Week 8: The Check Swing

Stephen Strasburg was extremely good. His uniform was extremely ugly. 

1. Bodysuit Man (1481.5 points, 6-2, last week 1): The Fightin' Costanzas had a solid week but fell to the hard-charging Clemente's Bucs. A closer look at BM's performance reveals studly behavior from Charlie Blackmon (36.5), who is on pace to drive in every run in the damn world this year, and Adam Duvall (31). Beyond that, there wasn't much to get excited about besides a nice week from our favorite (active) guido catcher, Francisco Cervelli (17). 

2. Clemente’s Bucs (1426.8 points, 5-3, last week, 3): Ray's team blasted 10 homers and got 51.3 points from Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg, which is a pretty good recipe for success. In fact, Strasburg's 27-point outing is one of the highest scores ever by a FBLG pitcher who didn't throw a no-hitter. (Note: This fact has not been verified because the world doesn't respect fact checkers anymore. Or facts, actually.)

Hack Wilson holds the single-season record for
runs batted in, with 191. Charlie Blackmon should
eclipse that by the all-star break.

3. Lawyers Guns and Money (1406.7 points, 6-2, last week 2): Sure, LGM came away with a win this week, but it's hard to feel comfortable with this roster right now. Bryce Harper will miss time after that little brouhaha in San Francisco, Vince Velasquez has a scary-sounding elbow injury, John Lackey is suddenly showing his age (which is, like, 100 in horsey years), and Addison Reed is a Mets reliever. It's a good thing Jake Lamb is the second coming of George Brett. 

4. The Rookies (1399.2 points, 5-3, last week 6): All you need to know about Henry's 206-point week is that his starting pitchers posted 92 of those points. My goodness. If hunky Tony Watson (2.7) had done anything but crap the bed, this could have been an epic pitching week for the Rooks. Zack Greinke, Alex Wood, Jon Lester and Max Scherzer combined for a 4-2 record and 52 Ks in 40 innings with 14 earned runs allowed. 

5. Project Mayhem (1367.2 points, 4-4, last week 4): Bill rode the right arms of Johnny Cueto (25) and Raisel Iglesias (14.7) to a win in a tight battle with the commissioners. Carlos Gonzalez (20) and Michael Conforto (19.5) also excelled, which is more than we can say for Aaron Nola (3) and Rich Hill (0), who had just as many points as DL trips this week. 

6. Pitch! You Blockhead (1361 points, 3-5, last week 5): A double-start week provided Zach Eflin 2 opportunities to be terrible, and the Philly right-hander obliged. He posted a scored of -3 by going 0-2 with 15 earned runs allowed in 11 innings. It's hard to say Eflin was singlehandedly responsible for PYB's 6-point loss to LGM, but we're going to say it anyway. 

If you do a Google search
for Dud of the Week
Zach Eflin, Google will
say, "Did you mean Zac
Efron? You MUST
have meant Zac Efron."

7. Fresh Fish (1318 points, 4-4, last week 8): Rick's squad homered 8 times in its win against the Losers, and they all came from a couple of Anthonys. Anthony Rendon went deep 4 times (and doubled 3 times, singled twice and walked 4 times) while racking up 34 points. Anthony Rizzo also left the yard 4 times in a 26-point week. We have to make fun of someone, though, and that someone is Yasmany Tomas (3.5), who was outscored big-time by Nick Ahmed (14). 

8. Quirkin’ For a Livin’ (1308 points, 3-5, last week 7): The commissioners had the only FBLG team without a 20-point scorer in week 8. That's ... not good. Neither is this pitching staff, which includes Lance Lynn, Greg Holland and a bunch of guys who were either picked up as free agents or will be free agents very soon. 

9. Arbitration Losers (1285.7 points, 4-4, last week 9): Tim's team came up short in a battle against the Fish, and we're going to blame Ryan Braun. The brittle Brewer scored 0.5 point before getting a paper cut, or biting his lip while chewing gum, or whatever he did to end up on the DL this time. On the bright side, Paul Goldschmidt (24.5) was great as always, and Tanner Roark (19) was alarmingly effective. 

10. The Misfits (1087.8 points, 0-8, last week 10): Reid's team really stepped up its game this week, but unluck of the draw meant a beat-down at the hands of the red-hot Rookies. German Marquez won twice and led the way with 29.7 points, and Josh Harrison collected 14 hits on his way to a 20-point week. (Side note: Harrison had 14 hits and 2 walks and only scored TWICE?!? Get it together, Pirates.)