My final NAHWAL. Parting is such sweet sorrow. But hey, these things happen...it was a good run, but its time for me to move on. I don't really know how much I'll be hanging around here anymore either...I'm ridiculously busy with "real life" and nearly every discussion around here results in people with thin skin making personal attacks on others, which is just uncalled for.

1) Pick to click

2) Attendance

3) How many walks does Medlen have?

And just for you guys, I'll even get the standings up tonight. Awwwwwwwww, how sweet.

Game tonight is on the MLB Network at 8 PM. Check it.

If anyone wants to take over NAHWAL next week, shoot me an e-mail or post in here. Depending on interest, I'll run a poll tomorrow to let you guys pick who you want to run things...otherwise, its going to die, because no one seems to really care anymore. These things happen.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many hits does RYAN CHURCH have in his Braves debut?

What a fantastic day today was...Francoeur is gone! Fantastic! I highly, highly doubt Church will be with the team this evening, so we should see him tomorrow...man, I can't believe he's gone. Awesome.

On a sadder note, I will officially be stepping down from doing NAHWAL after the game on Sunday at Colorado. If anyone wants to keep it going, please let me know by shooting me an e-mail (click my name), and I'll pass your name along to gondeee, who has all final say in the matters.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will WHOEVER STARTS IN RIGHT FIELD WHO IS NOT NAMED JEFF FRANCOEUR =) reach base?

Red hot Rockies...lukewarmish Braves? Hey, whatever. Apparently the Rockies have really good pitching for once...imagine that.  On a related note, looks like the NL is going to lose the All-Star Game again since Victorino was inexplicably voted in. This final vote thing is retarded, because all it does is encourage fans of teams with a player in the voting to start up some stupid campaign, and if the team is home at the time, to set up an unfair voting plan. Whatever.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many strikeouts does Tommy Hanson have?

Yada yada yada. I'm tired and busy. Cut me a break.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many hits will Prado have?

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To the house of horrors we go, with the wind blowing out...and I can't really write poetry, so we'll just stop there. Should-be All-Star Jair Jurrjens on the hill for ATL, while former perfect game tease Randy Wells goes for the Cubs. Wells is having a shockingly good season, and I don't think its that much of a fluke...just a real late bloomer. We'll see what we can do against him this evening.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many hits does Jurrjens allow?

Hey look at that, I'm getting this up 3 hours before gametime. Imagine that. Hope everyone had a good fourth...mine was interesting, got cut off at Chilis with a bunch of friends when only 2 of us were really drinking. Half of us each ordered 2 entrees too...that was fun. Still bummed out about my man McNair though...RIP to one of my heroes.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many hits does Matt Diaz have?

A happy fourth to all. I expect hardly any entries today because of the lovely holiday. Remember everyone, we have a 1 PM game today, and everyone will probably be blacked out of it because of Fox's lovely regulations...in fact, all but 4 games will be blacked out nationally since Fox holds exclusive rights to all games that start before 7 PM on a Saturday. So if you're not doing anything today and are in the mood for baseball...yeah. Sorry.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will Martin Prado walk?

I don't know how much longer I'm going to do this, I really don't have the time anymore.

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1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will Chipper Jones reach base?

Going for the sweep with our best pitcher on the mound against a rookie, and the offense is really in sync...what could go wrong? Knowing this team, Vazquez will allow a solo homer and nothing else, and the offense will get 3 hits for the entire game, and we'll lose. These things happen, I guess.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many fly outs will hopeful NL all star Javier Vazquez get?

Sorry for the lateness, I've had an extremely busy day and am actually posting this while my professor is babbling on about the syllabus and such...ecommerce, how exciting! Anyway, big win last night, lets see if the boys can keep it rolling tonight against the hated rivals. Cole Hamels likes to eat our souls...can he do it again? I sure as hell hope not.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many putouts will Prado record in the field?

I figure I'll get this up now since I don't really know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning (if I wake up late or not) and at lunch (if I go out somewhere or just come home and eat a boring sandwich [and having a boring life]). The series preview of this series with Philly is up over at BravesHeart, so check that out. On Tuesday, fat Joe Blanton goes for Philly...fresh off a 10 strikeout performance. WTF is THAT?

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times do the Braves strike out against Joe Blanton?

So here we are, attempting to avoid a sweep and lost 5 out of 6 against our "natural rival" this season.  The absolute garbage lineup trotted out yesterday resulted in a grand total of 0 runs, when 2 would have sufficed. Poor, poor Javier Vazquez, the man just cannot catch a break. Tommy Hanson on the hill Sunday, looking to improve his record to an undeserved 4-0. What will happen? We shall see.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will the infallible Martin Prado reach base?

Hello. If anyone was not privy to the game thread, you missed my lovely story about having to reinstall Windows on my 1 day old laptop thanks to me being a complete moron. Always a fun time...spent almost all night downloading all the programs I had on Thursday and getting everything transferred over from my external. Moral of the story: when Windows tells you not to shut your computer off during an update, for all that is holy, DO NOT TURN YOUR COMPUTER OFF. Good times.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will Nate McLouth reach base?

