It's the thing that will drive you crazy if you play Fantasy Baseball... you know at some point you'll be affected by it. No, it's not your best player going down due to injury - it's a pitching implosion!!! Fortunately, these things are few and far between for me. Last night, however, one of my teams got hit REALLY hard as all three of my starting pitchers got lit up brighter than a Christmas tree! For those of you that play this game, you may want to be sitting down when you read this... It was REALLY U-G-L-Y!!!
The particular team of mine got off to a REAL slow start this year in the pitching categories, but with some hard work and well placed spot starts, I had managed to get that team's ERA down to a respectable 4.003 (from being in the 5.00 range a few weeks ago) and within striking distance of several teams ahead of me. This past weekend I had a decision to make - do I use the Philadelphia Phillies' Jamie Moyer or do I take the Washington Nationals' Jason Bergmann as my final starter this week. The brain said Moyer, the gut said Bergmann... and as you probably know or guessed by now, I took Moyer. All Bergmann did was throw an absolute gem the other night with 10 strikeouts, giving up only two hits and a run in eight innings after throwing no-hit ball for seven innings.
Moyer was nothing short of AWFUL last night - giving up eight earned runs in three innings... he was followed by the Milwaukee Brewers' Dave Bush who gave up five runs in 7 1/3 innings of work. That turned out to be the best of my three starts last night. Greg Maddux of the San Diego Padres ended the horrific night for me by giving up seven earned runs in 3 2/3 innings. For the night, my team gave up TWENTY earned runs in only 14 innings!! As a result, my team's ERA jumped from 4.003 to 4.316!!
Just to show you how bad and disastrous last night was for that team of mine, it will take 42 innings of shutout ball to get the ERA back down to 4.003 where it stood before! I think I need to borrow that late season 1988 version of Orel Hershiser or something!!!
Though I may be deterred a little after last night in that particular league, I have to rememeber to put things in perspective. The season is only 1/4 over, and these kind of things happen to all teams. Even after last night's disaster, I still lie only 16 points out of first place - a very managable deficit this early on. My motto always is "Never Give Up"... Anyone that knows me also knows that I give 100% effort in my leagues from the beginning until the end... Last night's failures will only drive me to want to win that title more!!! Help may soon be on the way for that team as I'm trying to acquire either the Twins' Johan Santana or the Padres' Jack Peavy in trade. I'm dangling A-Rod out there in hopes of landing one of those two aces...
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