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Quest for $100,000
May 20, 2008
Shawn Childs, Baseball Mafia
With no hitting and bad pitching, I slid to 79th
overall. I’m 921 points out of first place overall. Last week I had no
saves and broke even in wins. My era and whip took a beating. Andrew
Jones still hasn’t hit. Corey Patterson is headed to my bench. Rich
Harden is back, but the question is how long before he goes down again.
This week I’m benching Patterson and putting in Jody Gerut. He could hit
lead off for San Diego. He could steal a base and hit a couple of
homeruns, but he isn’t a plus in either category.
Cliff Lee and Villanueva have double starts this week.
Villanueva is on his last leg. If he struggles this week, there is a
good chance he is cut. Hamels, Bonser, Harden, and Smith are in also. I
was going to use my last spot for Kershaw who is supposed to pitch on
Saturday, but I can’t take the chance and get a zero for the week. Jesse
Litsch was schedule for double starts, but a rain out on Sunday pushed
his second start back a day unless Marcum or A.J. Burnett pitch on three
days rest.
Andrew Jones is down to 54 % active this week. I could see
benching him if I had someone who plays everyday, but I don’t have that
option. If he has a 3 homer and 10 RBI week, I could miss out on 10% of
his stats for the year. I’ll probably ride him a couple more weeks, but
I’ll have to make a move if the right player becomes available. Last
year Pat Burrell was hitting .215 at the All-Star break with 11
homeruns. He hit 19 in the second half of the season and batted .295.
The big difference was that Burrell was walking at a high rate. He had a
58/58 BB:K rate before the break and 56/62 after. Jones has taken a few
walks, but he gets himself out more often than not. So for now, I’ll
just have to believe he will come around. In his last at bat last night,
he hit a shot to the center field wall that Bourn made a circus catch.
Hell on Saturday night he should have had a bloop hit that they gave
Tejada an error on. Tejada was running hard into left field and called
for the ball, but he never made it far enough back to get a glove on the
ball. It was a tough play and I think it shouldn’t have been an error
because he never stopped running or put the glove on the ball. I might
be pulling harder than Andrew to get some momentum going.
I don’t know what Cliff Lee is drinking, but I hope he has a
season supply. He pitched 9 shutout innings against Toronto, but he
didn’t get the win. Shaun Marcum matched him for 8 innings. To me, I
don’t think he was as sharp as he was in his other starts that I have
watched. He walked two batters which matched his season total. He seemed
to overthrow a few times and hang a couple of breaking pitches. His
defense helped him out with a couple of nice plays and even converted a
triple play. In the 9th inning, he walked the lead off
batter. He was sacrificed to second when Alexis Rios came to the plate.
On the 1st pitched, he hit a line shot toward the right field
line. Martinez made a leaping stab to rob him of a hit. Glaus then hit a
slow ground ball between 3rd and short. He beat it out for an
infield hit. Lee quickly got ahead of Kevin Mench with two strikes. Lee
then made a huge mistake. He threw the 0-2 pitch down the middle and
Mench lined it to right centerfield. Franklin Gutierrez made a diving
catch to rob him of a hit. He threw 78 strikes in 117 pitches. He threw
the ball well, but he did make some mistake that he got away with. He
lowered his ERA to 0.67. I could see him being flat his next time out.
This game looked like it took a lot out of him.
The fantasy gods are cruel sometimes. You try stick with a
player as long as you can, but there is time when you have to make a
move. This week I benched Cory Patterson. It wasn’t that I didn’t like
him anymore, but he was losing at bats to Ryan Freel. Well Patterson
gets the start on Monday and goes 4 for 5 and then comes in the game on
Tuesday after an injury to Keppinger. He goes 2 for 3 with a steal. His
replacement Jody Gerut has gone 3 for 8 with a homerun. It’s not big
mistake, but it’s amazing to see a player get hot the week you sit him
down. It’s like they know.
On Tuesday night I had Jesse Litsch and Carlos Villanueva
pitch. Carlos was behind 3-1 in the top of the 4th when he
got out of a 2nd and 3rd base jam. Milwaukee came
back in the bottom of the 5th to take a 5-3 lead. The score
stayed the same until the top of the 9th when Eric Gagne came
to the mound. He had lost his closing job and pitched two innings the
day before. I thought he would blow it for sure. With two outs and a
runner on second, Andrew Jones came to the plate. He was pinch hitting.
I could see it now Jones launches one and blows a win for my team. Deep
down you want him to get a hit so he gets something positive going, but
you know how tough wins are. You need him to go down easy. Gagne gets
ahead of him 0-2. Jones battles him for a walk to put runners on 1st
and 2nd. Juan Pierre came up and swung at the first pitch and
pops it up. I’ll take the win. Villanueva’s line was 6 8 32 02. He might
live another week if he doesn’t get bombed in Boston this weekend.
Litsch pitched well. He only threw 61 pitches with 42 going for strikes.
He left the game in the 6th, but Toronto won 5-3. With two
wins in three starts, I’m off to a good start for the week. Maybe I can
gain some ground this week. I only had 5 K’s for the day so I have some
work to do in that area.
