Week 8: The Check Swing

Is Jonathan Villar this year's Dee Gordon? And no, that isn't a steroid joke, Ryan Braun. 

1. Fresh Fish (1,570 points, 6-2, last week 2): Rick's Fish sure put a beatdown on the commissioners this week, posting a 253 to win by 95 points. Sure, the Fish got big points from double-start aces Clayton Kershaw (38) and Johnny Cueto (35), but the contributions came from throughout the lineup. Only the constantly imploding Jeurys Familia (6) failed to reach double digits, and Jonathan Lucroy (30) made 3 consecutive Studs list appearances to end the week. 

2. Hundley Eyes (1,507 points, 5-3, last week 1): What can you say? Welington Castillo (-1) was "rested" twice during the 6-game week, Noah Syndergaard (5) pitched well before being ejected, Rubby De La Rosa (0) was terrible before his arm fell off, and Mike Matheny continues to refuse to use Trevor Rosenthal (10) unless the Cardinals have a 9th-inning lead with 3 or fewer runs on an odd-numbered day with a full moon — yet complains about Rosenthal being rusty because of underuse. 

3. Lawyers, Guns & Money (1,395 points, 5-3, last week 6): Matt's team put up 224 points with Giancarlo Stanton, Carlos Gonzalez, Carlos Martinez and Derek Dietrich on the bench. Hmm. The eruption was good enough to move the Fightin' Zevons up 3 spots in the rankings. John Lackey (30), Buster Posey (28), Adam Duvall (24) and Chase Utley (24) led the assault. 

4. Pitch You Blockhead (1,393 points, 5-3, last week 3): Much like Hundley Eyes, Scott's team had a terrible week. It began with pitchers Colin Rea and Ross Stripling being sent down to Triple-A. Scott responded by picking up Matt Cain (2), who got hurt. New closer Jeanmar Gomez (4) pitched only once, and Michael Conforto (1), Wil Myers (6), Joe Panik (6) and Jean Segura (8) did nothing.

5. Rookies (1,384 points, 4-4, last week 4): Henry's team wasn't great but did enough to dispatch PYB. Stephen Strasburg (36), Jonathan Villar (31) and Starling Marte (24) did most of the damage, helping the Rookies overcome the "efforts" of Eugenio Suarez (0), Christian Yelich (1), A.J. Pierzynski (4), Chris Carter (5) and Brandon Phillips (6). 

Rubby De La Rosa, who is out with an arm injury,
has scored 0 points for Hundley Eyes this year and
earned our Dud of the Week award. 

6. Arbitration Losers (1,349 points, 3-5, last week 5): It was a week of blah for Tim's team, which didn't have any noteworthy performances in a loss to the Misfits. Brandon Crawford (20) was the high man, and aces Madison Bumgarner (12) and Zack Greinke (11) were good but not great. Kudos to Gio Gonzalez for posting a 2 on Monday and a 2 on Saturday for consistency's sake.

7. Retire 21 (1,347 points, 3-5, last week 7): All of a sudden, Ray's team isn't that far out of 3rd place in the rankings. Kris Bryant (24) and Andrew McCutchen (21) led the surge in a win against Goldschmidt Happens, and pitchers Steven Matz (20) and Julio Teheran (20) are stepping up. Matt Carpenter (3) and J.T. Realmuto (6) didn't help much this week, though.  

8. Misfits (1,309 points, 4-4, last week 8): Gregory Polanco (30), Randal Grichuk (24) and Scott Kazmir (22) lifted the Misfits to their 4th win of the season. Not bad considering the shaky outing from Max Scherzer (5) and another disaster from Matt Harvey (-2). 

9. The Lumbar Yard (1,261 points, 3-5, last week 9): It's the same old story for Good Vertebrations, which got a solid offensive performance from everyone but the slumping Anthony Rizzo (6). Again, the pitching was a mess. Adam Wainwright (25) hit the spot, but Shelby Miller, Tanner Roark and Jeremy Hellickson-in-a-Cellickson combined for only 15 points. 

10. Goldschmidt Happens (1,210 points, 2-6, last week 10): Charlie Blackmon (24) and Yangervis Solarte (22) paced the offense, but the pitching wasn't consistent enough for Bill's bunch to pick up a win. Gerrit Cole (18) had a nice outing, but Wei-Yin Chen (13), Vincent Velasquez (5) and Michael Wacha (3) were unable to take advantage of double-start weeks.