WEEK 5 ROTO-RANKINGS

THE TITS
1.) THE LACEY UNDERALLS (1st Place/ 5th SOS/138H/134P = 296)
The LOWV school bully keeps stealing people’s lunch money week in and week out. This week, he managed to do it to poor little Mikey in some rather unconventional ways – can you say two wins from Papelbon and Six steals from Kemp? However, the truth is there is little to find fault with here other than a slight over reliance on some fast starts and a jettisoning of veteran talent. We’re not saying that LU GM Nicholas Lombardi inadvertently slipped into his bad idea jeans the morning he dropped Giambino and Sheffield; we’re just not quite as certain as that cocky bastard that they’ll finish the season worse than Jacobs, Keppinger, McLouth or Kemp. Also, while the bullpen remains perhaps the strongest in the league, the pitching staff appears to have stumbled a bit last week. )Will the real Micah Owings please stand up?) But hey, when you are riding a hot hand like Mr. Lombardi, you let it ride. Am I right?


UNBUTTONING THE BLOUSE
2.) LASORDA'S MANICOTTI (2nd Place/14th SOS/131H/132P = 277)
Don’t look now…seriously, don’t. It will pain you. LM’s offense is starting to really click and that scares the metrosexual out of us, as that likely foretells massive, debilitating ass-poundings for his future opponents. Two words: Ryan Howard. What’s that you ask? Oh, just the only regular LM starter who didn’t hit over .300 this past week. Now, his pitching was less than stellar this week than typical for Tommy’s Boys, but hey, thanks to Los Español Aventuras di Ricardo…buenos noches mes amigos!

3.) EQUIPE ROI DU RADEAU (4th Place/5th SOS/103H/134P = 258)
The slow, steady rise continues for this plucky club of god-fearin’ misfits. This week we noted that Equipe returned to the time-honored strategy of employing six bullpen pitchers, allowing it to drive its ERA and WHIP down to ungodly levels. While we still aren’t completely sold on this vanilla ice cream loving prayer circle jerk, it's clear PMF simply couldn’t handle Equipe's trademark EBRBIAH approach to offense. (Everything But RBIs and Homers) The young and talented outfield just keeps on producing in just about every category, so much so that veteran Equiper Fonzy Soriano rode the bench for much of the week. Rumor has it, the Fonz has jumped the shark as far as Equipe is concerned and is being actively shopped by the team's GM. As for the "break out" by Carlos Quinten, like Guillen, it looks Equipe is going to let it ride until the wheels come off.

4.) FECAL CLATTER (3rd Place/13th SOS/155H/83P = 252)
We know, we know – FC shat the bed against The Flash. But, good god, a “down” week out of FC’s offense would still have beaten more than half the league. This begs the question, where did this offensive juggernaut come from and what did it do with the bracchiophillic GM Christopher David Sahl? One thing is for sure, his undying love for all things young and Arizonian looks like its no longer unrequited. The C&C Music Factory of Jackson and Young just keep on banging out the hits. On the flip side, what the hell happened to the pitching? The worst part for CDS is that the problems are not entirely talent related (although that is a legitimate concern) rather, the majority of the recent damage has been self-inflicted, bone-headed self-flagellation. We hope CDS hasn’t gotten so dong-crazy watching Hart and Young, that he’s forgotten the beauty of a well-pitched week.


CABALLO NEGRO
5.) THE MOTHERSHIP (7th Place/12th SOS/124H/92P = 227)
Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. This week, Mike was gently braised in a balsamic reduction before being paired with organic, pesticide free fiddlehead ferns, a turnip and fingerling mash and a rich, full-bodied bottle of 2004 Bodegas El Nido. I hope LU raised a glass to the middle infield, because it was (uncharacteristically) the Ship's toothpick-wielders who let him down this week. Of course, it also didn’t help that the music (finally) stopped in his pitching rotation's game of musical chairs…leaving Andy Petite, Armando Galarraga, Jeff Francis, Gavin Floyd and Manny Acosta standing around awkwardly holding mediocre results. Still, we’d love to Fukudome anytime, anywhere and we would totally take Kelly Johnson to prom. On a serious tip, we only kid cause we love, Mikey Boy. We know you're built Tonka tough.


PEEPING TOMS
6.) THE FLASH (6th Place/1st SOS/109H/84P = 216)
We know that felt good. After weeks and weeks slogging it out against the toughest schedule in the league, the Flash has a signature victory…and a decisive one at that. In general, The Flash just outproduced FC at every level offensively and managed to eek out some razor thin margins. We tip our cap to a well-managed week and would like to propose a toast to a ridiculously awesome bullpen week. Huzzah! Hell, that almost makes up for the taste left in our mouths after watching Lowe throw over 50 pitches without recording an out in the first on Sunday…almost.

7.) D'LUCIOUS BITCH PIES (5th Place/7th SOS/91H/101P = 210)
O Manny, Manny, where for art thou, Manny? Certainly not putting up solid numbers for DLBP. For the first week in recent memory, we saw the limits of bikram yoga and The Secret, and Manny looked disappointingly human. All in all, it was just a tough loss last week to the “Bengie Molina’s Wreckin Shop.” On the bright side, we saw the successful return of Cuddyer to the lineup who promptly put up five RBIs. Really, the offense was actually quite decent, with solid production out of most of the key players; the real let down for DLBP was a pitching staff who failed to record a win. Ouch. For the most part this unfortunate turn was the fault of the (totally absent) supporting offenses and strange, mindnumbing decisions by umpires. To clarify, we are referring specifically to Timmy Lincecum’s “loss” which was caused exclusively by a strange and inexplicable balk call in a 3-2 loss to the Rockies.

