AZ SnakePit Fantasy Baseball: Div 1 and 1A, Week 4

Well, you thought it was close at the top last week? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a triple-tie for first place, with a fourth team half a point back. It's a jungle up there, folks...

AZ SnakePit 8, The Fighting Amish 2
Alabama Slammers 8, Lady Gaga Regatta 2
Blonde Streaks 7, Whooping Zoidbergs 3
Ignatius J. Rallies 4, Los Wailoracles 5
Mizzoula Osprey 8, Phoenix Platypi 2
Bad Wolf 3, Lil Bitches 6
Sofa King Juiced 2, warlords 8

[Updated with Division 1A recap]

AZ SnakePit 8, The Fighting Amish 2
Amish's rough start continued, as Young and Cano combined for seven HR on SnakePit's record, each man driving in and scoring seven too. Garcia struck out 12, and 'Pit got a W and the week's only Save from Cordero. Lyon vultured two Wins for Amish, who took WHIP by just 0.003.

Alabama Slammers 8, Lady Gaga Regatta 2
The Slammers swept pitching, racking up six wins and 61 K's: Gonzalez and Shields each fanned a dozen. Gaga did get 13 RBI and eight runs from Zobrist, but Bruce's three homers helped the Slammers take the majority of hitting points too. They moved into a tie at the top as a result of the victory.

Blonde Streaks 7, Whooping Zoidbergs 3
Dueling pitchers highlighted this contest: Norris (Blonde) had a W and 17 K's, but Kennedy (Zoidbergs) countered with a W and 16 strikeouts. Blonde took all five pitching points, with a sub-three ERA and three saves from Wilson. Drew had eight RBI for Zoidbergs, and Young the same for Blonde.

Ignatius J. Rallies 4, Los Wailoracles 5
The week's closest game saw SB end tied at four, giving overall victory to Los. It also had the week's closest category, Rallies winning WHIP 1.3113 to 1.3125. Hitter of the week Soriano homered four times for the Rallies, while Hernandez got 14 strikeouts and Street a trio of saves on Los's account.

Mizzoula Osprey 8, Phoenix Platypi 2
Osprey-style trumps Platypi-style: the latter had Pitcher of the Week in Hudson (two Wins and 11 K's), but that wasn't enough. Santana and Braun each homered three times for them, and they also got two W's from Britton, while racking up an impressive 10 Saves, as the Osprey grabbed a share of first.

Bad Wolf 3, Lil Bitches 6
Completing the log-jam at the top, Lil Bitches cleaned up at the plate, though were helped by Wolf's poor week (.210, three HR). Fielder had three HR for Lil, and Phillips drove in seven. Wolf fought back on pitching with 17 K's from Lee and three Rivera saves, but the lack of offense was too much to overcome.

Sofa King Juiced 2, warlords 8
This would have been a lot closer if Sofa hadn't started Dempster. His 189.00 ERA likely cost them ERA and WHIP. though Garza did post a W and 17 K's for them. However, war swept hitting behind Howard (three HR, nine RBI) and Upton (six R, two SB), and cruised to overall victory as a result.

Standings

Week 5 games

AZ SnakePit vs. Ignatius J. Rallies
Alabama Slammers vs. The Fighting Amish
Blonde Streaks vs. Lady Gaga Regatta
Mizzoula Osprey vs. Los Wailoracles
Bad Wolf vs. Phoenix Platypi
Sofa King Juiced vs. Lil Bitches
warlords vs. Whooping Zoidbergs

Mizzoula vs. Los is the only contest this week featuring two teams in the top-half of the table, so that will be the ESPN Game of the Week. The Osprey have two of the top four players to date, in Braun and Berkman, driving a formidable offense. Tulowitzki is the Wailocracies' only representative in the top thirty, but they do have five players in the top 70.

