Seattle Zephyrs Recaps: Week 7, 8-7 Win

After a couple dominating weeks, Week 7 went down to the wire, with the Zephyrs finally pulling out the win when Daniel Bard snagged a hold in tonight's Cubs v. Red Sox matchup. Bard's four keys outs allowed the Zephyrs to tie with our opponent in the holds category, breaking an otherwise 8-8 tie. It wasn't easy, but the team walks away with their third straight win and maintains a 2-game lead in the league standings.

The theme of this week was pitching, pitching and more pitching. The Zephyrs set season highs in wins, ERA, WHIP and strikeout-to-walk ratios, while racking up an insane 71 strikeouts in only seven days. All of this was needed to offset the offensive shellacking we were subjected to by the opposing team, Utley's Uglies, who bombarded us with 11 homers and 73 hits overall. The Zephyrs were playing without the injured Grady Sizemore, while Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gonzalez also missed time, but there's no way around the fact that the Zephyr run-producing juggernaut wasn't there this week. Thankfully, a whole new set of games is right around the corner and the team looks poised to continue their run with new pickup Logan Morrison holding down one of the outfield spots.

Off to the stats...

Offense
-Runs: Dustin Pedroia, 5
-Hits: Adrian Gonzalez, 13
-Home Runs: Carlos Gonzalez, 2
-Runs Batted In: tie - A. Gonzalez, C. Gonzalez, 7
-Stolen Bases: Jose Reyes, 3
-Walks: Colby Rasmus, 6
-Batting Average*: A. Gonzalez, .481
-On-base Percentage plus Slugging*: C. Gonzalez, 1.057

*minimum 15 at-bats

...and the Week 7 Offensive MVP Award goes to:


ADRIAN GONZALEZ! I'm starting to wonder if this MVP award is a curse. Every single player I've given it to seems to follow their great week with a lame one, which is exactly what Victor Martinez did here in Week 7. Thankfully, I've got guys like Adrian here to pick up the slack. After narrowly missing out on the top honors last week, Gonzo hammered his opponents this week, leading the team in hitting. Don't fail on me next week, Adrian. We need you to stay awesome.

Pitching
-Wins: tie - Daniel Hudson, Michael Pineda, 2
-Losses: tie - James Shields, Jered Weaver, 1
-Saves: J.J. Putz, 3
-Strikeouts: Shields, 22
-Holds: Daniel Bard, 1
-Earned Run Average*: Pineda, 0.00
-Walks plus Hits Per Inning Pitched*: Pineda, 0.43
-Strikeout-to-Walk Ratio*: Pineda, 16.00

*minimum 5.0 innings pitched

...and the Week 7 Cy Young Award goes to:


MICHAEL PINEDA! What a ridiculous week for the young Mariners rookie, who threw fourteen combined shutout innings over two games, striking out 16 while walking only one batter. Yikes. Although James Shields had another ridiculous week, giving Pineda honors here is the easiest decision I've had yet. Giving up no runs will do that. It's wonderful when my real baseball team and my fantasy team can both win. Thanks, Michael.

[Programming Note: Friday's The Week in Albums post has been skipped, since I was A) traveling from Boston to Seattle at the time and B) no worthwhile albums were released. Shucks. The Week in Albums will return this upcoming Friday.]