Week Eighteen

How big a difference can one game make? How many categories can one game swing? The answer is a lot.

When Sunday's action began, I was leading my week 7-5. A lot of categories were close. Many of them would depend on whether or not Travis Hafner realizes that he is in fact not a light hitting middle infielder.

At roughly 4:oo o'clock, I was (among other things) losing K's by 2, and ahead in WHIP by .002. Yes, Cbssportsline does take it to the third decimal point. At this point I am also tied in Wins and 1 save behind. Enter Francisco Cordero, closer extraordinare, who has not given up a single run at home all season. He's called upon to protect a 3 run lead in the 9th and quickly gets two outs, unfortunately, none via the K. This moment, as Jimmy Rollins steps to the plate, is what I will refer to as Moment Zero. Which is to say, this is the moment where my week began to fall apart.

Cordero promptly walks Rollins on 4 pitches. Why? I guess he was afraid Rollins would homer and close the gap to 2 runs. Next up is Tadahito Iguchi. If he gets a hit or a walk, Cordero's WHIP will hit 2, and I'll lose that category. Cordero quickly gets ahead and then throws a great slider down and away that Iguchi taps toward short. The problem is, he just fucking tapped it. There's no play at first. Cordero gives up the hit because his pitch was too fucking good. Had he hung the slider a little more, it could have been a harmless groundout. So I lose WHIP. But at least I can still tie in Saves, assuming Cordero can get one more out. And of course, he can't. He walks Burrell to bring up Ryan Howard. Howard is on my opponents' team. We are tied in hits and homers and I have a 1 RBI lead. This at-bat should never have happened. I have visions of a grand slam, but instead Cordero merely hits him with a pitch, forcing in a run and giving Howard an RBI. There goes that point. Still, though, I can tie in saves. Or at least I could have, until Aaron Rowand hits a one handed grounder under Ryan Braun's (kid sure can hit, but should have easily made this play) glove. Tie game. No save. And worse yet, at that moment I realized that this Rowand "single" had bumped my BAA up a little bit. Not a lot mind you, but just enough to be higher than my opponent's.

You might think that would be the worst of it. You would be wrong. You see, the tie game means extra innings. Extra innings mean two things: First, more at bats for Corey Hart and JJ Hardy (both on my opponent's team) and of course, some relief work for Brett Myers (also on his team). What happens you ask? The only thing that could possibly happen. Not only does Hart get a hit to put me down one hit, but Myers gets the vulture win to give him that category.

All just great stuff. The stuff of legends. The stuff I usually hear my friends complain about that makes me laugh. I ain't laughing. The profanity that was coming out of my mouth watching Cordero choke (yes, I think this is one of those times when the pitcher does actually choke - usually the giveaways are walks, HBP and wild pitches) away the game would probably make my dad vomit.

So, I go into the night game down 3 hits and tied in homers and RBI. I had David Wright and Ryan Theriot playing. I didn't watch any of the game, but when I saw the score was 8-3, I assumed that at the very least, I would take the RBI point. Wright and Theriot combined for 2 hits (1 less than I needed) and 0 (zero) RBI. Fucking nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing.

After his huge week on my bench last week, Piazza responded to being on my active roster by going 4-24 with 2 RBI and a .397 OPS. Almost worse was Travis Hafner, the heart of my fantasy teams (all 3 of them) went 2-16 with a .488 OPS. A joke.

This now constitutes a 3 week losing streak. And not close losses either. My final score this week was 3-7-2. Over the last 3 weeks, I'm 9-24-3. Unreal. I have fallen from first in my division to 4th, and my record puts me just ahead of 7th place for the last playoff spot.The main culprits for this are pretty clear. Hafner, Sheffield, Bonderman and Cordero.

Their last 3 weeks look like this:

Hafner: 3 homers, .695 OPS
Sheffield: 1 homer, .609 OPS, 5 RBI
Bonderman: 0 wins, 9.391 ERA, 1.826 WHIP
Cordero: 10 IP, 12 Hits, 5.40 ERA, 1.6o WHIP


This is getting ridiculous. For 2 consecutive weeks, I've lost at least 5 out of 6 pitching categories. Sadly, Bonderman, while terrible, is not the only one at fault. My team leader in wins over the last 3 weeks is Pat fucking Neshek with 3. Kelvim Escobar has been ass-fucked by his offense the last 4 starts. This week alone he went 15 innings, 2 ER and was 0-2 on the week.

Is it bad luck? Is this a bad team? It's not a bad team, but my offense cannot survive weeks in which Hafner gets 2 hits with 0 runs/RBI and Sheffield chips in an empty 1-11. And now it appears that Sheffield is hurt. That he got hurt playing the field makes me so fucking mad I can barely see straight. This means I have to go into week 19, against the guy in my division who's 2 games ahead of me with no Sheffield. His replacement is JD Drew. God help me.

It's getting to the point where maybe I have to start blaming the person that Cleveland will be blaming if they don't make the playoffs. Since April 23, Hafner is hitting .230. What is he doing? Is he hurt? Is he sad? He's fucking killing me. Killing me.