It's easy to forget, as real baseball begins its second half, that our league is about to pass the two-thirds point of the regular season. There's only eight weeks until the playoffs. Actually, it's more like seven and a half, with the MLB All-Star break making this "week" a mere four days, in which anything can happen. In fact, six teams (including the Jays) have Thursday off, so many of our fantasy wins and losses will be determined by just three games. Luck is a huge factor in Head-to-Head play at the best of times, even more so in Week 15.
Last week, your first-place Toronto Walrus (OK, mine) pulled out a narrow 7-5 win over the Horse Field Hammers to remain atop the leaderboard. AGF is a closer second, just four games back, after a 9-3 pounding of Billie’s Bashers, who slipped to seventh place. There's now a bit more breathing room for the top two clubs, as we eye that advantageous first-round playoff bye. Baird Brain and the Moscow Rats, still third and fourth, lost a little ground, the Brain falling 8-4 to the Thunderbirds and the Rats being edged 6-5 by the K-Town Mashers. Mebion Glyndwr moved up to fifth by tying 6-6 with Garces_not_on_roids, and the Eastern Shore Birds, 6-4 winners over the Austin Senators, now hold down sixth spot.
The race to escape relegation is also heating up. It looks pretty bleak for Jick's Rays, and of the seven other teams bunched within 6.5 games from 13th to 19th, two won't be back in the Alomar division next year. Last week, the Springfield Isotopes lost 9-3 to Hannibal's Cannibals, falling three places in the standings, while the Reykjavik Fish Candy defeated the Rays 8-3, gaining some precious breathing room. Here's how it all looks:
# Team W-L-T Pct GBThat was a very tough match with the Hammers. Geoff won RBI and WHIP by narrow margins, while I squeaked out AVG and SLG on Sunday. Micromanaging again, I reasoned that Bronson Arroyo was 0-4, 6.55 at home, and facing Texas there on Friday wasn’t the easiest assignment. That brilliant decision left eight scoreless innings, a 0.50 WHIP and 7.00 K/BB on the table, translating to at least a game in the standings. On the other hand, I had also benched Mark Redman, avoiding his disastrous Fenway start, so if I'd simply let everyone play, the result would probably have been about the same.
1 Toronto Walrus 100-57-11 .628 --
2 AGF 97-62-9 .604 4
3 Baird Brain 91-70-7 .563 11
4 Moscow Rats 91-72-5 .557 12
5 Mebion Glyndwr 90-72-6 .554 12.5
6 Eastern Shore Birds 89-74-5 .545 14
7 Billie's Bashers 88-76-4 .536 15.5
8 Red Mosquitos 86-75-7 .533 16
9 hannibal's cannibals 82-75-11 .521 18
10 gashouse gorillas 82-77-9 .515 19
11 Horse Field Hammers 82-79-7 .509 20
12 Chatsworth Halos 81-82-5 .497 22
13 SABR Magicians 74-86-8 .464 27.5
14 Austin Senators 71-84-13 .461 28
15 Reykjavik Fish Candy 75-89-4 .458 28.5
16 Springfield Isotopes 71-87-10 .452 29.5
17 Garces_not_on_roids 73-92-3 .443 31
18 K-Town Mashers 69-90-9 .438 32
19 Thunderbirds 69-94-5 .426 34
20 Jick's Rays 46-114-8 .298 55.5
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