After a week spent dos-i-dosing with the Wolverines, the DC Balk sprinted to its largest lead since Week 2.
Of the four factors affecting our place in the standings — pitching, hitting, our MLB opponent’s performance, and our closest competitors’ fates — DC fared well in three of them.
First, the bad news: Balk pitching was pretty crummy, running a sub-replacement 6.79 ERA. Tyler Megill coughed up a 1.3 inning sextuple chulk; Jose Alvarado a 1 inning quintuple chulk, and Carlos Rodon a simple 3.7 inning chulk. Uncharacteristically, the Master Balk compounded Balkan suffering by allocating those gentlemen 100%, but severely limiting the innings of Zach Thompson (only 40% of 6 shutout innings) and Bryse Wilson (only 33% of 5.3 ip, 3 er).
The good news starts with the Balk’s Week 6 offense producing a robust 5.8 runs per game, avoiding replacements and generating a .247, .395, .468 slash line featuring 11 homers in 6 games. Bryce Harper led the way with 3 homers and a .600, .650, 1.467 line.
DC’s MLB competitor cooperated, too. The Washington Nationals are not having a good season so far, lugging around a .324 winning percentage. They stayed true to that form for the Balk, generating a .338 winning percentage.
And then the Wolverines did their part to extend the Balk’s lead, especially on Monday, as their hitters putzed around to a .226, .250, .226 batting line that made the replacement hitters at shortstop (left unattended by new Wolverine Joey Wendle getting injured the day he replaced the injured Carlos Correa) look good. Old Detroit stumbled to a .465 winning percentage on the week even though they caught the Mets on their first bad week of the season (being outscored 20 – 23).
The Dragons had the best raw winning percentage of the week (.716) which the mediocre Rangers magnified to .830. Haviland’s hitters had a healthy week (.777 raw OPS), which the Dragonmaster enhanced with careful allocations. Dragon pitchers were a little short on innings, but the team dodged Dauri Moreta’s infinite chulk by allocating him to 0% this week, so their operative ERA was only 3.09, even with 10 replacement innings.
The Kangaroos, for once, got the biggest boost from a weak opponent. The White Sox’ sad season continued, getting outscored 35-20, for the worst raw winning percentage among the MLB teams. The ‘Roos had their second-worst week, getting outscored 24 – 32, but that was enough better than the White Sox to earn a .634 adjusted winning percentage. Canberra is no longer the team most disadvantaged by our head-to-head system. The Kangaroos’ adjusted winning percentage is now only 0.050 points below its raw winning percentage. The Dragons’ penalty is currently 0.069 lower than its raw percentage.
The Alleghenys are in a real funk. Both their raw and their adjusted winning percentages were worst in the league for the second week in a row. Their 10-26 record is not the worst in all of major league baseball — the Reds are 9 – 26. But their owner is having a delightful tramp in Ireland or thereabouts, so the team struggles on without it’s legendary leader.
I have sick grandson to tend to this morning, so I cannot mention every team. But you can! If you note something about your team others might find interesting, or something about another team YOU find interesting (Willson Contreras’, the Cubs lead-off hitter yesterday, hitting a first-inning grand slam is an example), write about it in the comments!
FINAL NOTE: WEEK 7 starts today and runs through Sunday. Amend your allocations, if you want, by 5 pm today! Just make the changes on your “MAY EFL YourTeamName v2” spreadsheet, and i’ll find them late tonight or tomorrow morning. THANKS!