Month: September 2009

i guess today is the day. though, as mike pointed out in a previous post, it could be a whole lot of nothing.

but, today jake peavy starts for me, and that indeed might tell the path forward. with peavy i have scott feldman and carl pavano starting today: three pretty good ratio pitchers.

which is good because right now i dropped to 90 points with mike holding steady at 92.

the points i lost were basically ratio points and i dropped from ninth to seventh.

but, again, to get how close this is i will give you ratio and whiff totals…

ratio
siano 1.319 first
colton 1.327 second
walker 1.330 third
they are clustered, followed by

erickson 1.359 fourth
moyer 1.360 fifth
michaels 1.363 sixth
berry 1.365 seventh
shandler 1.374

note ron shandler has 81.5 points, a third not as distant as it may seem. but, you can see a lot of room for movement all over.

as for whiffs, mike is sort of safe. sort of…

siano 937 first
peterson 912 second
walker 900 third
michaels 898 fourth
grey 897 fifth
shandler 895 sixth

again, things could stay the same, move all over and stay the same, or flip flop us all over.

note that right now grey, peterson, and i are all loading up with starters to get a chance at wins because

siano 76 first
michaels/peterson 75 second

in the scheme of things i traded cc sabathia gambling i could survive and hopefully replace sabathia with peavy.

and, i have and well, jake starts today. a good solid start might point the way to two more this season which would be great.

it will be tough without him.

for now, i am off to the yard to score the athletics/indians game. but, i will be scoreboard watching.

so, i have been sitting at my desk in my office this afternoon, working with the TV on. jeremy gutherie is pitching and well, i need wins and strikeouts and a good whip and ERA: the usual stuff.

but i cannot watch, though i feel compelled to. eyes squinting,i  turn the game on and gutherie coaxes a third out with elsbury on second. safe. so i turn the channel back to the news (watching another game would just make me want to check out gutherie even more) and during commercials, kibbitz the game.

first commercial, gutherie allows a single and kotchman scores. crap, that kills era and ratio and puts me behind with one swing.

i turn the channel. and when i turn it back it is just as luke scott clobbers a home run, tying the game, and daring me to continue watching. since i have scott on my xfl team, all the better.

when the score shifted to 2-1 boston, i turned back to the news.

but, i opened a window on my desktop to the tout wars live scoring page instead.

now i started today in first place, with 92.5 points to mike’s 92, and it had actually simply stayed like that for a day, but, when i tuned in, i had dropped to 91.5 and mike was ahead. i looked and noticed jeff erickson passed me in ratio thanks to my watching gutherie.

and bingo, as i scrolled back up i suddenly dropped to 90.5, then a second later jumped back up to 92.5, passing mike back up and putting me back in first.

but, the changes were all in the blink of an eye, so i am not really sure they really happened, you know?

there are actually five categories–whip, ERA, runs, whiffs, and wins–that pretty much moment to moment, are so tight that literally an extra out or run or strikeout initiates the pinball effect i had witnessed. mike is pretty stable in whiffs actually, leading by around 30, and i have a commanding lead in runs scored. but whiffs i want and runs he needs. in ERA we both go up and down with a coupleo of other teams and same with whip, but not against one another.

in wins, however we are fighting for the same turf with dean peterson (to whom i traded cc sabathia: a move i had to make, but one that could indeed come back to haunt). mike leads with 76 and dean and i both have 75.

sigh. while i was writing this–over a 20 minute spread– i dropped back down to second with 91.5.

see what we mean?

nerve-racking. and there is another four hours of games to play tonight.

of course it is a very cool thing that my team is even in the race, so, i am not complaining. but, this is not for the faint hearted.

