Uh-Oh, it’s a No-No!

There were some great pitching performances to note…

John Tulac (“jwtulac”) got a no-no from the Big Train in the 37th edition of the Elysian Fields keeper league, and the opponent hitters were no slouches… Larry Doby plus Bobby Bonds and his son were lining up to hit against Walter J.  Interestingly, 4 batters did reach base, two from walks and 2 from HBP… both beanings were of Barry Bonds.  Good thing he wears that armor!

Boxscore

But who needs to spend $17 million to get a no-no?  Scott Sanderson spun this gem for Scott Poindexter (“poindexter”) in a standard league:

Shades of Orel Hershiser

As many you undoubtedly remember, Orel Hershiser had an amazing run in 1988, pitching 59 consecutive scoreless innings.  Well, Mel Stottlemyre ’64 took a run at that record for owner Matt Brillhart (“Chound1206”) In the Single Season league “60s 61-64”, pitching 50.2 shutout innings before finally giving up a pair in the 9th inning of a complete-game win.  Mel has continued to excel – now 9-0 for Matt with a 0.79 ERA!  In case you were wondering, the real-life version of Stottlemyre was a rookie in 1964 and went 9-3, 2.06 for the Yankees. Alas,  Mel only threw 96 innings that year, and PTL is ON for the league… so Matt will soon be losing his ace!

Roster

That’s some really tough luck!

In a recent game between the Jane Kenyon Poets of Steve Harvester (“luckyman27”) and the Lakeview Meho Memorials of David Shiner (“chesswiz”).  David has Randy Johnson as his ace in that standard league, but Lady Luck has not been with them.  In one game, the Memorials were gliding behind the Big Unit, who was throwing a 2-hit shutout and had struck out 12 going into the 9th.  Then this happened:

  • Sandberg walked
    – Bancroft walked, Sandberg to second
    – BoBonds walked, Sandberg to third, Bancroft to second
    – Torriente homered to right, Sandberg scored, Bancroft scored, BoBonds scored

Ouch.

You say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice?   Well, in another game between the same two teams, Johnson pitched another gem – a 2-hitter with 18 k’s… but lost 1-0.

Double ouch

SPOTLIGHT ON STRATEGY

Speaking of OUCH, Jeff Shorin (“ShadowJS”) tried an interesting strategy we’ve never seen before:   getting as many HBP as possible.  You read that right… Jeff tried to maximize the number of times his hitters got beaned. Here are the team stats:

The HBP have certainly been there – the team has been dinged 132 times after 122 games.  The next closest team has 47, and league average is 34.  Alas, the wins have not – the team is 55-67, 10 games out, but Jeff seems to be having fun with his theme!