Mercifully, the week of watching my father kick my ass in the pitching categories has ended. Not all the pitching categories, mind you. He only managed ONE win for the entire ten days with a staff of Scherzer, Peralta, Lopez, Bundy, Rodriguez, and poor Jacob deGrom.
As a non-Mets fan and an unapologetic West Coast baseball person, I admit that deGrom never really landed on my radar in terms of being someone whose every start became must-see TV. I knew three things about him: (1) He has incredible velocity; (2) his games are highly efficient; and (3) the Mets give him no run support.
So I watched both of his starts. Indeed, his average fastball velocity has increased each of the past four years which is fairly unheard of for a 33-year-old. His K:BB rate is inhuman. In his first start against the Phillies, he basically threw nothing but fastballs because he didn’t HAVE TO throw anything else to mow them down. And he has won only 70 games in his entire career.
He’ll be a fascinating case study on how much the Hall of Fame committee will cling to their prehistoric need for 300 wins to be admitted.
Meanwhile, I have my Joe Musgrove jersey ordered and emphatically apologize to the baseball gods for going to bed during his no-hitter. I’d just gotten my second vaccine that morning and the sixth inning of his start was right when the full effects kicked in. I did hear back that the baseball gods forgive me and that I may continue to blame all the anti-maskers for whatever tertiary thing I can blame them for related to this.
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
This is the weekly feature where I check our league’s Player Rater for who was awesome the previous 7 days and congratulate the owner for owning him. Unless it’s Mike Trout. He’s just the week in and week out best player so whatever.
The batter of the week is Tyler Naquin, who of course was a free agent up until last night. We certainly capitalized on his hot start. Good job, everyone!
The pitcher of the week is somehow Aaron Civale of the Indians. Peaches has him all to herself, even though I’m still convinced she thought she was drafting someone else.
Special shout out to the straight-up DHs, though. Glad y’all forgot about J.D. Martinez on Page 1. Appreciate it. 🙂
