The Row’s Two Game Losing Streak Comes to an End

Once on the verge of contending for a playoff spot in One Less Curse, Murderer’s Row found themselves amid a two-game losing streak in weeks 15 and 16 that found themselves falling further and further away from their preseason goal. As the team tries to win their final matchups of the summer, they hope that this week 17 win brings them closer to a winning record.

This past week’s matchup with The Dick Pounds was the second head-to-head contest that these two met. Murderer’s Row won in convincing fashion 8-1-1 way back in week eight, however this time around, the matchup was a lot closer, and the two teams battled until the bitter end.

Despite having an extra 23 at-bats, Murderer’s Row used the strength of their pitching to secure the seventh win of the season. The boys secured four of the five hurlers categories, along with stolen bases and batting average, to walk away with a 6-4-0 victory. It was a down week for the Row, who were outscored by 27 (runs batted in), 13 (home runs), and 11 (runs) in the three offensive categories The Dick Pounds managed to win. Outside of batting average, which was a 34 point victory, Murderer’s Row managed to strike out 13 more batters, the only spot in the matchup that they enjoyed a comfortable lead.

The matchup opened with The Dick Pounds grabbing an early lead, extending Murderer’s Row daily losing streak to 16 straight days before the team rallied for a 5-5 split on Wednesday evening. Thanks to some great outings from their pitchers, the team was able to jump ahead 6-4 and maintain that lead four days, securing the victory on Sunday night.

To keep these recaps entertaining, we don’t copy and paste the previous week’s remarks. However, when it comes to evaluating team statistics, nothing has changed for weeks now.

Murderer’s Row remains the worst team in the league regarding home runs, yet, on the other hand, remains contenders for the top spot in the WHIP category. All the other statistics categories are in the middle, with some above and some below the cut-off line.

It will be fun when the season is over to compile the final regular-season numbers and the bench numbers to see if the team would have finished anywhere else within the team statistics.

On the heels of a bad-timed two-game losing streak, Murderer’s Row witnessed the defending league champions Screw the ‘Stros build a lead that may be too insurmountable as the schedule winds down. Not only is the Row 11 games behind the fourth-place team, ItsNotRyanItsRyne, but they are also now eight games behind fifth place.

The top five teams all have winning records, while the bottom five are trying to stay afloat. The real battles are among the top three teams, separated by nine games, and the bottom two by four and a half games.

Most teams have found their final place with just six weeks left; however, miracles do happen, and the standings may indeed change again before the last out of the season.

The trade market was pretty quiet all season, with no one pulling the trigger on a deal, that was until Murderer’s Row executed the only trade of the season.

In an attempt to have some flair to the lineup, the Row traded away an elite utility player, Austin Riley (Atlanta), and superb pitcher Sandy Alcantara (Miami) to ItsNotRyanItsRyne for streaky designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton (New York) and potential league CY Young Award winner Shohei Ohtani (Los Angeles). Ohtani was someone we wanted to draft in the preseason but didn’t acquire; meanwhile, Stanton becomes just the second player from New York in our lineup, despite the emphasis at the beginning to go the entire season without a Bronx Bomber.

Riley was a free-agent pickup who starred while in the lineup. Alcantara amazingly had similar numbers to Ohtani, so there was no particular winner to the trade at the end of the day, although some could point out that Riley had more upside to Stanton.

In other moves, the team cut Carlos Santana (Kansas City) in favor of Ty France (Seattle), who returns for his second tour of duty with the club. Meanwhile, in another move, Daulton Varsho (Arizona) cooled off to the point that he was no longer producing, and C.J. Cron (Colorado), who just came off a seven-RBI game, took his spot in the lineup.

Weekly Move Total: 2/4

Season Move Total: 22/40