple and a homer and a walk) and Chris Sale (7 ip, 1 er). But the Rosebuds were expected to lead the insurrection against the Triumvirate.  Instead they languish in seventh place.

Canberra:  W 0, L 2; 3 – 10.  (.156, .264, .221;  17.43 ip, 9 er). If Portland is languishing, what is Canberra doing? Foundering, perhaps. Daniel Norris go the Kangaroos off to a good start with 6 scoreless innings, and Chris Davis opened with a double and a homer (and a walk) in 8 trips to the plate.  But things went downhill quickly with Rick Porcello’s near-chulk (4.3 ip,, 8 er) and a string of weak offensive showings.  I would call this unsurrection, but we must remember that the ‘Roos are from Down Under. It may not be their fault if their normal surrection has them pointing down.

DC:  W 1, L 1; 14 – 8. (.327, .433, .564;  1 ip, 0 er).  So far the Balk have been asurrect. If they keep hitting like that — with Corey Seager (1.533) and four others (Gosselin, Grossman, Moreland and Schebler) at or over 1.000 OPS; and with Rule 5 pick Jeremy Helickson turning in starts that would make him the ace of his former team (the Wolverines — the Balk Asurrection is not going to last long.

Old Detroit: W 0, L 2; 6 – 14. (250, .29, .441; 20 ip, 15 er).  Corey Kluber and Matt Moore combined yesterday for 12 ip and 11 er.  Clayton Richard “rescued” the situation with 6 ip, 4 er, making my three starters perfect replacement pitchers with a combined ERA of 7.50. Nate Jones and Shane Greene both threw scoreless innings, which BP’s FIP ranked at 3.92 for each of them, even though Greene gave up a hit and Jones didn’t.  But the Wolverines are already deep into their postsurrection.  We are not going to be saved by a more reliable FIP. What would have to happen for a Wolverine resurrection? It would take a miracle.

Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2017