I Bring Nothing to the Table

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

Maybe not the most interesting edition of GO for you readers, but I’ve finally completed my MLB PP team and played quite a few games as them. As of right now, I’m not doing so hot, with a 6-9 win/loss record to make the Alaska Yetis look bad sitting five games back in the NL East (behind the Braves, Phillies, Mets, and Marlins (in that order), but ahead of the Nationals). Why NL East when Alaska is clearly a western state? I love the NL East and that’s where I recognize the most players, so that’s where I wanted to play. I shuffled the Pittsburgh Pirates out to AL Central and added another expansion team, the Hawaii Samurai, to balance out my expansion team.

As for why I’m not doing so well, I’m still sort of ironing out the difficulty level. With the hitting too hard, I can’t score any runs, but I also don’t want my players to be able to hit home runs every at bat. Getting pretty close to finding that proper balance.

My roster looks something like this (last names left off for privacy reasons, but repeated first names do not imply that they are the same person):

Pitchiing
Starters:

David
Colin
Min
Josh
Varun

Relievers:

Will
Mike
Simon
Eric
Dean
James

Closer:

Gordon

Fielders

C - Dan (me)
1B - Eric
2B - Dan
SS - Ian
3B - James
LF - Cu
CF - Lee
RF - Phil

Bench

Arjun
Dan
Ben
Robin
Darek

So, after 15 games, let’s check out who’s doing best on the team compared to the best in the league:

Batting

Batting Average

Cu: .526

BEST: .526 Cu (Yetis)

Home Runs

Dan: 9

BEST: 9 Dan (me) (Yetis)

RBIs

Dan: 19

BEST: 21 Alou (Mets) / Jacobs (Marlins)

Stolen Bases

Phil: 9

BEST: 9 Phil (Yetis)

Pitching

ERA

Dave: 5.68 with 19 innings pitched (Starter)
Will: 3.18 with 5.2 innings pitched (Reliever)
Gordon: 3.18 with 5.2 innings pitched (Closer)

BEST: 0.75 Lohse (Cardinals)

Wins

Dean/James: 2 (Relievers)
Josh/Varun: 1 (Starters)

BEST: 3 Nolasco (Marlins) / A. Miller (Marlins)

Saves

Gordon: 4

BEST: 5 Fuentes (Rockies)

Strikeouts

Dave: 14

BEST: 24 Smoltz (Braves) / Sheets (Brewers) / Paulino (renamed player not in MLBPA) (Reds)

Here are the team stats as a whole, with which place in the league in parens:

Pitching

ERA: 6.68 (6/6)
Runs (scored on): 104 (6/6)
Hits: 251 (6/6 by like 100)
Home Runs: 20 (2/6)
Strikeouts: 55 (6/6)
Walks: 3 (1/6)

Batting

Batting Average: .343 (1/6)
Runs: 80 (4/6)
Hits: 188 (2/6)
Home Runs: 30 (1/6)
Sacrifice Hits + Sacrifice Flies: 0 (6/6)
Stolen Bases: 12 (3/6

I’m definitely enjoying the game so far though! Hopefully the Yetis can slowly move up the standings in the east to keep from looking like they were a mistake to establish.

100th post! YAY!

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ‘em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.

Intramural Softball

I thought it was spring. This past Sunday in Ithaca we had some snow (apparently) or some other kind of precipitation and the temperature sat in the 30s for most of the day. As a result, softball was canceled. Oh well…at least weekend forecasts don’t show 58 and rain after a stretch of 70 degree days on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday…Oh wait, it does. Stupid Ithaca.

Everyone’s Doing the Fish

Just a quickie for this week’s sports (ie: Florida Marlins): the Marlins continue to have really crummy pitching being saved by aggressive hitting. Andrew MIller still isn’t quite there (IMHO) and Burke Badenhop had an apparently promising start that still resulted in a loss. At least the Marlins shut out the Braves thanks to some great Scott Olsen pitching (one of the more veteran pitchers). This brings a great smile to my face since I truly loathe the Atlanta Braves. Also, Mike Jacobs is consistently bringing the heat to the plate and is in the top five for home runs so far this year. Keep it up Mike.

Where do you stand?

MLB standings are in a crazy state right now. I’ll start with the best news: As of right now, the Marlins (8-5) are sitting pretty at numero uno for the NL East with the Phillies 1.5 games back. Everyone writes off the Marlins every year. We’ll see if the youth on the team has the maturity to consistently compete against the Braves (1-0 this year), Mets (1-2), and Phillies (0-0). So far they’ve proven they can more than handle the rest of NL East (they are 3-0 against the Nats), but the rest of the NL East is no walk in the park, they’ve all got tremendous talent and they’ve all got way more experience.

Now for other strange happenings: St. Louis (10-4) is atop the NL Central, despite being flagged for a losing season due to a cheap payroll. The Nats (4-10) plummeted to the bottom of the NL East after a tremendous win streak that many hoped would mean the end of crappy Washington baseball. I can feel the collective sobbing of D.C., but I can’t help but smile after the Marlins swept them last week. Until last night the Baltimore Orioles (8-6) were sitting atop the AL East standings, perplexing many. Last night’s loss still has them only 0.5 games back from the Bo Sox, so they’re still doing way better than expected this season. My last, favorite story of the year are the seriously troubled Detroit Tigers (4-10). They’ve managed a few wins since we last saw them (most recently against the Twins last night), but they’re a huge (at this point of the season) 4.5 games behind and it’s gonna take some great playing to even begin to approach Chicago (8-5) and the strangely high ranked Kansas City Royals (8-6).

Now what you’d expect: The Arizona Diamondbacks (10-4) are kicking just as much ass as everyone thought they would as they hold a 1.5 game lead over the closest NL West competition. Despite some early sparks of brilliance, the Tampa Bay Rays (6-8, and man do I hate the name change from Devil Rays) have fallen to precisely where everyone in baseball expects them to sit: in last place in the AL East, 2.5 games back. Pull it together Tampa. I may hate the AL, but I do like it when Florida teams do well. Let’s get a Marlins-Rays World Series this year, seriously guys!