I CANNOT…

Stress enough, how little interest I have in pretending to care about the outcomes of these fucking things. AND YET…I feel I must capture them in time on the internet, until the Earth is swallowed up by the sun or we delete the blog or whatever. Maybe I’m just sour about incorrectly predicting 3 outta the 4 matchups. But NO I think I’m just over “blogging” as an art form. But so YEA this thing is on hospice, nobody should even read this, we are just going to bang it out for reasons unclear to even myself. ONWARD…..

#1 River City Fightin’ Margs

DEFEATED BY

#8 Astoria Isotopes

9-5

WHAT WENT RIGHT — TOPES:

3 Dongs for Matt Olson…..got some triples and the other team did not get any…..6 QS despite a fairly MEH 4.41 ERA…..6 Holds to grab that cat in a particularly contested Holds matchup…..just seemed to do justttt enough to grab cats or tie cats where the Margs put up solid numbers (SBs comes to mind, tied 8-8)…..

WHAT WENT WRONG — Margs

39 RBIs on 10 HRs feels a little light…..a few fellas (Sano, Solak, Grossman) put up some ugly OBP numbers to drag down the team OBP, below the other team’s OBP…..somehow tied in QS even though they put up a 2.73 ERA and the ‘Topes put up a 4.41…..

#2 Ocean Gate Fishing Club

DEFEAT

#7 Rojo’s Renegade Force

9-5

WHAT WENT RIGHT — OGFC

Two CGs and only ONE of them was the bullshit 7 IP variety (Gerrit Cole), Luis Castillo manned up and went the full 9…..managed to tie in 4 cats (2Bs, HRs, QS, Ws)…..got triples when the opponent didn’t get triples…..2 QS outta Kyle Hendricks…..all of a sudden the RRF were a team that DIDN’t get any Holds…..

WHAT WENT WRONG — RRF

Apparently they abandoned the Holds strategy at some point…..Alec Mills‘ 9 inning no-hitter wasn’t allowed to count for 2 CGs…..they only got to 11 starts which may have made ALL THE DIFFERENCE (but no probably not)(but close)…..

#3 Island Beach Bears

DEFEATED BY

#6 Lacey Township Backdoor Sliderz

9.5-4.5

WHAT WENT RIGHT — LTBS

The Braves offense was absolutely murderous for most of the week (7 Rs, 3 HRs, 13 RBIs, .571 OBP for Freddie Freeman, for example)…..some inconsistent rookie pitchers were fairly consistent (2.94 team ERA)…..bullpen contributed 3 Ws (and the team had NINE total)…..lots o’ Ks…..

WHAT WENT WRONG — Bears

All attempts to use the bullpens on doubleheaders imploded in their face with shitty relievers blowing Hold opps…..ostensibly good relievers also blew leads (6 ER in 2.1 IP for Kenley Jansen)…..Nicholas Castellanos stopped being good a few months ago (.192 OBP)…..

#4 Barnegat Banana Slugs

DEFEAT

#5 East Coast

12.5-1.5

WHAT WENT RIGHT — Slugs

MOST things, the offense was really cookin’ with 62 RBIs despite a so-so (but good enough to win the cat) .326 OBP…..9 Ws and 97 Ks outta the staff is really good…..getting 9 RBIs outta Alec Bohm is really good…..getting EIGHT out of Adalberto Mondesi (14 total for the year now) is really good…..Adalberto also out-stole the opponent 6 to 4, which is really good…..they hit more triples than their opponent…..they just did really good, good job…..

WHAT WENT WRONG — East Coast

uhhhh paltry K numbers…..mediocre RBI total despite an above-mediocre R total…..a few sub-.300 OBP fellas (Baez, Correa, Hoskins, Happ, McMahon) dragged down the bunch a bit too much…..starting Rick Porcello maybe cost them the ERA cat…..

ROUND TWO PREVIEW

#2 Ocean Gate Fishing Club

vs.

#8 Astoria Isotopes

OVERVIEW:

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS BATTLE (I think?) Both of these losers are the idiots that allowed the LTBS to win these past two years (I think?) and now one of them may be tasked with allowing him to do it again. Hard to root for either of these teams but especially hard to root for that city slicker fuck whose too good to SLUM IT in NJ for his friend’s children’s birthday parties. So fuck him go Fishing Club (I think?)

GUYS™ TO WATCH:

BATS BATTLE — Josh Bell (OGFC) vs. DJ LeMahieu (‘Topes)

This is entirely based on what’s already happening, which is DJ is on fucking fire (6 Rs, 3 2Bs, 3 HRs, 8 RBIs, .571 OBP). So uhhhh yea, Josh Bell should try to close the gap a bit in the 1B battle. Is my analysis. I am truly phoning this in so what do you want from me, me.

ARMED CONFLICT — Shane Bieber (OGFC) vs. Mike Minor (‘Topes)

Shane Bieber could realllllly do the Fishing Club a solid by grabbing a LEGIT CG, like a man, against the Tigers. And that is because the ‘Topes already got a helluva start out of their old friend Mike Minor (7 IP “CG” shutout dub with 8 Ks) to give them a commanding 2-0 lead in the all of a sudden juicy CGs category (cuz of these aforementioned doubleheaders), so that was helpful. And they’ll hope he gives them another solid start on Sunday.

PREDICTION:

The CGs give the Isotopes a nice early leg up but I’m going to suggest here that the Fishing Club prevails because fuck Mikey T I haven’t seen the guy in 8 months. Fishing Club advances, 7.5-6.5

#4 Barnegat Banana Slugs

vs.

#6 Lacey Township Backdoor Sliderz

OVERVIEW:

WELL I didn’t do my part (which I shouldn’t have been expected to quite frankly, haven’t won a playoff matchup in yearrrrrrrrz) so it’s now up to Barnegat to hault the Backdoor Sliderz march towards a third straight championship (which I’d then have to unfortunately note as illegitimate. If the Slugs have an offensive showing like they did in Round 1 I wouldn’t put it past them. If the Braves keep acting like Murderers Row that gets trickier. There’s also PITCHING in these fantasy baseball weeks. So we’ll see how the pitching goes I guess.

GUYS™ TO WATCH:

BATS BATTLE — Luke Voit (BBS) vs. Freddie Freeman (LTBS)

Luke Voit is still powering the Slugs offense (3 HRs, 8 RBIs already this week) so this matchup makes ALL THE SENSE. Last week Freddie Freeman was an absolute murderer so if Voit can outpace him this week that’d be nice. Real nice for the Slugs.

ARMED CONFLICT — Trevor Bauer (BBS) vs. Aaron Nola (LTBS)

Trevor Bauer is in many ways a person that shouldn’t be allowed to use the internet but BOY can he pitch this season, and the Slugs will get two starts out of him and the first one was a beaut (12 Ks). Another double digit K perfromance would be a nice boost. Speaking of double digit K performances, Aaron Nola has 4 of them this year including 10 in each of his last two starts. So he can be a real sonuvabitch like that. GOOD ARMED CONFLICT HERE.

PREDICTION:

This is one part noting the LTBS are good, one part wanting to annoy the Slugs, and one part acknowledging my prediction is more of a curse than anything. LTBS advances 9-5

THERE ANOTHER ONE ETCHED INTO THE PYRAMIDS OF HISTORY. OR SOMETHING.