Mavericks pitcher Clayton Kershaw
After sending the email to the group list last night, I realized that it can be difficult to fully describe what is going on with just 140 characters at a time, so I’ve decided to start a running blog post to summarize the championship race this evening. I will continue to tweet updates as well, but feel free to keep refreshing this post to see my updates throughout the night.
With one day remaining on the schedule, we have five teams within three points of first place. It doesn’t get any better than this. There are points to be gained or lost in almost every category. I will let you know every change as close to real-time as possible, via Twitter, and with occasional updates here.
Time for me to get caught up on the afternoon games. There were some very interesting developments, but it remains to be seen if there were any changes to the standings. I’ll have an update shortly. Stay tuned!
7:50 pm
Well, I’ve finished updating things through the completed afternoon games. Thanks to a rough outing by Jonathan Papelbon, the Kings dropped a point in ERA, falling behind the Choppers. Meanwhile, the Jackalope also fell one further down as the Choppers passed them in WHIP. Plenty of categories tightened as well. The Kings picked up two home runs (Zimmerman and Morse) and are now just one behind the Mavericks for the league lead. However, the standings are now as follows: Naturals (71 points), Moonshiners (70), Kings and Mavericks tied (69), Jackalope (67). Not looking good for the defending champs. Now I’ll work on updating the games in progress.
8:40 pm
Okay, trying to keep this “live” is virtually impossible, but one thing is starting to become clear. It appears the Naturals will win the 2012 DTBL Championship. They now lead the league with 72 1/2 points. The Mavericks have moved up to 2nd place, but are 3 points back. Moonshiners have dropped to 3rd (69). Kings and Jackalope are 4th and 5th respectively, and are leaking points all over the place. Still way too many close categories to call this thing, but not looking good for anyone other than the Naturals.
9:00 pm
Did they really have to schedule this Presidential Debate on the last night of the MLB season? Don’t they know there are fantasy league titles on the line tonight? May not be many updates from me for a while… Still looking good for the Naturals, though Robinson Cano’s big night has pushed the Kings into the league lead in HR and has them back into 2nd place overall. 2 1/2 point lead for the Naturals though.
10:51 pm
Way too many changes since my last update to list, but we have a major development. I now have the Kings, Mavericks and Naturals in a three way tie for first at 69.5 points, with the Moonshiners 1/2 point back and the Jackalope 2 points behind the leader. The main reasons for the change: great start by Clayton Kershaw gave the Mavericks a boost, especially since another Mavericks pitcher (Ryan Vogelsong) also had a good outing in that same game. Robinson Cano went 4 for 4 with a pair of home runs, boosting the Kings in HR and batting average. Finally, I have the Naturals and Jackalope tied in RBIs now, which also cost the Naturals 1/2 point. Needless to say, it is way too close to call right now.
11:11 pm
Jason Motte’s save puts the Naturals back into the lead. Ironically, it was another Naturals pitcher that helped set up the save opportunity. Jonathan Broxton gave up a run and took the loss. He didn’t cost the Naturals in the WHIP category, yet. They are thousandths of a point ahead of the Gators at the moment, according to my calculations. Kings, Mavericks and Moonshiners are all within a point, so a change in any category could tip the title in a different direction.
11:47 pm
The 2012 season is now over. I have compiled all of today’s results. The gap between teams in almost every category is so small that I do not trust my final results and sort of wish I hadn’t chosen to do this “live” updating because the chances I have it wrong are quite high. Anyway, according to my numbers the 2012 DTBL Champions are Nick’s Naturals!
The Naturals have 70 1/2 points. The Kings and Mavericks tied for second place, just one point behind. The Moonshiners fell to fourth place with 69 points and the Jackalope came in 5th with 67.
I urge you to check in again tomorrow morning around 8:15 a.m. EDT when I will post the official results. This could be a “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment, but if not, congratulations Nick!