Week 19 recaps

I am not going to do these in any order that makes any sense.  Instead, I am going to use the Tom Cruise voodoo to devine the order that they are supposed to be in.

MTMTAS - 10
KIODL - 2

This is what he is known for, not for his hitting...so when
he is your fantasy teams best hitter for a week, it probably
isnt going to be pretty.

All that really needs to be said about this matchup is that John's best hitter this week was Alcides Escobar.  That doesnt mean that it is all that I will say because sometimes I cant resist pouring some sugar on babe....wait that didnt come out right.  Anyways, John's team hit 197/266/287 for the week and featured sub Mendoza performances from Jason Kipnis (182/217/182), Lucas Duda (143/321/143), Coco Crisp (087/120/130) and Jacoby Ellsbury (he gets no tacos when he plays this bad - 050/095/050).  Despite Allen Craig not playing and Brian McCann's 0 for 4 this week, Tyler rode Alex Gordon's Escalator Club line (375/423/583) and 7 runs along with Kyle Seager's 6 RBIs to take 5 of the 6 hitting categories.  The Traveling All Stars also took 5 of the 6 pitching categories, using strong week's from Stephen Strasburg (1W 8K 0.00/0.71 1QS), Corey Kluber (10K 1.17/0.91 1QS), and Drew Smyly (1W 13K 1.23/0.75 1QS) to win the starting pitcher based stats.  John got a decent start from Johnny Cueto, per usual, (1W 6K 2.25/1.00) but the rest of the rotation struggled and the injury bug jumped up again, this time biting Hyun-jin Ryu.  At least Johns bullpen contributed, with K Rod supplying 3 SV/H and both Pat Neshek and Kenley Jansen adding a pair, giving KIODL its only pitching win of the week.  With SPs Ryu, Josh Beckett and Kamakaze Tanaka on the DL and RP Joakim Soria joining them, John's team no longer has enough pitchers to field a full roster.

Les Moles - 8
ZAttack - 4

Zach got huge weeks from David Ortiz (350/409/700 3R 7RBI) and Jose Altuve (406/406/594 5R 7RBI), but that wasnt enough to overcome Salvador Perez (174/200/391), Shin-soo Choo (167/219/300), Ryan Braun (125/160/250) and Jean Segura (077/188/077) putting up weeks that werent worth a velvet painting of a whale and a dolphin getting it on.  Tom didnt have any single player really stand out this week, but he did have 4 players score 3 or more runs, 5 players knock in 3 or more runs and Ben Revere stole 4 bases and hit 414/414/448.  On the hill, Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester combined for 27Ks and 4 quality starts for Tom, and David Price added 1W 7K 1.13/0.75 and 1 QS for LesMoles which was enough to overcome Aaron Harrangataung's (hopefully final hurrah) 10.38/2.31 3K in 4 1/3 innings.  Clayton Kershaw continued to do Kershawy things (11K 3.00/0.56 1QS) but lost to the Brewers this week, while Shelby Miller (2 starts 10K 7.36/1.82), struggled greatly. It looks like the Miller for Tim Hudson trade is turning out to be one big steaming pile of uglyness on both sides.  Tom has had the hottest team over the past several weeks, and now Joe Mauer is back off the DL and into Tom's lineup (and into his heart...tear) replacing the recently underwhelming Devin MesoHornyraco, meaning the team might get a bit better.  Bob told me this morning that Tom's team is the one that he is watching and is least interested in facing in a potential playoff matchup. 

Bobs ATers - 8
Dust Bunnies - 1
Tie 3 (RBI, 15; W, 4; K, 37)

Back in the Bigs and destroying Dusty's ratios

I cannot remember a matchup that featured so many tie categories.  Bob took 5 of the 6 hitting categories, which makes the tie in RBI all the more strange.  Adding to the strangeness, Corey Dickerson knocked in 11 of those 15 for the ATers (to go along with his Escalator 393/400/857 and 6R), meaning that the rest of Bobs team knocked in only 4 runs all week (3 of those were by Jose Abreu - there were 5 starters who knocked in exactly 0 runs).  Outside of Dickerson, no one on the ATers was particularly good, in fact, recent pick ups Yan Gomes (176/176/176 0R 0RBI) and Jason Heyward (179/233/179 3R 1 SB) were particularly bad.  The only thing that helped Bob was that Dusty's team was beyond particularly bad.  Ian Kinsler (120/185/120 1R 2RBI 2 SB), Carlos Beltran (056/150/111 1R 1SB) and Mike Trout (053/136/053 1RBI) provided the suck while Miggy Cabrera (391/500/565 6R 2RBI) was the only highlight.  On the hill, Luis Avilan's recall finally marked a full roster for Dusty for the first time in months.  Sadly Avilan threw only 2/3 of an inning and exited with a 13.50/4.50 line for the week.  For Bob, Marcus aStroman finally hit a bump (67.50/7.50), if a bump is what you call a gigantic size crater where you can lose a Panzer tank and Aroldis Chapman walked 4 batters (he only faced 4) last night and all of them scored.  But Chris Sale, Hishasi Imakuma and Jordan ZImmerman combined to strikeout 21 over 3 quality starts with a combined ERA of 0.00.  That'll overcome a lot of short, Stroman style outings.


Huckleberries - 6
MBHB - 5
Tie - 1 (SB, 0)

Kevin's team did what Kevin's team has done all season, picking up their 16th win in batting average and 14th in OBP as well as winning SLG, R and RBI.  Robby Cano continued his hot streak with a 364/417/682 8R 4RBI line and Victor Martinez added a 400/483/440 4R 5RBI line.  Adam Jones (5RBI) and Bryce Harper (7RBI) pitched into lead the Val Kilmer supporters.  Outside of Jose Reyes (429/435/571 6R 2RBI), there wasnt a whole lot of positive for the Hitless ones who ended up playing with only 1 OFer for basically the entire week due to George Springer's injury recurrence and Jayson Werth's shoulder problem (Werth hit 1000/1000/2000 for the week and scored 2 runs, which tied for 3rd on the team.  He batted twice this week...thats how great the rest of the team was).   On the mound, it was the exact opposite, as only Yovanni Gallardo's Saturday win against the Dodgers kept MBHB from winning 5 and splitting 1 pitching category and this from being a 5-5-2 overall battle.  Felix Hernandez struck out 11 with a 2.25/0.83 with 1W 1QS and Madison Bumgarner (9K 1.29/0.57 1QS) and Garrett Richards (1W 7K 2.45/0.95 1 QS) led the way and Tyler Clippard added 4 SV/H.  In his swan song, Justin Verlander finished with 3K, 36.00/6.00 ratios, and 1 injury of undisclosed seriousness.  For Kevin, the aforementioned Gallardo (2W 9K 1.20/0.87 2QS) and Chris Archer (1W 12K 1.29/0.86 1 QS) were dominant, but Jason Hammel (15.00/2.33), Kyle Lohse (12.00/2.67), Gio Gonzalez (5.40/1.80), Trevor Rosenthal (16.20/4.80), Jason Grilli (0.00/4.50), Mark Melancon (4.50/2.50) and Steve Cishek (9.00/1.50) were not.   In case you were counting, that leaves only Chad DJ Qualls, who only threw 2 innings (0.00/1.00).