We’re Baaack!

EFL Standings for 2019

Portland: W, 3 – 1.  (PA 38, .125, .263, .344; 12.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). German Marquez put together 8 scoreless innings and FOUR relievers failed, over 4.7 additional innings, to mess it up. I think we can all agree this led to an unfortunate outcome: last year’s champs beginning to soar away from the rest of us. I’m not proposing any drastic action at this point.  After all, every previous occupant of first place has stumbled, some all the way down to 10th place.  So perhaps we can rely on the Rosebuds to wilt in the heat of the first-place spotlight. But just in case they don’t, I’m warning everyone to be vigilant.

Flint Hill: L, 7 – 8. (34 PA, .286, .412, .429; 6 ip, 2 er, 3.00 ERA). The Tornados had a decent day, not the kind that should cost a team in the standings.  But all that fancy pitching in Portland doubled the Tornadoes’ deficit in the pennant race.

Old Detroit: W, 4 – 4. (45 PA, .205, .311, .333; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 era).  Raphael Devers shone again Tuesday: 2 for 3 with a homer and a walk. That nice young man helped this old guy cross into the top three of the league… although it required us to step gingerly around someone who seemed to be napping in the grass. So now there’s one of us old guys among the league leaders for the first time in weeks!  Yay for the old guys! But it is a shock to discover being in the top 3 doesn’t get you any closer than 4.4 games behind. Sigh. More work to do.

Canberra: L, (-1) – 2. (30 PA, .037, .133, .148; 8.7 ip, 3 er, 3.12 ERA).  The napping person turns out to be the Captain Kangaroo! His pitchers weren’t napping at all, but that 1 for 27 batting performance is positively comatose.  Or would be if the 1 wasn’t a Jose Abreu homer.

Peshastin: W, 6 – 1. (50 PA, .222, .300, .644; 8 ip, 1 er, 1.12 ERA).  Huh. Here’s another great day of pitching. So far the teams I’ve reported total 36.3 ip with only 6 earned runs, for an ERA of under 1.50. The Pears’ pitching, combined with another Joey Gallo homer and two from Clint Frazier plus solo shots from JaCoby Jones and Juan Soto, helped the Pears gain, even on the Rosebuds.

Pittsburgh: W, 4 – 0. (35 PA, .200, .429, .480;  7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  Wow!  Sonny Gray and Trevor Gott added to and improved the league’s running pitching line:  42.2 ip, 6 er, ERA under 1.30.)  Juricskon Profar did the pinch-hit homer trick, plus he added two HBP, for a 5.000 OPS over three plate appearances.

Kaline: “L” 4- 3. (49 PA, .289, .347, .444; 12.3 ip, 4 er, 2.92 ERA).  The 2.92 Kaline ERA looks high today, but it’s really very good.  And Omar Narvaez led the way from the plate Tuesday: 3 for 4 with a homer.  The Drive are just right there in getting back over .500 line.

Haviland: W, 5 – 3.  (23 PA, .211, .318, .579;  6 ip, 2 er, 3.00 ERA).  Still no bad pitching lines today, 2/3 of the way through the standings.  Also solid hitting, if not quite enough of it.  Even though he pitched well (5 ip, 2 er), Domingo German lost the German War (with German Marquez).

Bellingham: L, 2 – 5. (44 PA, .238, .261, .429;  6 ip, 3 er, 4.50 ERA).  This is the worst pitching line of the day, so far, and it’s not even that bad. A reasonable amount of hitting could have still  produced a win. Rowdy Tellez tried to ensure such an outcome, but his 2 homers in 5 PA wasn’t enough by itself.

Cottage: L, 3 – 8. (45 PA, .256, .289, .326;  0.3 ip. 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Every third of an inning helps, especially scoreless ones. Getting one means a team only needs twenty more thirds of an inning per game, at least.

Brookland: W, 6 – 4. (30 PA, .269, .355, .538; 3.3 ip., 1 er, 2.70 ERA).  Good stuff happened here.  Just needs to be a little more of it.

DC:  L, 2 – 8. (31 PA, .276, .323, .379; 0.7 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA)  Thanks to Tim Mayza’s 0.7 scoreless inning, we did it! Not one single team had a daily ERA over 4.50.  I don’t know when that has ever happened before on a reasonably full day of MLB games. The league’s era, calculated in my head while trying to listen to what’s going on around me, was something like 2.75 ERA.  Meantime we scored 3.75 runs per team, even counting the negative runs scored by during their nap by the Kangaroos.

Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2019