World Series report

Classic 7 games…The Giants took a 1-0 and 3-2 lead on the Yankees, with 2 shots left to take home all the marbles, when the real drama began.  The Yanks and Giants were locked up at 3-3 in the 9th when McClellan gave up a bottom-of-the-9th, walk-off run…That took the series back to San Francisco, where Sabathia and Lee each pitched into the 8th and each gave up 3 runs…the game stayed locked up at 3 until the top of the 11th when the Yankees finally nudged a run across, which opened the way for Rivera in the bottom of the 11th.  The Giants scraped up 2 hits against him but couldn’t get anyone across.  Long story in short: Yankees take the series in 7, with games 6 and 7 both tied going into the 9th.  The Yankee bullpen combo of Rivera-Logan-Buerhle combined for 11 and 1/3 scoreless innings; Pujols hit .357 with 3 HR, including HR in games 6 and 7; Sabathia struck out 22 in 3 starts.  The Giants got 3 HR and 7 RBI from Konerko; Tyler Graham stole 5 bases; Clay Bucholz had a 1.93 ERA in 2 starts.

Thanks to everyone for a great year.  I’ll be working on trying to get all the seasonal stats, LCS, and DCS boxscores up and working over the next week.

Unless someone can talk me out of it, I’m strongly leaning toward NOT resetting the stats next year.  It will save a ton of programming time and add quite a bit of strategy that doesn’t currently exist.  For example, everyone uses a 3-starter rotation now, but it would require quite a bit more thinking if the start of the next series had to account for who had pitched the last game of the prior series.

Seriously, from my end this was the most seamless season I can remember, and late-season participation was at an all-time high.  We probably set a record for trades as well.  The more involved everyone is the more worth it this is for me, so my thanks to all of you for making this a very enjoyable season from my vantage point.

Leo will be getting in touch with you about payouts and details about next year.  Enjoy the rest of the real playoffs!

Jon

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LCS results

YANKEES TAKE RAYS IN 6: The Rays led 2-1 after 3 games before Yankee pitching held them to only 7 runs over the next 3 games.  The Yanks got 5 innings out of every starter, but the real news was that the bullpen didn’t allow a run in the last 3 games.  In the deciding game, Rios and Cano each homered and Bateman gave up an uncharacteristic 7 runs.  In an odd twist, Carlos Pena was batting 8th for the Yankees and Marcus Thames was batting 5th for the Rays.  Perhaps pressing too hard against his former team, Pena struck out 4 times in game 4.  My heartiest congratulations to Leo, the heart and soul of the ASFBL, and the guy who makes it worth it to me.

GIANTS DO THE IMPOSSIBLE, TAKING THE ROCKIES IN 7….after dropping the first 3 games of the series.  After falling into an 0-3 hole, the Giants were 9 outs from elimination in game 4 after giving up a run in the 6th.  However, they got RBIs from Uggla and Quentin in the 7th and 8th and had Sergio Romo closed out the last 2 innings to clutch to life with a 2-1 victory.  They took game 5 by a relatively wide 5-2 margin, before going down 4-1 in game 6.  They proceeded to give up 2 more while scoring 5 to take a 6-6 tie into the 9th which they broke with a single run against Jesse Crain, who had no more luck in the ASFBL than he had in the MLB.  On Halloween night, Uggla and Quentin were again the heroes, each homering off of Jimenez and giving Cliff Lee all the room he needed.  Another great season by Rick Wynne, who took a non-playoff team to the second round and then pressed a thrilling 7-game series, making him truly the Willie Stargell of the ASFBL.

In one of the few ways the ASFBL schedule is worse than the MLB schedule, the World Series will start on fantasy November 2.  But, it’s alwasy 72 degrees and sunny in the computer, and we’ve never had an All Star game end in a tie…

DCS results

All games can be viewed by going to the Standings page and clicking on the playoff boxscores links.

COLORADO TAKES ATLANTA IN 5:   After Atlanta evened the series at 1-1, Colorado pitching held the Braves to 5 runs in 3 games behind Haren, Jiminez, and Redding.  Atlanta pitching held tough over the stretch, never allowing more than 4 runs, and the last 2 games were both 1-run affairs.   Great run by Scott Treffer, one of the ASFBL long-timers and great guys.

