The DC Balkmaster seems like a quiet, kindly man.
Quiet I’ll give you. But underneath that kindly, pleasant exterior is a ravenous monster. Just ask the Pittsburgh Pirates… if you can find any ungarroted.
You may recall at the end of Week 16 I initially declared the Seraphim as the first seed in the EFL head-to-head phase of our season. But then I had to change it when somehow the Drive gained just enough to sneak 0.1 games ahead of the Seraphim. (There was a legit reason for this, although at the moment I can’t remember what is was.)
Some teams in our league make less noise than others. The Wolverines will never shut up. The Seraphim, when they aren’t loudly lamenting, will loudly rejoice or (more commonly) grouse. The Kangaroos are demonstrative during drafts. When the Pears are going even a little bit badly, the Pears despair right out loud. The Drive never brag or gloat, but they share freely about their team’s fortunes. The Tornados are the most likely to email me about this or that.
But some teams are quiet. The Alleghenys never make much of a fuss. They are as calm and composed winning or losing. The Cascades are similar. They don’t rub it in when they sneak player after player past us at the minimum bid. The Dragons are uncommonly quiet for giant fire-breathing lizards. The Rosebuds make the occasional on-target dig, but they do it with low affect, so you might not even notice.
But the quietest franchise of them all is the DC Balk. Who, without fanfare and as little notice as one can imagine, somehow sent the Seraphim into a tailspin when they plucked that feather just before the All-Star Break.
Then they throttled the Pirates. Without more than a passing glance from this publication.
Did I ever warn you to beware the Balk? Yet DC racked up an adjusted winning percentage this week of .895, going 5.4 – 0.6 against the poor Pittsburgh Pirates. The Balk’s raw winning percentage for the week — .700 — was only third best in the EFL. But the Balk recognized whom they were playing: the team with the second worst run differential in the majors (-144) and showed them no mercy. The Pirates might as well have been from Somalia rather than Pittsburgh, facing the US Navy which, of course, has a base in the DC metro area.
The Balk needed 42 innings to avoid replacements. They got 63.3. The team ERA was not that great — 4.84 — but that was mostly Carlos Rodon warming up to kick a bat for a field goal (except a teammate got in the way). The real keys for the Balk were:
- Pete Alonso, who went 10 for 16 this week with 3 doubles, 2 hr, 3 walks (1.887 OPS).
- The Pirates trading away Daniel Vogelbach, leaving the Pirates bereft and depressed.
- The other 6 Balk who OPSed between .918 and 1.302.
… and their stealth. I ruined the Kangaroo’s fun by featuring them in the last update. But I didn’t expose the Balk’s heartless slaughter of the poor innocent Pirates, so it went unabated all week.
Wait’ll next week — which means, wait until literally tomorrow (or today, if you are reading this on Thursday) — when the Balk face the Alleghenys. They LOOK like more of the same — from Pittsburgh, wearing the black and gold, and a very similar W/L record: 40 – 58 for the Pirates, 40 – 62 for the Alleghenys.
But the A’s went 4.2 – 1.8 this week against the Salem Seraphim, who still possess the best raw winning percentage in the EFL. The Balk won’t know what hit them.
One final Balky note: That .895 winning percentage for the week was better than 90% of the opposition. DC expanded its lead over Salem by 3.5 games, from 0.1 to 3.5, a 3400% improvement! 8 other teams also lost ground, as follows, showing the number of games gained (or lost) to the Balk:
- Canberra (0.3)
- Haviland: (0.7)
- Canberra: (0.8)
- Pittsburgh: (1.2)
- Salem: (3.5)
- Bellingham: (3.9)
- Portland: (4.1)
- Flint Hill: (4.5)
- Pehastin: (5.3)
Only the Wolverines missed this list, having gained 0.5 games on the front-runners. — thanks in large part to the extremely accommodating Pears.
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That’s all I have time for now. As always — the comments section is WIDE open for you to comment on some of the teams I’ve neglected.
Seriously — I am going through a busy period these last few weeks and on into at least the middle of August. I am happy to run the numbers. I would love it if someone else took a turn to do the write-up.