My offense is still stagnant, but I do have three homeruns
and two steals for the week. I could use a 24 for 50 hitting night to
jump start my average. Kurt Suzuki is very cold. He is in a 0-18 streak.
A couple more days like that and he will lose his lead off job. I need
players like Teahan and Milledge to start driving in some runs and
hitting homeruns.
Rafael Soriano threw again with no pain. It looks like he
could be back next week. I hate to say it, but I’d like Smoltz to have a
set back. A quarter of the baseball season is gone and I only have 12
saves. I’ll need 26-28 per quarter to catch up. I’m dreaming if I think
I can get those numbers with my bullpen.
There
been an Andrew Jones sighting! He hit his second homerun of the year
last night. He has raised his average .182. If he gains five points, he
ties Rickie Weeks for team bum in batting average. Between the two, I
have 276 at bats with a .185 batting average. I’m 35 hits behind .280. I
have 2044 at bats on the season so far. If I want to make a push over
the 3 weeks in batting average, I’ll need to bat .317 over the next 956
at bats to get to .280. It seems like an impossible task in that short
of time. I’d be happy to get back over .270 at this point in the season.
Cole Hamels pitched a complete game shutout. I now have three wins on
the week with three starts left. Greg Smith pitched earlier in the day
an wasn’t very
impressive. He did get 7 K’s. His final line was 4.2 7 33 3 7. Parra and
Lester out pitched Bonser and Smith, but none of them won their games.
Looking back, I should have started Lester against Baltimore. He had a
better match up. Bonser faced Halladay at home. I thought it might be a
low scoring game. Bonser has struggled in the 1st inning
three times this year. Both Lester and Parra had leads in the 7th
inning. Parra looked better, but his defense and bullpen let him down.
It looks like it is going to be a long year for Milwaukee starters. I’ll
keep Parra at least one more week, but I don’t think I can continue to
use him if he can’t last until the 7th inning. The more I
watch Milwaukee play the more I see how bad Rickie Weeks is at second.
It’s not like he has one problem. He doesn’t throw well or have a good
glove. I don’t even think he turns the double play well. Between the
defense and the bad bullpen, the Milwaukee starters aren’t good enough
to dominate except for Sheets. I think it is time to move away from
them. I’ll ride Parra one more week because he has doubles, but he will
have to pitch well to stay on the team.
Rich Harden pitched lights out in Atlanta. His line was 7 4
11 1 8. He won the game and gave me my 4th win of the week.
He has now pitched 21 innings on the year. He threw 102 pitches with 72
of them going for strikes.
On Sunday Cliff Lee finally had a bad outing. He gave up 5
runs which was more than he did in all his games for the year which
covered 53 2/3 innings. He threw plenty of strikes 69/98. He was matched
up against Edinson Volquez who threw 66 strikes in 111 pitches. He is
7-1, but they will get to him. Carlos Villaneuva pitched like you would
expect in Boston…BAD. He gave up 5 runs in 4 innings. When he walked off
the mound, I told him he was all done for me. I surrender. I’m lucky he
gave me one win for the week. Maybe he will come around, but I need
someone who is more consistent.
My offense has been in a slump. I hit .231 for the week and
I’m down to .259 on the year. Maybe I just made some bad investment.
Milledge and Suzuki have played so bad that I have to be concern about
them losing playing time. Weeks and Jones just can’t get it going. It’s
not like I can go the waiver wire and replace them. A fantasy team is
just like a major league team sometimes. You are stuck with decision you
made to build your team. In real baseball, you can trade someone you
don’t like, but you won’t get full value when they are playing poorly.
So if they are healthy, you have to wheel them out there and hope they
perform up to your expectations. If they don’t, you will have a bad year
and have to reevaluate your strategy for next year. But for now the game
is on, you keep looking for some help on the waiver wire. You never know
when a player will get hot or how long he will play well. Maybe your
team plays better in the second have of the season. The Yankees and
Detroit have played poorly this year. They are playing below average. If
they get hot for a couple of months, they will get back in the race. So
the last three weeks, my team has hit below average. I’m hoping they get
hot together to help me make a push in offense to put me in a position
to be a top team. I hit 10 homeruns for the week and had 5 steals. My
runs and RBI were bad. I had 34 in each category. I lost a lot of ground
in offense this week.
My pitching for the week was good overall. I had 4 wins and
3 saves with 54 K’s. I gained some ground in K’s, but I held serve in
the other pitching categories. So for the year, I’m 6 wins behind and
about 12 saves off the pace. I don’t have an answer for the saves yet,
but maybe Soriano will be back soon. Smoltz might have had a set back.
I’m now a couple of strikeouts ahead of pace for the year.
I made only one free agent pickup this week. I picked up
Glen Perkins who has double starts this week. He will only have a
starting job until Baker or Liriano come back. As I mentioned, I sent
Carlos Villaneuva packing. I keep pushing the double starters and have
yet to be rewarded with one of them winning two starts.
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