Cheese and Pears Still Fresh?

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Cottage: DNP, 0 – 0. (.269, .321, .462;  0 pitching).

Kaline:  W, 6 – 3.  (.276, .323, .690;  0.7 ip, 0 er).  That Drive line for batting looks a lot like the Pears and Cheese, until you see the slugging percentage. Who!  Isolated power of .414!  How did that happen?  Well, you can thank the Drive middle infielders.  Ryan Schemp hit a homer, and Chris Owings hit two homers and got a walk. Chris Owings!  He’s OPSing .915 on the year so far, good for fourth on the Drive.  Kris Bryant is 6th at .833. So I guess Chris Owings is going to be Kris Bryant until Kris Bryant can be Kris Bryant.   Meanwhile, the Drive keep creeping closer to the elites.  They aren’t there yet…

Haviland: W, 6 – 3. (.500, .500, .625;  8.7 ip, 3 er).  Don’t let that 1.125 team OPS dazzle you too badly. It’s only  2 players in 8 plate appearances. One of those was Neil Walker going 3 for 4.The biggest driver of those 6 runs scored is the fact that the Dragons have been scoring 6 runs a game all season.  Meanwhile, Carlos Martinez (6 ip, 3 er) is grateful for Josh Smoker (2.7 ip, 0 er).

Flint Hill: DNP, (-1) – (-7).  (.214, .214, .317;  7.3 ip, 0 er).  Daniel Murphy is the only Tornado that stirred much up at the plate, going 3 for 6 with a homer and a double.  Meanwhile Mariners Iwakuma and Zych flattened batters for a combined 7.3 inning shutout.

Pittsburgh:  L, 2 – 6. (.136, .310, .182;  6 ip, 2 er).  Other than Kaline’s 1.023 OPS, EFL struggled offensively yesterday.  Unfortunately, Kendall Graveman’s fine 6 innings didn’t help as much as they might since they were relief innings, while 5 more starting innings were covered by replacements.

  

Portland: W, 2 – (-1).  (.105, .190, .105;  13.7 ip, 3 er).  Julio Urias stepped up and  gave the Rosebuds 5.7 strong innings (1 er) to complement one of Chris Sale’s usual performances (8 ip, 2 er).  So Portland won despite its staggeringly poor day at the plate — fortunately only involving 21 plate appearances.

Old Detroit:  DNP,  (-1) – (-3).  (.222, .250, .333;  14 ip, 4 er).  Similar to the Rosebud’s day, except Old Detroit didn’t get in an actual game.  We hit a little better, led by Kolten Wong’s latest good performance (3 for 8  with a double, a triple, and a walk) in the ongoing last-minute resurrection of his carer.  Matt Moore rebounded from his last disaster with a 7 ip, 1 er day, joining Kluber’s routine 7 ip, 3 er

Canberra:  W,  5 – 3.  (.167, .286, .444;  8 ip, 2 er).  At least with our poor hitting down here in the EFL nether regions, we are also getting good pitching. Canberra is no exception:  Taijuan Walker came up with a Chris Sale-ish 8 ip, 2 er.  Adam Eaton was almost the entire offense: .500, .667, 1.500 on 2 for 4 with a homer, a double, and two walks.  The team as a whole only appeared at the plate 21 times.

DC:  L, 1 – 4.  (.120, .214, 240;  6 ip, 1 er).  Again, the same formula.  All we can afford down here is some decent pitching now and then.  This time it was Jeremy Hellickson going 6 ip, 1 er. Corey Seager was the main offensive spark: .333, .600, 1.333 with 2 walks and a homer in 5 trips.