The OOTP AI Still Cheats!!!---MLB & The NY METS 2018

[rjl518]

8/19

NY METS 2
PHI Phillies 0
Citizens Bank Park

With today's victory, the NY METS clinch the NL East Division!!!
Clayton Kershaw was awesome, going 6 and giving up two little hits.
The bullpen closes the game and Aroldis Chapman gets his 16th save.
Buster Posey gets the Golden Bat as he went 2-4, driving in BOTH of the runs to lead the Mets to the win.
We will pop a little champagne, but we will not drink so much though.
We are not done taking care of business yet!

[rjl518]

I guess it was a foregone conclusion with this team at the start of the season.
This was the one thing that I believe everyone could agree on was that the Mets would win the division by a large margin.
With a bunch of All-Stars, designed to beat the rest of the league at its own game, I figured this would be the easiest step of the year.
Now, the question from here on in is what to do?
Rest starters and prepare for a month and a half of meaningless baseball and risk injuries?
Or should we go for the best record in baseball history and try to top them all?
Anyway, no matter what I decide to do, they cant take this from us.

WE ARE THE 2018 NL EAST DIVISION CHAMPIONS!!!

[rjl518]

We may have won the division, but the rest of the league still has a long way to go:
ALE: The TOR Blue Jays, have climbed back to 1.5 GB of the BOS Red Sox, who have lost 4 straight.
ALC: It looks like MIN is going to take this division, but CLE is not giving up yet.
ALW: Tightest division in baseball as TEX, LAA, HOU and OAK are staying close, although the Athletics look to be fading.
NLE: The Mets have clinched!
NLC: The CHI Cubs should win this division, even though the Cardinals have been playing better lately.
NLW: The LAD are the class here, but SD and ARZ still have hopes.

[rjl518]

1961 Topps Players of the Week:

[rjl518]

MLB Injuries:

The LAD will lose Justin Turner probably for the rest of the regular season.
I wonder how bad that will hurt.

[rjl518]

August 20-23:

[rjl518]

August 23-26:

[rjl518]

Series Preview: SF Giants @ Citi Field (4-Games)

From one long 4-game series to another as the Giants come to town.
This team knocked us out last year and now they come back to the place where they did it, on our home field.
They are at the bottom of most stats in the NL, except for pitching.
If you have MadBum, anything is possible.
This is revenge for me and my Mets and I want to destroy the Giants in this series.
Strasburg, Sale, Kluber and maybe Syndergaard will start these games versus last year's WS Champs in my season.

[rjl518]

8/20

SF Giants 2
NY METS 3
Citi Field

Stephen Strasburg gets his 20th win as the Mets take a close one from SF.
Strasburg went 7 and gave up 0 earned runs with 7 strikeouts.
Aroldis Chapman got his 17th save and Max Scherzer had a good relief appearance finally, getting his 17th Hold, which leads the team.
Buster Posey gets the Golden Bat again as he went 2-3 with 2 big RBIs.
Corey Seager had 2 hits also and even Strasburg helped his cause with an RBI-single of his own.
It was a close win but I will take it.

[rjl518]

MLB Injuries:

The TOR Blue Jays, who are only 2.5 GB of the BOS Red Sox in the AL East lose TWO pitchers for the season.
OUCH!

[rjl518]

8/21

SF Giants 0
NY METS 5
Citi Field

Chris Sale does the job as he goes 7 innings and gives up 3 little hits.
The bullpen closes out the game.
It was a rainy night in the Big Apple, but the Mets lineup did what it had to do.
Jose Altuve and Corey Seager had 2 hits tonight, but the Golden Bat goes to Josh Donaldson, who had 2 big RBIs in this game.
We have taken two from the Giants.
Lets see if we can get them all.

