{"id":1190,"date":"2018-09-27T17:43:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T00:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2020-08-22T09:27:20","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T16:27:20","slug":"kings-darkhorses-vie-for-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1190","title":{"rendered":"Kings, Darkhorses Vie For Title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"UbI0bFdbRMFx7IbZH4BteQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1032941864\" target=\"_blank\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\nwindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'UbI0bFdbRMFx7IbZH4BteQ',sig:'Fe3abpuwidim-BGnF5TiQxeLG9eD3URnU7YxuPKUT6Q=',w:'594px',h:'440px',items:'1032941864',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nAs usual, I have gotten lazy with my DTBL News articles as the season has worn on.\u00a0 I thought about skipping this one altogether, but decided it would be good to get a least some of the following out of the way before the season ends.\u00a0 Scroll to the bottom of the article if you have been waiting weeks to find out who the best players of August were, as we near the end of September.\u00a0 But first, a brief look at what is in store for the final weekend of the season.<\/p>\n<p>The Kings have been in first place all but four days this season.\u00a0 The only time they were lower than second place was the day after Opening Day.\u00a0 They held a share of the lead every single day from April 18 through September 16.\u00a0 And yet, with just three full days remaining on the calendar, they are hardly a sure thing to win their seventh DTBL Championship.\u00a0 They dominated the league for the first three months, but faded badly in July and especially August.\u00a0 It was not a huge surprise when the Darkhorses finally caught them a couple weeks ago.\u00a0 But the Kings picked a good time to get hot again as their offense has had its best stretch in several months over the past week or so.\u00a0 With one weekend to go, the Kings lead over the Darkhorses is four points.\u00a0 That is, by no means, a safe lead.<\/p>\n<p>The final week began with the Kings leading the Darkhorses by 1 1\/2 points.\u00a0 The Demigods were just five back and the Choppers were in striking distance as well, seven points behind.\u00a0 But since then, the Kings have picked up 3 1\/2 points and have increased their lead over all of the challengers.\u00a0 I think it is safe to say that the Choppers and Demigods are probably out of it now, barring something miraculous.\u00a0 But the Darkhorses have several paths to claiming the title.<\/p>\n<p>The categories that present the best opportunities for the Darkhorses to pick up points are batting average, ERA and maybe home runs.\u00a0 If Jacob deGrom were slated to pitch one more time, I might have thrown strikeouts in there too.\u00a0 But realistically, 71-72 points is probably the Darkhorses&#8217; ceiling.\u00a0 In other words, they are going to need a little help as the Kings sit at 73 points.\u00a0 But the Kings could very easily spit back some points they&#8217;ve gained this week.\u00a0 They are very vulnerable in home runs, RBIs and ERA.\u00a0 The game I will have my eye on will be Jon Gray facing a resurgent Nationals offense at Coors Field on Saturday night.\u00a0 If Gray were to get lit up, a loss of an ERA point would be very possible for the Kings.\u00a0 On the flip side, the Kings have some suddenly hot power hitters, like David Dahl and A.J. Pollock.\u00a0 The Darkhorses will be rooting for a power outage from the Kings this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind that our league does count stats from tie-breaker games.\u00a0 There is a very good chance that at least one tie-breaker will be required to settle the National League playoff races.\u00a0 So this thing may not be over on Sunday.\u00a0 However, no roster moves will be processed before Monday, so the current active rosters will remain in effect until the season is officially over.\u00a0 If the championship remains up for grabs on Monday, I&#8217;ll be live blogging the action.<\/p>\n<p>Now it is time to play catch-up on all of the weekly and monthly awards I missed.\u00a0 Since I&#8217;m so late with these, I&#8217;m not going to bother with write-ups.\u00a0 But here are the weekly award winners from August and September (so far).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Batters of the Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Week 19 (7\/30 &#8211; 8\/5) &#8211; Matt Carpenter,\u00a0Choppers<br \/>\nWeek 20 (8\/6 &#8211; 8\/12) &#8211; J.D. Martinez, Demigods<br \/>\nWeek 21 (8\/13 &#8211; 8\/19) &#8211; Justin Turner, Darkhorses<br \/>\nWeek 22 (8\/20 &#8211; 8\/26) &#8211; Javier Baez, Mavericks<br \/>\nWeek 23 (8\/27 &#8211; 9\/2) &#8211; Christian Yelich, Darkhorses<br \/>\nWeek 24 (9\/3 &#8211; 9\/9) &#8211; Trevor Story, Cougars<br \/>\nWeek 25 (9\/10 &#8211; 9\/16) &#8211; Whit Merrifield,\u00a0Choppers<br \/>\nWeek 26 (9\/17 &#8211; 9\/23) &#8211; Tommy Pham, Cougars<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pitchers of the Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Week 19 (7\/30 &#8211; 8\/5) &#8211; Jon Gray, Kings<br \/>\nWeek 20 (8\/6 &#8211; 8\/12) &#8211; Trevor Bauer, Choppers<br \/>\nWeek 21 (8\/13 &#8211; 8\/19) &#8211; Jacob deGrom, Darkhorses<br \/>\nWeek 22 (8\/20 &#8211; 8\/26) &#8211; Kevin Gausman, Kings<br \/>\nWeek 23 (8\/27 &#8211; 9\/2) &#8211; Corey Kluber, Demigods<br \/>\nWeek 24 (9\/3 &#8211; 9\/9) &#8211; Robbie Ray, Moonshiners<br \/>\nWeek 25 (9\/10 &#8211; 9\/16) &#8211; Justin Verlander, Kings<br \/>\nWeek 26 (9\/17 &#8211; 9\/23) &#8211; Hyun-Jin Ryu, Choppers<\/p>\n<p>And now, here are the Batter and Pitcher of the Month from August 2018.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Batter of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><del>Matt Carpenter, Choppers<\/del><br \/>\nJ.D. Martinez, Demigods<br \/>\n.373 AVG, 7 HR, 25 RBI, 24 R, 2 SB, 2.69 PAR<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pitcher of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jacob deGrom, Darkhorses<br \/>\n1.24 ERA, 0.985 WHIP, 3 W, 0 SV, 60 K, 3.29 PAR<\/p>\n<p>FYI, <del>Carpenter<\/del>\u00a0Martinez just barely edged out the Darkhorses&#8217; Christian Yelich, who is probably a strong contender for this award again in September.\u00a0 Speaking of guys who are strong contenders for September honors, deGrom&#8217;s unbelievable &#8217;18 season was finally rewarded in August.<\/p>\n<p>It should be an exciting final weekend, both in the DTBL and MLB.\u00a0 May the best teams win!<\/p>\n<p>TWO YEARS LATER EDIT:\u00a0 When going through these articles to retroactively populate the honors table with past monthly award winners, I discovered I completely botched this one.\u00a0 J.D. Martinez was the actual Player of the Month for August 2018.\u00a0 My spreadsheet of monthly stats clearly states that, and I verified that the stat line above matches what Martinez produced in 8\/18, not Carpenter.\u00a0 I do not know how I got this wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images As usual, I have gotten lazy with my DTBL News articles as the season has worn on.\u00a0 I thought about skipping this one altogether, but decided it would be good to get a least some of the following out of the way before the season ends.\u00a0 Scroll to the bottom of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11,12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-darkhorses","category-demigods","category-kings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1348,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}