Entering week 17.

Dammit.

I got so bogged down with the tournament last weekend that I forgot to put in my picks this week. But of course, the opening phrase reminds of my two most favourite "dammit's"

#1 has to be Jack Bauer.  Jack was / is as kick-ass as kick-ass could possibly be.  He could kick Chuck Norris' ass.  Ya, I just said that.

Yep, Jack is all that and a bag of chips.  

Ha!  He dares to dis' The Chuck. 

So the second best dammit has to be Bones.  Not our Bones, but the Bones from Star Trek.  Now there was a classic.  

Okay, enough of the dammit's dammit.  

Here's where my picks were before falling off of the rails.  

12-10 +$20.00.  

My last picks were:

Hurtin' Units Vs. Rusty Rebels, I'm going off book on this one, I think the Scott Peters vacation will hurt the Units

Result:  RAIN
Master Batters Vs. Dog Catchers.  Master Batters are smart pick in what appears to be a close game, Hipkin is nursing an injury, not sure if he'll play.

Result:    RAIN
Sliders Vs. Draft Kings.  I've been burned plenty by the Sliders, but I think they've run into their match with the Draft Kings.

Result:  RAIN
Draft Kings Vs. Tap Masters.  Draft Kings will enjoy a 2 win week.

Result:   Draft Kings win 15 - 3
Hot Tub Woody's Vs. Dodge City Rounders - Dodge will make up for last week's disaster.

Result:  DCR pulls out a 11 - 7 victory.
Sons Of Pitches Vs Gruesome Devils - All those close games are starting to pay off for the Sons.

Result:  And another close one, SOP by two 21 - 19
Dusty Cleats Vs. Beer Bros.  Dusty Cleats minus Pully....tough game to pull out.

Result:  Missed this one huge, Cleats demo the Bros 17 - 4
Dodge City Rounders Vs. Grisslies.  Have fun Dodge, the Grisslies run the table after this game. 

Result:   Huh?  Grisslies win 24 - 5.  Go figure.
Beer Bros. Vs. Sliders.  This isn't your parents Sliders.  This is a very hot team, they split the week.

Result:   As predicted 30 - 13 Sliders.
Dusty Cleats Vs. Hurtin' Units. Peters or no Peters, double your bet on this one.  They're good.

Result: Did not see this coming 11-10 for the Cleats.
Sons of Pitches Vs. Grisslies.  Sorry SOP, but I did say we'd run the table 

Result:  RAIN.
Tap Masters Vs. Hot Tub Woody's.  Its time. 

Result:  Pulled this one out of my ass.  11 - 3 HTW!!!

Results for the week, 5 - 3

Results so far:  17 - 13, + $40.00.  

This week will be easy.  

Master Batters vs. Gruesome Devils:  The League average is 14.02 runs allowed per game.  The MB's are at 9.32; the GD's are at 19.55.  Barring a miracle....

Hot Tub Woody's vs. Rusty Rebels:  They aren't as far apart as you might think.  But the Reb's have outscored the HTW's by 30 and have played 2 fewer games. Defense won't decide this.

  

Sliders vs. Draft Kings  There is no one hotter than the Sliders.  There's no one more consistent than the Draft Kings.  Controlling the ball after its hit is the deal breaker here.

  

Son's of Pitches vs. Draft Kings   SOP is close.  But I stand by the earlier comment about the DK's consistency.  They can be beat, but you need to play your best.

  

Hurtin' Units vs. Dusty Cleats  I view the last couple of weeks as a blip for the Units, they'll bounce back fine.  Not yet though, the Cleats are finally on the roll I've been expecting.

  

Grisslies vs. Dog Catchers  Not playing for 2 weeks is going to hurt the Grisslies.  

Tap Masters vs. Sliders  Win or lose against the Draft Kings, I like the Sliders to get right back at it against the Tap Masters. 

Meeting :  I have the over-under set at 3 for the number of comments from Hugh Armstrong that stop the meeting with laughter.

