Baseball Recap- 4.21

1. Uncle Phil (80, +3.5)

The juggernaut is still rolling behind Chase Utley's absurdity. Two homers last night gave Chase five for the week, helping Viano to a league-leading 13 over the last seven days. That category saw a 2 point jump. A nice week for Mariano Rivera and the return of BJ Ryan aided a 1.5 point jump in saves. 80 points represents the high-water mark for anyone in the league, I believe.

2. Fukkake (74, +6.5)

Six very good starting pitching performances over the weekend increased Schillinger's lead in wins and Ks. Seven wins (tied with Champ) and 57 Ks lead the league this week. The jump in points however, came from the offensive side, ticking up in each category, 1.5 points in runs and homers. Mark Teixeira and David Wright combined for 15 RBI and are each hitting very well.

3. Bob Loblaw (69, -3)

Lost most points in the win column. Notched just two wins this week thanks to poor support for Roy Halladay, Chris Young and Kyle Lohse, who all pitched well. The ERA rose a substantial amount (0.64 points) though that's going to happen when you've been sitting under 2.50 since opening day. A grand slam on someday gave David Ortiz a healthy nine RBI on the week, and newcomer Randy Wolf was amazing, even though his stats didn't count for Eli this week.

4. Hank White (61, -5.5)

Last week's big gainer regressed this week, but didn't change place in the standings. Though Stem's ERA didn't change and the WHIP only rose 0.06 points, his squad lost 5.5 points between the categories. Champ (who we'll get to) took most of those. The Victorino injury is taking it's toll, as the team swiped just two bases and lost 1.5 points there. Ryan Theriot has been a godsend, on-basing .533 last week, scoring nine runs and even driving in four. The team OBA sits at .385, eight points better than 2nd in that column. Seven regulars OB'd over .440 last week.

5. Dr. Jerry (57, +26)

A jump we won't see again this season. Went from 10th last Monday to 5th today, leaping 26 points in the process. Amazing team numbers: 52 runs (led league), eleven homers, 40 RBI (T-lead) and seven wins. Furthermore, raised the OBA by 0.03 points (league lead) and lowered the ERA by 0.72 points and the WHIP by 0.15, which are enormous gains in just seven days time. Champ's biggest jumps were in Wins and WHIP (+6 points in each). Also added four points in the ERA column and three in the runs slot. Manny Ramirez had a sick week (7/4/8/0/.517) and so did Andy Pettite (2W, 10 K, 1.93 ERA)

6. Curse of the Veggies (56.5, -4)

Led the league in saves (6) last week and added Jason Isringhausen anyway. Gained 3.5 points in that column. Unfortunately, lost 3 points in WHIP and 2.5 points in wins (to Champ, of course) despite getting a decent week from the starting staff. Scored just 33 runs and lost 2 points there. Jake Peavy was awesome in his outing, but sadly the game he started ended 13 innings after he left, so he didn't factor into the decision. Chipper Jones continues to sizzle (6/4/7/0/.600) but strained his quad on Sunday. It's not a major injury, thankfully for Radcliffe, because the rest of the offense is inconsistent.

7. Harangutans (40, +1.5)

The largest one-place gap for the league is now between the six and seven spots, as Baron sits 16.5 points behind the team ahead of him. Still a pretty good week for Brendel, stealing a league-high 11 bases thanks in large part to Michael Bourn's five. Lowered both the ERA and WHIP a good chunk this week, and added help to a sputtering offense by adding Derrek Lee. Lee hit three homers and drove in eight last week, though some of those may have been credited to JR. Derek Jeter drove in ten runs.

8. Bondo and the Asians (38, -8.5)

A second straight rough week for Dave, who's dropped 21 points over two weeks, falling from 5th to 8th. Odd movement in the pitching categories, losing 4 points in WHIP and 3 in Wins and ERA, but gained 3.5 in Saves and 2.5 in Ks. The offense saw a small across the board decline despite the awakening of Miguel Cabrera (7/2/11/1/.419). Randy Johnson's return still bring hope, as the Big Unit tossed 10 1/3 innings with zero earned runs before falling apart in the 6th inning of his latest outing. Still, 13 Ks in 10.2 innings proves he can still show flashes of his earlier dominance.

9. The M.B.A.s (38, -9)

The biggest drop from last week got crushed again this week, losing ground in five categories. Lost 5 points combined between runs and homers, scoring a league-low 24 runs and just hit two home runs. Drew's first two draft picks, Adrian Gonzalez and Ryan Zimmerman, have been completely underwhelming. A quick statistical comparison leads us to two conclusions: 1) Drew obviously should have drafted Mark Reynolds and 2) Fantasy Baseball sucks.

Gonzalez + Zimmerman: 16 runs, 4 homers, 16 RBI, 0 steals.
Undrafted Mark Reynolds: 16 runs, 5 homers, 18 RBI and 1 steal.

Still, the biggest underachiever this year has to be C.C Sabathia, who tossed 4 innings this week, with 1 K and ratios of 20.25/3.25.

10. Slick (35.5, -7.5)

The recently deceased Hansen got nice weeks from Jim Thome and Brett Myers.