Week 8 Recaps

The top 3 teams in the league all coasted this week, while MWP continued their injury induced free fall and Kevin's Huckleberries took the first step towards reclaiming relevancy. There were no intra divisional matchups this week as all 5 contests were Crossroads matchups. Quick side note - Uncle Jimmy texted me this weekend to tell me that he heard a promo on the radio for a Bone Thugs and Harmony tour date in Chicago at the end of June...wait what? BT&H are still touring? Like, arent 83% of them dead? Is this "Bone Thug Imagining Harmony" or are they pulling the creepy Michael Jackson trick from the music awards show a couple of weeks ago only this time putting it at the House of Blues in Chicago? Unfortunately, that show at HoB is the closest the the tour comes to the greater Winona area unless you consider Witchita, Kansas closer. Go THUG Kansas! If one of you all down in the Chi wants to hit up that show and post about it, I would probably do something spectacular for you, like buy you tacos or something. Also, Bone Thugs and Harmony does not have an official website nor does the tour have any kind of special name like "40s and Bluntz" or something equally creative, descriptive or stereotypical. Who saw that coming?

This week, we are going to start at the top of the standing and work our way down:

Bob's AutoTrackers (54-37-5, 1st place in BT) 8
Zach Attack (42-49-5, 3rd place in H - 11.5 GB) 3
Tie 1

Zach's offense featured the aforementioned Nelson Cruz (455/536/1.136 9R 7RBI) and Jose Altuve (483/500/690 7R 3RBI 2SB). Unfortunatley for Zach, he also had Ortiz, Chris Owings (100/143/250 1R 1RBI) and a Lake Superior-cold Carlos Gonzalez (182/250/182 1R 0RBI). Bob's offense wasnt anything special in its own right, but Edwin Encarnacion continued his month long war on American League pitching, hitting 320/346/920 with 5R and 9RBI for the week. His HR Monday (I know, its not in the recap week...its my blog and I'll do what I want to) gave him 13 in May. The teams in the state of Missouri ( Cards and Royals) have 16 HRs in the month COMBINED. Also for the Trackers, Dee Gordon did what Dee Gordon does, hit 200/304/200 but stole 5 bases to singlehandedly win the category. The mound battle featured 2 of the best steam stat lines we have seen this season, but Bob's boys were able to pull it out because of Adam Wainwright. My mancrush on Wainwright and his completely unfair curveball has been well documented (seriously, if you see me somewhere and ask me about him, I get all weak kneed. I might as well be a 13 year old girl in 1989 and Wainwright is Joey from the New Kids on the Block.), so you may need to take this with a grain (or truckload) of salt, but all Wainwright did this week was post 2 quality starts, 17 shut out innings, allowing 7 baserunners (0.41 WHIP) and striking out 21 batters.


Backyard Superstars (53-37-6, 1st place in H) 10
You Can Call Me Al (47-45-4, 4th place in BT, 7.5GB) 2

Obviously when a matchup ends up 10-2, i is safe to say that one team dominated the other. But that really doesnt tell the whole story here. Outside of Carlos Gomez (500/519/769), UCCMA put up what Uncle Jimmy called "a very Garfunkel week." Buster Posey (133/133/133) continued his offensive futility and A's Yoenis! (167/192/417) and Jed Lowrie (083/200/083) were exhibits A and B as to why the Oakland team was swept this weekend by the Blue Jays. The Superstars, on the other hand, got 500/548/857 from Jonathon (dont call me Matt LeCroy) Lucroy, 10 RBIs from JUpton and all of the offense in the world from Kyler's fake boyfriend, Yasiel Puig (522/607/870). I was definitely one of those people who thought there was no way Puig would pick up where he left off last season and that he was destined to be a solid but unspectacular player. I dont think its possible to have been more incorrect. Not only has he continued his play from last year, but he has improved in pretty much every measureable playing stat (and we can measure everything in baseball). We may be entering the age of the Puig. On the hill, this matchup featured 1 win...combined. That win was 7 innings of 9 baserunner ball from Yu Darvish. Of Uncle Jimmy's starters, only Tyson Ross threw anything resembling a solid game (8k, 7IP, 1 ER), but that was against the Twins and his team couldnt score a run against Phil Hughes. Otherwise, the matchup came down to the bullpens, where the Kimbrel, Uehara, Soriano, Rodney, Hunter quintuplet not surprisingly handled the Street, Balfour, Joe Smith, Matt Lindstrom foursome. At least Javier Baez and Kris Bryant are starting to hit in AA Uncle Jimmy. Reinforcements are on the way...in 2015.


Mark Baker Hitless Bastards (53-39-4, 2nd place in BT, 1.5 GB) 9
MWP Masters (40-53-3, 4th place in H, 14.5 GB) 3

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Both teams had awful hitters, Devin Mesoraco (.087/125/217) and Jayson Werth (172/294/207) for MBHB and Dominic Brown (105/105/263) and Tacoby Bellsbury (154/172/269) for MWP. Dom Brown is becoming a regular in this space, and not for any good reason. Brown's season line is down to 206/261/306. It might be time to find a back up John. MWP had solid hitters like Yadier Molina (350/409/600) and Evan Gattis (333/462/1000 in only 3 games), but they could not keep up with the Georgey Springer Show. Including Monday, Springer has homered 5 times in the last 4 games and is becoming the fantasy stud that people were expecting when he was called up a month and a half ago. Springer's 6R, 9RBI and 316/409/947 slash line combined with David Wright (480/519/680) and Jose Reyes 346/370/423 5 SB) to lead the Bastards to 5 hitting wins. On the hill, MBHB overcame Justin Verlander's (8.74 ERA, 2.47 WHIP) rocky Sunday start with the volume approach and sub 1.00 WHIP weeks from starters Madison Baumgarner (16K), Michael Wacha, King Felix (9K), Cole Hamels, and Ian Kennedy (12K). For John, HyunJin Ryu took a perfect game into the 8th inning on Sunday, only to have it fall apart and Ryu was charged with 3 earned runs. Kamakaze Tanaka (13K) and John Lackey (7 shutout innings) threw well for MWP while Carlos Martinez (7.71 ERA 2.14 WHIP) and Chris Perez (13.50 ERA 3.00 WHIP) struggled.


Huckleberries (38-53-5, 5th place in BT, 16 GB) 8
Merry Tyler's Moor Traveling AllStars (44-45-7, 2nd place in H, 8.5 GB) 4

Break up the Huckleberries. Despite the injury to Prince Fielder, Kevin's group won 5 of the hitting categories behind the strong weeks of Robinson Cano (364/400/545), Adrian Beltre (522/593/826 7R 6RBI) and Adam Jones (385/448/538 7R -- another Oriole who mashed) . MTMTAS had great weeks from Allen Craig (375/464/417 5RBI), Kyle Seager (429/500/571 6RBI) and Hunter Pence (444/565/944 5RBI), but could not overcome the sub .217 averages of Starling Marte (.217), Andrelton Simmons (.214), Dustin Pedroia (.200), Christian Yelich (.200) and Brian McCann (.188). When 5 of your 8 hitters are sub par, winning hitting categories becomes a bit of a problem. While KPs hitting was improved, the pitching turned in what might be the best performance as a unit of any team so far this season. As a team, the Huckleberries posted a 2.47 ERA and 0.84 WHIP. Basically, the Huckleberries turned into vintage Pedro Martinez this week, without the Don Zimmer toss. Tyler's team was decent, getting 2 QS weeks from Stephen Stratsburg, Julio Teheran, and Cory Kluber, but Ervin Santana, Sergio Romo and Greg Lukerson all struggled mightily this week.