The King Who Can't Sleep

CARLAThere was a transaction this week I want to read to you slowly, because I think the speed of it is the problem.

RAZOROkay.

CARLAOn July 30th, the Rick Astleys — first place, 7 and a half games up, the best run prevention in the league — signed a starting pitcher.

RAZOR[beat] They signed a starter.

CARLARick Sutcliffe. Off the wire. To a rotation that already has a 15-and-1 and a 16-and-3 in it.

RAZORSee, that's the part right there. A 15-and-1 and a 16-and-3. You don't go shopping for a fourth man when your top two have lost 4 games combined since April.

CARLAAnd yet.

RAZORAnd yet. [laughs] You know what that is? That's a man with a full pantry buying more rice. A man who's already won, lying awake at 2 in the morning going, "but what if."

CARLAThey are up 7 and a half games.

RAZORThey are up 7 and a half games and somebody in that front office is still scared of something. I respect it and I do not understand it.

CARLAWe went looking for the need. We did. The Astleys have the lowest earned run average in baseball, the best record in baseball, and a magic number you can see from space. The only thing they were missing was one more arm they will almost certainly never use.

RAZORSo they got it.

CARLASo they got it. From your hosts, who would also like more rice — this is Foul Territory.

CARLAWelcome in. Carla Streich, Razor Shines, the numbers are through August 7th, and I'll give you the shape of the whole season in one sentence: first place is a closed book, and everything underneath it is a bar fight.

RAZORA friendly bar fight.

CARLAA bar fight where everybody's still buying each other beers and then swinging. The Astleys are 75 and 30. The next-closest club is 7 and a half back. So we are not, tonight, calling a pennant race. We're calling the race for second — which, and I mean this sincerely, is the most interesting thing happening in this league.

RAZORAnd we've got a caller later who's been looking at the whole thing from the road. Stick around for that one.

CARLAWe do. Let's get into it.

CARLAQuick roundup since we last talked, which was through July 29th. Small window — call it a week and change of baseball — but it moved the furniture.

CARLAThe Astleys went 5 and 1.

RAZORNaturally.

CARLAIron Knob went 4 and 4. Knockemstiff went 3 and 4. And that thin little difference did something: Iron Knob is now in second place. They passed Knockemstiff without really doing anything — they just stood still slightly better.

RAZORThat's a season, sometimes. You don't win the spot, the other fella mails it to you.

CARLAThe Honey Badgers, meanwhile, had the best week of any human team not named the Astleys. 5 and 3.

RAZORAnd they're still in sixth.

CARLAAnd they're still in sixth — because everybody in the middle moved at the exact same time. You can run as hard as you want in a revolving door. The Badgers found that out this week.

CARLAInjuries we'll fold in here, because it was quiet. Nicaragua lost Acker through August 22nd — he's 10 and 1 out of their bullpen, and that one actually stings. That's a wild-card club losing the arm that's been nailing down the close ones.

RAZORThat's the only one that scares me. The Astleys have Whitaker dinged a couple of days, Huanca had a man run into somebody in the outfield — the report literally says "collision in the field," which is the most baseball injury there is.

CARLATwo men, one ball, nobody calls it.

RAZORNobody calls it. That's pride. [laughs]

CARLAAnd our standing weekly tribute to the Astleys' other ace. The 16-and-3 man. The leader — the leader — in wins for the entire league.

RAZORWhose name we are not going to say.

CARLAWe made a promise last week. We somehow forgot this man existed for thirteen episodes, and as penance we now honor him every single week by describing him in loving detail and refusing to say his name. 16 and 3. A 2.72 earned run average. We see you, sir.

RAZORIt's the most respect we've ever shown anybody.

CARLAOne piece of housekeeping. A while back I predicted a top-six team would fall under .500 by the All-Star break. There is no All-Star break in this league, and no top-six team fell under .500 — the closest is the Honey Badgers at .551 — so that prediction has officially expired, unclaimed, in a drawer somewhere.

RAZORWe don't talk about that one.

CARLAWe just did.

CARLAAnd at the very bottom, the Hurricanes lost their tenth in a row, with Oak Ridge not far behind them. We mention it strictly as context — when a club upstairs posts a shiny week, the first question is always how much of it came against those two. Nicaragua's 4 and 4 this week had none of it in there. That's honest work.

CARLASo. Second place. Iron Knob, 68 and 38. Knockemstiff, 69 and 39. One more win, one more loss, three-thousandths of a point of percentage between them — and Iron Knob's in front. Tied in everything that matters and separated by the thinnest math in the game.

