Week 1 is finally in the books and the S-Scale had everything right, Topton is sitting pretty in first with a 30-13-5 and the Sex Panthers are in last with ...
Wait? What?
The Sex Panthers are 25-19-4 and in third place in the American League?
How about that!
Maybe the S-Scale will be wrong this year.
The Panthers had the best offense in the first matchup, batting .303 with a JLB-best 141 hits, including an insane 37 doubles. That was 13 more hits than the second best and eight more doubles the next next in line.
The offense helped lead the way in her 15-8-1 win over Double Eh, but wasn't enough in an 11-10-3 loss to the Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Topton won 12-9-3 over Rocky Mountain and 18-4-2 over Double Eh to jump out to the first-place lead in the AL.
Crox also won both of his matchups, while both Breakfast and Cheese won one of their matchups and tied against each other.
For the most part, everyone escaped the big double week in decent position to not panic.
Even Choo, who late in the matchups was losing with a combined record of 7-37, managed to bounce back and limit the damage to 16-29-3. He can easily claw back into the race with a win.
Or he'll just sell everything and start with a blank slate in two weeks.
STEALS & MORE STEALS
Stolen base numbers were wild and we saw that big time in matchups. We will without a doubt set new JLB stolen base records as seven teams finished the week with double-digits.
For comparison, only two teams hit double-digits in last year's Week 1 matchups.
This year, the Dude led the way with 14 thanks to Corbin Carroll's five swipes. He didn't have a triple, however, so that Fantrax projection may be tough to reach at this point.
The Gamblers were second with 13 stolen bases, with nine coming from Gleyber Torres (5) and Julio Rodriguez (4).
NOTABLE BATS
The top hitters from Week 1 were Bryan Reynolds and Adam Duvall, who each had 15 hits. Reynolds was one of many players Nutz acquired in the Shohei Ohtani deal. Both he and Duvall had 14 RBIs, but only Reynolds will be able to add to his total.
The Steaks, who grabbed Duvall off the waiver wire before the start of the season, enjoyed the first week, but a distal radius fracture in his left wrist will leave him on the IL for a long time.
Matt Chapman also had 14 RBIs and led the majors with 19 hits through the first 11 days of the season. He had seven doubles and a pair of homers. He also was a Choo in the offseason, but he went to Breakfast in the Jeremy Pena deal.
There were plenty of other great starts for bats out there, but I can't list them all here. You can search them yourself!
WHAT'S ON TAP
Week 2 brings us a more stable, single matchup week and the start of divisional play. The biggest matchup is the defending World Series Champion Breakfast facing the current World Series favorite Topton.
Breakfast leads the all-time series 145-88-25, which included a dominant 17-3-4 win in their last meeting last summer. Breakfast is undefeated in their last five matchups with Topton's last win, a 16-6-2 victory, coming in their first meeting of 2021.
The Crox-Gamblers series is also interesting as it was Crox edging the Gamblers for the No. 3 seed last season. The Gamblers can look to their final two matchups of 2022, which were 12-7-5 and 16-5-3 losses, as to why he missed the playoffs.
If he wants to edge Crox this year, it starts now. But Crox, who owns the series lead 210-166-58, has won five of their last eight meetings.
In the NL, the matchups to watch include the Slammers and Stantonians, who like Gamblers and Crox, battled for that No. 3 seed last year.
The Nutz, who took a huge step back after an NLCS run in 2021, face the team that beat him in that NLCS, the Steaks.
The Cheese Steaks have dominated the series with 231 wins and only 129 losses. The Steaks have only lost to the Nutz three times, with two of those losses coming during that 2021 season.
That said, last year was a season sweep for the Steaks, winning 13-8-3, 16-4-4 and 16-6-2.
* Series records are based on the modern era (Fantrax, 2017-2023)
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