Week 10 MSSSMRMoW

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The battle of second place teams entering week 10 is the
Mike Shaw Subaru Super Mo Replay Matchup of the Week

I usually hate making myself one of the participants of the Mike Shaw Subaru Super Mo Replay Matchup if the Week because I dont like to have the focus on my team.  I know what happened in my matcup because I feverishly paid attention to it all week, I am pretty sure that everyone cares mostly about what happens in their own matchup, and I like to make sure that I give the in depth stuff to different people in different weeks.  But this week, I was kinda pushed into it even though Zach was in the Super Mo matchup last week and was the subject in our Reclaimation of Thor's Day last week.  Both the Mark Baker Hitless Bastards and the Zach Attack were in second place in their respective divisions entering the week and the matchup was extremely close.  Unfortunately for both Zach and I, our close matchup left us both in second place heading to week 11, but futher back than we were entering the week thanks to lopsided wins by both Kyler and Bob.

Team	R	RBI	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	W	K	ERA	WHIP	QS	SV+H	Score
MBHB	29	30	3	0.256	0.359	0.438	4	60	2.43	1.08	6	6	5
Zattack	21	36	4	0.270	0.298	0.433	5	64	2.50	1.01	5	7	7

Let's play matchup advantage (with the full awareness that the positions dont actually match up...but you can imagine what it would be like if they did.)

C- Devin Mesoraco (056/105/222 1R 2RBI) v Salvador Perez (385/407/538 5R 7RBI)
Hmm...The worst hitter in the matchup vs Zach's top AVG and OBP guy.
ADVANTAGE: ZAttack

1b- Paul Goldschmidt (350/458/700 5R 8RBI 1SB) v David Ortiz (240/321/520 2R 7RBI)
Goldschmidt is turning in another stat stuffing season and this week was no different.  Ortiz hit a big homer in last night's game, and his 7 RBI (one for each shot or Roids hes taken his year) were huge for Zach this week.
Advantage: MBHB

2b- Brian Dozier (360/529/600 7R 3RBI 1SB) v Jose Altuve (280/321/360 2R 4RBI 3SB)
Dozier finally started hitting like the player who was a top 5 fantasy asset earlier in the season, but Altuve's pair of stolen bases on Sunday turned that category to ZAttack.
Advantage: PUSH

3b- David Wright (130/286/174 3R 2RBI) v Pablo Sandoval (208/231/208 2R 1 RBI)
Is death an option in this game?
Advantage: Anyone else at 3b.

Chris Owings pictures 2 weeks in a row?

SS- Jose Reyes (320/370/320 2R 1RBI 1 SB) v Chris Owings (381/364/857 5R 9RBI)
Owings' 9 RBI is one of the highest single week totals this season as he teams with Goldschmidt to help the DBacks put a hurting on the Rockies pitchign staff over the weekend. Zack said last week that he needed Owings to start hitting if he were going to win the league, and for this week at least, Owings responded. 
ADVANTAGE: ZAttack

OF1- Jayson Werth (286/318/381 2R 3RBI) v Nelson Cruz (250/308/417 3R 3RBI)
If you would have told me before the week that Werth was going to outhit Cruz, I would have just about guaranteed victory in most of the hitting categories.  And then I would have looked foolish, so I am glad no one told me that before the week.
ADVANTAGE: MBHB

OF2- George Springer (190/357/476 4R 6RBI) v Ryan Braun (194/188/258 2R 5RBI 1SB)
Another higher BA than OBP guy?  I guess that is how MBHB won the OBP category.  Springer turned back into a pumpkin this week...its a pumpkin that hits bombs and walks a lot, but its still a pumpkin.
ADVANTAGE: MBHB

OF3- Jason Heyward (304/333/609 5R 5RBI ) v Carlos Gonzalez (ass hDLe 000/000/000)
If this had been earlier in the season, I probably would have picked the ghost player over Heyward, but he has started to finally come around.
ADVANTAGE: MBHB

So MBHB had better matchups in each spot (4-2 with a couple of pushes), but because of the huge RBI advantages from Perez and Owings, and Mesoraco's lack of talent (and general cave manishness), ZAttack was able to pull out an even 3-3 split in the hitting categories.

The pitching was an incredible matchup that came down to Sunday in a number of categories.  It looked like the teams were going to split Wins, but Felix Hernandez got a no decision in his masterful 15K, 7 shutout inning performance against the Rays, and Clayton Kershaw won a rain shortened game against the Rockies to push the category to Zach.  Likewise, Ks was not decided until Anibel Sanchez turned in 7 Ks in the Sunday night game against the Red Sawks to give Zach the category by 4 Ks.  ERA and WHIP were both spectacular for each team, as MBHB had 4 starters under 3.00 ERA and 1.00 WHIP for the week and ZAttack had 4 starters under 2.57 ERA and 1.14 WHIP for the week. MBHB took Quality Starts by 1 thanks to King Felix's superb Sunday start and quality starts from every other pitcher except Justin Verlander and ZAttach took SV/H by 1 after Steve Cishek saved his 3rd game of the week on Sunday afternoon.

In all, there were 2 pitchers that really stood out in the matchup, and we've already mentioned both of them.   Both Kershaw and Hernandez had 2 start weeks.  Kershaw turned in a pair of wins 18 Ks, a 2.08 ERA and 0.54 WHIP and was limited to 13 innings because his second start of the week was shortened to a 5 inning complete game due to rain.  Hernandez turned in the highest number of single week strikeouts so far in the Tot league history (23!!!!) while posting a win, a 1.29 ERA and 0.93 WHIP in 14 innings.