First off, welcome to the new home of the MikesPickz MLB Weekly Review.
The semi-finals of most fantasy baseball leagues came to a close on 9/20 and hopefully you will be one of the people lucky enough to be advancing to the Championship. I am lucky enough to be going to the championship in both of the leagues I am currently in.
The past week was another good one, here are some of the highlights:
- The Yankees have fallen into a mini rut. They are 5-5 in their past 10 games and have lost badly to some non-playoff teams. They still maintain a 5 game lead for the best record in the majors (but that doesn’t really matter in the MLB, like its does in the NBA). Hopefully for the Yankees, the rut is only now and they are back to form when the playoffs start.
- The Boston Red Sox are on fire winning 9 of their last 10 games and taking a commanding 8 game lead in the wild card race. The Texas Rangers made a nice run, but they will fall short this season.
- Speaking of the Red Sox, I was able to go to the first game of the Orioles- Red Sox series on Friday night. I went with a fellow sports blogger, @Number1Baseball (Read his take on the game here) . The Red Sox won the game by a score of 3-1, but it could have been much worse as the Red Sox had 11 hits and left 10 men on base. The night was perfect for baseball and Camden Yards is one of the nicer parks in the MLB (too bad the Orioles haven’t been exciting since Cal Ripken Jr.). The lack of excitement for the team was evident by the fact that there looked like there was more red jerseys in the stadium than there were orange ones. And when the Red Sox won the game, it sounded like they were the home team.
- The NL wild card chase remains tight with the Rockies leading by 4.5 games over the Giants, with the Marlins and Braves right behind them only 5 games back. It’s definitely interesting to follow, but I think the Rockies will end up holding onto it.
- Chris Carpenter (StL- SP) is making a strong push for the NL CY Young award, and it will be a tough vote between him and Tim Lincecum. Let’s look at their stats:
Lincecum- 14-6, 2.47 ERA, 4CG, 2SHO, 211.1 IP, 247 Ks, .208 BAA
Carpenter- 16-4, 2.34 ERA, 3CG, 1SHO, 180.2 IP, 136Ks, .227 BAA
As you can see these two are close, Carpenter has the fact that his team is the division leader on his side, Lincecum has the fact taht he has pitched all season long on his side. If I had a vote, I would have to say Lincecum would get it. - Zach Greinke is still on fire this season. He is the MLB’s ERA leader with a 2.14 ERA. Over his last 37 IP, he has only allowed 3 ER.
- Last weekend, Derek Jeter surpassed Lou Gehrig as the Yankees’ all-time hit leader.
- Joe Mauer is hitting a ridiculous .374, I just felt that needed to be mentioned.
That’s going to do it for this week’s update, leave comments below and be sure to check the MikesPickz: Sports Section next week for another MLB review.
I am a three time Fantasy Baseball Champion on Yahoo, with two 2nd place finishes in the total of 8 leagues I have played in since I started in 2004. Feel free to e-mail me, post a question in the MikesPickz Forum, post a question in the comment section below, or send me a tweet, as I am always happy to help.