I realize this will not go down as one of the glorious days in EFL history. Our roster allocations weren’t due until noon on Thursday, I was in Denver Thursday and Friday spending time with Ben and Sam (and Melanie, who was with me), and could only steal an hour or so Friday morning to set up for August. I got the job partly done (which accounts for the partially updated standings) but then had only a few minutes here and there Friday evening and all day Saturday while we drove to Indiana, where we are now visiting most of Melanie’s side of the family.
Today I resolved some nagging issues with loading stats from our daily update files, in several stages, finally getting the last two teams to load their stats properly this evening. Since I have not updated Team Trackers since Friday morning, the stats below accurately reflect our standings as of then:
After one game to start the week, did you note:
- OD’s poor RS/RA numbers? They’ll get worse.
- Portland’s unbelievable rs/ra, while playing the Wolverines? Yeah, not a good break for the frontrunners.
- How the Pears blunted Salem’s attempt to regain the top spot in the standings? The Seraphim are having a good week, but
- How the Cascades blunted the effects of the Balk’s good start by playing above .500 ball themselves? Go Cascades! But with their lack of pitching, it’s probably too much to expect them to keep that up.
- How the Kangaroos sneaked into third place, with another .900+ winning percentage for the (early) week? Great offense, good pitching, and the Drive uncharacteristically stumbling.
- How the Alleghenys, after two excellent weeks as spoilers for league leaders’ hopes, have hit a rough patch just in time to help the Dragons creep closer to the top of the standings? Why are they helping man-eating beasts?
- How Flint Hill stumbled out of the Week 19 gate (4.3 rs v. 12.5 ra) putting them at risk of sinking beneath the waves? They face the Pirates, who have (so far) been struggling about as much as any team in baseball. Except not to start off this week: the Pirates started the week splitting a double header for a total of 5 – 5 runs scored and against.
So now I am going to work on upating through Sunday’s games. My prediction:
- The Wolverines will fall out of first place, returning the keys to the top spot to the Balk.
- The Kangaroos and Seraphim will continue to be entangled around 3 and 4th place. The K’s will gradually edge higher, so Salem’s daily oscillations will be less and less effective at restoring the Seraphim to their rightful second place spot in the standings.
- The Alleghenys will get back on top of their game and resume climbing up the standings. c