Week 18: The Check Swing

Brandon Phillips scored 32 points for the Rookies in the last week of the regular season. 

Another FBLG regular season is in the books, and it was a strange one. No team was better than 11-7, which is pretty remarkable. Also, the 7th place team in the points race is only 130 points back. Here are the matchups for the first round, which lasts 2 weeks. For the 1/8 and 2/7 matchups, the lower seed must win both weeks to advance. For the 3/6 and 4/5 matchups, the team with the higher 2-week total advances.

1 Fresh Fish - 8 Arbitration Losers

2 The Lumbar Yard - 7 Rookies

3 Lawyers, Guns & Money - 6 Hundley Eyes

4 Pitch You Blockhead - 5 Misfits

1. Fresh Fish (3,127 points, 11-7, last week 2): The Fish held off the Fightin' Zevons to lock down the No. 1 seed for the playoffs. Jonathan Lucroy didn't have any trouble adjusting to the American League, posting 20 points in his first week in a Rangers uniform. 

2. Hundley Eyes (3,107 points, 9-9, last week 2): A stagnant offense and unimpressive outings from Jose Fernandez (8) and Noah Syndergaard (6) led to a loss that pushed the commissioners down to the 6 seed and a matchup with a dangerous LGM squad.

3. Lawyers, Guns & Money (3,070 points, 10-8, last week 3): A big week from Kyle Hendricks (36) wasn't enough to counteract the performances of James Shields (-12), Carlos Martinez (1) and A.J. Ramos (1). Eduardo Nunez was a 3-time Dud and a 1-time Stud. 

4t. Rookies (3,022 points, 9-9, last week 7): Chris Carter (9) was the low man for a Rookies team that put up 234 points to surge up the rankings. Brandon Phillips (32), Stephen Strasburg (28) and Jonathan Villar (25) did a large chunk of the damage. 

Hilariously terrible James Shields posted starts of -3 and -9
 for LGM to earn our Dud of the Week award. He somehow
did worse than PYB's Jimmy Nelson, who had starts of
-1 and -5. 

4t. Pitch You Blockhead (3,022 points, 10-8, last week 5): It was a wildly inconsistent week from PYB, which beat the Misfits thanks to big numbers from Jacob deGrom (31), Wilson Ramos (28), Wil Myers (26) and Nolan Arenado (25). 

6. Arbitration Losers (3,014 points, 7-11, last week 4): The Losers slipped into the playoffs but face a tall task against the top-seeded Fish in the first round. The pitching could be an issue, with Jonathan Papelbon losing his job, Bud Norris getting hurt and Zach Eflin being Zach Eflin. 

7. The Lumbar Yard (2,997 points, 11-7, last week 6): The Yard earned one of the coveted top 2 playoff berths by blasting R21. If this team wins matchups when Corey Seager (8) and Bryce Harper (9) struggle to reach double digits, the Yard can make some noise down the stretch. 

8. Misfits (2,923 points, 10-8, last week 9): Holes in the lineup really cost the Misfits in their loss to PYB. Aledmys Diaz (injured), Derek Norris (4), Gregory Polanco (3) and Scott Kazmir (0) were no-shows, and now David Peralta is on the DL as well. 

9. Retire 21 (2,875 points, 7-11, last week 8): Wow. These guys had no interest in participating in the FBLG playoffs. Stinkers from Mike Leake (-3), Matt Carpenter (-2), Brandon McCarthy (1), Steven Matz (3) and Andrew McCutchen (4) contributed to a 94-point output in a must-win situation. 

10. Goldschmidt Happens (2,686 points, 6-12, last week 10): Charlie Blackmon (24), David Dahl (22) and Yangervis Solarte (24) will look to keep the momentum going until GH rejoins the crowd in the consolation round.