[StLee]

Analysis

Now we're cooking with petrified driftwood! The yin and yang of life rotates in perfect balance. Down teams are going up and up teams are going down.

If any league can show that more right now, it is the 2296 equivalent of the same situation around this time. The Brotherhood League now has a five-game difference from first place to last, meaning every team is very much in the playoff race again. Still, first-place The Slog and second-place County Crossing and Finch Farm look to have the advantages, but Easy Town, Salem, and Nordhagen Beach can all be in this.

It was mentioned before that there is something about the Party Boys playing County Crossing. This season, that is true just like it was last season. Nordhagen Beach beat County Crossing again, foiling the Bloodbugs' plans to move into first place. Nordhagen Beach is now 4-2 on the season, and also currently is 2-1 versus Finch Farm. The Party Boys are the Ghouls' best friends at the moment. Next week, Nordhagen Beach gets a chance to avenge the sweep at the hands of Salem, which could see the Party Boys right back in the mix. The bullpen has been looking much better as of late, and the Boys could be a force if the starters catch up.

A shock on the weekend was Oberland coming back down to the wastes in the Railroad League. The T-51s had not lost a season series in the first six weeks, but Vault 81 took care of business at home, sweeping Oberland and moving into a second-place tie with Egret. Though the Dwellers have not been a good pitching team, they held Oberland to 13 total runs in the series, a huge accomplishment for the team 6th in the Railroad League in starters ERA (6.96).

The team that we really need to talk about is Goodneighbor in the Minutemen League. With the sweep of Atom, the Hancocks have now won six straight and 16 of their last 17 games. The team that won the Battle for the North Tournament in the preseason looked shaky to start the regular season, losing their first four games. However, that was the exception to their season. At this rate, no other team, in the CBO looks even somewhat as good.

For the rest of the ML, Quincy and Warwick are notches ahead of the rest of the league, meaning this is truly the only division where some teams are not at all in the race. The Cats and Jamaica Plain are both 6-15 and eight games back of second-place Quincy. That would mean a full turn around in the next seven weeks just to be in the race. In a 20-week season, that is not very likely more than 1/3 of the way through the season.

In the Institute League, there is not much change, but defending league champions, the Abernathy Adamantium, have now won four straight to pull back into the pack. At 8-13, the Adamantium are not quite ready to declare themselves playoff ready, but they have pulled even with Concord, whom they swept, and sit just a game back of fourth place Fort Hagen. Add to that, the last place team in the IL is only seven games back of first place, so this is another league like the BL where the full league is still up for grabs.