South Oakland holds the tie breaker over the 11-loss Monsters and Senators, who are tied for sixth place. The worst we can finish is 13-11. Here are the standings as of July 1st.

There are good battles going on for both the top spot in the division and the sixth and final playoff spot.

Losing two to the Lions hurt. I’ll take the heat for not at least splitting the series. We were out-coached. Our teams are pretty evenly matched, and they made fewer mistakes.

Anyway, the Ducks play tomorrow at 8pm vs. the Bombers, who have been struggling as of late. We need a win to stay within a game of North America, and to put pressure on the WOLFPACK!!! If both teams win out, it would force a YODA-style showdown when we play them on the 13th.

I’m assuming the WOLFPACK!!! has a bunch of rain outs to make up, so who knows how that will effect their rotation, etc.

The Titans are creeping back towards .500 after sweeping a triple header against the Warriors over the weekend.

The Monsters have gone 2-11 after beating us in April to improve to 3-0.

The Lions are trying to get out of rescheduling a game against the Warriors, that had been rescheduled and then pushed back indefinitely after the Warriors weren’t going to be able to get enough guys.

I’m not sure what the letter of the law is on this, but I’m of the mind that it’s always better to play than take a forfeit, especially when Boley is willing to play triple headers to get games in. But whatever, it’s within North America’s right to try to get a forfeit win against the 2-12 Warriors if that’s what their manager feels is best for their team.

Over the years I’ve absolutely tried to get cheap wins by calling out other teams’ illegal p/unregistered players or pushing for forfeits and the like– especially back in the Red Scare years when we were desperate for wins and not very good, and always a few games out of a playoff spot, and I hate losing. I’ve played with illegal players, I’ve played illegally for other teams, I’ve colluded to with managers to change our score books, so guys would have enough games to be playoff eligible. But as I’ve been around longer, I’ve tried to stay within the letter of the rules and to be conscious of the intent of the league. A big reason I wanted to drop to Single A is to avoid feeling pressured to do that kind of shit, and to have Ducks baseball be about getting everyone playing time (in the regular season, anyway. In the playoffs it’s our best 9 on offense and our best 9 on defense).

I like this year’s Ducks team a lot. I haven’t had this much fun since 2009. We’re facing some adversity for the first time this season, and I’m curious how we will respond down the stretch.

quack.