On July 1st David Gonos was 23 points behind 2011 Tout Wars Mixed Auction champ Fred Zinkie, but since then Gonos has played on a top-ranked 116 point pace, while Zinkie has had the fourth best score in the league, with 97 points since July 1. The result is that Zinkie’s lead is down to two points.
A quick look at Gonos’ team shows limited upside. He’s in a three-way tie in Wins and seven strikeouts behind the first place team, but he’s vulnerable in Runs, HR and RBI.
And he’s been charging! Zinkie knows what needs to happen:
To win, I need my team to hit well down the stretch. I likely won’t move much in the pitching categories. If my team hits well, I should be able to stay over 120, which gives me a good chance to hold David off.
So many things could go wrong! The last week is so unpredictable! My pitching could totally blow up. If that happened, I could lose a couple pitching points. But the bigger problem would be if my team posts low hitting counting stats in the last week. I could lose several points in that situation.
Throughout the season, I always avoid being emotionally affected by the daily success or failure of my team by using the theory “everything evens out”. When my closer blows a save, no big deal. Every closer blows a few saves per season, mine just happened to use up one of his today. He may not blown one for the next month. If my team bats .100 on a given day, no big deal. That’s going to happen at times, and they may have a day later on when they bat .500. But late in the season, everything doesn’t even out! That’s what makes the last week so stressful. There won’t be time to make up a blown save, .100 batting average day etc.
The best thing that could happen for me to win, would be for David’s team to really suck next week!
