BGB Fantasy League Week Twelve

Week Twelve in the BaseballGB Fantasy League produced a big win for the Iron Men and a narrow victory for the league-leading SWAT.

Iron Men had the most comprehensive victory of the week as only a 3-3 draw in the Saves category prevented them from a 12-0 clean sweep over Beck’Nams. Adam Dunn went deep twice and drove in seven runs, Evan Longoria hit three home runs and scored six times, whilst Jose Altuve stole fives bases on the week to help the Iron Men to all six offensive categories. On the pitching side, Max Scherzer had about as good a week as you could hope for, picking up two pitching wins whilst striking out 16. Beck’Nams did receive decent weeks from Cliff Lee, Anthony Rizzo, Jhonny Peralta and Paul Konerko but they were not enough to prevent a heavy loss.

Norwich No II maintained their hold on second place in the league with a comfortable 9-2 win over my Cheddar Chasers. Jake McGee picked up two holds, Kevin Gregg picked up a couple of saves and Mike Trout and Alex Rios combined for six stolen bases, but that was basically where the good news ended for my team. Chris Davis gave No II another impressive week (4 HR, 10 RBI) and Nelson Cruz hit three longballs and drove in 11 runs as no fewer than eight members of the team managed to whack the ball over the fence at least once. Jeff Samardzija gave No II two wins and 11 strikeouts, Shelby Miller and Stephen Strasburg added another 19 K’s combined and Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman both collected two saves.

Mark George’s Orpington Isotopes gained a valuable 9-3 match-up victory over the NE Riverkings. Mark’s team swept the offensive categories as Edwin Encarnacion (7 R, 3 HR, 8 RBI), Jason Kipnis (7 RBI, 2 SB) and Yasiel Puig (6 R, 2 HR) all provided good contributions. The Isotopes’ total of 5 saves would often be enough to win the category, but Joe Nathan matched that figure on his own for the Riverkings and Glen Perkins added three more. The Riverkings’ star performer on the week was, unsurprisingly, the New York Mets’ Matt Harvey. He amassed 19 K’s to go alongside his two pitching wins to help rescue some of the pitching categories.

There was another clean sweep of the offensive categories in the match-up between Richie’s RBI’s and Batteries Essential. The Batteries bashed their way to an 8-4 match-up win and no one contributed more to the cause than Jay Bruce. He swatted an incredible six home runs and, being greedy, all owning him in a fantasy league may feel a little hard done by that those blasts only provided seven RBI. Richie’s team was able to fight back by winning four pitching categories, most notably due to Josh Johnson, Gio Gonzalez and Yu Darvish combining for 36 K’s.

The Wright Stuff narrowly edged out the Cardiff Redsox to win their match-up by a score of 6-5. Ian Desmond went deep three times on the week and David Ortiz added a couple more longballs as the Wright Stuff took the ball over the wall 12 times. One of those home runs came courtesy of new recruit Wil Meyers, who launched a grand slam off CC Sabathia. Mat Latos led the Wright Stuff’s pitching staff with 22 strike-outs, but Cardiff Redsox only ended up 6 K’s behind, largely thanks to Matt Cain’s contribution of 18. Cardiff’s offence didn’t really kick into gear all week in terms of batting average and OPS, although rookie Nick Franklin amassed nine RBI and a stolen base.

In the final match-up of the week, Weston-Super-Sox pushed the current league-leaders SWAT all the way but ultimately came up just short. SWAT’s pitching staff didn’t provide any stand-out individual performances but the collective efforts were enough to win five of the pitching categories. David Robertson was arguably the main contributor as his three Holds single-handedly beat the Super-Sox’s total of two and proved to be the difference in the match-up. The Sox earned four of the offensive categories, with Hanley Ramirez hitting three home runs and starting to look like he’s getting back into a grove at the plate after returning from his second stint on the Disabled List this season.

The Week 13 match-ups

Swat (1st) v Iron Men (3rd)
Norwich No II (2nd) v NE Riverkings (12th)
Weston-Super-Sox (4th) v Cheddar Chasers (10th)
Batteries Essential (5th) v Beck’Nams (7th)
Wright Stuff (6th) v Orpington Isotopes (8th)
Cardiff Redsox (9th) v Richie’s RBIs (11th)