Captain's (B)log: H2HWS week 13

Lots of exciting match-ups this week, with some teams having excellent wins to boost their play-off chances. With several top teams facing one another, the table was sure to change yet again, whilst at the bottom, the teams from 11th-14th faced off, with two of them putting up nice victories to give themselves a glimmer of hope. But which teams got the crucial victories...?

Week 13 Results

• London Knights 6-3 Edinburgh Dukes
• New Hampshire Goats 6-5 Peitudas
• Barcelona Reds 2-10 Psydney Psychos
• Felixstowe Fury 3-8 Hamburger Blaufinken
• Lower Saxony Tigers 7-5 Northampton Squirrels
• North York Blues 10-2 Brisbane Bikkies
• LA Thrashers 7-3 Manzen Marlins

Standings

Significant Moves

Two of the most active traders in the league completed yet another trade this past week. The London Knights sent Kelly Johnson to Psydney Psychos in exchange for Derek Lowe. With the Knights already having Brian Roberts at 2B, Johnson was an occasional starter at best, and Lowe could be a real boost to the staff which has only really had any consistency from the recently acquired CC Sabathia. Psychos, meanwhile, have Howie Kendrick starting at 2B, and no bench hitters, so acquiring Johnson gives them a bit more flexibility.

In other moves, a number of 'big name' players hit the wire this week. Psydney finally gave up on Brett Myers (having acquired him in a trade earlier in the season), Northampton said farewell to Troy Tulowitzki, Felixstowe dumped Jim Thome and London let Greg Maddux go. Finding their way onto rosters were the likes of DeJesus, Buehrle, Jim Edmonds and new Dodger starter Eric Stults.

Waffle

The England-Scotland clash between London & Edinburgh started off fairly quietly, but that all changed on Friday. A batting day which saw a line of 16-4-13-0-.415-1.471 gave London a pretty much unassailable lead in every category except stolen bases, and so it proved. Going into Sunday's games, the score was 6-3 to London, with Wins, Saves & Holds all tied. With no starters going for either team, the question was whether or not any relievers could pick up that extra save, hold, or even vulture win to take a category. The excitement ended rather anti-climactically, when only one pitcher (Okajima) making an appearance, leaving the scoreline as it stood at the beginning of the day. Still, it means the Knights have won 6 of 7 match-ups, leaving them solidly in 3rd place. Edinburgh, meanwhile, fall out of the top 6 for the first time this season. Albert Pujols' return from the DL is much-needed, but they will want their DL-ed pitchers back ASAP as well, if they are to climb back in.

Above them, it's getting boring describing another LA Thrashers victory, so I'll leave that to Ray in his 'Chasing the Treble' blog! New Hamsphire looked like they were going to lose to Peitudas for most of the week, but a late rally gave them a 6-5 win - a result which still moved Peitudas up from 9th to 7th, again emphasising the closeness of the league.

Biggest movers of the week saw North York jump up 4 spots after a demolition of Brisbane, whilst near the bottom, Psydney finally came up with a big win, 10-2 over Barcelona - a result which was extremely close to being a whitewash, as they lost holds by 1, and AVG by .003! The Psychos and Hamburger (8-3 winners over Felixstowe) have renewed hope of making the playoffs, but the Fury look to have joined Barcelona in having little to no hope of making the top 6.

A huge match-up awaits in Week 14, as 2nd meets 3rd (New Hampshire vs London). The Knights will be looking to avenge the 3-7 defeat in Week 1 and climb above New Hampshire into 2nd spot. Another big game sees 4th meet 6th (North York vs Northampton), whilst teams on the brink of the playoffs will look to capitalise on 4 of the top 6 meeting by putting up big wins of their own. With 9 weeks of the regular season still left, there is loads of baseball still to play!