[rjl518]

8/22

SF Giants 2
NY METS 5
Citi Field

Corey Kluber has a great outing, giving up 2 runs on 8 hits thru 7.2 innings of work.
Andrew Miller gets his 3rd save of the year as my bullpen gets some rest.
The Giants out-hit us in this game, but we scored the big runs via the long-ball.
Mike Trout (33), Giancarlo Stanton (27) and Freddie Freeman (20) were the reason why we stuck it to SF.
Tomorrow night, the Mets go for the sweep.
Its a revenge game for it will be Noah Syndergaard versus Madison Bumgarner.
This was the pitching matchup in Game 7 of the NLCS last year which kicked my Mets out of the playoffs.
Im going to let Thor pitch and he better bring Stormbreaker for the game.

[rjl518]

8/23

SF Giants 0
NY METS 5
Citi Field

This win was very sweet.
It was also our 100th win of the year which made it even sweeter.
Thor came back with a vengeance.
He goes 6 and gives up 3 hits with 7 Ks.
The Mets hammered SF Madison Bumgarner with 3 HRs.
Bryce Harper (36), Jose Altuve (19) and Giancarlo Stanton (28) were the culprits.
We sweep this pathetic Giants team and tell them that they are staying home in October this year.
Lets Go Mets!

[rjl518]

Series Preview: WAS Nationals @ Citi Field (3-Games)

The Nationals are in town for the weekend.
This team was gutted by me at the start of the season and they are definitely showing it.
Adam Eaton is still very capable of getting hits as well as Anthony Rendon and Michael Conforto.
I feel bad for Conforto since he was a Met at the start of the season.
But that's life.
Kershaw, Strasburg and Sale are the mound masters for the weekend.

[rjl518]

8/24

WAS Nationals 1
NY METS 5
Citi Field

The injury bug bit us, but not too bad.
Clayton Kershaw went out, he is DTD.
Max Scherzer, who i brought in to pitch, went out as well.
He will be out 5 days.
Luis Severino came in and got his 5th win on the year and the bullpen closed the game out.
The Mets lineup did its job though as Buster Posey (16) and Giancarlo Stanton (29) hit a couple of dingers.
Stanton got the Golden Bat for the game with a 2-4 day and 3 RBIs.
Always good to start the weekend off with a win.

[rjl518]

8/25

WAS Nationals 2
NY METS 13
Citi Field

The Mets spotted the Nationals a run, then opened up the can of whoop-a$$!
Not much to say here except Stephen Strasburg bended but didn't break.
He gave up 1 run on 9 hits.
Then the lineup took over.
HRs: Carlos Correa (14), Gary Sanchez (14), Mike Trout (34) and Giancarlo Stanton (30), which was a Grand Slam!
Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman had 3 hits tonight.
Tough call for the Golden Bat, but i will give it to Carlos Correa here.
He went 2-3 with a HR, scored 3 times, got an RBI and walked twice.
We win the series over WAS and look to sweep them with Sale on the mound tomorrow.

[rjl518]

MLB Injuries:

SEA Dee Gordon is done for the year, while having a pretty darn good season.

[rjl518]

8/26

WAS Nationals 4
NY METS 3
Citi Field

Dropped a close one to the Nationals today.
Chris Sale had a rough day, going 5 innings and giving up 4 runs on 4 hits.
Once again though, Sale got no run support as the Mets lineup left 8 men on base.
To be fair though, three starters needed the day off so i really wasn't expecting to win this game.
Carlos Correa did hit his 15th HR of the year.
We do win the series over WAS 2-1.

[rjl518]

19-4 is a pretty good record for August as we head into the end of the month.
But that record of 11-17 in 1-run games still haunts me.
The Postseason is one month away and i really have no idea what will happen in the playoffs.

[rjl518]

As we get prepared for 2018 Pennant Chase, lets see how the league looks:
ALE: The Red Sox and the Blue Jays have unfinished business with each other.
ALC: Looks like the Twins are in control here.
ALW: TEX, LAA and HOU are still fighting for the playoffs. OAK is still in it but they are fading.
NLE: The Mets clinched!
NLC: The Cubs are in total command here.
NLW: The LAD are better than everybody else in the NL West.