Archive for July, 2013

National Pitchers Shine in Victory

Wednesday, July 17th, 2013

All-Star Game MVP Edwin Encarnacion

A couple months ago, I wrote an article with the headline “A Strikeout Epidemic”.  I could have used it again to headline this recap of the 20th DTBL All-Star Game.  On Wednesday night at Moonshiner Ballpark, home of Mike’s Moonshiners, 29 at bats resulted in a strikeout.  Amongst all of the whiffs, the National Division was able to string together enough hits to pull out a 5-1 victory over the American Division.  The National pitchers were dominant from start to finish, striking out 15 hitters, walking none, and surrendering just four hits.

The National All-Stars set the tone early against American starting pitcher Cliff Lee.  Mike Trout started the game by walking on four pitches and scored two batters later on a double by Evan Longoria.  A Chris Davis single moved Longoria to third with one out.  But the National All-Stars failed to break the game open, and started the K parade when the next two batters were retired on strikes.  Again in the second, the National Division looked poised to run away with things.  Buster Posey started the inning with a single, advanced to third on a double by Adam Jones and scored on an infield single by Ian Desmond.  But once again, the threat didn’t amount to much as two of the next three hitters struck out.  The 2-0 lead would prove to be all they would need though.

Max Scherzer started the big night for National pitchers with two scoreless innings, striking out three.  Matt Harvey followed with a pair of strikeouts in his inning.  Then Adam Wainwright turned it up a notch, striking out all three batters he faced in the fourth.  The biggest hit of the night came in the top of the fifth.  Facing Chris Sale with one man on and two outs, Edwin Encarnacion worked Sale through a nine pitch battle, ending with a two run home run to deep left.  This gave the National squad a commanding 4-0 lead at the mid-point of the game.

The American Division finally got on the board in the bottom of the 8th.  Andrew McCutchen hit a solo home run on a 0-2, 2 out pitch from Yu Darvish.  It was McCutchen’s second hit of the night, giving him half of the American’s total hits.  Mariano Rivera made his final DTBL All-Star Game appearance in the top of the 9th, but it was not nearly the fairy tale ending that the real Rivera provided the night before.  He surrendered the final run of the game, a sacrifice fly by David Ortiz scoring Longoria.  Sergio Romo took the mound with a four run lead in the bottom of the 9th and, fittingly, struck out the side to end the game.

Scherzer was the winning pitcher and Lee took the loss.  There was a tough call for the MVP award.  Longoria reached base four times on two hits with a RBI.  Davis had three hits.  Sherzer had the two impressive innings on the mound.  But in the end, we decided to go with OOTP’s choice of Mavericks first baseman Edwin Encarnacion.  His two run homer was definitely the biggest hit of the game.

You never know how these games will play out.  Although the 29 strike outs were pretty mind-boggling, the domination of the National pitching staff was not.  They had as strong of a collection of starting pitcher as you will ever see.  In fact, the National Division could have fielded a very strong 5-man rotation of guys who didn’t even make this team.  Both teams had impressive lineups, but good pitching beat good hitting on this night.

We had some technical difficulties, so the game wasn’t played quite the way I had planned.  Nick had connectivity issues, making the webcast a no-go.  So we went “old school” and started a Facebook chat with me typing in the play-by-play, which is pretty much how we did things until the LiveStream idea popped up a couple years ago.  So I apologize to anyone who tried to tune into the webcast last night.  We’ll try something similar next year, although I’m thinking about switching to a Google+ Hangout.  But we’ll worry about that a year from now.

I hope you had a restful All-Star break.  The baseball action resumes tomorrow!

Here is the box score from last night’s game.