Division 1A

Green Eggs or Hamm 4, Gila Monsters 5
Honey Nut Ichiros 5, The Musician 4
Young Fu Fighting 4, Keith Foulke You 5
Sheep in Cardiff 4, Tominators 4
The Manchise 7, Wimbo’s Barmy Army 3
MLIB 5, Buttercup Bandits 4
Waffles 5, Bazinga! 5
Wise Counsell 3, The Grand Branyan 5

Green Eggs or Hamm 4, Gila Monsters 5
Green couldn’t grab any of the offensive categories, but was able to pick up 4 saves (3 from Street) and 69 strikeouts, thanks to 17 from Garza, 13 from Lowe, and 11 from Cain. The Gila Monsters were boosted by 9 RBIs from Ryan Howard, 7 from CY, and 5 each from Carlos Lee and Alex Gonzalez.

Honey Nut Ichiros 5, The Musician 4
HNI would have had a much better week if it weren’t for the the Southern tornado explosion/curse of the Diamondbacks taking it’s toll on Roy Oswalt. A stellar performance from Roy Halladay helped The Musician take all of the pitching categories except for saves (HNI had 3 from Brian Wilson, and 2 from Jon Rauch) There was a tie in RBI, and HNI took the rest of the offensive categories, thanks to DBacks player of the week Ryan Roberts.

Young Fu Fighting 4, Keith Foulke You 5
Neither team was able to pick up any saves this week, thanks to Neftali Feliz and Brad Lidge’s respective trips to the Disabled List, but Foulke You squeezed out the win, thanks to 2 stolen bases from the other Upton brother and Jose Reyes, and batting averages over .300 from seven of their ten starters, and only one batter hit under .200 for the week. Young Fu had 2 wins each from the newly acquired Daniel Hudson and Zach Britton, as well as 11 Ks from Hudson, 7 from Lincecum, and 6 from Jimenez.

Sheep in Cardiff 4, Tominators 4
The lower scoring of our two ties this week featured ties in wins (4) and saves (1). The rest of the results? Just as close. Sheep in Cardiff only took runs by 3 (31, with every starter putting up at least one), and WHIP by 0.02 (no one over 2.00). Tominators took ERA with zeros from Papelbon, Cordero, and Scott Downs, RBIs (no one with less than two), and stolen bases thanks to two each from Ichiro and Jose Bautista.

The Manchise 7, Wimbo’s Barmy Army 3
The week’s largest deficit went to the Barmy Army, who were only able to take saves, ERA, and WHIP, and those were thanks to Mo Rivera (3 saves, 0.00 ERA, 0.33 WHIP) and Sergio Santos (2 saves, 0.00 ERA, 0.67 WHIP). The Manchise won the offensive game, but didn’t really dominate any category. They just managed to have a better week than the Barmy Army.

MLIB 5, Buttercup Bandits 4
The only standout in this matchup was the 14 Ks put up by Justin Masterson, but even that wasn’t enough to get the Bandits the win this week. Wins ended in a tie, with two each, and the Buttercup Bandits took ERA for their only pitching category of the week. MLIB picked up stolen bases (2 each from Zobrist and Bourn, 1 from CarGo), saves (2 each from Storen and Marmol), and strikeouts, with no one putting up less than two Ks.

Waffles 5, Bazinga! 5
The true tie from this week, and except for runs, ERA, and WHIP, all the categories were decisively scored. Waffles shut out Bazinga! in three categories (stolen bases, wins, and saves), but Bazinga! had great weeks from Adam Lind (7 R, 4 HR, 10 RBI, .429) and Dan Haren (5 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.71 WHIP) to even the score.

Wise Counsell 3, The Grand Branyan 5
Wise Counsell took RBI, stolen bases, and WHIP, but was taken down in the rest of the pitching categories because of Matt Harrison’s 4 K, 21.6 ERA, and 4.80 WHIP. Nelson helped Wise Counsell, as well, with a 3 run, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 1 SB, and .208 week. The Grand Branyan pulled it out, even though Sam Fuld had a ridiculous 0 for 9 run in the Rays 20 run day. Robinson Cano put up 7 runs and 7 RBI this week as well.