Sunday Wrap: Week Five is in the Books

Tanner and… Jose Altuve

 

Oofta, as my Mom would say.  The Astros got swept by the Tigers, were beaten so badly, that even though not much was expected of them, the players had a closed-door meeting after Justin Verlander nearly no-hit them. They were outscored in the four-game sweep 37-8. They’ve lost six in a row.  And now, they are indeed, on track to lose more than the Mets record of 120 games.

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How about them Giants?  A three-game sweep of their rival Dodgers in dramatic fashion with Posey‘s walkoff HR on Friday, Quiroz in a 10th-inning walkoff HR on Saturday, and Matt Cain finally showing his old form in today’s nationally televised 4-3 defeat. They Gigantes have now won six in a row and are back in first place. The poor Dodgers had Hanley Ramirez back for four games before he returned to the DL with a hamstring injury sidelined him in Friday’s game.

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The Rangers made a statement.  They swept the Red Sox, who were the hottest team in the league.

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Roy Halladay is probably going on the DL.  He got spanked- hard- again.

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Playoff picture if the season ended today:

NL West: Giants [Last Week: Diamondbacks/Rockies tied]

NL Central: Cardinals [Last Week: Pirates]

NL East: Braves [Last Week: Braves]

NL Wild Cards: Rockies & Reds [Last Week: Diamondbacks/Rockies & Cardinals]

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AL West: Rangers [Last Week: Rangers]

AL Central: Tigers [Last Week: Royals]

AL East: Red Sox [Last Week: Red Sox]

AL Wild Cards: Royals & Yankees [Last Week: A’s & Yankees]

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Now let’s take a look at the league leaders in all 10 statistical categories that our Fantasy League competes in:

Runs

1) 31: Austin Jackson

2) 26 (two tied): Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Gonzalez

4) 25 (two tied): Shin-Soo Choo, Nate McLouth

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Coco Crisp (2-T), Adam Jones (2-T), Matt Carpenter (4-T)]

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Home Runs

1) 12: Justin Upton

2) 10: John Buck

3) 9 (five tied): Chris Davis, Edwin Encarnacion, Bryce Harper, Mike Morse, Mark Reynolds

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: J.P. Arencibia (T-4), Anthony Rizzo (T-4)]

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RBI

1) 36: Miguel Cabrera

2) 32: Prince Fielder

3) 31: Mike Napoli

4) 30: Chris Davis

5) 29: John Buck

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Brandon Phillips (3)]

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Stolen Bases

1) 12: Jacoby Ellsbury

2) 11: Juan Pierre

3) 10: Starling Marte

4) 9: Nate McLouth

5) 8 (three tied): Everth Cabrera, Coco Crisp, Jean Segura

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: none]

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Batting Average

1) .385: Miguel Cabrera

2) .379: Carlos Santana

3) .368: Carlos Gomez

4) .361: Torii Hunter

5) .348: Troy Tulowitzki

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Chris Johnson (T-1st), Bryce Harper (4)]

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Wins

1) 6: Clay Buchholz

2) 5 (five tied): Yu Darvish, Jason Hammell, Lance Lynn, Matt Moore, Jordan Zimmermann

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Doug Fister (T-4), Matt Harvey (T-4), Jon Lester (T-4), Justin Masterson (T-4), CC Sabathia (T-4), Adam Wainwright (T-4)]

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Saves

1) 12 (two tied): Jason Grilli, Sergio Romo

3) 11 (two tied): Jim Johnson, Mariano Rivera

5) 10 (two tied): Addison Reed, Rafael Soriano

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Rafael Betancourt (T-4), Craig Kimbrel (T-4), Brandon League (T-4), Joe Nathan (T-4), Tom Wilhelmson (T-4)]

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Strikeouts

1) 72: Yu Darvish

2) 57: A.J. Burnett

3) 54: Max Scherzer

4) 52 (two tied): Clayton Kershaw, Jeff Samardzija

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Felix Hernandez (4), Ryan Dempster (5)]

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E.R.A.

1) 1.01: Clay Buchholz

2) 1.07: Jake Westbrook

3) 1.55: Madison Bumgarner

4) 1.55: Justin Verlander

5) 1.56: Matt Harvey

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Matt Moore (2), Anibal Sanchez (4)]

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WHIP

1) 0.75: Jordan Zimmermann

2) 0.76: Hisashi Iwakuma

3) 0.82: Matt Harvey

4) 0.84: Madison Bumgarner

5) 0.88: Mike Minor

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Yu Darvish (3), Carlos Villanueva (4)]

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So there you go.

