CASSELTON CLINCHES; WILDCATS WIPED OUT

September 18: Landon Bolt’s team was assured a playoff spot with their victory over Brownsville (making 100 on the season) and a Carolina loss to St. Francis that capped a wild few days of play that included crooked numbers and a no-hitter.

It’s almost a tradition in Bullard Alternative Reality Baseball: the league’s fourth-best record sits out of the four-team playoffs because the top two are from their same division. This time, however, it was the Carolina Wildcats of the BARB Central Division, not a team from the usual “Division of Death”, the East, which received the short end of the stick.

For much of the last few months, the Casselton Horned Toads have been charging the St. Francis Kansans, who had been expected to run away with the Central for the first half of the season. Casselton even caught and passed St. Francis just a few days before clinching, before the Kansans started picking up their play again. The two teams even played a two-game series, their last against each other, on the 16^th and 17^th (a split; St. Francis won, 4-1, behind Travis Wood before Casselton lambasted Shelby Miller for 11 runs in four-plus innings as Tim Hudson pulled a “Maddux”—complete-game shutout on less than 100 pitches).

The Horned Toads and Kansans went their separate ways to attempt to take the division crown, as St. Francis traveled to Carolina and Casselton went to Brownsville.

Anthony King’s squad was hanging on to its last thread of playoff hopes. Casselton’s magic number to clinch at least the wild card was two, meaning a combination of two Casselton wins or Carolina losses locked it up. in this all-important division game with the Kansans, lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu took the ball for the Wildcats against Bud Norris. Neither starter pitched well; Norris exited after four and a third innings having allowed nine hits and five runs, Ryu gave up six runs in 5.2 innings pitched.

The Kansans put up four in the top of the first on the strength of a Marlon Byrd three-run blast and added one in the fourth. Carolina’s Nick Markakis laced a two-run double as part of a four-run fourth, and they tied it in the fifth. The sixth, however, marked the downfall of the Carolina season. Ryu got two quick outs (on five pitches) before a 20-foot dribbler allowed Salvador Perez to reach in front of Jacoby Ellsbury’s double to left-center to end the pitcher’s night. Brett Cecil entered and promptly threw a wild pitch for one run before a single brought in another. It could have been worse, but Jayson Werth was gunned down at home to end the inning after yet another base knock.

To make matters worse for the Wildcats, Nelson Cruz was tagged out attempting to steal home to end a promising situation in the bottom of the inning. One wonders if Pat Neshek’s patented windup confused the plodding slugger.

The score remained 7-5 until the eighth, when St. Francis hit five singles before Jed Lowrie capped the scoring with a two run jack. The five-run frame all-but sealed the game and left Carolina’s slim postseason chances to Brownsville to keep alive.

Across the country at Cockerton Field, the hapless Cutters (39-112, already assured of the first pick, pending expansion, in the 2015 draft) sent Drew Hutchison to the mound against Chris Tillman. After just a few minutes, the television would be shut off in the Carolina locker room as players slumped out the door.

The reason? Casselton scored five runs in the first inning and never looked back. Three doubles and a Jay Bruce home run were the big hits. The second began with more of the same—Scooter Gennett got a hold of one to lead off and Hutchison was given the hook. Kyle Farnsworth, Matt Belisle and Jonathan Broxton ALL threw pitches in the frame, and with seven innings left to play the Horned Toads held an 8-1 lead.

Brownsville hacked away at the Casselton advantage, slowly, scoring a run in the third and the sixth, but three more Toads crossed the plate in the seventh to put the game away.

The 12-6 win meant Landon Bolt’s charges were returning to the postseason for the first time since they were edged out in the first round in 2010.

PLAYOFFS NEARLY SET

Three teams have clinched playoff spots. The fourth will be the East Division champion. At this point, it is likely the top two records will come from the Central. If that holds, the Central champion will face the East winner, with West-titlist Yuma hosting the wild card winner. If the season ended today, it would be Worcester @ St. Francis and Casselton @ Yuma. A lot can happen in the final week-and-a-half, though. The Central can flip-flop, and the four teams in the East are within four-and-a-half games of each other and all mathematically alive.

