Predicate Fantasy Baseball: Week Two

As baseball settles in for a long hot summer, the Predicate Pennant begins to show its colors.

The Los Angeles Devils, true to their demonic nature, reversed last week's defeat and climbed out of the cellar with a 10-4 win over the Hooligans, despite the Hooligans' impressive relief pitching stats.

Last week's big winners the Cubs managed to keep the string of victories going with a smaller but still just as solid 8-6 victory over the Middletown Mediocres, due in no small part to Morgan Ensberg's three homers, seven RBIs, and nine hits.

After a promising first week performance, the Sparkly Knee Sox fell to The Show this week, despite narrow margins in several categories. In the end, however, the Show's roster of solid performers (such as 3 perfect innings by both Pirates reliever Mike Gonzalez and Tigers reliever Fernando Rodney) did the job and left the Sox near the bottom of the pack after a 10-3-1 loss.

It was a tough week for The Headbangers and the Monkey Grinders - despite excellent performances by star starting pitchers on both sides, somewhat lackluster batting performances left both teams looking for points wherever they could get them. In the end the metalheads edged the simians by a few points, notching an 8-6 victory.

Phil Konerko and speedy baserunners kept the Infield Flies in the race despite a 7-5-2 loss to the Mind Killer, who rose to victory on the wings of Philadelphia first baseman Chris Utley, who did not hit the ball much this week but managed to homer almost every single time he did; and Oakland relief pitcher Justin Duchscherer who pitched four perfect outs - three of them strikeouts - and White Sox Reliever Bobby Jenks who gave up a few runs but not nearly enough to keep him from recording three saves.

The Plutocrats placed themselves solidly in second and in striking distance of first with a display of batting prowess, easily overpowering the Suicide Squeezes 10-4: Four White Sox DH Jim Thome homers could not surpass the five racked up by Cincinatti first baseman Adam Dunn, leaving the Squeezes as this week's bottom feeder.

But as almost any baseball fan will tell you, April doesn't usually mean much. Plenty of teams have lost most of their first few games and come back to win pennants and World Series. Stay tuned, baseball fans.