let's go Giants whose lineup is still better than it was two weeks ago despite no Melky

it's good to have pablo back, and pence+belt are lookin' good. that's still pretty huge to take a nearly .350 hitter out of the lineup though

the blazers should be good, we got rid of half of our good players and instead of replacing them we just started overpaying batum

Go Dodgers.

King Felix. 27 up, 27 down, winning in classic Mariners 1-0 action.

Wow, eventful day. Hail the King, coming through with the second best game pitched this year



fuck you too

Amazing performance by King Felix. Sonics fans going crazy.

My dad and brother were 11 rows behind home plate. Also, I hate my dad and brother

This feels like we just won the world series. I'll just keep feeling like that since this is the closest we'll be to that for a good long while

I like how the Mariners still only got one run. I guess they figured, "well, perfect game."

Melky :/ I thought the babip would normalize and he'd come back to earth a bit but damn.

Perhaps an inappropriate time to do this, but LEADERBOARDS (combined WAR)

NL hitters:
PIT CF Andrew McCutchen 5.9
NYM 3B David Wright 5.8
ATL CF Michael Bourn 5.1
SF C Buster "still heroic" Posey 5.0
MIL LF Ryan Braun 4.8
CIN 1B Joey Votto 4.7
STL LF Matt Holliday 4.7
SF LF Melky "goddammit" Cabrera 4.6
STL C Yadier Molina 4.5
PHI C Carlos Ruiz 4.5
(SD 3B Chase Headley 4.4 if we're cutting Melky out)

AL hitters:
LAA CF Mike Trout 7.3
NYY 2B Robinson Cano 5.5
DET 1B Miguel Cabrera 5.0
DET CF Austin Jackson 4.6
OAK RF Josh Reddick 4.1
KC LF Alex Gordon 3.9
TOR DH Edwin "doing it despite the massive DH penalty inherent to WAR, he's just been that good this year, fuck the haters" Encarnacion 3.7
TEX SS Elvis Andrus 3.6
TEX OF Josh Hamilton 3.6
TB 2B/RF Ben Zobrist 3.6

NL pitchers:
CIN Johnny Cueto 4.7
NYM RA Dickey 4.0
WAS Jordan Zimmermann 3.9
LAD Clayton Kershaw 3.6
WAS Gio Gonzalez 3.4
WAS Stephen Strasburg 3.4
PHI Cole Hamels 3.4
CIN Aroldis "holy shit" Chapman 3.1
MIA Josh Johnson 3.1
ARI Wade Miley 3.1

(note: I don't quite trust either site's park factor calculations which are responsible for placing Johnson and Miley ahead of Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner. I think the two Giants are clearly better pitchers than Miley having better seasons than Johnson but w/e)

AL pitchers:
DET Justin Verlander 5.5
CHW Chris Sale 4.5
CHW Jake Peavy 4.2
SEA Felix Hernandez 4.1
TB David Price 4.0
NYY Hiroki Kuroda 4.0
TEX Matt Harrison 3.6
LAA Jered Weaver 3.4
LAA Zack Greinke 3.0
NYY CC Sabathia 2.8

NL rookies:
ARI SP Wade Miley 3.1
MIL SP Mike Fiers 2.7
ATL SS Andrelton Simmons 2.1
STL SP Lance Lynn 2.0
HOU SP Lucas Harrell 2.0

(WAS OF Bryce Harper 1.8)

AL rookies:
LAA CF Mike "easiest Rookie of the Year pick ever" Trout 7.3
BAL SP Wei-Yin Chen 2.5
CHW SP Jose Quintana 2.4
OAK SP Jarrod Parker 2.3
MIN SP Scott Diamond 2.3

bWAR takes a big shit on Wainwright.

Johnny Cueto is a piece of shit, fuck him

All your base are belong to the Reds.

Man. I hope you guys enjoy rooting for such garbage. It's nice cuz I love Brandon Phillips and Rolen, and have fond memories of Ludwick (gd fuck him now that he's been good tho) and nothing but respect for Votto, so sometimes I look for extra motivation to cheer against the Reds. Cueto and Dusty (lolol) alone work sufficiently.

y'all'd do well to keep your digits crossed and hope the Cardinals somehow don't pick up one of the Wild Card spots, cuz I'm pretty confident they're the real best team in the NL.

I'd say Washington is a strong contender but the Cardinals have hit my projection that they'd be a better team than last year. Now it's just a question of can they get in.