The first week of baseball was a rather interesting one with
some great offensive starts, but none bigger than Trevor Story.
His seven home runs and 12 RBIs in just 27 Major League
at-bats is staggering, and as the third overall pick in the draft by Big Ol’
Country Breakfast, he’s been gloating all week.
He’s so happy, he was ready to rename his team after Story —
the “Trevor-Ending Story” — on Thursday.
But, that’s against JLB rules, and we can’t be naming teams
after the flavor of the week.
“Flavor of the week? Come on, Jimmy. He’s going to keep this
going,” Sam would say.
And yes, I’m sure he’ll continue to have success — nothing
like he had this week because he does have to come back to Earth soon — but I’m
saying flavor of the week because Nomar Mazara was called up Sunday and went
3-for-4 with a homer.
This kid is a true star and I’m sure by Thursday this week,
he’ll want to name his team “Real Time with Nomar,” or sticking with his
current food theme, “Mazar-B-Q Ribbies.”
I do like that last one, and it just made me hungry, as
hungry as I am for next week’s matchup against the team Country Breakfast
rallied to forge an 8-8-6 tie with, Chief Otto Parts.
Otto Parts was one of two teams to watch a 14-6 lead
completely disappear, as the Gamblers also blew a 14-6 lead in his matchup with
the Astro Slammers.
Meanwhile, Vandelay took care of business with the biggest
win of the week, while the Outs, Bombers and Crox Sox all picked up 12 wins.
Vandelay 15-5-2 over
Sex Panthers
It was not a pretty week for the Sex Panthers as outside of
Matt Kemp and Robinson Cano (combined 15 hits, 7 homers, 17 RBIs). Her first
overall pick, Byung Ho Park, and her top prospect, Byron Buxton, both flopped
in Week 1 with 11 strikeouts apiece.
Meanwhile, Vandelay had David Peralta, Buster Posey and Mark
Trumbo combine for 28 hits, and Chris Sale and Cole Hamels combined for four
quality starts, 4-0 record and 26 strikeouts.
Together, that helped him win 8 batting categories and 7
pitching categories in a dominant first week.
Crox Sox 12-5-5 over
Steroid.ERA
The two predicted last place teams in the JLB had a lot to
prove this week, and after their matchup, one is silenced in last place; the
other is texting me right now about being in first place.
In both cases, it’s April 10. Let’s talk about how wrong I
am in August, not April.
Now is the time to prove me wrong, and Crox Sox started that
campaign strong with 13 homers, 3 triples, 39 RBIs and a .300 average. His 40
singles and 16 doubles would have won in many other matchups, but Steroid
matched him.
And on the pitching side, Crox went 8-3 with a 3.58 ERA.
His first-round pick, a shock to many after he passed up on
Dansby Swanson, went 1-0 in two starts posting a 2.31 ERA and 12 strikeouts in
11.2 innings. He also got great starts from Joe Ross, Taijuan Walker and Ervin
Santana, and three wins from his bullpen.
Offensively, the Crox had huge weeks from Jose Abreu
(7-for-21, 2 HRs, 4 RBIs), Jean Segura (11-for-27, 3 HRs, 5 RBIs, 6 runs, 2
stolen bases), Hanley Ramirez (10-for-22, HR, 4 RBIs) and Carlos Gonzalez
(9-for-24, 3 HRs, 5 RBIs)
Of the group, Jean Segura stands out as he fell pretty far
in the draft, in my opinion, all the way to the fifth round. Personally, I had
thoughts of taking him first or second round, but with Corey Seager, Xander
Bogaerts and Jose Altuve, I couldn’t bear wasting a pick on a position I
wouldn’t have room for.
Now, I’m starting to rethink that. Nevertheless, after a hot
.407 average to start the year, Crox has to be super stoked about his super
cheap Dansby replacement.
If he keeps getting production like that, he may actually
prove me wrong.
But it’s April. I’m not apologizing yet.
Slammers 10-9-3 over
Gamblers
That last capsule was way too long. I’m changing this now.
In a juggernaut matchup, the Slammers battled back over the weekend to get
enough offense to overcome a strong offensive week by the Gamblers.
For Parker, he points to Kyle Schwarber’s injury as a
turning point, but I point to something else, Salvador Perez’s triple on
Saturday.
Seriously, how the hell does Perez leg out a triple? That
three-bagger tied the category and Eric Hosmer won it for the Slammers on
Sunday, giving him 8 of 11 batting categories. (Thanks, Tyler White, the real
STORY.)
One hundred strikeouts and seven holds, both JLB best at
this point, made up for some awful pitching stats that allowed the Gamblers to
walk away with a near-tie.
Outs 12-7-3 over Big
League Choo
We all expected the power and we expected the pitching.
The Outs were as advertised in Week 1 with 16 homers and 35
RBIs, and a 7-1 record with a 3.01 ERA. Josh Donaldson and Carlos Correa led
the way with their combined seven homers and 13 RBIs. Donaldson had nine of
those RBIs.
On the pitching side, it was Jake Arrieta and Madison
Bumgarner, as expected, who combined for 3 quality starts, a 3-0 record and 26
strikeouts. Arrieta was the better of the two, posting a 1.93 ERA in 14
innings.
It’s that sub-2 ERA was saw for much of the second half last
year and what rode him to the Cy Young, and he looks to be ready to defend that
award.
Bombers 12-6-4 over
Cheese Steaks
The Bombers gets the big win here, but like the Slammers
with the Gamblers, it was close in many categories.
In fact, the Bombers won runs, singles, homers and blown
saves by 1. They also amazingly tied triples with 4 apiece.
Jay Bruce and Paul Goldschmidt led the way with a combined
14 hits, 4 HRs and 16 RBIs.
The Steaks salvaged five of his six wins in the pitching
ranks, getting 8 quality starts with 91 strikeouts and 3.73 ERA. Surprisingly,
it was two Phillies pitchers, Aaron Nola and Vincent Velasquez, who had the
best starts for the Steaks.
8-8-6 tie between
Otto Parts and Country Breakfast
I believe I’ve already written enough about this, but
seriously, seven homers by Trevor Story.
If Story can be a .300/30/100 guy — and I mean, he’s almost
halfway there, right? — Country Breakfast could truly be an interesting team.
It’s even more interesting since Mazara is up just 8 days
into the year. This was not expected, and now that he’s here, he’s not going
back. You can’t send a .300 hitter back to Triple-A and he will be that.
If Lucas Giolito can get on that same early track, watch
out.
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