RAZORAnd here's what I love about it. Iron Knob is up there on pitching — Kevin Brown's 12 and 3, the staff just keeps every game close. Knockemstiff is up there on offense — they lead the league in runs and they cannot, for the life of them, find a man to finish a ballgame.

CARLATwo clubs that are great at opposite things, fighting over the same chair.

RAZORTwo good ballclubs, elbowing each other over second place like it's the last seat on the bus. And that's the whole season now — first place is gone, so everybody else is just fighting over the leftovers.

CARLAWhile we're up here, the best argument in baseball is happening inside the Iron Knob rotation, and neither pitcher knows they're in it. Bert Blyleven is 38 years old, has a 2.70 earned run average, and the best control in the league — 1.3 walks per nine. Greg Maddux, same rotation, is 23. Same record as Blyleven, both 11 and 3. The old man has the lower ERA.

RAZORThe kid's gonna be the kid. But right now the kid is chasing the old man, and the old man is in no hurry. I played with guys like that. They don't throw hard — they throw correct.

CARLAPut that on a shirt.

RAZORI'm serious. Hang it in the clubhouse.

CARLATop of the board, the Astleys, and there's not much the cold open didn't already say. 75 and 30. A run differential of plus-297. Their Davis — and I want to be careful, because there are two of them in this league — their Davis leads everybody with 118 runs batted in, and is tied for the league lead with 41 home runs.

RAZORDavis is having a year. The Badgers' Davis gets on base, but the Astleys have got the one who clears them.

CARLATwo Davises, two completely different jobs. And Garrelts is 15 and 1, which I'm contractually permitted to mention only in passing — so: 15 and 1. Moving on.

RAZOR[laughs] Moving on.

CARLAIron Knob we covered up top, but I cannot leave the second-place club without the base thief. Rickey Henderson has stolen 72 bases.

RAZOR72? Through how many games?

CARLA106 team games. He's been caught 20 times, which sounds like a lot until you understand the man has simply decided that second base belongs to him, and he is going to keep going to collect it.

RAZORYou don't coach that, you survive it. I caught a few guys like that in my day — and by "caught" I mean I stood there and watched them run. He's not stealing bases. He's collecting them.

CARLAAnd quietly, Darryl Strawberry — who we spent a couple weeks watching crater down around .213 — is still only hitting .215. But he's got 20 home runs now. The average never came back. The power did.

RAZORPower's the last thing to leave a hitter. He'll be fine. He's already fine.

CARLANow. The Fugging Honey Badgers. And I'm going to give you four numbers, one at a time, and let each one sit for a second.

RAZORGo.

CARLAThe Honey Badgers have the worst earned run average of any human team. 4.81.

RAZOROkay.

CARLAThey've given up more hits than any human team. 1,090.

RAZORThat tracks with the first one.

CARLAThey've thrown the fewest complete games in the entire league. 6.

RAZORSo the starters can't finish. Got it.

CARLAAnd they have the most saves in the entire league. 39.

RAZOR[pause] Wait.

CARLAThe team with the worst pitching in the league has the most saves in the league.

RAZORBecause they're in every close game! The starter coughs it up, hands it over with a one-run lead, the bullpen comes in and holds it by its fingernails, and somebody gets a save. Every single night.

CARLAThey don't win ballgames, Razor. They survive them.

RAZORThat is the most Honey Badger thing I have ever heard in my life. That's the whole animal right there. It doesn't win the fight — it just refuses to lose it.

CARLA59 and 48. Plus-30 run differential, just barely. And the other Davis — the Honey Badgers' Davis — is second in the entire league in on-base, at .423. They have the second-best on-base man in baseball and they're in last place among the humans. Lonnie Smith is quietly raking too, by the way. .528 slugging. We keep waiting for him to get hurt. He keeps not.

RAZORLeave him be. You'll jinx it!

CARLAI would never....

CARLAAnd here's the knot that ties the Badgers' whole season together — and it's the best little tangle in the standings. Last episode we gave you the triangle at the top: the Astleys beat Knockemstiff, Knockemstiff beats Iron Knob, Iron Knob beats the Astleys. Nobody in charge. That, by the way, is still true. It did not resolve.

RAZORIt never resolves. That's the joke.

CARLAWell — there's a second one now. Down in the middle. The Honey Badgers own Knockemstiff: 11 and 7.

RAZORThe sixth-place club owns the third-place club.

CARLAKnockemstiff owns Huanca: 10 and 3.

RAZORMm-hm.