2013 DTBL All-Stars

Wednesday, July 10th, 2013

Jackalope All-Star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt

Next week, the 20th DTBL All-Star Game will be played.  Mike’s Moonshiners will be the host squad.  The game is tentatively scheduled for late next Wednesday night.  The American Divsion will be managed by Nick, on the strength of his championship last season.  On the National side, the Kings and Mavericks tied for second place, therefore they also tied for the right to manage in the All-Star Game.  The Kings “won” the tiebreaker (head-to-head category comparison), which led to the Mavericks picking in front of the Kings in this year’s draft.  But it also means that I will be managing the National All-Stars.  I decided to include Marc in the roster decision-making process though.  Nick, Marc and I broke all voting ties for starter and reserve spots, and chose the 23rd player for each roster.  Here are the 2013 DTBL All-Stars:

National Division

Starters:

  • Pitcher – Max Scherzer, Kings
  • Catcher – Buster Posey, Demigods
  • First Base – Edwin Encarnacion, Mavericks
  • Second Base – Robinson Cano, Kings
  • Third Base – Evan Longoria, Demigods
  • Shortstop – Ian Desmond, Kings
  • Outfield – Carlos Gonzalez, Kings
  • Outfield – Adam Jones, Mavericks
  • Outfield – Mike Trout,  Mavericks

Reserves:

  • Catcher – Wilin Rosario, Kings
  • First Base – David Ortiz, Demigods
  • Second Base – Jason Kipnis, Cougars
  • Outfield – Chris Davis, Cougars
  • Outfield – Carlos Beltran, Kings
  • Outfield – Jay Bruce, Kings
  • Pitcher – Matt Harvey, Mavericks
  • Pitcher – Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
  • Pitcher – Adam Wainwright, Cougars
  • Pitcher – Yu Darvish, Demigods
  • Relief Pitcher – Jason Grilli, Kings
  • Relief Pitcher – Grant Balfour, Cougars
  • Relief Pitcher – Sergio Romo, Darkhorses
  • Relief Pitcher – Ernesto Frieri, Darkhorses

American Division

Starters:

  • Pitcher – Cliff Lee, Jackalope
  • Catcher – Yadier Molina, Choppers
  • First Base – Paul Goldschmidt, Jackalope
  • Second Base – Howie Kendrick, Gators
  • Third Base – Miguel Cabrera, Naturals
  • Shortstop – Troy Tulowitzki, Naturals
  • Outfield – Jose Bautista, Choppers
  • Outfield – Mark Trumbo, Choppers
  • Outfield – Nelson Cruz, Gators

Reserves:

  • Catcher – J.P. Arencibia, Moonshiners
  • First Base – Joey Votto, Naturals
  • Third Base – David Wright, Moonshiners
  • Shortstop – Jean Segura, Gators
  • Outfield – Michael Cuddyer, Gators
  • Outfield – Andrew McCutchen, Naturals
  • Pitcher – Felix Hernandez, Jackalope
  • Pitcher – Hisashi Iwakuma, Gators
  • Pitcher – Chris Sale, Choppers
  • Pitcher – Jordan Zimmermann, Naturals
  • Relief Pitcher – Joe Nathan, Moonshiners
  • Relief Pitcher – Mariano Rivera, Choppers
  • Relief Pitcher – Craig Kimbrel, Choppers
  • Relief Pitcher – Aroldis Chapman, Jackalope

All-Stars per team:

  • 8 – Kings
  • 6 – Choppers
  • 5 – Gators, Mavericks, Naturals
  • 4 – Cougars, Demigods, Jackalope
  • 3 – Moonshiners
  • 2 – Darkhorses

For those of you wondering how in the world Chris Davis isn’t a starter, have no fear, he will be starting the game.  Four National outfielders were unanimous choices (including Davis), so we decided to make Davis the designated hitter.  Jay Bruce and Joey Votto were the 23rd players selected for each roster.  On paper, the National Division roster looks much stronger.  But history has shown that to mean very little when it comes to the actual game.  As usual, we’ll be using OOTP to simulate the game and will probably be doing another live webcast, so stay tuned for that.  Here are the full voting results.