WEEK 10 RECAP: LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER
In the immortal words of Bon Jovi…
We’re halfway there
Due to the incorruptible and perfect rule change shortening the regular season from 21 weeks to 20 weeks, the conclusion of Week 10 formally marks the official halfway point of the march to the playoffs. We are also 50 days away from the trade deadline, 33 days away from the All-Star game, and 7 days away from Dan Topczewski’s mathematical elimination from playoff contention.
This week saw many seismic shifts in the standings. Some teams are finding their hopes diminishing while others took the opportunity to solidify their hold on relevancy. It’s okay though if you’re an owner that’s seeing your playoff hopes slipping away, because it doesn’t make difference if we make it or not. We’ve got each other, and that’s a lot for love. We’ll give it a shot.
WHOAAAAAAAAAAAA
* mic cord gets cut *
gilgabro’s peaceful war carts (l) vs cashman’s cashouts (w)
4 - 8 - 0
Weaver had an opportunity to show the world that he was a contender who is to be taken seriously by knocking off the young upstart Sitko, but much like Stormy Daniels in a dingy hotel room in 2006, he blew it.
This matchup is hard to parse because some of the categories which traditionally dovetail well with each other weren’t in alignment. Weaver won homers but lost OPS. He won ERA and WHIP but he bombed K/BB. This was one of the weeks in which the loss of Acuna’s speed was also acutely felt. Weaver lost steals by 7, so it likely wouldn’t have mattered, but Acuna’s value even in a diminished state was always his consistent value on the basepaths. Weaver continues to ride the huge hot hands of Aaron Judge (those hands are so big…), but because of the team’s frigid start to the season, these close losses sting worse. Weaver falls back down to 9th place and 9 games under .500 after a promising climb up the ladder. The pieces are still here for a run, but with a narrow margin for error he has to hope that Robert and Judge keep mashing and Gil keeps befuddling opposing lineups, not to mention some good fortune in the weeks to come.
Sitko has gone from rookie hotshot with beginner’s luck, to “He is who we though he was”, and now back to "Irritating cockroach that won’t stay dead”. His lineup is annoyingly dependable and now some idiot panic traded him Pablo Lopez. If Lopez can figure out his control issues and stop giving up so many homers, Sitko may have finally stabilized his rotation. This proves doubly true if Steele and Gausman can maintain their apparent turnarounds. Cashouts has emerged as a “bubble” team, and should that idiot Shaw continue to spiral around the drain I can see him jumping into the 3 or 4 spot in the standings in the coming weeks.
harper’s ferry (l) vs i like ian on topper (w)
4 - 7 - 1
topper’s weeks without a win: 0
HE DID IT. The long national nightmare is over. Topczewski will not end up making history after he secured his first victory of the season right at the halfway point. Obviously, this victory is entirely due to the reverse jinx I laid upon him with the introduction of the countdown timer last week, but in order to dispel the appearance of bias, I shall analyze this matchup without any negative comments about Dan’s team. Here we go.
Topczewski was buoyed to victory primarily because his raw sexual energy served as a potent motivator for his squad. Nick Castellanos, long known to be attracted to insufferable douche canoes such as himself, felt the disapproving yet charismatic glare of Topper on the back of his neck, the warm breath of lust, erm, I mean, heavy handed leadership… coaxing him to exit his slump. While some less kind owners may see the big weeks from scrubs like India or Winn as “fluky”, I don’t. I see the truth, that Topper knows the difference between a flabby weenie middle infielder and a tightly coiled spring of potential. Topper’s intimate knowledge of the undersized male form has given him specialized insight into whether a player is truly a wimp, or whether they are teeming with unrealized potential. This grasp for talent evaluation positions Topper well for the stretch run to come. He is ready to ride the turgid member of unrealized potential to a surprising cumback. No one sells Topper short. No one tells him what he can’t do. No one puts baby in the corner.
Oh yeah McDermott’s team is good too.
With JT hurt and Ranger looking a bit more mortal I don’t think he’ll be able to cover up his weaknesses any longer. A team relying on the unexpected hot streaks of Ryan McMahon is not a team to be trusted. There are gaping holes all up and down the lineup. And Dan, the wily vet that he is, was able to exploit those holes… deeply… The time to sell high on Ranger may be ending, but if I were in McDermott’s position it’s a trade I would have made yesterday.
Ju-rick and morty and their adventures, morty.. rick and morty forever and forever a hundred years rick and morty.. some… things.. me and rick and morty runnin’ around and.. rick and morty time… a - all day long forever.. all a - a hundred days rick and morty! forever a hundred times… over and over rick and morty… adventures dot com.. w w w dot at rick and morty dot com.. w.. w.. w… rick and morty adventures (w) vs bucks in six (l)
8 - 4 - 0
What a massive opportunity squandered by Mulvey to make a statement that the king has returned. Mulvey followed the formula he has followed for most of the season, in that his pitching was great and his hitting was good enough, but against a stacked lineup like Johnson’s, good enough wasn’t in fact… good enough. Fried, Jones, Kirby, and Sale continue to anchor Mulvey’s elite pitching staff, but his lineup lacks the consistent punch that made last year’s team so dangerous. Freeman and Mookie are reliable sources of counting stats, but his lineup is patched with a myriad of unappealing role players that he didn’t have to rely on last season. Part of this is due to the fact that hitting across the league is suppressed, but additionally Mulvey has been less able (so far) to exploit the rest of the league in lopsided trades to gain star power. This may change as we approach the deadline, but there definitely seems to be a wariness to enter into negotiations with the reigning Champ.
