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Monday, August 25, 2008

MLB Headlines Week 21

So the Twins finally try to boost their bullpen. They trade for Eddie Guardado giving up a minor league pitcher. He was the Twin's closer before Joe Nathan. "Every Day" Eddie's a decent pitcher these days but not great. Still, he's better than anything else the Twins have...besides Nathan. So you'd think I'd be happy about it, right?
WRONG!!!
The minor league pitcher the Twins traded for Eddie Guardado was Mark Hamburger. I mean come on. With pitchers like Glen Perkins and Dennys Reyes, think of the kind of puns we could do with a guy like Mark Hamburger on the Twins. It's a down right shame...

http://www.mlb.com/ Headline of the Week:
As Labor Day approaches, contenders on the job

Yeah, that's a reach. Even for http://www.mlb.com/.

Teebore:
August 22nd, 2008 - Twins 9 Angels 0
Angels in the outfield no use against homer hitting Twins

August 24th, 2008 - Twins 3 Angels 5
Tragic Crain Collapse: Twins reeling from Jesse's poor pitching in 8th inning Angels rally

August 24th, 2008 - Nationals 1 Cubs 6
Tough loss for Nationals as Harden continues to make Cubs pitching Rich

Dr. Bitz:
August 24th, 2008 - Twins 3 Angels 0
Bullpen bullshit again!

August 25th, 2008 - Red Sox 6 Blue Jays 5
Lowrie launches one and lifts Sox to victory.

August 17th, 2008 - Rays 5 White Sox 6
Dan's wheels come off in ninth

Special Bonus Olympics Pun!!!
Usain's insane bolt garners him gold

Teebore and I tied...again. At least we got two more votes this time. Don't worry folks, it's almost over.

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11:09 AM: I've said it once and I'll say it again. Playing a team that isn't paying attention makes Fantasy Baseball much easier. However, I only recently realized that there's only one week left before the playoffs, and after last week I was on the outside looking in. I'm battling my sister for the last playoff spot, but she's currently losing 3-6 and I'm winning 7-3. So hopefully that keeps up:
R HR RBI SB AVG W SV K ERA WHIP
Me: 33 6 30 2 .337 4 4 48 4.30 1.48
Him: 22 2 9 3 .217 2 3 26 0.49 0.44

Most of the categories are settles already. He has two starting pitchers going today, but they're playing each other, so I think I got Wins. Stolen Bases and Steals are the only two categories really up for grabs. Although, if my opponent's two starting pitchers and two relievers can't combine for one and two-thirds innings pitchers, then he won't make the inning limit and I win all the pitching categories. But I doubt that's likely to happen. However, since he has so few innings pitched, if both his pitchers get rocked, his ERA and WHIP could climb higher than expected. But again, I'm not holding out hope.

12:14 PM: First hitter of the day: Miguel Tejada. He fouled out to the catcher. I assume he did it spicily.

12:45 PM: Typical Sunday so far. My team starts off 0 for 3.

1:54 PM: Got back from Stupid Taco Bell and they screwed up my order. Anyway, Pujols hit a two run homer. So that's nice. And Tejada had a spicy run. That about all. My team is 2 for 14.

2:06 PM: Bitter-sweet two run home run by Carlos Quentin. And since Jermaine Dye doubled and Thome homers putting the White Sox in the lead it's REALLY bitter-sweet. C'mon Rays!

2:07 PM: By the way, I was wrong about my opponents pitchers facing each other. So I'm in jeopardy of losing or tying wins.

2:27 PM: Cueto has given up a run on Jay Bruce's fielding error. I blame Teebore.

2:38 PM: *phew* AJ Burnett is taken out in a tie game. I think I'm safe with Wins.

3:16 PM: A-Rod's on 1st in a tie game. I'm hoping for a steal.

3:19 PM: And Alex *Expletive Deleted* Rodriguez disappoints me again.

4:10 PM: Back from shower. Wheeler blew a save for the Rays which is doubly painful. But it's still in extra innings, so let's hope the Rays can still pull it out. Not much else has changed.