SPEAKING OF THE EAST…

Worcester, Frostbite Falls, Brooklyn and Nor Cal have all had legitimate chances to take control, but none has run away with the division. As it stands, the Eliminators hold a half-game lead over the Flying Squirrels, with the Moabs four off the pace and the Pirates over-.500 but a half-game behind Brooklyn.

Brooklyn visited the Pirates on September 17^th, and the two had quite the see-saw battle. It was rather mundane into the bottom of the seventh. Eric Caskey’s Moabs built a 7-1 lead after the top of the seventh inning and sent Sonny Gray out for the bottom half. Five hits and a pitching change later, the dust settled and the scoreboard showed a one-run game. Gray was pulled after Devin Mesoraco crushed a grand slam, and Drew Storen allowed one more across. A Wil Myers two-run jack in the eighth gave Brooklyn some breathing room, but Storen, Soria and Neftali Feliz gave it right back and more in a three-run bottom half.

Those eight runs over two innings pushed the game to extra frames. In the top of the 10^th, though, momentum swung permanently back to Brooklyn. Vic Black, already with two innings of work under his belt, recorded two outs but left with the bases loaded. Having used seven pitchers already, Nor Cal management went to starter Madison Bumgarner. Veteran speedster Rajai Davis was sent up to the dish to replace Rougned Odor in the pressure situation, but his bat did more of the talking than his trademark wheels. The “Mad Bum” grooved a 2-1 curveball and Davis sent the ball to left field. Yoenis Cespedes went back…BACK…GONE! Rajai Davis (?!) had hit a GRAND SLAM to suck the air right out of The Coliseum!

After Davis’ homer, two more Moabs scored in the 10^th. Feliz allowed two runners but closed out the 15-9 victory.

September 16: Arrieta shines

Both the Moabs and Pirates were still chasing Matt Caskey’s Worcester Eliminators, as were the Frostbite Falls Flying Squirrels. Frostbite was the closest, and on September 16^th Jake Arrieta continued his resurgent second half in grand fashion to pull his team closer to the top.

Arrieta, installed in the rotation at mid-season, had experienced his struggles with the rest of the Squirrel rotation during the dog days of summer. (Felix Hernandez, in fact, was so consistently bad that fans could almost read “Bernandez”, as in “Larry” on the back of his jersey.) Arrieta, and the team, had turned it around in September and were making a final push for a chance to defend their World Series title.

So it was that Arrieta took the bump opposite Johnny Cueto, coming back from his own befuddling season-long struggles, in the second of a three-game series in Massachusets.

Frostbite came away with a win in the first game, 5-3, behind Cole Hamels. Arrieta followed suit and began mowing down Worcester hitters from the beginning, retiring the first eight batters while gaining offensive support from the bat of Evan Longoria in the form of a second-inning solo shot. However, the defense of Longoria, typically very good, was to blame for the first Worcester runner, as he kicked a two-out grounder by Justin Morneau in the third. He did field Jason Heyward’s ground ball cleanly to end the inning.

Frostbite added another run in the fourth. Bryce Harper led off with a double and advanced to third on a Longoria fly-out before scoring on an Albert Pujols grounder.

Arrieta, meanwhile, was still retiring Eliminator after Eliminator. He retired the side in order in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. Still the only Worcester baserunner was Morneau on the error, and the home crowd was getting antsy. They had a chance to cheer with one away in the eighth when Jonathan Lucroy’s can of corn was muffed by center fielder Craig Gentry, but Jason Kipnis got in the way of Chris Johnson’s liner to end that frame.

The vaunted Worcester bullpen had shut the door on Frostbite after Cueto’s seven innings, so it was up to Arrieta to protect the 2-0 lead. Morneau struck out, the 10^th K victim for Arrieta. Heyward worked the count in his favor, but his line drive was speared by Kipnis. That left it to Hanley Ramirez, the leading hitter on the team (.349). Down in the count at one ball and two strikes, Ramirez was jammed and dumped a three-hopper in front of Arrieta. The pitcher, clearly fighting off nerves, steadied himself and fired to first to complete his masterpiece, a NO-HITTER over the division leaders!

The lanky righty had thrown 118 pitches and allowed just the two runners on errors while striking out 10. His win and a well-pitched game by Hernandez the next day completed the sweep and pulled the Flying Squirrels within a half-game of Worcester with 10 to play! In addition, it was the first no-no in Frostbite Falls history.