Beer Bros. vs. Gruesome Devils.  The Beer Bros offense has disappeared. The BB's are a -62 in the second half.  The next worse two are the Tap Masters and Gruesome at -41.  Its break out night.

Dodge City Rounders vs. Rusty Rebels.  In the 2nd half these teams are almost identical.  3-4-2 (DCR); 3-4-1 (RR).  Should be close, but Dodge has more power threats on a cool Keogh night.  

Son's of Pitches vs. Hot Tub Woody's. If SOP loses to the Draft Kings then this game is a lock.  July 9th was the last time they suffered back to back losses.  

Dusty Cleats vs. Tap Masters.  Both teams have played 8 games in the 2nd half.  The Cleats have given up 90 runs, the Tap Masters 135.  

Master Batters vs. Dog Catchers. 7-2 in the 2nd half (MB) vs 8-2 (DC).   The Draft Kings are getting better every game and have a runs against in the 2nd half of 8.8.  Impressive.  The Master Batters are at 7.0 runs against in the 2nd half.  Good luck.   

STATS

Due to time I'm just going to run the full season and 2nd half stats.  If you want the 1st half click here

Also, for the sake of ease, each stat is top 10 plus ties. 

Here are the standings as they appear on the league website.  You'll see that the Draft Kings are tied for 1st with the Dog Catchers.  The truth is that the Dog's are in 1st place by the tie breakers.  The 1st tie breaker is fewest losses.  

More to the point is that neither team is actually in 1st place, the Master batters are.  In "baseball speak", the Master Batters are in 1st place by a half game.  One day I'd like to have real standings.  I'll probably never win that one.  

So what's this 2nd half standing show you?  The Sliders should be feared for one thing.  The Dog Catchers, Master Batters and Draft Kings have been remarkably consistent.  

At bats is kind of an attendance award.  But it also usually favours "top of the line up" guys.  You won't see too many 7 or 8 hitters on this list.

Congrats to Steff Kapp and Adrian Barry for being the 1st to break the century mark.  I think your going to have a lot of company this year.

With the variation in games played, the 2nd half total will go down to the wire.  

Not a lot of action at the top due to badly timed rain outs and work conflicts.  Still 6 guys over .800.  

Not a lot of action although Brian Richards went 7 / 10 last week and dropped!

This is interesting.
The Beer Bros. have played 24 games.
The Draft Kings, and Hurtin' Units 23 games.
Dodge City Rounders 22.
This leaves the Sliders, Rebels and Sons of Pitches all at 21 games.  So with the extra games to play, even though it looks close, this is going to be Brian, Scott or Cameron.  They've all been too good to go cold at the same time.

Add the Dog Catchers to the 23 games played list and the Grisslies at 21.  2nd half honours are going to be Clark, Dwyer (egad), Richards or possibly Ford.

Congrats to Jerry the 1st person to break the 50 run plateau this season.  By the looks of things he'll have company.

Running the numbers quickly based on games played....if everyone maintains the same pace Jerry will end up at 59.09 runs and Cam will have 58.19.  Needless to say one run is going to do it.  Also, we're on pace to have 13 guys score 50 or more runs.

The second half is a completely different story.  Everyone above me and Cam has played 23 games compared to our 21.  So this is really a 3 horse race with me (seriously), Check and Cam having the hammer right now.  It'll look different next week!

This is everyone who's average is at least 100 points better than last year.  Lets see what happened over weeks 14, 15 and 16.

Jeff Sagert, up .048
Paul Gyori, up .046
John Stiff, up .043
Mike Olliffe, up .026
Chuck Cragg, up .023
Martin Ranby, up .016
Scott Barton, up .007
Mark Bickford, unchanged,
Cliff Stacey, unchanged,
Doug Dwyer, unchanged,
Lou Conforti, down .002
Brian Richards, down .006
Sandy Bell, down .008
Craig (Dude) Escott, down .013
Chris Parsons, down .037
Rick Greenfield, down .044
Bill Sallustio, down .048.

That shows recent trending, but below is by season improvement.

 Have a great week!!!!