8.) POOR MAN'S FART (8th Place/2nd SOS/92H/97P = 209)
Perhaps nothing symbolizes PMF’s struggles so well as Roy Halladay. For the third week in a row, Halladay notched up a CG. However, this was somewhat unusual in one respect: he won. That’s right, this early in the season PMF has already suffered two CG Halladay losses. However, in the end a great pitching week fueled by incredible K-totals and great peripherals just couldn’t quite edge out the numbers put up by a stellar ERdR. On the offensive end, great weeks by Berkman, Pence and Loney fueled a spirited charge that put up top notch power numbers, but fell just short in the on-base peripherals. In the end, PMF has suffered through a brutal schedule and finished just three games under .500. If the offense continues to turn it around (and PMF finds a second basemen he actually likes for more than a day or two) then we expect a surge in the standings as PMF feasts on some weaker competition.


VASOLINE DREAMS
9.) SNATURALS (9th Place/10th SOS/110H/71P = 192)
It defies explanation. Snatty has Hernandez and Inge catching, yet still manages to get a spirited .313 BA and .826 OPS out of his lineup. It’s certainly a head-scratcher trying to figure out where his lineup found 70 hits, but we think the answer lies in the resurgence of David Ortiz. Having Derek Jeter put up 12 hits in a week ain’t so bad either. But, really, against any team other than VR, Snatty would not have fared so well. I mean, who wins the pitching battle with a 3-4 record, 4.14 ERA and only 1 save? This team needs to make a move for starting pitching yesterday.

10.) EL GUAPO (11th Place/11th SOS/77H/95P = 180)
For the second week, the Guapster had to do without ARod, yet somehow he managed to eek out a win. Kudos. He can thank two 11-hit performances out of Rowand and Hermida and the return of the Custino. We definitely feel silly suggesting that Guap cut the Custino after watching him blast moon shot after moon shot last week en route to a 2.076 OPS…unfortunately they were all solo shots. El Guapo’s pitching staff continued its impressive run with Gorzelanny, Haren, Sheets and Meche having impressive outings. Incredibly, Lidge, Percival and Todd Bleepin Jones all recorded saves in the same week. When was the last time that happened? 1998?

11.) THE BANANA BELT (10th Place/3rd SOS/81H/75P = 173)
Deep within the bowels of the League of Women Voters’ Society for Preservation of Humiliation, located in the staid and sober town of Rockport, MA, there resides an encyclopedic Annals of Most Reprehensible Gaffes and Errors to ever occur in the history of this illustrious league. In volume XII, between the dog-eared pages raccounting El Guapo’s oft noted illiteracy and H-Cloud’s expulsion from the league, future historians will find thirty pages of incredulous and apoplectic text penned by Nicholas Lombardi detailing the Banana Belt’s failure to meet the minimum innings requirement in a key matchup against rival LM. It appears Mssr. Lombardi must take up his quill once again, as our defending champion shat the proverbial bed again while living la vida loca.


THE DUNGEON MASTERS
12.) BONOMATORY INFLUENCE (12th Place/7th SOS/74H/70P = 155)
In what was billed as the “Battle of the Titans”, BI emerged victorious over unBeleaguerable. And as much as it shocks us, this was not a hollow victory. Nay, sir. BI actually put up respectable numbers. First off, his boys blasted 10 homers and managed to only strikeout 26 times. That’s fairly incredible. Second, his pitching staff put together one of the best weeks of the season, notching five victories, one CG/SHO and posting a sub 3 ERA. Wowee zowee. We think Hudson, Bonderman and Looper and Kuruda all took umbrage to our comments last week. We tip our cap. To make our crow eating session worse, BI has called up Mad Max Scherzer (who, incidentally, has only walked two batters all year in AAA) and has scheduled him to pitch TWICE against our native team, ERdR. For future reference, let sleeping dogs lie.

13.) UNBELEAGUERABLE (14th Place/7th SOS/81H/57P = 147)
God hates fags. I think that was pretty much proven this week. Oh wait, I mean, god hates Chads. Anyways, I’ve rarely seen a team suffer through all the notable pitching meltdowns in a single week…until now. Cueto, Corpas and Bannister…oh my. Is that a plus 6 ERA for the week? To make matters worse, Phil Huges managed to break a rib while attempting to fellate himself and is now likely to miss as much as two months. To be fair, his offensive numbers aren’t bad (outside of those K-totals), they just aren’t good enough to bouy those atrocious pitching numbers.

14.) VICIOUS RUMORS (13th Place/3rd SOS/71H/58P = 143)
Open letter to Vlad “the impaler” Guerrero, please stop sucking VR dry. It’s painful to watch. You can’t be the highest paid player in the league and put up .167 and a goose egg in just about every offensive category. Sincerely, the rest of the LOWV. Of course, Vlad is just symptomatic of the chronic underperformance that has plagued VR this season. We don’t get it. How can such an enticing core of players, featuring Vlad, Youk and Markakis be so bad? Hopefully, this is just a slow start. A painful, bone crushingly slow start…reminiscent of the great Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919.