CARLAAnd Huanca owns the Honey Badgers: 13 and 6. It goes all the way around again. The Badgers can beat the team that beats the team that beats them. They just cannot reliably beat the actual team standing in front of them.

RAZORHuanca's had their number all year. Some matchups are just like that. You line up wrong against a club and there is no fixing it inside a season — you wait, and you hope next year's schedule is kinder.

CARLAHuanca, for its part, climbed up to fourth — and Howard Johnson's a big reason, 30 home runs. We spent time on HoJo last episode; he's still going. He more or less dragged a whole team up the standings with him.

RAZORHoJo on a fourth-place club. I'll take the small win on that one.

CARLAAnd a quiet nod for the Wankers — a fella named Broyles, .818 success rate on the bases. Sneaky-good little year. Brings some energy.

RAZORSolid contributor.

CARLAWhich leaves Knockemstiff, in third, where the story hasn't changed — the bats are real, and the ninth inning is a problem. Bonilla and Mitchell are both having the kind of years I'm only allowed to nod at, so — [nods]. But that lineup leads the league in runs scored and also in home runs allowed. They score a touchdown and then they give one right back.

RAZORBest offense in the league, nobody to close the door. That's a hard way to live.

CARLATrade Watch — and I use that term loosely, because this is a free-agent league, and the deadline came and went with exactly one move that mattered.

RAZORThe rich one.

CARLAThe Astleys signed Sutcliffe, as we covered at the top. That's it. That's the whole deadline. Six human clubs, a clear July 30th cutoff, and the only team that improved itself is the team that's already 7 and a half games in front.

RAZORAnd Knockemstiff needed an arm. Everybody watching this league knew Knockemstiff needed an arm. Best offense in baseball, nobody to finish a game, deadline staring them in the face — and they stood pat.

CARLAReminder, as always: the two computer clubs at the bottom are off the table. No deals there, no speculation, ever. The market is the six of you — and the six of you mostly looked at each other and blinked.

RAZORThe one club that didn't blink already had the best hand.

CARLAThe rich get richer, and the rest of you get to watch.

RAZORMore rice.

CARLALet's go to the phones. We've got Dale on the line — Dale Figgins. Where are you tonight, Dale?

DALESomewhere east of Knockemstiff, Carla, headed your way. I've rolled through five of your six towns this week, and I want to tell you something about the standings you can only see from the road.

RAZORWe're listening, Dale.

DALEIt goes like this. You drive into the Astleys' town and everything's calm. Lights low, lawns mowed, everybody asleep by ten. Winning town. Then you cross into the middle — Huanca, Nicaragua, the Badgers' place — and it is lit up at two in the morning. Everybody anxious. Everybody one game from feeling great or feeling sick.

CARLAThat's the standings, Dale. That is exactly the standings.

DALEAnd here's the part I keep chewing on out there in the dark. You two keep saying nobody's in charge. The triangle, the circle, nobody on top of anybody. But that's not quite true, is it. Somebody is in charge. The Astleys are in charge. They're up 7 and a half. The "nobody's in charge" business — that's a story the other five clubs tell each other so the middle still feels like a race.

RAZOR[laughs] He's not wrong, Carla.

DALEI drive a truck. I get a lot of quiet. And what the quiet keeps telling me is — the team that's actually in charge is the one that just signed a pitcher it doesn't need. Because down deep they know being in charge is the thing that gets taken away. That's why they're scared. The middle's not scared. The middle's got nothing to lose. It's the king who can't sleep.

CARLADale, that might be the most clear-eyed thing anyone has said on this program.

RAZORHe does this. Drives twelve hours and comes back with the truth.

DALEWindshield time, Razor. You stare at a road long enough, the road stares back at you. Anyway — the Honey Badgers beat my number this week. I had 'em fourth. I'll own it. Keep up the good work, you two.

CARLADrive safe, Dale.

DALEAlways do. Except for the times I don't. [click]

RAZORI would follow that man into battle.

CARLAHe'd be late. But he'd get there.

CARLAThat's the show. First place is settled. Second place is a bar fight. The middle is a revolving door, and the Honey Badgers are sprinting full speed inside it. The Astleys keep buying rice. And somewhere out there, a 16-and-3 pitcher just heard his entire body of work described one more time —

RAZOR— without his name.

CARLAWe'll name him in the title game. Maybe. If he earns it. He's 16 and 3, so he probably will, and then we'll have to.

RAZORWe'll find a reason not to.

CARLAWe always do. For Razor Shines, I'm Carla Streich, and the numbers were through August 7th. Barely affiliated, lightly sanctioned —

RAZOR— not stopping.

CARLASee you next dump.