4:17 PM: The White Sox win thanks to an AJ Perzynski intentionally 'accidentally' hitting a fielder and acting like he was hit. No bad deed goes unrewarded, I guess. I should probably be quiet now or I'll I sound like an old fuddy-duddy. But the fact is the Rays did have a one run lead in the bottom the 9th with 2 outs and a 3-2 count and couldn't get it done. So in some ways, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

5:12 PM: So the Twins bullpen blows it again and they lose. I'm not surprised. After the White Sox came back in the 9th and won their game on a controversial call, it was down right predictable that the Twins would lose. Not much going on fantasy-wise.

5:25 PM: Uh oh...Mariano Rivera picked up a save tying the category. Anybody surprised Dan Wheeler's blown save is coming back to bite me in the ass? Anybody?

7:05 PM: The day games are done, and all my batters hit. Shockingly, none of them got a steal, despite me needing one. I'm down to hoping Eddie Guardado gets a save. That seems to happen often, lately.

11:30 PM: Hey, here's a shocker. Guardado was brought into the ninth inning of a tie game, gave up a run, and ended up being the losing pitcher. *sigh* This is how it finishes:
R HR RBI SB AVG W SV K ERA WHIP
Me: 38 8 35 2 .316 4 4 59 4.08 1.43
Him: 26 3 13 3 .224 3 4 46 1.82 0.63

Obviously I was never going to win ERA and WHIP. He got lucky that the four starts his pitchers had were all solid ones. I think I'm most bitter about the save. especially since the Dan Wheeler blown save also hurt the Twins. I would go so far as to call it a debacle. My hitting did well again, though. It's just a shame that my pitching staff is so putrid that it'll probably cost me the playoffs.
Overall, I lost a half a category on the day and my sister only managed to win 3 categories this week. Where does this leave me? I'm 2 1/2 categories ahead of my sister going into next week. But if she wins 3 more categories than I do next week, I'm out. It'll be interesting.

Nemesis of The Week:
Dan Wheeler? I suppose not. Rich Harden pitched 14 innings, got 2 wins, 21 Strikeouts, had a 0.64 ERA and .029 WHIP. That's annoying. But I think my fantasy Nemesis of this week is Mariano "I had no saves last week but now that I'm facing Dr. Bitz I'll go nuts" Rivera. He had 3.2 Innings Pitched, 3 Saves, 3 Strikeouts, 0.00 ERA and a 0.27 ERA. Of course really, I wish my team could do better than just 4 Saves.

Savior of The Week:
Well, I'm going to go back to the well, or the toilet as the case may be, and go with Albert "Hehehehe" Pujols. I deem 3 Runs, 2 Home Runs, 10 RBI, and a .579 Average acceptable.

The Moral of this week's story is that steals and saves are surprisingly similar. When you need one, you just never seem to get them.

5 comments:

  1. I'm pretty sure I know Mark Hamburger's sister . . . She was in my best friend (Thaddeus)'s wedding.

    She was HOT and Juicy.

    You should never trade a Hamburger for anything Mexican.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would trade a hamburger for a bean burrito, 7-layer burrito, cheese quesadillas, vegetable fajitas, or spicy tejadas. But that's my own personal preference.

    Also, glad to see the move worked out. Eddie Guardado got the Twins through the 8th inning with no problem. I guess now they need to worry about the ninth inning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Way to curb my excitement about acquiring Guardado by pointing out we traded a Hmaburger for him. Man, the puns would write themselves!

    But seriously, Nathan biffing it after Eddie did exactly what we acquired him to do really curbed my excitement.

    "Cueto has given up a run on Jay Bruce's fielding error. I blame Teebore."

    But he's not on my team anymore!

    Sounds like you're to blame for Wheeler's blown save though; you go shower, and when you get back, he's blown it. Clearly, Wheeler wants a dirty Dr. Bitz.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't know, Teebore. This is starting to sound suspiciously like YOU want a dirty Dr. Bitz.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm pretty sure we can agree that most people want a dirty Dr. Bitz; I was just pointing out that apparently Dan Wheeler is on that list too.

    ReplyDelete

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