This new laptop is without a shadow of a doubt, the best thing in the history of ever. Its so quiet...so sleek...so fast...I mean, an authoring project in TMPGenc that took 8 hours on my old one took just over 1 when I did it last night. I've got all the programs I need (whether they are legal or not is anyone's best guess), though I still haven't installed Nero because every version on the internet is loaded with trojans. Ah, the internet. God bless.

ON TO THE PICKS!

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many STRIKES does JJ throw? 2 points if you're dead on, 1 points if you're off by 2 in either direction.

My back hurts, my neck hurts, typing on a laptop's keyboard instead of a normal keyboard is confusing me, I forgot what its like to have a number pad, I'm starving and food is a half hour away...yeah. What a fantastic Thursday. Looking forward to kicking back with some brews tomorrow and having a nice long relaxing weekend.

You all have...40 minutes. Tick tick tick.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will the 6-9 hitters reach base?

Big win last night...second straight shutout...whoda thunk it? Also, Tommy Hanson's last 2 starts have resulted in Braves shutouts. Coincidence? I think not. KENSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN on the hill for the Braves tonight against the vastly overrated Joba Chamberlain. For more on my Joba hate, check out my pitching preview over at BravesHeart And be sure to link all your Yankee fans there too, so they can try to trash me about it.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will the top 5 hitters in the order reach base?

I was busy having a life today, which is why there was no NAHWAL for the Cubs game. Will get the Red Sox games from the weekend scored tomorrow night. Working 3 jobs and having a summer class start in a week...and the birthday thing...real crazy times in the bigjoe household. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Being an adult is rough.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many walks does Tommy Hanson allow?

Tough loss last night, but when Beckett is on, he is ON. Braves look to salvage the series today, and we're sending our "ace" Jair Jurrjens to the hill to take on soft-tossing old man Tim Wakefield. Lets see whats going to happen there...hopefully the offense can bang some hits around and get things done.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) Who will the first Brave to reach base today be? Look at that...a qualitative question!

Nice win last night, and here we are, in Derek Lowe's glorious return to Boston. Hopefully things go just as well tonight, with Josh Beckett opposing him on the hill. Aside from strikeouts, their "boring" numbers look strikingly similar. Interesting. Also, as soon as I get this post up, I'm going to score the past 3 games worth of NAHWAL that I've been ignoring. Fun for all!

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will the shockingly hot Garret Anderson reach base?

After a one day reprieve, NAHWAL is back! Hooray! Yeah, I just totally forgot last night. Oh well, its just one day...but man, some of you really take your NAHWAL seriously, don't you? Christ people, its just a game for some crappy prizes. Chill out.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many times will Jeff Francoeur swing the bat during an at bat?

TWO BONUS POINTS TO THE FIRST PERSON TO GET THIS QUESTION RIGHT: why should the 19th be a national holiday?

Screw it, I'm tired and won't be up for the end of the game tonight. As I post this its like...the 3rd inning maybe? And the game starts back up at 10? Yeah...I have to be at work to unload like 26 pallets at 8 AM. Not really in the mood for what will likely be an anemic offensive effort. But I digress...

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) What will be the difference in Vazquez's walks & strikeouts? (strikeouts - walks or vice versa, give me a positive number...nothing negative)

Didn't we already go to Cincy once this year? Whats up with that...bring them to Atlanta, dammit. This is the best pitching matchup of the series, with Jair Jurrjens going up against Aaron Harang, who doesn't suck this year. I did this matchup a little more in depth over at BravesHeart, check it out in my Reds series preview.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many hits does Jurrjens allow?

For those that didn't see, the winner of S5 was HandsOffSnakey...congrats!

As promised, heres the early thread for Sunday...standings below are going into SATURDAY, not Sunday. Scoring for both days will be done on Sunday evening. Probably going to get a pic thread thrown up too, but I doubt that will be done on Sunday...probably Monday night, after I get back from work at the job I DON'T like doing.

8 POINTS
dc_allday
HandsOffSnakey

7 POINTS
Bravely going forward
justincredubil02
MarkLempke

6 POINTS
10/4
brndn
soup du jour
Zeus12888

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many STRIKEOUTS does Derek Lowe get?

Nice win last night, although the stupid use of the back end of the bullpen was irritating. Standings anyone?

8 POINTS
dc_allday
HandsOffSnakey

7 POINTS
Bravely going forward
justincredubil02
MarkLempke

6 POINTS
10/4
brndn
soup du jour
Zeus12888

Chaos, no? And I'm putting up NAHWAL for Sunday as well since I will be in Baltimore, and I'm not bringing my laptop...so sorry folks, gonna have to wait until Sunday night to determine your winner.

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) Hm...how many BALLS does THE HORSE (that would be Mr Canizares) take this evening?

So yeah, I doubt I'm going to Baltimore tomorrow...real tired, and too poor for 2 nights of hotel...probably still going to go on Saturday & Sunday, though. We'll see. But in the meantime...you want chaos? I have chaos.

8 POINTS
dc_allday
HandsOffSnakey

7 POINTS
Bravely going forward
justincredubil02

6 POINTS
10/4
brndn
MarkLempke
soup du jour
Zeus12888

Thats right, 9 people within 2 points or less of the lead. Its anyone's game!

1) Attendance

2) Pick to click

3) How many hits + walks does Tommy Hanson allow?