Day two of the daily blogging as I battle Lawr for AL Tout supremacy with a creeping Shandler approaching. You would think this would be a landmark day in deciding the winner. I had Edwin Jackson going vs. KC and Big Erv Santana vs. Boston while Lawr was waiting all day for Masterson to battle the A’s.  E-Jax was a 1pm ET start so of course I had to watch at my desk and know that this would be ulcer inducing (here is my Twitter post before the game:  Need a big start from Edwin Jackson today so I’ll be watching which means line will look something like this 6IP 4ER 7H 4BB 1,423 pitches L) see how smart I am? I actually did lose a point in WHIP during the early going dropping from 1st to 2nd, but got it back 3 outs later. Next up was Santana, the Sox lineup is a little banged up so I had that going for me and Erv did a decent enough job to not impact the standings, Billy Wagner got the L and he’s on my squad too so that kind of stunk. Finally at 10:05pm ET I am “forced” to watch Indians @ A’s. Masterson had a dicey first and then a mighty swing a few innings later from kurt Suzuki made me sleep like a baby. Final tally on a big pitching day:  Siano=6.60ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 13 Ks and no wins or saves / Lawr: 11.25 ERA, 2.50 WHIP, 6ks no wins or saves. A potentially big day adding up to a whole lotta of nothing. ……..Siano

you have to start chewing your fingers.

to tell the truth, i am having trouble watching games now. oh, i scoreboard watch some on my laptop, but i am better off watching TCM and Law and Order repeats . better on my nerves. and, well, my team plays better.

yesterday, as soon as i tuned into joe saunders, thinking by the sixth inning i was safe, he got whacked . thought. so i turned on the giants and watched matt cain give up a homer to troy tulowitzki.

robot chicken, here i come…

but, to give you an idea, mike and i had an email exchange, and he cannot look either. he tried earlier today and look what it did for edwin jackson (on his team).

sigh. as of now, ervin santana, his guy is beating the red sox on the stick of my guy, howie kendrick, who i got as part of my cc sabathia spoils.

if i do not write tomorrow, it will be because i have no fingers left.

a bad plight for a guitar player…

why, would my fingernails factor into a tout wars blog entry?

because i don’t have any more thx to the nail biter my team is having with mlb.com’s mike siano.

swear, we have changed places maybe 10 times over the past three days, and it looks like there is no end in sight.

hopefully, over the rest of the season we can both chime in here and share our thoughts.

for now, i am in first by half a point. ugh. not enough./

i can pick up 2 points if justin masterson does his thing tonight and cops a win and 6-8 whiffs. if.

of course, like mike, i can lose 2-3 points with now rbi or a win somewhere else.

sigh. welcome to the teeter totter. to bad i cannot dig my nails into it. remember, i have none.

It’s September 17th and in a few minutes the Royals will tackle the Tigers. Tiger fans are interested due to having a magic number. Royals fans are also interested because they get to watch the brightest light in their 09′ season toe the rubber in Zack Greinke. I am REALLY interested because I am trying to win a fierce battle in AL Only Tout Wars with Lawr Michaels of creativesports.com. Lawr is currently 0.5 points ahead of me with just a little over two weeks to go. I’ve lost count of how many times the lead has changed, some nights is has changed a handful if not more which is why every single at bat, every single pitch and every single break is vital. I got one such break last night  in Boston. Lawr and I are in first and second in wins separated by one win.

Joe Saunders who Lawr has was cruising and even though the Red Sox made a game of it late Saundo was still in line for the win until my new best friend Kevin Jepsen decided to go poopy in the bed. I laughed I cried and then I begged my players to score some runs!!! You see this battle between Lawr and I is not just about Wins it’s about almost every category. Matthew Berry of ESPN may be 9th overall but in the runs category we keep going back and forth. Right now he has me by one run which equals one point which would equal first place, get my drift? This is why it’s so important all owners put their best possible team on the floor no matter what place they are in because it matters. I could write all day about other near misses and great turns of events that have me going to bed in first and waking up in second and vice-versa, but we still have two plus weeks to go. Excruciating.

I’ll be back again with more ins and outs of our battle this is just the teaser……………………Siano