Three matchups ended with a margin of three, two with two
and one with six.
The latter was the Gameday Gamblers picking up a 12-6-6 win
over Michael Coldsmith III, who sold his first-floor efficiency to the Handi
Jerks so he could move into the American League cellar.
He just hopes the Jerk didn’t drink all the wine.
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Chris Colabello had 12 freaking hits last week. Twelve. It's almost
as insane as Giancarlo Stanton's 10 RBIs.
|
The Gamblers are no where near the cellar, hanging out on
top of the American League with a 2.5-game lead, 14 games over .500.
Order has been restored. The Gamblers are back.
His reign in the American League came to an end last season,
but he’s making the push to regain control of the League he’s owned for years.
But, his early lead is a bit deceiving because his team,
overall, isn’t playing that well offensively. In offensive stats, he’s only in
the top five in two categories — fifth in triples (5) and second in homers
(27). He’s just lucked out with a few matchups that have allowed him to collect
19 wins on the offensive side.
But hey, wins are wins.
This week, he picked up nine of those 19 offensive wins
thanks to big weeks from Joey Votto (9-for-21, 5 runs, 7 singles, 2 homers, 5
RBIs, 7 walks) and Ryan Braun (8-for-26, 7 runs, 3 singles, 2 doubles, 3
homers, 4 RBIs).
On the mound, he had a decent week, too, but Coldsmith got
seven quality starts, one more than the Gamblers, with his makeshift rotation
that posted a 2.40 ERA and a 1.053 WHIP.
The Gamblers had a 3.62 ERA behind strong starts from
Masahiro Tanaka and Aaron Harang.
Yes, Harang, who is now 3-1 with four quality starters, 22
strikeouts, a 0.70 ERA and 0.82 WHIP. Not a bad free-agent pickup for the
Gamblers.
In what could have been a battle for first place, the Big
League Choo and N.J. Bombers ended the week fairly even, with Choo earning the
slight edge 12-10-2. Their virtual stalemate allowed the Gamblers to blow past
them both.
Obviously, still early.
In the other A.L. matchup, it was the Jerks 10-8-6 over the
Sex Panthers, who missed out on some stats because she didn’t set her roster.
(Tisk, tisk.)
In the National League, it’s Vandelay Industries with a
1.5-game lead over the Philly Cheese Steaks, and the Outs and ERA are 2 and 2.5
games back, respectively. Not too far away are the Slammers at 6 games back,
and then it’s the Otto Parts, the preseason favorite, at 12 games back.
As I suspect will be the case for the majority of the
season, the National League will have matchups that just boggle the mind.
Like, for example, the Cheese Steaks posted a 3.17 ERA, 1.170 WHIP, 77
strikeouts, seven quality starts, a CG SO and a 9-2 record, and he only won
four pitching categories.
That’s because Vandelay had 95 strikeouts, seven quality
starts, two CG SOs, 2.127 ERA and a 1.058 WHIP.
It’s tough to post a CG SO and lose that category.
Sometimes, you will wind up tying, but losing, that’s some hard luck.
I ran into a similar issue against Steroid.ERA, who won
eight offensive categories despite my 56 singles, 16 doubles, two triples, five
homers, 31 RBIs, six stolen bases and .286 batting average.
He had a ridiculous 47 runs (I gave up on that stat early),
an insane 60 singles, 21 doubles, five homers, 30 RBIs, 6 GWRBIs, four SACs, 11
stolen bases and .313 batting average.
On Sunday, he actually had a pair of homers and took over
the lead in that category and tied me at 30 RBIs. Knowing this stat, and
knowing that the only at-bat I had left in the week was Charlie Blackmon’s
eighth-inning appearance against the Phillies, I stood there and said — and
this is an honest truth — “Come on, Charlie, hit a homer for me!”
Next pitch, swear to the baseball gods, old and new, Charlie
(yes, we’re on a first-name basis) launched one for a solo home run, off a
left-handed reliever, no less. It tied up the HR category and gave me the win
in RBIs. It was a big hit.
It wasn’t just a big hit matchup-wise; it was reassurance
after Yasiel Puig hit a three-run homer earlier in the day. Yes, without Sonny
Gray’s quality start on Friday, I wouldn’t have won the QS category, but I was
waiting for the negative words to float in on Facebook until Charlie homered. …
He also just homered again tonight.
He was one of six Slammers to have seven or more hits last
week. Matt Adams, a.k.a. "Captain Singles," had 10 hits, and "Co-Captain Singles" Eric
Hosmer had nine hits. Both have yet to unleash their true power this season,
hence my satirical nicknames for them, but they’re hitting.
So is Melky Cabrera, who had nine hits, powering my team to
79 for the week.
A pretty good total, but ERA had 86, thanks to Chris
Bleeping Colabello. What a free agent pickup. Twelve hits, four doubles, six
RBIs. He was ridiculous. To make matters worse — for me, of course — ERA picked
up Brian Dozier to start in a make-up doubleheader, and he went 3-for-8, with
four runs, two singles, a homer, and two stolen bases. That was a clutch move.
We split the pitching categories thanks to Bronson Arroyo.
Lastly, it was the Outs taking seven batting categories and
six pitching to win 13-10-1 over the Otto Parts.
Otto got a complete-game shutout from Julio Teheran to
lessen the blow, but even his eight quality starts, 3.07 ERA and 1.20 WHIP
weren’t enough to pick up three more wins.
The Outs tied him in quality starts and posted a 3.73 ERA
and 1.192 WHIP. Jordan Zimmermann led the way with two quality starts, logging
a 1.93 ERA in 14 innings with 13 strikeouts, and Tyson Ross and Kyle Gibson
each tossed eight shutout innings.
At the plate, the Outs mashed 11 homers and had 39 RBIs to
win seven categories, but several were really close. Runs were separated by
four, singles (5), doubles (5), RBIs (2) and strikeouts (1).
It could have easily gone the other way, so for Otto, it’s
tough to be on the wrong side at this point, but he’s one big series win away from
jumping right back into the race, so I’m still not worrying at this point. I’m
just hoping to run into an easier matchup. Don’t worry, Interleague play is
coming, Otto.
….
….
….
Yes, I heard you cheering. You’re looking for a Jargon
encore.
Truth be told, I had something I forgot to mention, and I’m
too lazy to go rework the entire column for it. At this hourly rate, I’m
allowed to be lazy.
Plus, it’s a simple note. Giancarlo Stanton. He had another
10 RBIs, which is conveniently what Vandelay won RBIs by. This is twice now
that he’s won RBIs by a "Giancarlo." Stanton now has 26 RBIs in 2014 and he’s
just flat out raking for Vandelay. It’s one of the many reason he’s in first
place.
OK, that’s all for now. See you next week, unless Choo makes
a trade.
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