PSPBL Week 6 Recap

Aaron Judge was part of a big week for BDPH (Imagn Images)

BIG WINNER

On the whole, Week 6 was a relatively uneventful week, calming things down in a league that’s had some topsy-turvy results through the first quarter of the season. However, BIGADODDLEDOOPENGUINHEADS made a splash in what was otherwise a week of close games, moving above .500 with an 11–3 thrashing of JUDAS PRIESTER.

BDPH was good on both sides of the ledger, but slightly better at the plate where they went 5–2–1 with a solid .307/.900 slash line aided by a .429/1.508 week by Aaron Judge.

Given the sizable leads each of the division leaders has at the moment, this victory for BDPH could prove large. With it it, they move into the sixth seed, albeit only by a game and a half with a lot of season remaining, and now have the momentum of two-straight wins. As for Priester, they’ve now lost two of the last three weeks and have largely come back to earth after their hot start, though they are still the league’s fifth seed, sitting a game and a half ahead of BDPH.

WEEK 6 ONE TO WATCH

The PSPBL better hope EAMUS CATULI wasn’t truly the best thing it could throw at LANCER PRIDE to try and had the Pride a loss — because Catuli couldn’t do what five other opponents also failed to do before them. At least Catuli kept things close with the Pride, though, only falling by a 7–6 margin.

The Pride’s pitching, which has been up-and-down of late, figured some things out and went 6–1–1. Erik Saborowski only needed two innings of work across three appearances to accumulate four strikeouts and two holds as he continued to lead a Pride bullpen that’s been hoarding holds most of the season.

Neither team has much to worry about at the moment, though. Despite the loss, Catuli remains eight and a half games ahead of BDPH in the Schulz Division while the Pride remains undefeated and 10 and a half games in front of the Harris Division.

THE CHASE

The Glorioso Division, meanwhile, is becoming the land of struggles. It now has the not-uncommon, but still dubious, distinction of being led by a sub-.500 team in RHUBARB BIKINI after it was defeated by the ghost ship of HARRY DOYLE’S HANGOVER.

The Hangover got the job done with outstanding pitching, going 6–1–1 on the bump behind a 1.39 team ERA, 0.84 WHIP, four net wins and 12 solid innings by Ranger Suarez, in which he gave up no earned runs and allowed a WHIP of just 0.50.

Bikini is now three games under the breakeven mark, though that’s still good enough to lead the Glorioso by five and a half games. All four teams in the Glorioso now have two matchup wins and no more, including the Hangover, which remains in last place in that division at 18 games under .500.

WEEK 7 ONE TO WATCH

Every team in the league now has at least one win, so the question becomes what team can stop the Pride’s winning streak, as they’ve started the season with six matchup victories and no losses. The next team to take a shot will be Priester, which may be licking its wounds after this week’s loss to BDPH.

Adjustments from the auto-draft or not, Priester has looked like a middling team of late and is currently four games over .500 on the hitting side (24–20–4, .542) and two over on the mound (23–21–4, .521). That hitting number isn’t all that different than the Pride’s (22–16–10, .536) but the good luck Priester had early in the season seems to have made its way over to the Pride’s corner, as they’re now 35–8–5 (.781) on the pitching side, the best record split of any team in the league on either side of the ledger.

While Priester has made a name off of hard-throwing pitchers who strike a lot of guys out, ERA and WHIP has been an issue, including pedestrian 4.30 and 1.28 marks in those categories this week. They’ll have their hands full with the Pride, which is starting to distance itself from the rest of the league, much less the Harris.

TWENTY WEEKS, 20 YEARS: 2012

Cole Hamels (AP)

BUBBLER SPORTSBLOG BASEBALL CHAMPION: SEXY AND I CANO IT RUNNER UP: OZZIES GOLD GLOVES LEAGUE TEAMS: 14 DIVISIONS: Two (Media, Fan)

MLB AWARD WINNERS **NL MVP: Buster Posey (Giants) AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera (Tigers) NL Cy Young: R.A. Dickey (Mets) AL Cy Young: David Price (Rays) NL Rookie of the Year: Bryce Harper (Nationals) AL Rookie of the Year: Mike Trout **(Angels)

By 2012, the roots of what we know as the PSPBL today were taking solid shape. Gregg Wandsneider put in his first entry, Blind as a Bat (now Rhubarb Bikini), as did Jesse Motiff with Ryan Braun’s Ego. That means half of the league in 2012, seven teams, remains in the league, which is over half of the league as it’s constituted now.

Nonetheless, the 2012 season was quite emblematic of the early years of the large league, as the title tilt ultimately was a showdown between two of the league’s clear best teams in Angelo Glorioso’s Ozzies Gold Gloves and Tara Pfeifer’s (no relation) Sexy and I Cano It. Glorioso was attempting to defend his 2011 title in 2012, while it was Tara Pfeifer’s Twisted Pies that took the crown in 2010.

Much like in 2011, the league was split into divisions of media members and fans, though Glorioso and Tara Pfeifer might have both proved the fans know a thing or two themselves. While Lancer Pride won the media division, Cano won the fan crown, and both division sent three teams to the playoffs.

The division victory didn’t help the Pride in the postseason, as the Gloves took them down easily, 10–3. Meanwhile, Cano was able to slide past Eamus Catuli in a great semifinal, 8–7, exemplified by close categories. If anything made the difference in the semifinal for Cano, it was team speed, as two Jayson Werth stolen bases, before net stolen bases was a thing, were among the five for Cano, while Catuli had just one as a team.

Things came easier for Cano in the Final, in part because its pitching came up big. Wins and losses were also separate categories at the time, and with Cano’s pitchers going 7–1 in that Final, they were able to go 6–1–1 on the pitching side and grab a 10–5 win to become Bubbler Baseball’s first two-time champion. Both Cole Hamels and Shaun Marcum got a pair of wins, with Hamels also striking out 14 batters, as Cano made it look easy.

Speaking of which, despite the success both Glorioso and Tara Pfeifer had in the league, 2012 also would end up feeling a bit like the end of their era of dominance. Glorioso in particular, a spectacularly successful manager in the early years of Bubbler Baseball, may have simply found the league too easy, surrendering his spot after the 2012 campaign. Meanwhile, Tara would return for a chaotic 2013 season that featured 16 teams, see her Cano team struggle, then also depart the league as well. •