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The Frogs' week of lefty cheese is coming to a close. Early returns are positive, but we'll see how the team fares in the playoffs.
The 2055 regular season was a success, as the Frogs tied a franchise high water mark of 127 wins (2052). The team's 2.56 ERA also ties a franchise-best mark (2050). The team's 946 runs scored topped the old record by a single run (2052). The team's 438 runs allowed missed tying the franchise mark by 6 runs (2050). Winning the division by 51 games is probably a team record as well. The Frogs will enter the 2055 postseason with the #1 overall seed in P426 despite 4 other 100+ win teams. Having home field throughout will be critical for continuing the lefty cheese strategy in the playoffs.
The Frogs will face the winner of the West U Roughnecks (98-64) and the Motown Greatest Hits (80-82). No offense to those old Motown records, but it would be preferable if they were to take care of the Roughnecks for me. The Roughnecks (est. 2049) are a fairly new team that has raced up the promotion ladder, spending two weeks at diamond but only one week at each other level. I imagine that a whale got bored with his team and started a new one. And the Roughnecks were born. And a solid team, indeed. The Roughnecks are rostering: 100 Randy Johnson (the good one), 100 Lefty Grove, 100 Sandy Koufax, 100 Carl Hubbell, 100 Nolan Ryan (obviously going for PP earnings for Ks). 100 Honus Wagner, 100 Hornsby, 100 Ruth, 100 Trout, 100 Bench, and 99 Ted Williams anchor the offense (PP earnings for HR). The bullpen is weak (by whale standards) and has a good deal of LIVE cards in it. The team doesn't platoon, either, so hopefully that can be exploited. Even better, let's hope the Roughnecks are unable to put those old Motown records back on the shelves.
Statistically, this has been one of the more interesting (and lucrative) weeks in the annals of Frog baseball. I made much ado about Tom Seaver winning a cool 23 games in a row out of the bullpen, then getting beat and earning 7K PP. Then, SE John Smoltz put up an 18-game winning streak that netted a crisp 1000 PP. And, what do we have here? Christy Mathewson ended the season with a 28-0 mark, so that should be another nice raft of 7K PP (or more?) when the check clears. Moral of the story? Cheesing the L/R pitching staff (and having good cards to boot) will earn a significant amount of PP simply for long winning streaks by "relief" pitchers. Seaver finished 28-1, Smoltz 19-2 (1.57 ERA), Scherzer 19-3 (1.75 ERA). Ruffing and Walsh combined for 44 saves and an ERA of about 1.75 in 253 IP of stopper work. With Seaver and Mathewson tying for the conference lead in wins, they both got 400 PP, which I found to be a fitting final touch to the week of Cheese-topia '55.
Offensively, it was like a team from another planet with no Frog DNA at all. The Frogs (est. as a plucky F2P with smallball tactics before going to the dark side of the opened wallet) used to be content to muster 100 HR in a season. This past week, they hit 200 for the first time. 100 Barry Bonds led the way (37), followed by LIVE Yelich (28), SE Sisler (26), SE Nettles (23), and SE Prince Fielder (21). Interestingly, despite selling out for LHB park factors, Bonds' 37 jacks weren't a career high for him as he blasted 40 in his rookie season. He did manage to lead the conference in RBI (124) and SLG (.574). Bonds was also one of three Frogs to do 20/20, along with Sisler and Yelich.
I surmise that the Frogs will earn about 35K PP in achievements for this week. A good week, indeed.
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