NLD 33

Wow. Huge sweep for the Juicers tonight. Puts us within one game of the WC. Don't think we can catch GB (even though six of his last 9 are on the road) but it should be a close one down the stretch with only Semper, Hawk and Keyz out of it.

Took a quick look at our tie breakers. We hold them with every team in the league, outside our division, except DJ. We are 9-12 against everyone IN our division however. Weird huh?

We would have to sweep Big A with a +14 run dif to get that tie breaker. With GB, only need to sweek with a +4 run dif.

Hah, *only* a sweep!

Ah, caught fire but too late.

In another ongoing league I'm in we ventured out and did a 60's Mystery card game. It has turned out to be a lot of fun and there was no need to do a theme because of a large player pool. I had never done a Mystery Card game and my squad has the best record in the league in that one. Just a suggestion...

Just noticed this oddity:

Start with 80 wins you can count backwards by one win at a time until you get to 75. No ties, the win total goes 81-80-79-78-77-76-75

Just noticed this oddity:

Start with 80 wins you can count backwards by one win at a time until you get to 75. No ties, the win total goes 81-80-79-78-77-76-75

That's parity for ya!

Just noticed this oddity:

Start with 80 wins you can count backwards by one win at a time until you get to 75. No ties, the win total goes 81-80-79-78-77-76-75

That's parity for ya!

Actually, parity would be everyone the same, it's just *weird* that there are no ties and that one and only one has a record between 75-81 wins!

Wow, another sweep. But now we go on the road with Big A. Need to take the series to have a chance as we play the team with the best home record in the league the final 3. GB could easily have the division clinched before that last series.

Of course, you can't count out Stoney or Big M yet. Stoney 3 back and Big M 4.

Corky and Jeep are still mathematically in it, but it will take perfection I think to make it happen as they are 5 back of two teams with six to play.

It's really cool that 6 teams are still in the wild card race, and 2 divisions still have 3 team battles for first place. With just 6 games to go, only Arryl has clinched a playoff spot! And I think that was only after last night (?) too

I figured out that Bronx can still finish out of the playoffs with a 6 game slump, although the odds are good for the playoff berth.

Someone else here described this as parity, and I agree.

I was looking at the team stats for run production, and the total salaries for hitters, for the top 3 teams for run production. The top 3 are fairly close in total runs scored - Bronx, Ottawa and Philly. But Ottawa and Philly did it in parks that are more moderate hitters' parks than Yankee stadium, and with fewer $. So even if Bronx ends up with the most runs (it's a small lead right now), I think that Arryl and Stoney deserve recognition for getting the most out of their lineups!

My third ever use of Yankee stadium went much better than my first 2 experiences. I find it hard to scale back my expenditures on starting pitching, because I really like ace starting pitchers - it's kind of a comfort zone for me. But it worked ok overall. I don't know if I've ever had a pitching staff with 3 regular starters with an ERA over 5.00! The bullpen was really good, and the starters did a decent job of avoiding home runs - keeping games close. The pitching staff did a great job at Yankee stadium, where there ERA was almost the same as the road ERA. I think I got lucky with Jansen in the bullpen, in terms of homeruns allowed (could have been a lot more).

I also had some luck with injuries for Ortiz and Bautista - also could have (should have) been worse than it was. I thought my backup plan was good, with Chisenhall and Youkilis available to fill in, but I didn't need them as much as I should have.

I might not have achieved the greatest efficiency per dollar spent - I'm sure improvements are possible - but I feel like I've finally got the hang of Yankee stadium!

Interesting GB. I'll try to get some time over the weekend to compare the final numbers against the ratings. I won't, however, rework anyone's numbers so for the teams that made a lot of moves.... I'll try to get the "luck factor" done also

As for the results tonight, we managed to take 2 from Big A despite having our first round pick (such as he's been) David Wright for only 1 inning and 1 AB. Just gotta say hot for one more series!

We're in the driver's seat, but face a tough series in Yankee Stadium with GB. We're hoping they are still hungover from the champagne from clinching a playoff spot! We'll missing Wright for game one and E Cabrera for the whole series. Of course, I'm sure Big A isn't crying for us as he won't have Stanton or Grandal for the last series. Then again, Hawk is w/o Posey. The only team healthy for the last three is GB and he's got two big injury guys!

Hawk, have I told you lately that you're my FAVORITE NLD player? No, really, it has nothing to do with us needing you to beat Big A a time or two (or three) in the next series. We just think you're a great guy.

In other NLD News:

East: Stones needs to sweep DJ for a playoff spot. Anything else and DJ is in.
Central: AT is in
West: GB is in
WC: It comes down to JTJ and Big A as Stones is eliminated because JTJ has the tie breaker. JTJ doesn't have the tie breaker with Big A so their magic # is 3.

Dang! I just realized I have only two 3bs and they're both injured for the first game! Ugh. Don't hit it to third!