 

 

Day in Review: Thursday, 4.18.13

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Not that many people read this, but to my two main readers, I apologize for not doing an update last night. As I live on the west coast, I generally like to wait for all the games to finish before writing.  Well, last night, the Tigers and Mariners went 14 innings.  King Felix stuck out a dozen.  Max Scherzer struck out a dozen, as well.  Neither factored in the decision, as each team continued to strike out.  Altogether, the pitching staffs of each team combined for 40 Ks. The game mercifully ended, appropriately, with a play at the plate, Tigers catcher Brayan Pena surviving a collision with Justin Smoak, holding onto the ball for the Tigers 2-1 win… Well, just a few hours later it seemed, they were back at it.  Everybody tired, except for the two starting pitchers- Justin Verlander v. Hisashi Iwakuma, and again, both starters were awesome.  Verlander struck out 12 in 7 innings, accounting for all of his teams strikeouts.  Iwakuma only struck out 2, but pitched six solid innings, and the Mariners won 2-0.  The Mariners aren’t expected to do much this year, but to hold Detroit to 2 runs in 23 innings has to make them feel pretty great.

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As I’ve mentioned before, I follow Twitter, mainly for baseball stuff, but keep about 75 others on my feed.  Today, Seth MacFarlane re-tweeted something from @DamienFahey that made me laugh out loud.  “I’m no genius but maybe start by questioning the people who gave a “Thumbs Down” on the FBI Surveillance Video”.

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Speaking of Twitter, I have started paring down my feed.  None of it had to do with the horrible amounts of shit that have gone on in the U.S. this week.  West, Texas, the Ricin letters, Boston, the deplorable NRA win in Congress…  I know that baseball players, as a group, aren’t the sharpest.  I respect- well, tolerate anyway- a lot of Christian declarations.  I can even handle some of the redneck thinking.  To be fair, most of them are trained enough by the time they hit the majors to know how to communicate in public… but what I cannot stand, is “Just sayin'”  What is this scourge on our lexicon?  I even tweeted: “What you’re ‘Just sayin” is that you’re a passive-aggressive halfwit.”  Yep, I now delete anyone that uses it… and just today, I deleted three- and two of them were sportswriters.

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My Mom and Dad are in Vegas this week, and my Dad is in my head-to-head Fantasy League.  Normally he brings his laptop with him (they go twice a year) and keeps his team set up on his own, but the last time they were in Vegas he lost his computer.  That thing was like ten years old and in pristine condition, that’s how he is, which is cool, but frankly, it was a blessing in disguise that he lost it.  Anyway, he got a new one but wasn’t about to bring it with him this time, and so he asked me to adjust his lineup for him while he’s on vacation.  Not a problem, except that this week I am playing him.  His team isn’t good.  The first thing I did is recommend that he slide Jason Kubel into a DL slot so that he could add a player, and I recommended Astros SP Bud Norris, who had a dominant game his last time out.  Well, Norris pitched the next day and got pulled after just 2/3 of an inning, giving up 6 runs to the A’s.  I felt bad.  I called my Dad and said I was sorry for recommending Norris.  He said, “Oh, don’t worry about it.  Look what happened to (his pitcher) Matt Cain last time” (Cain gave up 9 runs in one inning.  Fair enough.  Aw, my poor Dad.. Cain pitched again today, and sucked balls again!  I’m beating my Dad 9-0.  We replaced Bud Norris with Joe Saunders.  Yeah, I’m sure that’s gonna work out.

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The Giants got swept by the Brewers.  I already hate Ryan Braun (he hit a HR), but you can now add Carlos Gomez to that list, who I stated early in the spring is my nominee for an eventual PED suspension.  The good news is Brandon Crawford and Pablo Sandoval both extended their hitting streaks to ten games. Crawford is on fire.

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The Braves winning streak ended at 10 on Wednesday, losing 1-0 to the KC Royals, behind the pitching of Wade Davis and the wide strike zone of an umpire I’m too lazy to look up.  Tonight, they were back at it.  The Uptons hit HRs– Justin his 9th- and all is well again in Atlanta, even though their rookie pitcher Julio Teheran isn’t looking all that sharp. It took Justin Upton 98 games last year to hit his 9th home run- he got his 9th this year in just the 14th game of the season. Before tonight, the Braves had blown just one lead all season.  Tonight they blew the lead three times by the fifth inning.

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During our draft, my buddy Slim was bummed that there was an internet glitch when he was attempting to draft Joe Mauer and got “stuck” with Matt Weiters.  Well, yeah, Mauer is hot.  But Matt Weiters his a walk-off grand slam tonight.  Tampa Bay loses again.

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Derek Jeter is now out until at least the All-Star break.  Kind of seems like he and Kobe are at the end even if neither will admit it.  They both are done.  Too old, and both with ankle injuries- well, an Achilles in Kobe’s case, which is lethal.  They will both play again, but rarely factor.  Hell, the Lakers might be better without Kobe!  Despite tonight’s extra-inning loss to the D-Backs, the Yankees are doing just fine without Jeter.

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A marquee pitching match-up tomorrow (oh, BTW, despite recording his 1000th K yesterday, Clayton Kershaw lost again!).  Stephen Strasburg v the Mets phenom Matt Harvey.  They will probably both get shelled.  How do I know?  Because they are both my pitchers.  I just traded Mariano Rivera and J.J. Putz for Strasburg.  I have no real closers anymore, so I didn’t shed a tear when Putz blew his second save tonight.

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