captchris's blog

No surprises in the first round of England South, as, just for once, the 3rd & 4th seeded teams both won their matchups - one comfortably; the other still in doubt until the final day...

If you were following the daily updates on last week's Blog, you'll know that one of the 1st-round games was pretty much decided by midweek, but the other was subject to a dramatic late surge by one of the teams. But did they do enough to take the tie? Here are the results...

16 teams entered. 6 remain standing. 3 of them finished tied for 2nd place, separated only by the final week tiebreaker. The England South Championship is anyone's to win...

That's it. It's done. The regular season has drawn to a close. It was a dramatic final week in the H2HWS, with the final playoff positions changing on a daily basis. Let's find out which teams joined LA Thrashers & London Knights in the postseason...

The first two teams clinched their places in the playoffs this week, but with one week to go, the battle for the top 6 rages on. And both first round byes are still up for grabs...

From a personal perspective, the last week or so has been very satisfying. Newcastle United held the mighty Reds to a draw at Old Trafford, following it up with a win over Bolton. Great Britain has put up its best showing in a century at the Olympics. My own baseball team, Croydon Pirates III, have qualified for the postseason playoffs for the first time ever. And both London Knights teams have clinched their places in the playoffs with a week to spare!

No one has yet secured their post-season place in England South, but there was some significant movement, nonetheless. Some of the teams fighting for the number 1 seed put down their markers this week, whilst others faltered. The race for the top 6 is still too close to call...and after looking down and out a few weeks back, the defending champions suddenly have a sniff at sneaking their way in to the playoffs!

With 2 weeks to go, we have the first playoff qualifier this week. No prizes for guessing who! It was a week which saw 6 close match-ups, and one demolition job...again, no prizes for guessing which team won by a country mile! But the battle for the playoffs is heating up and on a knife-edge...

A day late, and a shorter entry than usual this week, as I'm away from home with limited Internet Access.

A lot of close games this week - the biggest recorded victory was 8-4 - and new leaders for England South! Let's get to the results...

We're coming to the crunch. One week until the trading deadline, so now is the time to make that last minute deal to solidify your team's chances of making the final cut. An extra arm in the bullpen? Or how about that bench hitter eligible at several positions? In these final few weeks of the regular season, every at bat could be crucial - and having that Monday-Thursday guy that you can slot in when others have no game can make all the difference...especially in close games like mine this week, where two of the hitting categories ended tied, and another was won by 1...

A high-scoring week in England South has seen a lot of changes to the table. The leaders have been reeled in, the top 7 seem to be just breaking away slightly from the rest, and, indeed, only those 7 are above .500. Three teams put up double figures in the 'Win' column. And one team has fallen from 4th to 11th in the space of just 2 weeks! Ouch...

With only 5 weeks of the regular season to go, we saw some very significant results in the H2HWS this week, along with a slight widening of the gap between the top 6 and the field. On a personal note, the reason for my dislike of having too many bench hitters in H2H became all too apparent in my match-up with Lower Saxony Tigers, as one of us managed to leave a total of 5 HR on the bench this week. Who was it? And did it affect the result? Read on to find out!

No opening waffle this week, let's get straight into the results:

Ah, the All-Star "Week" - or 3 days and a bit, as it is for H2H leagues. There's been a bit of discussion about this week already, with plenty of suggestions about how to amend it - the one which would seem to make most sense is to combine it with the following week - after all, that's what Yahoo did with the overseas games played at the start of the season.

This league is just crazy! It really is the case that any one team can beat any other in any given week! No one seems to want to take control, and just when you think teams are falling out of contention, they bounce back with a big week! And as for the playoff race, well, with a mere 5.5 games separating 4th from 12th, it is impossible to predict who will be there at season's end!

I hate having more than 1 hitter on my bench in the H2HWS. It can easily lead to too much micro-management instead of just putting your best hitters out and letting it go. More often than not, I end up making the wrong decision.

Fantasy baseball can be a cruel game sometimes. You can dominate a whole week, leading from start to finish, only for your opponent's team to come to life on the final day, transforming a comfortable victory into an unlikely defeat.

Extra Innings. Two words that can make or break a fantasy team, particularly on a Sunday in a weekly H2H league. Chances abound for relievers to come in and pitch those 2 scoreless innings with 3 or 4 strikeouts (hello Mike Gonzalez & Joel Zumaya), or pick up that unexpected win (Joe Smith, Royce Ring, Aquilino Lopez). On the hitting side, there is the opportunity for a hitter to salvage something from the day (see Miggy Cabrera - hitless until what proved to be the game-winning double in the 15th) or make a bad day even worse by going 0-7 (Edgar Renteria, I'm looking at you).

A defeat for the runaway leaders? A 3rd successive win for the previously struggling defending champs? 10 games separating 2nd place from 12th? It could only be the ultra-competitive league that is the 2008 England South league...