We have reached the midpoint of the 2021 AOA season! We will once again check our league’s statistical leaders as we did at the quarter mark of the year, but first let’s take a look at this past week.
Cory Puffett lost his second straight game following the remarkable 8-0 start he recorded. This one was an excruciatingly unlucky loss for him. Not only was he the number two scorer for the week in the AOA, but he recorded his third highest point total of the season!
Unfortunately for him, his squad had to face Eric Meyer, who has been red hot lately, the winner of now three straight Rickey Henderson Awards, given weekly to the league’s top scorer. He now owns five of these trophies in the first 10 weeks of our league’s history, one for each of his team’s five victories.
Cory had the pitching advantage in the matchup, with five more innings of work and slightly better ERA and FIP numbers for the week. His offense also posted the better batting average with identical plate appearances, but Eric’s team beat him in the slugging department and had a 10-RBI advantage.
It’s the second time now in our league’s history that the two top scorers for the week faced off and both times the matchup was between these two managers. Cory took the first meeting by a similar margin and similar final score.
Meanwhile, we’d already seen two instances of the league’s two low scorers facing off. We now have three such games, each of them involving Andrew Perez or Sean Kennedy. This week’s matchup featured both as Andrew won as the league’s second lowest scorer for the second time in the past four weeks!
Sean actually had a great shot of winning this game. He only lost by about 8 points, which could have been made up one of two ways. He could have taken advantage of the two pitcher starts he left on the table for the week or he could have started Brandon Belt all week for Carlos Santana, which would have netted him an additional 14 points!
But hindsight is 20/20 and coulda, shoulda, woulda doesn’t do anybody any good. Sean falls to 1-9 after the season’s first 10 weeks, joining Alex Mayo whose team has been moderately better than Sean’s but has no additional victories to show for it. This week his team fell to Evan Ash, thanks at least in part to the same missed pitching opportunities that plague’s Sean this week.
The victory gave Evan his second Manny Ramirez Award of the season since their matchup was designated the game of the week.
The biggest blowout of the week was Sam Martin’s 36-point victory over Cory Frontin. Both managers only used six of their seven allotted pitcher starts for the week but Sam’s team was better across the board. It certainly didn’t help Cory’s cause that Sam’s team had 35 more plate appearances and 4.2 more innings pitched than his did. Those opportunities add up.
Let’s take a quick look at our league’s statistical leaders through the first half of the season:
Hitting
Hits: Cory P. (570)
Home runs: Sam, Andrew & Cory P. (91)
Runs: Cory P. (338)
RBI: Sam (311)
Total bases: Eric (982)
Stolen bases: Eric (63)
Walks: Eric (238)
Strikeouts: Eric (414)
Hit by pitch: Alex & Eric (28)
Ground into double play: Eric (30)
Batting average: Eric (.287)
On base percentage: Eric (.370)
Slugging percentage: Eric (.508)
On base plus slugging: Eric (.878)
Stolen base percentage: Cory F. (82.9%)
Pitching
Wins: Sam (35)
Losses: Evan (16)
Quality starts: Cory P. (41)
Saves: Evan (29)
Holds: Sean (15)
Blown saves: Cory F., Eric & Cory P. (2)
Innings pitched: Cory P. (472.0)
Hits allowed: Alex (305)
Earned runs: Alex (145)
Walks: Alex (105)
Strikeouts: Cory (593)
Home runs allowed: Sean (46)
Hit batters: Cory F. & Andrew (11)
ERA: Cory P. (2.94)
WHIP: Evan (1.006)
FIP: Cory P. (3.20)
Save percentage: Eric (92.9%)
Other
Total points: Eric (1,380.25)
Hitting points: Eric (816.00)
Pitching points: Cory P. (620.50)
Alex has earned the highest percentage of his points from hitting with 60.9% of his total points coming from his offense. Sean has gotten 50.8% of his total points from pitching, which is also a league-high.
Check out our Week 10 recap below followed by this week’s power rankings:
Game of the Week: Alex Mayo at Evan Ash
With a couple of pitcher starts left on the board and 25 fewer plate appearances than his opponent, Alex didn’t make his matchup with Evan as competitive as we expected after his team’s strong performance in an unlucky Week 9 loss to Eric. He’ll need a huge turnaround in the second half of the season.