GIANTS OUTLAST HOUSTON in 6:  This series featured the teams with the 2 best ASFBL team ERA figures. Not surprisingly, every team that scored 3 runs won and every team that lost was held to 2 runs or fewer.  The Giants jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but then Houston scored a series-high 6 runs in game 3 and scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th to erase a 2-1 deficit and even the series.  The Giants, with an ungodly ASFBL team ERA of 2.55, won the last 2 games by identical 3-2 scores.  Sergio Romo, the goat of game 4, closed the series out with 4 strikeouts in 2 innings to save it for Bumgarner.  Great first season and excellent season for newcomer Andy Somers.

YANKEES TAKE TWINS IN 6: After dropping the first 2 games of the series, the Twinks took 2 of the next 3 to move within 3-2.  In 2 of their losses the Twins scored 5 times, but the Yankee bats were just overpowering and they were averaging more than 7 runs in their wins.  In game 6, Phil Hughes finally gave the Yankees some lockdown pitching and 4 different players chipped in RBIs.  If it tells you something about the potency of the Yankee lineup — which includes both Pujols and Cano — ARod batted 9th.  Great year for true Twin loyalist Tim Walsh, who likes to keep his home team close to home and had a roster with 23 actual Twins.  Sometimes, the best moves are the ones you don’t make.  Congrats to both owners on a series that looks like it will be more interesting than the actual Twin-Yankee matchup.

ONE FOR THE AGES — RAYS TAKE SEATTLE IN 7.  Didn’t this series have to be epic?  After Tampa crushed 10 runs into the opening game, Seattle held them to a total of 5 runs in the next 2 games to take a 2-1 series lead.  Price and Soriano combined for a shutout in game 4 to even the series at 2, and took a 3-2 lead in game 5 with 3 solo HR and 6 innings from Oswalt.  Tampa countered with 4 HR in game 6, including 2 from Longoria, who also robbed 2 hits.  That set up a game 7 showdown; Price left with a 4-2 lead after 7 innings, and although the Mariners snared a run from Soriano in the 8th they couldn’t get one more across the plate.  In the end, the Rays fell behind 3-2 in the series and then won game 7 but 1 run.  Adam still finishes with the second-best WOR season ever.

We’ll leave these stats up over the weekend.

LCS lineups will be due MONDAY at midnight and we’ll play the games Tuesday AM.  All stats will be reset Monday morning for the next series.  Both series feature season-long divisional rivals; Colorado is the last team in the ASFBL playoffs that aren’t in the MLB counterpart.

Newsletter for games of 10-3-10

END OF SEASON HEADLINES:

MINNESOTA SQUEEZES OUT DETROIT: Detroit went 4-3, but Minnesota finished 5-1 to win the AL central by a single game.  The 92 wins Detroit amassed would have won any division in the NL, but fell short in the AL.  Minnesota can thank Cleveland and Baltimore, each of which took games from Detroit on the last week.  Hearty congrats go to Gordie Leckie, who had a heck of a run and a great season.

THE YANKEES HOLD ON THE EAST: The Rays finished with a great run and took 3 of 4 from the Yankees in their final-week matchup, forcing a tie atop the brutal AL East.  However, the Yankees led the season series 10-8, taking the first tiebreaker and the divisional title.

WORarriors: Congrats to Washington, Detroit, and Boston, who missed the playoffs but posted positive WOR numbers that will surely place them in the money when the dust settles.

PLAYOFF MATCHUPS: Both best-record teams were in the same division as the wildcards, and by league rule they therefore play the other division winner with the lowest record.  That produces these pairings: SF-Hou, Col-Atl, NYY-MN, TB-Sea.  Home field advantage goes to SF, Atl, NYY, and Sea.

RULES: Please submit your lineups by Friday morning.  As soon as all lineups are in we’ll run the games, and hopefully take the LCS lineups by Monday.  All seasonal stats will be reset.  Seasonal stats will continue to appear, but you can ignore them.  All series are 7 games, and played Home-away-home-away-home-away-home with an off day between every game.  You can enter pitching matchups online, and can email me if you hit problems.

Great regular season!  Not one lineup I had to fix the last week of the season!  Let’s strap in for a great playoff stretch!

Jon