Day 318: At Least The Rainbows Finally Won [Beer League Roundup Week 16]

Oh hi, Beer Leaguers. Now that the MLB trade deadline has come and gone, the rest of the season is going to fly by us just like the Yankee’s playoff chances. We may still have 7 weeks left of the regular season, but that’s not really much in the grand scheme of things. The top 3 teams are locked and loaded. We’re just going to be hanging out, rolling spliffs and reading old issues of Beckett while you guys fight to the death. That feels like the way it was meant to be. There’s only a 17 point gap between 10th and 6th, so it’s still anyone’s season. Hell, even Matt is 29.5 games out. He could go on a tear from hell, led by future MVP candidate, Bruce Hooper. A lot can happen in 7 weeks. The players could go on strike. The Cubs could forfeit the rest of their games. The Angels could win the pennant. I’m not saying that these things will actually happen, but you know, baseball!

BQE Gongshow banged gongs and showed Dollar Dogs true defeat, winning 8-5

Manny Machado is quietly having himself another year. That’s not to say that he wasn’t great in Baltimore, but he seems to be flourishing in San Diego, where he’s not the center of attention. He’s much more comfortable flying under the radar, playing second fiddle, hiding in plain sight behind Tatis and the rest of the ridiculousness that is the Slam Diego Padres. And PK has been reaping the benefits of that all season.

Meanwhile, holy balls has AJ Pollock been on a tear. Despite hitting no dongers and taking no free passes, he still slashed .520/1.199 on the week. He even stole a couple of bases, because he’s allegedly a thief. This isn’t the same washed up hasbeen AJ Pollock that we knew and tolerated. He has seemingly sucked up all of Cody Bellinger’s talents, which makes sense. He already steals bases and hearts, he might as well be stealing souls.

Collectively, the other thieves on Kaitlyn’s team stole a league-leading 11 bases. As impressive as that is, it unfortunately only gets her one point and she needed a few more to add up to PK’s Sleeper Team Of Doom. She remains in 4th, while PK continues to lurk in 8th place, hanging out in the rafters, waiting to swoop down and grab a playoff spot and a hotdog.

Cheese Whiz is proven to be more popular than the bullshit toppings on GusPolinski’s Hotdog Crown Chi, winning the taste test 8-5

Chances are, if you lead the league in 4 stats, you’ll probably win your matchup. Amanda did just that. Last week, she led in 3 stats, but I led in 4. I guess 4 always beats 3. In any event, her pitching staff just keeps on rolling. Shane Motherclucking McClanahan made those plucky punks look like clunkers that flunk. Over 12 innings, he struck out 13 and forced 3 double plays. That’s right, he forced more double plays than my entire team did all week.

Colin’s offense was still stellar despite his heartbreaking loss. Jonathan India mashed 2 homers against the Mets on Friday. The Lowe Brothers had a high batting average, both slapping over .300. In scumbag related news, I find it mildly humorous that Colin dropped sexual predator, Yasiel Puig, for a wife-beating Domingo German. As karma dictates, he went straight to the IL after his start.

Amanda takes the moral high road and remains in 7th while Colin’s playoff footing keeps slipping little by little. It’s really hard to keep footing when you’re carrying 3 catchers on your back.

RBI’d 4 Her Pleasure made US2 Onion Melters feel all sorts of inadequate, winning 11-3

I guess Anthony Rizzo needed a change of scenery. The newly minted Bronx Bomber spent the weekend bombing bombs before he even reached the Bronx. Also, Austin Riley continued to carry the Braves on his back, mashing 5 taters for 13 RBIs. I saw one of them in person and I can assure you, it was both heartbreaking and majestic, like some sort of sexy sociopath. Kelsey’s rag-tag gang of sociopaths out-clobbered the rest of the rest of the league, with 19 dings and 45 steaks, which was briefly autocorrected to steals and suddenly sounded much more impressive.

The Summer Of Votto has no end in sight. Seeing him bash baseballs over the fence is making the whole country nostalgic for Obama. I can’t remember the last time a Canadian has won over the hearts and minds of the American people. Matt picked up the NL Player of the Week on Thursday and although he missed out on 5 of his weekly home runs, he still got 2 over the weekend, you know, as a treat. It was a damn good pickup on Matt’s part. If only we had an award for that…

Fuck a Pot-O-Gold, at the end of the Connecticut Rainbows, we saw Batting Cages defeated, 7-4

It took 16 weeks, but it finally happened. Somebody actually lost to Dave’s Auto-Draft Team. But interestingly, it wasn’t Bryan that lost to Dave. Dave actually beat Bryan. He was the league leader, leading the league in a league leading 5 stats. His .341 batting average was the second best of the season. His 5 saves eclipsed the 4 teams that had zero. And he had a sparkling 1.24 ERA and .85 WHIP to boot! Only one of his pitchers gave up more than 1 run. Pure insanity. Some would argue that it’s easy to have a good ERA when you only pitch 43 innings. The same person would argue that Dave has 63 less At-Bats than Bryan. And to that, I say, “Win the league and then you can make at-bats a countable stat. Until then, you should also try to manipulate your team to get the most amount of points. Anyways, here’s ‘Party At Ground Zero’”. That’s what I would say, but nobody’s actually arguing it. So I guess I’ll say nothing. Anyways, here’s “Party At Ground Zero”:

Anyway, Here’s Wanderwall ruined House of Brew’s day at the park, strumming shitty tunes on his guitar and winning 8-5

It’s been almost 10 weeks since the last time I wasn’t The Walk King. Running is for suckers. Walks are where it’s at. And that’s really my only highlight from this matchup. The whole thing was a coinflip, as neither of our teams could hit the barn side of a board. That is, everyone except Eric Haase, who continues to be a revelation. He sent 13 runners home, which was just enough to overtake me in the stat.

Cody Bellinger is just plain broken. Blake Snell is also hot garbage. Diego Castillo got traded to Seattle and suffered an infinite ERA and WHIP in his lone save attempt. This didn’t feel like a win, but I guess I’ll take it.

GERALDSR FRAUDS defeated the Souvenir Cups by the skin of his teeth, 9-5, also has skin on his teeth, which is weird

This was a matchup of inches. Save for the cumulative pitching stats, none of Zook’s leads were safe. He was sweating all week, because there was a heat wave in Michigan. But he was also worried about losing. George Springer single-handedly saved his ass. Without him, Rachel would have probably stomped him, 10-4. That would’ve been just enough to bump him off his throne and send me an the fabled escalator to first place. We would’ve been spinning a much different narrative this week. That said, fuck George Springer. The lousy cheater doesn’t belong in baseball. Grumble grumble, et cetera, ad infinitum.

Also, Dansby Swanson. Stupid name, great at baseball.

Jeff Passan’s Blue Checkmark goes to Matt for getting on the Votto Train. I’m legitimately shocked that he wasn’t scooped up weeks ago, because the man’s been on more fire than Denzel in a Tony Scott joint. He was on fire in Déjà Vu, right?

The Drive Into Deep Right By Castellanos Award goes to me for streaming Harrison Bader, Reid Detmers and Triston McKenzie. Good god, all 3 of them are just awful. Bader got one hit since I picked him up and the two pitchers each got pummeled for 6 runs. Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar is actually a gun pointed at your foot.

That’s all for this week. Remember to take your gummies, set your lineups and if a pitcher has a bunch of daily adds, but his owned percentage is going down, stay the fuck away from him.

– TeeCoZee