Week 13 v. Peanut Rico

Yes, this entry has been a long time coming. I had more urgent matters of reviewing writing I've done over the past four summers so I could handle all the hard questions to be asked about it. But now that's over and I'm practically the owner of an M.A. in Latin (take that, TMR), so let's restart the Man's League Blog.

Peanut Rico is by far the most active owner in the Man's League. He seems to be always working on some trade with someone, and he streams starting pitchers, meaning he leads the league in free agent pickups. And although he didn't max out his starts during our match-up, he was going to win strikeouts. Our week featured three head-to-head pitching duels: Geer v. Oswalt on Monday, Lowe v. Blanton on Tuesday, and Gaudin v. Kuroda on Friday night. They turned out in my favor: Ol' Roy shined in a low-scoring affair, Lowe's line had a slight edge on Blanton, but the Dodgers thrashed Gaudin and gave Kuroda a semi-deserved win. A second start from Oswalt produced more of the same warm gooey goodness and got me the boost needed to take ERA, WHIP, and wins. Finally, in the netherworld of the ninth inning, the duo of Fuentes and Soriano thumped my Franklin and Street, giving Rico the victory in saves.

The theme of duels even extended to the offensive side, where Ichiro, the Japanese Elvis, and Elvis Andrus played tit-for-tat with steals, tallying 7 between them on Tuesday evening. Isn't FantasyCast great? Rico's fleet-footed squad was able to maintain that advantage, but it would be his only offensive category win. Dye, Scott, Pedroia, Ross, and David Murphy all had nice weeks at the plate, with Murph hitting half & half (.500). So thanks to that output, the Fightin' Five-Ways prevailed (ding!) by a score of 7-3.

Looking ahead to the final week before the All-Star break, I face Blossom Jim, who is the only Man's Leaguer to have faced Pod Vader and not appear on the podcast. In addition to that, he's having a rough season. Oh, and he got into the Man's League by admitting his fandom of this fine entertainment, whose great cultural contribution consists of a four-letter word used way too often by teenagers. Poor Jim. The numbers say I should be able take this one, and it would definitely be a good thing to head into the break with a win. Fingers crossed...