With this win, I feel confident elevating Johnson to the undisputed favorite to win the league Championship. This comes with the caveat that there is still less daylight between his team and the field than we have seen between contenders and pretenders in previous seasons. However, even though his pitching laid a big fat egg this week, his lineup of studs is strong enough to make up for those missteps. This weeks’ stars were Gorman and Alvarez, who contributed 5 homers and a combined OPS over 1.000 between the two of them.
mendoza liners (w) vs shirley’s sox (L)
10 - 0 - 2
There isn’t really anything to say about this matchup since it’s a byproduct of Weaver having four active players on the IL that have not been either dropped or moved to an open IL slot. Staron should have won and he did. Because I don’t have any meaningful analysis for this matchup I’m instead going to make you listen to my thoughts on the two-episode premier of Star Wars: The Acolyte. Spoilers to follow.
Disney and Lucasfilm’s willingness to finally move the Star Wars universe in a direction away from the Skywalker saga is refreshing, since this franchise needs to learn to tell compelling stories independent of the Skywalkers and Solos to ensure its longevity. While I, like most of the online community, was initially put off by the fact that Carrie Ann Moss, who had been heavily featured in promotional material for the show, was killed off in the first ten minutes, I was able to move past that by the end of the two-episode premier.
My verdict is that so far it’s good, if a bit pre-occupied with subverting the expectations of its own narrative. There were a few moments where the show seemed to be traveling down a path of a typical suspense show trope, such as “audience knowing a character is innocent but main characters stubbornly refusing to see that”. However the show almost relished in wagging its finger to the audience saying, “Nope, we aren’t doing that, see how original we are?”. Yes, I like that the show is fast paced and didn’t fall into the typical traps of frustrating narrative choices or characters making bafflingly stupid decisions. However, the almost intentional thumbing of the nose at the audience seems a little self-congratulatory. Sol and Osha are likeable characters that I’m interested to spend more time with. The big bad igniting his lightsaber for no reason was eye-rolling and gave me flashbacks to Maul at the end of Solo (and any comparison to Solo should be a bad sign). I both like and don’t like the idea that the Jedi are imperfect, haughty, and overly self-assured in their righteousness. My impression is that the Clone Wars contributed to the arrogance of the Jedi and helped lead to their fall, but here it seems like they were even more arrogant in the time before the prequels (gold robes? Come on).
So I’m interested and will keep watching, but I’m also a bit skeptical. It’s no Andor (That’s a great show), but it’s no Obi-Wan either (That’s a bad show).
red soto cups (l) vs elly enchanted (w)
3 - 9 - 0
Martindell needed to win this matchup and he did. My hat is off to him. A loss here to a struggling team would have almost certainly spelled doom for his season. Elly, Semien, and O’Hoppe did their jobs and boosted the offense while Imanaga bounced back along with Pivetta to give the pitching staff a strong enough line to beat Swindell handily. The test was always going to be whether Martindell would be able to continue his offensive production when early season studs like Adell and Bohm started to slow down. He has done that at least this week. Pitching was never the problem, but if guys like O’Hoppe and Torres can do just enough to complement Elly’s numbers then this team should not be counted out yet.
What a tough week for Swindell. Pages has gone ice cold, Soto is hurt, and Seager has a hamstring injury. It’s a string of problems which comes at a crucial inflection point in his season. Another big loss and the hole may be too big to climb out of as he is now 21 games behind the leader. The good news is he faces Topczewski this week, so the possibility of re-gaining all of his lost numbers in the standings in one go is high. Wait, I’m supposed to be positive about Dan… James you can’t possibly compete with Topper because he’s taller than you. You should just give up and trade him all your players and thank him for taking them from you.
oneil & o’neill attys at law (w) vs pickle the beast (l)
7 - 4 - 1
It’s tough to be bitter about a solid win, but I started this weekend with a 10-2 advantage on Heller, but much like in many previous weeks my offense sputtered and Heller surged. My pattern of winning through pitching dominance held this week, and with production early in the week from Stanton, Candelario, and Rutschman I was able to hold off a late charge. I desperately need Turner and Trout to come back and provide some big numbers to this lineup which seems determined to lag behind. I deliberately avoided overthinking injury risk when I built this squad, and that now seems to have been a critical error. Should my season end in a missed trip to the postseason it will almost certainly be because I undervalued health as a skill.
Heller’s team is good, and I got a little lucky that players such as Olson, Riley, and Schwarber were ice cold during this matchup. All three of those mashers combined for 0 HR and 3 RBI over the course of the entire matchup, which seems extremely unlikely to happen again. Heller’s pitching line was mostly due to underwhelming weeks by Gore, Stromon, and Verlander, plus a few reliever blowups. Heller’s rotation lacks a true ace, and if he is able to upgrade his staff as the deadline approaches it would solidify his standing as the playoff draw nearer.
week 11 matchup to watch:
elly enchanted vs gilgabro’s peaceful war carts
This matchup is a grudge match featuring two of the oldest teams in the league. Both owners are on the cusp of non-contention and need a big win in the worst way. Desperation is a great ingredient for entertainment.
