NLD 64 - This League is on Fiers

Did anyone get the number of that truck that just ran over me?

Wow, all close games, but Spider won them all!

We're up 3-1 with some breaks like DJ hitting two 1-4 HRs off of Wright. (A game where we had 14 base runners) and Stoney lost L gonzalez for the next game.

We lost Pena for 1, but doesn't compare to what's happened to Stoney. Would like to win the next one (of course) so we don't have to see Gonzalez and Ehire come back.

Be nice to see Judge do something, he's hitting .125 (2 singles) with a lot of LOB so far. But that said, we've pitched well so far. I have a feeling we'll need to score some runs in the next game or two to get to the finals....

"Jovani Moran was the victor at Camden Yards 2022 where the Deep In The Gap beat the Ludicrous Speed by the score of 10 to 8. Obviously without his best stuff, Julio Urias(1-0) still hung on to pick up the win. He gave up 8 runs, 14 hits and 2 walks in 7 and 1/3 innings and served up 2 'big flies'."

He did get the win though...and it is going to be a short series.

That was in the first part of the write-up. It was my manager's quote later that irritated me.

"Butch Delozier was asked about the performance of Urias, 'He had his good stuff out there this afternoon. The fans really get into it when the strikeouts start mounting up - and that seems to give him even more adrenalin.'

Maybe I need to school him on talking to the press. (However, he did lead my team to a sweep ). Also, they actually gave the win to Urias.

Steve's guys scored 24 runs in those 4 games. You'd think he would be up 3-1. Hope I didn't use up all my good luck in the semis.

Ugh, lost another one run game 2-1. Wheeler gives up a WP (wp-1 but maybe it was a Catch X) with two out for one of the runs and we leave 7 on. Webb was just too good. We couldn't get a RISP, 0-5. Key play was Wong getting thrown out stealing (1-15) right before a walk to Judge and a single by Carpenter. Gordon then K'd to end the inning.

He gets two back, but his bad injury luck continues with Vazquez going out for 7. So, now he has Espinal out for game 6 with Ward and Vazquez out for the series. I knew this wouldn't be easy. We just can't score a run because we're bad and he's having trouble scoring because on injuries.

Hope we can figure out Cease in our park.

Well Stones, you gave us a good run with all of your injuries. I don't think there's any way we win if you're healthy.

Got some breaks in the middle innings. A 1-9 single gave us a 2-1 lead after the bases were walked loaded. Next run scored on a 1-7 3b (2b the rest, maybe DJ tries to score) with two out. Then we got a big 2 out 2b from Thaiss off of Cease's card.

Skubal was very good, but with all the guys you were missing, that's not saying much.

My $15 mil player Judge needs to show up in the Finals or we'll have NO chance of getting past Spider. He went an amazing 2-21 (.095) with 2 singles and 3 walks in the first round. No wonder we struggled to score runs. This team DEPENDS on the middle three guys to drive in runs (Judge, K Carpenter, J Rod) they all had 95 or more RBI during the regular season.

Speaking of Carpenter, having to play another game cost him the first four games of the Finals. Of course, given my abysmal finals record it won't matter. In any case, Spider has the HF and is 100% healthy so I don't have the advantages I had over Stoney. We went 3-6 v Spider including 0-6, getting out scored 7.7 to 3.5, on the road. Ouch. Yes, we did win three at home, but they were all very close games.

Well, Spidey, we'll give you the best we can to make it interesting, but I'm not holding out much hope of finally getting over the hump.

Have to hope my luck holds out for the finals. Going 9-3 vs. The Jet was way overperforming for my team. Carpenter will be out for the first four for Joe, but he wasn't likely to start against Urias and Cortes. Joe's lineup will be hard on my RHP, so I need Judge to continue his drought.

Well, you're right about Carpenter for the first two games, but we *will* miss him against Severino (with all those HRs) and especially Schmidt.

Judge doubled his hit total to 4 and finally got a home run, a big one at that. He's off the Bingo card and onto the interstate (I-33) hoping he gets above the Mendoza line in a hurry.

Got a split which is all we could really hope for I suppose. Lost a blow out. Not sure why Hal brought in Holderman in a blow out, he's not supposed to. Gonna hurt the pen for game 3. Need Skubal to be good. Losing Jimenez certainly didn't hurt you for game 2. We'll see if it makes a difference in game 3.

Jude's slam was a backbreaker. Rolls definitely favored hitters in game 1. I think you were 30-13 for your hitters ' card and I was 20-15 for mine.

I'll miss Jimenez in game 3. Hal brought in Barnhart as his replacement. No sure I understand that one. Carpenter sitting out game 3 can hurt - Severino gives up a ton of BPHRs vs. LHBs.

We'll see if Old Skubal is a racehorse in game 3. (Sorry, I couldn't resist it).

Jude's slam was a backbreaker. Rolls definitely favored hitters in game 1. I think you were 30-13 for your hitters ' card and I was 20-15 for mine.

I'll miss Jimenez in game 3. Hal brought in Barnhart as his replacement. No sure I understand that one. Carpenter sitting out game 3 can hurt - Severino gives up a ton of BPHRs vs. LHBs.

We'll see if Old Skubal is a racehorse in game 3. (Sorry, I couldn't resist it).

Yeah, I probably did roll on my card. I needed to! I didn't bother to look at the details of the game 2 blowout, but I would think you might have made up some of the difference there.

Yeah, we'll need Skubal to be good as we'll really miss Carpenter against Schmidt. He's so hard and Lorenzen isn't the greatest matchup against you guys.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!! I'm always thankful for the comradery and competition in this league. It's a true blessing.

Ugh, Game 3 was brutal. Spider's O v LHP is not that great, especially without Jimenez, but Skubal gets killed. PLUS we lose Wong for the rest of the series and Thais for 3 games. That's 2 LHB missing, facing Schmidt in game 4. Are you kidding me? Stones, I know how you feel. Then again, I know we can't ever win an NLD championship, so it's totally expected. Gamel gets two hits off of a LHP in place of McCarthy who misses the second half of a blow out.

Game 4? We suck. Three base E by our LF costs us two runs. Judge is the worst player in the league. Hitting .111 in the playoffs with a 33% K rate. He literally has the lowest BA and the second lowest OB on our team. Devin Williams can't close the game and we lose a blow out.

Down three players, four if you count Judge being a no-show, no way you're going to beat a good team like Spider.

Oh well, at least we'll get a credit out of it. Just can't get over the top. Losing two at home? No way we're going to win 2 in Spider's place where we've been 1-7 so far. Heck we'll be lucky to win game 5.

Our biggest problem is that our offense, which was second in the league in runs scored is hitting .212 with 3.5 runs a game. Spider is hitting .303 (half of that against Steve of course) with 25 runs in 4 games against us. Look, he's got a good team, but it's not built to score 6 runs a game but, maybe we're built to give up 6 a game I guess. <sigh>

Well, I've lost series up 3-1, maybe it's my turn to win one? One can hope I guess.