Welcome to the fourth qualifying round of the RotoWire/Fanduel Baseball Championship! Congratulations to cocktails, who won the third qualifier two weeks ago. It helps to have your pitcher throw seven scoreless innings while striking out 16, which is exactly what cocktails got from James Paxton in a 73-point performance. They also got a combined 78.3 points from a pair of Nationals, Matt Adams and Bryce Harper.
Congratulations also to bucfan14, who currently sits atop the overall leaderboard with a 57.7-point lead through three contests. For everyone else, there’s still more than enough time to catch up. The contest includes six qualifying rounds, and only your best three scores count for the final leaderboard. There are still three rounds remaining, so even if you’re just finding out about the contest today, you’re still very much in the running. The top 25 scores on the overall leaderboard will compete for $2,000 and RotoWire subscriptions in the Championship Round on June 27.
So … did anything noteworthy happen Tuesday night?
Twice now, when Matt Harvey was the subject of one of the lead stories heading into a set of games, so much happened on the field to bury the story. “Bury,” by the way, happened to be the word that I missed in the third grade spelling bee, even though I had it used in a sentence. Along with a healthy diet and a supportive family, I received plentiful doses of humility as a kid.
The obvious big story of the day has to be James Paxton’s no-hitter against Toronto. Coming on the heels of a 16-strikeout outing against the A’s where he didn’t get the win because the bullpen couldn’t hold a 2-0 lead, Paxton took care of it all himself Tuesday night, needing just 99 pitches to go the distance. Well, not all by himself – he had a number of gems made behind him by the Mariners’ defense. Kyle Seager’s web gem justifiably garnered the most attention, but earlier in the same inning Ryon Healy made a terrific scoop on a bad throw + bad hop, plus Ben Gamel made a nice catch up against the wall in the eighth inning. I loved that he was still throwing 99+ mph against Josh Donaldson in the ninth inning. And I also love that Donaldson turned on that last pitch and hit a rocket to Seager, who of course turned in another great play.
Welcome to the third round of the RotoWire/FanDuel Baseball Championship! For those of you just joining us, this is a running tournament with six qualifying rounds leading up to the Championship Round on June 27. Each qualifying week is represented by a standard $3 single-entry tournament (sign up using the link provided above) with $500 in cash prizes up for grabs each qualifying week. More importantly, your top three scores during the tournament will qualify on the leaderboard, and the top 25 overall scores will receive entry into the FREE Championship Round with even more cash prizes and RotoWire subscriptions up for grabs!
You did not have to participate in the first two rounds to enter this week’s qualifier, so make sure to sign up here for a shot at this week’s prizes in addition to making your first (or second, or third) attempt at cracking the top 25 overall.
