Day 213: At Least Everyone’s Paying Attention [Beer League Roundup Week 2]

Well, Beer League, week 2 is officially in the history books. Although I don’t know what kind of shitty history book would include a random fantasy baseball league. Just take comfort in knowing that someday, some underfunded public school in Alabama is gonna be teaching their poor kids about how after over 7 years, the Beer League finally vetoed a trade. It was a moment of confusion and camaraderie among everyone involved. It’s going to be on the quiz and some kid is going to get a point knocked off for spelling Zack Wheeler with an H. These things are inevitable. And I guess I should be getting in touch with McGraw-Hill. Because if anybody should be writing the Beer League history book, it should be me, the commish, the guy that writes about Beer League.

GERALD’S® FRAUDS out-batted Batting Cages, 8-6

I didn’t see this one coming. All week, I was hit with a barrage of messages from Joe, lamenting about how his team sucks and he wants to fire his whole team because they suck. I didn’t bother looking at the score, as I just assumed that the amount of suck that his team exuded was accurate to his description. It was not. Or at least it sucked less than Brian’s. Ronald Acuña Jr got very close to out-homering the whole Batting Cages lineup. The team got 4 on the week. I didn’t think that was even possible. But I also didn’t think too hard about it. Things are starting to make more sense. Brian’s team has been named Batting Cages since before I joined the league. I thought it was just some generic name that rolled off the tongue well. But it’s actually an analogy to his team’s hitting style. How can you hit home runs in a batting cage? You can’t. That’s the point. He doesn’t want his team to hit home runs. He would rather they pretend they’re in the cage and hit for contact all day and night. Only problem is, his team didn’t hit for contact. They didn’t hit at all. Yasmani Grandal and Clint Frazier batted below .100 on the week. Sounds like they need to hit…the batting cages! Or the batting cages needs hits. I’ll just see myself out.

BQE Gongshow banged up Cheese Whiz, 11-3

Didn’t it seem weird that you didn’t get many saves this week? Like, you have closers, but they didn’t do much of anything. This is because Amanda worked some black magic to steal all the saves from under our noses. Her 7 saves more than doubled anything that our bullpens could muster. However, that didn’t save her from losing mercilessly to the team that I previously accused of being stoned all the time. Her .199/.577 slash line is the stuff nightmares are made of. Only Jazz Chisolm and Freddie Freeman managed to hit above .240. Meanwhile, Manny Machado set the world on fire, slashing .360/.965. Expect that to repeat this upcoming weekend as he plays the Dodgers again. Apparently he’s only playing well against them because he’s manufacturing a rivalry in his head. That’s probably how I beat Paul last week…

Dollar Dogs outsell GusPolinski’s Hotdog Crown Chi, 10-4

I thought last week was the ultimate hotdog face-off, but I was dead wrong. This was the real Hot Dog War. And in the end, of course Dollar Dogs are going to beat out some gourmet bullshit. IT’S A HOT DOG! Nobody gives a shit about quality if there’s dollar dogs present. I’ll eat 6 of them shits without flinching. But a $12 nitrate-free uncured kosher beef frank covered in fried chicken cracklings and chi? Fuck outta here. Nobody’s going to buy that. Now that I’m thinking about it: could it be that the “chi” = “kimchi”? Colin’s clearly trying to sell a gourmet dog, he would be a big enough of a hippie asshole to substitute sauerkraut with kimchi. I bet he’s also using some artisanal horseradish mustard that tastes like regular-ass mustard. He probably thinks it’s “A Fun Take On The Chicago-Style Hot Dog”. But the Chicago-Style Dog is total garbage and he’s just trying to make it worse. Meanwhile, Kaitlyn is selling just regular ass hot dogs for a dollar. Everybody loves that. She’s going to make a fortune. On top of that, she’s making mad tip money, because people are just passing her 5’s for only a couple dogs. It’s such a bargain that they don’t even care. And once Dogecoin reaches a dollar tomorrow, she’s going to be making even more dollars off her dollar dogs because the dog dollars are a dollar, dogg! THAT’S WHY SHE’S THE DEFENDING CHAMP! Get your hipster foodstuffs out of our ballpark, Colin!

House of Brews made RBI’d 4 Her Pleasure tap out, 10-4

Wilson Fucking Contreras. Holy moly. The catcher of the week hit himself 4 homers and slashed .368/1.455. Some of us didn’t even get a measly hit out of our catcher! Combine that with Jean Segura hitting .550 and you get a clear picture of how this matchup went. Obviously, the year is still 2016. Actually, that’s not fair. This matchup was much closer than the score dictated. Kelsey once again showed elite stuff with her pitching and got dangerously close in runs, walks and batting average. With a bit of luck, this score would’ve been flipped and Paul would be waking up this morning in a deep, dark hole. Instead, he’s back to the front of the middle of the standings, where he belongs. Kelsey’s pitching staff may be second best in the league, but Kaitlyn doesn’t need to worry. It’s not even lunch time on the east coast and Lucas Giolito has already shit the bed.

Team 2 Be Named L8er tasted the Connecticut Rainbows, 12-1

Everybody needs to take a moment and admire Rachel’s pitching stats: 76 IP, 77 K, 6 GIDP, 1.66 ERA, 0.91 WHIP. That’s absolutely disgusting. I threw up in my mouth a little, out of fear and respect. Marcus Stroman gave up only 1 run in 14 innings. Dane Dunning shut out his opponents for 10. Jacob deGrom continued to be himself, even at Coors. And just like deGrom, she didn’t get much offensive support. But it didn’t matter, because she’s facing the punching bag. Dave managed to sneak some roster moves in, but the team is still irreparably broken. Anyways, here’s “Hold The Line”:

Tommy Lasoda whipped the US2 Onion Belters, 9-3

Matt may have sold his soul for RBIs, but he paid the price in week 2. Both of his precious cheaters went down on the Covid list as some sort of cosmic punishment for existing. Christian Yelich must’ve also pissed off the Baseball Gods, as he sat out for 6 straight games and then finally went on the IL. He also suffered from starting Covid-not-taken-seriously-er, Zach Plesac, who pitched a full 0.2 innings for an 81.00 ERA. Meanwhile, my team also feels cursed. Max Fried needs to be Max Fired, or fired to the max. Blake Snell can’t stop getting shelled and is now apparently blaming it on the opposing pitcher. Despite being the benefactor of Carlos Rodon‘s no-hitter, my ERA was still above 3. It wasn’t a close matchup, but neither of us did particularly well. I guess that’s just how the Beer League should be!

Before we go, I’m toying around with the idea of giving out weekly awards. In the future, some may be added or subtracted, but here’s a couple to start off with:

Jeff Passan’s Blue Checkmark is an award for the best free agent acquisition of the week. This award goes to Matt for streaming Brett Anderson, who spun 7 scoreless innings.

The Drive Into Deep Left Field By Castellanos goes to the biggest blunder of the week. And that award goes to the 4 anonymous people that voted against the trade between Rachel and I. Wheeler for McNeil is totally a fair trade the properly suits the needs of both participants. She has a total monopoly on aces. I was so close to prying one out of her hands and you fools stopped it. I hope she wins every pitching stat from here on out until the end of time, because you all done goofed.

Whoever forgot to start their Red and White Sox this morning also made a big mistake. After 5 innings, the score is 10-3. Week 3 is off to an early and hot start! So let’s get out there and uhh…manage it!

– TeeCoZee