The fantasy baseball playoffs roll on with the second week of two-week semifinal matchups in ESPN leagues.
Barring any postponements that push rescheduled games back into the final two weeks (or cancel them altogether), Week 23 will also be the busiest week -- at least among seven-day scoring periods -- of the entire season. Including Monday's doubleheader between the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies at Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park, with one of those games rescheduling their June 21 postponement, there are a season-high 99 games on this week's schedule. That plus the 98 on the original schedule is more than were scheduled in any other week all year, including splitting up fantasy's extended Weeks 1 and 14 into seven-day segments for comparison's sake, and all 30 teams are scheduled to play at least six times. Yes, it's another quality-over-quantity week as far as matchups are concerned.
From a scheduling standpoint, be aware that the Braves-Phillies doubleheader on Monday will get us up to date as far as makeup games, so fantasy managers hoping to reap the advantages of double dips or unexpected games on teams' originally scheduled off days will have fewer opportunities to exploit those tricks. That assumes, however, that there aren't additional postponements in the days ahead, though at this advanced stage of the year, the danger of outright cancellations is heightened.
The effects of Hurricane Lee, for example, could prove problematic for Northeastern teams at some point midweek. The Baltimore Orioles (six home games), Boston Red Sox (four week-opening home games), New York Mets (seven home games) and Phillies (four week-opening home games) might all deal with rain during the week, though the Phillies do have the advantage of a common Thursday off day with the visiting Braves if they need to shuffle games around. Make sure to keep tabs on the weather in ESPN standard leagues, in which you can set your playoff lineups daily.